Tag: Dan Malloy

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth’s new online fundraising ad actually depicts John McCain in blueface. (Click the link for a visual.) The joke, apparently, is an Avatar reference, in that McCain is being nominated for an award for “best conservative actor.” Or something like that. At least he’s not in blackface.

• NY-Sen-B: The GOP is still intent on mounting some sort of challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand; there’s just the small problem of finding a willing sacrifice. They may have found one, although I don’t know if he’d present much of an upgrade from Port Commissioner Bruce Blakeman (who’s already running and has secured a number of endorsements). Scott Vanderhoef, who just got elected to a fifth term as Executive of suburban Rockland County, is publicly weighing a bid. (If his name sounds vaguely familiar, he was John Faso’s running mate in 2006, en route to getting 29% of the vote against Eliot Spitzer.)

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak pulled in a potentially useful endorsement in terms of both fundraising and ground troops, from the National Organization of Women. NOW says it’s more a positive endorsement of Sestak than a negative reflection on Specter (although I suspect the specter of Anita Hill still looms large in their memories). Let’s hope the timing works out a little better on this one than Sestak’s last endorsement — Tuesday’s endorsement from fellow Navy vet Eric Massa.

• SC-Sen: Democrats acted quickly to fill the gap left by the recent dropout of attorney Chad McGowan in the South Carolina Senate race; in fact, it may be something of an upgrade, with the entry of Charleston County Councilor and former judge Victor Rawl. Victory still seems highly unlikely, but it’s good to mount a credible challenge against DeMint to keep him pinned down in the Palmetto State in the campaign’s closing months instead of letting him roam the country freely.

• CT-Gov: Ned Lamont got an endorsement from a key legislative figure in his battle for the Connecticut Democratic gubernatorial nomination: Senate president Donald Williams. Lamont’s main rival for the nod is former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy.

• IL-Gov: It’s finally official: state Sen. Bill Brady will be the Republican nominee in the gubernatorial race. Earlier in the day, the state certified Brady as the winner, by a razor-thin margin of 193 votes, over fellow state Sen. Kirk Dillard. And only moments ago, Dillard conceded, saying that he wouldn’t seek a recount and offered his support to Brady. (Dillard had previously said he’d contest it only if he was within 100 votes, give or take a few.) While I’d prefer to see a long, drawn-out nightmare for the Illinois GOP, this is still a pretty good outcome: the conservative, downstate Brady isn’t as good a matchup against Pat Quinn as Dillard would be. In fact, PPP’s Tom Jensen is already seeing some parallels between Brady and another guy who stumbled across the finish line after the presumptive frontrunners nuked each other: Creigh Deeds.

• MA-Gov: Here’s more evidence that former Democratic treasurer Tim Cahill is trying to move onto center-right turf as he forges ahead in his indie bid against incumbent Dem governor Deval Patrick. He’s bringing aboard several key members of John McCain’s 2008 campaign, including McCain right-hand-man Mark Salter and former chief strategist John Weaver. In fact, Reid Wilson wonders if Cahill is going to try to run to the right of the leading GOP candidate, Charlie Baker, who’s a socially-liberal big-business type.

• MI-Gov: Ex-Genesee County treasurer Dan Kildee has ended his campaign for Governor. The decision seems to have been made after the political arm of the UAW decided to throw their support to Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. Kildee says he wanted to “avoid splitting the support of organized labor and the votes of progressives,” who now seem likely to coalesce behind Bernero rather than centrist Andy Dillon (although liberal state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith also remains in the race). (J)

• NY-Gov: Quinnipiac did another snap poll on the status of David Paterson (whose downward spiral seems to be continuing, as today he lawyered up. In this installment, 46% said he should continue his term and 42% said resign; not catastrophic numbers, but ominous trendlines from only 31% saying “resign” in their previous poll, just two days earlier.

• MA-10: Contestants are already lining up in the wake of William Delahunt’s not-so-surprising retirement announcement yesterday in this D+5 district (albeit one that was colored decidedly Brown in January). For the GOP, state Rep. Jeffrey Perry is already in, but he’s likely to get shoved over by former state Treasurer Joe Malone, who’s announcing his bid today. (Malone’s statewide status may be hindrance as much as help, as he was at the helm during an embezzlement scandal involving underlings at the Treasurer’s office, although he was never accused of any wrongdoing himself.) GOP state Sen. Robert Hedlund has ruled out a bid. On the Dem side, Norfolk Co. District Attorney William Keating has expressed interest, and he may have an advantage because of his high-profile role in the controversy over the Amy Bishop shooting. Other possible Dems include state Sen. Robert O’Leary, wealthy businessman Philip Edmundson, state Reps. James Murphy and Ronald Mariano, former state Rep. Phil Johnston, and state Energy and Environmental Affairs Sec. Ian Bowles. Johnston and Bowles both lost to Delahunt in the 1996 open-seat primary.

• NY-25: This seat is low on the list of Dems’ worries this year, and it may get a little easier with the threat of a Republican primary battle looming. The local GOP endorsed pro-life activist candidate Ann Marie Buerkle over the occasionally NRCC-touted Mark Bitz, a political novice but a self-funder. Bitz says he’ll consult with his wallet as to whether to mount a primary rather than abide by the endorsement. Buerkle, who briefly was on the Syracuse Common Council, also got the Conservative and Right-to-Life party lines.

• NY-29: This isn’t promising for Corning mayor Tom Reed; he’s already had to get up and confirm that he’s staying in the race, despite some bigger GOP names sniffing around now that it’s an open seat race. The biggest is probably Maggie Brooks, the Monroe County Executive, who’s “seriously considering” and will make a decision in the next few days. On the Dem side, one other name that’s bubbling up is John Tonello, the mayor of Elmira (the district’s largest city).

• State legislatures: Politico’s David Catanese has an interesting observation, how polling shows that there’s something even less popular than Congress or individual incumbent politicians: state legislatures. That’s maybe most egregious in New York, where the state Senate gets 16% positive marks according to the most recent Marist poll, although Pennsylvania (where the “Bonusgate” investigation is constantly in the news) isn’t much better, where the lege has 29% approval according to Quinnipiac. While this trend might work to our advantage in red states where we’re trying to make gains, it could be a pain in the butt in New York, where we need to hold the Senate to control the redistricting trifecta, and even more so in Pennsylvania, where (if we lose the gubernatorial race) we need to hold the narrowly-held House in order to stave off Republican control of the redistricting trifecta.

• Votes: There was some interesting party-line breaking in yesterday’s House vote on the jobs bill. It passed pretty narrowly, but that wasn’t so much because of worried votes by vulnerable Dems (Tom Perriello and Steve Driehaus voted no, but with Harry Teague, Bobby Bright, and even Walt Minnick voting yes) but rather a bloc of the most liberal members of the Congressional Black Caucus voting no, apparently from the perspective that it doesn’t go far enough. Six GOPers got on board, all of the moderate and/or mavericky variety: Joe Cao, Dave Camp, John Duncan, Vern Ehlers, Tim Murphy, and Don Young.

• Blogosphere: I’m pleased to announce that, in addition to my SSP duties, I’ll be writing for Salon.com’s politics section several times a week, as part of their new feature “The Numerologist.” Today I deconstruct National Journal ratings; please check it out (especially if you’re curious what my real name is).

• CA-Sen: The latest in palace intrigue in California supposes that Meg Whitman managed to pave the way for Tom Campbell’s exit from the gubernatorial race and move to the Senate race, culminating in a private appeal to Campbell from Arnold Schwarzenegger to switch (using a soft touch, instead of the alleged sledgehammer that the Steve Poizner camp accuses Whitman’s camp of wielding). Campbell says no, he made the decision all on his own (helped along by some internal polling, no doubt).

• FL-Sen: Continuing his role as right-wing kingmaker, or rainmaker, or rainy kingmaker, Jim DeMint orchestrated a moneybomb over recent days for upstart Florida candidate Marco Rubio that pulled in over $140K.

• SC-Sen: Attorney Chad McGowan, as close as the Dems have to a leading candidate to take on Jim DeMint this year, ended his campaign, citing family demands. It’s possible, though, that McGowan’s exit may lead to a slight upgrade (although not likely the kind that puts the race into play): Charleston Co. Commissioner Vic Rawl is now contemplating making the race, and self-financing Mullins McLeod is weighing a switch over from the gubernatorial bid where he’s made little headway in a better-defined Democratic field.

• TX-Sen: It’s looking less and less likely that the Texas Senate special election is ever going to happen (most likely, Kay Bailey Hutchison will wind up serving out the rest of her term in ignominy). If she does resign at some point, though, it doesn’t look too promising for Democrats. PPP tested a generic ballot on the race, with Generic Republican winning 53-38. Former comptroller John Sharp may be in position to overperform Generic D a bit, but it’d still be an uphill climb. For one thing, he’d be running against Barack Obama’s very low 33/61 approval in Texas.

• CT-Gov: Former state House speaker Jim Amann ended his bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination today. That he was even in the race may be news to most Connecticut residents, given his low-single-digits support in recent polling, and Ned Lamont and ex-Stamford mayor Dan Malloy gobbling up most of the oxygen.

• MI-Gov: In the wake of Denise Ilitch’s surprising decision to stand down, a different Democrat got into the gubernatorial field: former state treasurer (from the 1980s) Bob Bowman. He’s been out of state for a long time, most recently as the CEO of major league baseball’s interactive media wing, but if he’s willing to self-finance, he could be an interesting wildcard here.

• WI-Gov: Details are sketchy, but a Democratic internal poll by the Mellman Group finds a very tight gubernatorial race, quite in line with what other pollsters have seen. Democratic Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett leads Republican Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker 40-39. There’s no word on a Barrett/Mark Neumann matchup.

• AL-05: Another catastrophic success for the NRCC, as they blasted their newest member with some friendly fire. Pete Sessions sent out a fundraising letter to AL-05 voters letting them know that their “Democrat in Congress has been falling in line with Nancy Pelosi’s destructive liberal agenda..” One small problem: Parker Griffith is now, quite famously, a Republican.

• AR-01: Unlike the deeply troublesome KS-03 and LA-03, thanks to their deep Arkansas bench, Democrats don’t seem to be having trouble finding a replacement to run for the seat of retiring Rep. Marion Berry. The latest to step up is state Sen. Steve Bryles, who represents Blytheville in this mostly-rural district’s northeast corner.

• AZ-03: It looks like a big Democratic name may be interested in tackling the GOP-leaning open seat left behind by retiring Rep. John Shadegg, after all. Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon has opened up an exploratory committee to consider a run, and has set a three or four-week timetable for deciding. Democratic attorney Jon Hulburd is already running and has had some fundraising success as well, so it seems unlikely he’d get out of the way for the more conservative Gordon.

• CA-19: An internal poll by POS offered by state Sen. Jeff Denham shows the Republican candidate with a solid lead over his carpetbagging neighbor, ex-Rep. Richard Pombo. Denham leads Pombo 28-12 in the GOP primary, and that expands to 38-11 when voters were informed that outgoing Rep. George Radanovich has endorsed Denham.

• CA-44: Yet another internal poll, this one from Tulchin and released by Democratic challenger Bill Hedrick, who came within a few thousand votes of upsetting Rep. Ken Calvert in 2008. Calvert has lousy re-elects – 38% say ‘yes’ while 41% say someone else – but Calvert leads a head-to-head against Hedrick, 49-35.

• FL-21, FL-25: New names are already surfacing for potential candidates in the 25th, where Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart is creating an open seat by leaving for the somewhat safer 21st, vacated by his retiring brother, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart. One name moving to the forefront is termed-out Republican state Sen. Majority leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla. However, it sounds like Mario plans to endorse state Rep. David Rivera (who’s currently running for state Senate) instead. Two other possible GOP names include state Sen. Alex Villalobos, and Carlos Curbelo, currently an aide to Sen. George LeMieux. Joe Garcia, who came close to taking out Mario in 2008, seems to be the Dems’ preferred candidate (although he previously ruled out a re-run, he might reconsider with an open seat).

• IA-01: Republicans landed Some Dude to run against Rep. Bruce Braley in the Dem-leaning 1st, a district which hasn’t been on anyone’s radar so far: insurance salesman Brian Cook. The NRCC had previously touted businessman Rod Blum for the race, but he says he’s leaning against a bid.

• MA-10: Yet one more internal poll, and this one’s a little alarming for Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt, who nobody thought of as a target until his district went strongly for Scott Brown in the Senate special election. The McLaughlin poll on behalf of Republican former state treasurer Joe Malone gives Malone a 37-34 lead over Delahunt among likely voters. Delahunt is still in positive territory, approval-wise, at 44/33.

• MS-01: Maybe this is the oppo that insiders said would sink Fox News pundit Angela McGlowan’s House bid before it got out of the gate. In a radio interview last year, she suggested that gun owners should include an inventory of their guns on their federal tax forms, and in defending the idea went on to talk about “crazies… stockpiling guns.” Starting out in a probably gun-loving district with a proposal that wouldn’t pass muster among House Democrats, and framing it with decidedly lefty-sounding language… well, that’s probably a deal-breaker.

• NC-08: Free advice to candidates, not just Democrats but anyone: don’t waste time worrying about what people are saying in the anonymous comments section of blogs. (And, yes, I realize the irony of that coming from an pseudonymous blogger.) But most of all, don’t actually get so hot under the collar that you weigh in in the comments section and embarrass yourself in the process. Tim D’Annunzio seems to be the leading GOP contender in the 8th, thanks in large measure to his self-funding, but his recent foray into the comments section at the Charlotte Observer (to defend his machine-gun-shooting fundraiser) may have cast his candidacy in a decidedly amateurish light.

• OH-14: Here’s a swing district that has consistently eluded Democrats, where they’ve finally nailed down a challenger. Retired judge Bill O’Neill is back for another whack at Rep. Steve LaTourette in the suburban 14th. O’Neill ran against LaTourette in 2008 and didn’t get much traction that year, though.

• Census: Here’s some good news on the redistricting front: the Census Bureau has given states the green light to decide whether to count prisons as part of the local population, or whether to count prisoners according to their previous place of residence. The Census will provide states with ‘group quarters’ information to help them with the process. That’s an especially big deal in New York, where the legislature is considering legislation that would count prisoners by previous residence, which would decidedly tip the balance away from GOP-leaning rural areas and back toward the cities.

• Redistricting: Some bad news on redistricting, though, from South Dakota (although, with its at-large House seat, it’ll really only have an impact on state legislative redistricting). A legislative committee shot down plans to switch to an independent redistricting commission. Democrats proposed the idea, and unsurprisingly, the plan died along party lines (not much incentive for the GOP to switch, as they control the trifecta and probably will for the foreseeable future).

• Dogcatcher: With Martha Coakley’s announcement that she’s going to attempt to run for re-election, the whole idea of getting elected dogcatcher is back on people’s minds. You may recall we had an extended thread on the matter some months ago… and here’s an interesting discovery. There’s an actual place in America – Duxbury, Vermont – where it’s an elective position. (H/t David Kowalski.) Zeb Towne’s term expires in 2010, so we’ll keep monitoring this race as events warrant.

Quinnipiac (1/14-19, registered voters, 11/10 in parentheses):

Ned Lamont (D): 41

Michael Fedele (R): 32

Undecided: 23

Ned Lamont (D): 38

Tom Foley (R): 36

Undecided: 21

Dan Malloy (D): 37

Michael Fedele (R): 31

Undecided: 27

Dan Malloy (D): 37

Tom Foley (R): 33

Undecided: 24

(MoE: ±2.5%)

Ned Lamont (D): 27 (23)

Dan Malloy (D): 11 (9)

Jim Amman (D): 5 (3)

Mary Glassman (D): 4 (NA)

Gary LeBeau (D): 2 (2)

Rudy Marconi (D): 1 (NA)

Juan Figueroa (D): 1 (NA)

Susan Bysiewicz (D): NA (26)

Undecided: 44 (33)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Tom Foley (R): 17

Michael Fedele (R): 8

Mark Boughton (R): 6

Larry DeNardis (R): 4

Oz Griebel (R): 2

Undecided: 59

(MoE: ±4.5%)

A whole lot of things have gotten shaken up since Quinnipiac last polled their home state’s governor’s race: incumbent GOPer Jodi Rell decided to retire, a herd of iffy Republicans surfaced to take her place, and just recently, presumed Democratic frontrunner SoS Susan Bysiewicz pulled her bid (most likely because Joe Lieberman presents a tastier target in 2012). The only trendlines salvageable from last time around are the Democratic primary, where there’s a bit of an uptick for both Ned Lamont (who’s basically left as the frontrunner now) and ex-Stamford mayor Dan Malloy, but many of the former Bysiewicz votes seem to be “undecided” for now. (Quinnipiac also looks at the AG race’s primary, where Bysiewicz is whomping state Sen. George Jepsen, 62-10.) Of course, the Democratic primary voters look incredibly decisive compared with Republicans, where every candidate is struggling to get out of the single digits.

The general election matchups aren’t quite as nice-looking as recent polls by PPP and R2K, where Lamont was putting up double-digit edges against all Republicans. (Quinnipiac points out the irony of how a Lamont/Foley matchup would pit two never-before-elected zillionaires from Greenwich against each other, and there seems to be some voter ambivalence about that matchup.) Still, Democrats have to be pleased that even with Bysiewicz’s unexpected exit from the race that they still have the upper hand.

RaceTracker Wiki: CT-Gov

• FL-Sen: Rep. Bill Young usually steers clear of endorsements, and the GOP Senate primary is no exception, even though Charlie Crist is a resident of his district. After attending a Pinellas County GOP event with Marco Rubio, Young reiterated that he wasn’t endorsing — and that his wife’s repeated gushing to the press that “I love Marco!” wasn’t an endorsement either. (A Pinellas County straw poll is set for January, which could be a big repudiation for Crist if he loses a straw poll in his own county.)

• IL-Sen: The Cheryle Jackson camp has an internal poll via Celinda Lake on the Democratic primary field in Illinois (although Chris Cillizza seems to be the only person who’s seen it yet). State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias has a big, though not insurmountable, lead at 31, followed by Jackson at 13 and David Hoffman at 8. That leaves 45% still undecided, with only about three months to go.

• MA-Sen: One more endorsement for Rep. Michael Capuano in the Senate special election. With the endorsement of fellow Rep. John Olver, Capuano has the backing of the majority of the state’s House delegation.

• ME-Sen: These numbers might be alarming for Olympia Snowe if there was more of a Republican bench in Maine: PPP finds that her approval rating among Republicans is down to 40/46, and Republicans would opt for a more conservative alternative in a hypothetical 2012 primary, 59-31. Snowe has 64% approval among all liberals and moderates, but even in Maine, 68% of GOPers identify as conservatives. Hopefully the Club for Growth already has these numbers and are rubbing their hands together gleefully, which can only serve to drive her further into our camp.

• NY-Sen-B: With William Thompson having acquitted himself well in his narrow mayoral loss, rumors are now flying that have him running for just about everything. Most notably, Rep. Jose Serrano (who had flirted with the idea of a primary challenge for Kirsten Gillibrand) is now floating the idea of having Thompson run in a Gillibrand primary challenge instead. Thompson hasn’t said anything about it himself, but sources close to him say there’s one thing he doesn’t want to do, and that’s challenge Bill diNapoli in a primary to be state comptroller.

• UT-Sen: In the wake of AG Mark Shurtleff’s abrupt departure from the Republican primary field in the Senate race, two more names have surfaced to scope out the race against long-time incumbent Bob Bennett. Neither one has elected experience, but one has conservative bona fides (lawyer Mike Lee) and one has a lot of money (Fred Lampropoulos, who owns a medical equipment company).

• CO-Gov, CO-03: Up-and-coming state Senate minority leader Josh Penry dropped his longshot bid in the GOP gubernatorial primary, where he’s been lagging his former boss, ex-Rep. Scott McInnis, in fundraising and overall traction. Penry says, in wake of seeing what worked and what didn’t work in Tuesday’s election, he’s dropping out so the GOP could present a united front (and also, unspoken, he didn’t want to damage his brand for future runs). With Penry leaving a hole on the right, compared to the occasionally-moderate McInnis, another name-brand conservative is now interested in the race: ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo. As unpalatable as Tancredo might be in a general, he has enough name rec and devoted followeres to make things competitive in the primary. You gotta love seeing the GOP civil war spill over into the gubernatorial races now too.

Rumors started flying that Penry was going to switch over to run against Democratic Rep. John Salazar in the 3rd, but that doesn’t look like it’s happening. One Republican who is running in the 3rd as of yesterday, though, is state Rep. Scott Tipton. It’ll be a rematch, as Tipton lost widely to Salazar in 2006. DA Martin Beeson is also in the Republican field.

• CT-Gov: I wonder if Jodi Rell had advance notice of this poll, and if its ominous results had anything to do with her seemingly sudden decision not to run for re-election next year? Quinnipiac’s newest CT-Gov poll found Rell only narrowly leading SoS Susan Bysiewicz, 46-40 (a bad trend from February, where Rell led 53-32). Rell fared better against Ned Lamont, 53-33, and Stamford mayor Dan Malloy, 52-33. With the race now an open seat, though, the most relevant part of the poll is the Dem primary, which found a close race between Bysiewicz and Lamont, 26-23 for Bysiewicz, with 9 for Malloy, 3 for state House speaker Jim Amman, and 2 for state Senator Gary LeBeau (February’s poll, pre-Lamont, gave Bysiewicz at 44-12 lead over Malloy, indicating that Lamont ate mostly into Bysiewicz’s share). Bysiewicz also beats Lamont’s favorables (43/11, vs. 31/24). They didn’t look at any of the other potential Republican figures in the field.

• NV-Gov: A Republican internal poll (apparently conducted for right-leaning blog Nevada News and Views by PMI) finds former AG Brian Sandoval with a substantial lead in the Republican gubernatorial primary over incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons. Sandoval leads 36-24, with North Las Vegas mayor Michael Montandon pulling in 7. Democrats, of course, would prefer to face Gibbons, who already comes pre-tarred-and-feathered.

• RI-Gov: An internal poll from ex-Republican Senator and independent gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee gives him the lead going into 2010, despite his campaign’s fundraising and organizational problems. Chafee leads Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio and Republican businessman Rory Smith 36-34-8, while Chafee leads Democratic AG Patrick Lynch and Smith 37-24-15. This race looks like it’s shaping up along the lines of the 2006 Connecticut Senate race, with a tossup between D and I, and a Republican spoiler struggling to escape the single digits.

• VT-Gov: The Vermont gubernatorial race is getting even more cluttered, but both developments seem to bode well for the Democrats. For starters, Anthony Pollina, who has run several times as a Progressive and then an independent spoiler (although spoiler may not be the best word since he managed to finish second last year ahead of the hapless Dem), is making noises that he’ll try running as a Democrat next year. With establishment votes already getting split a number of ways in the primary, Pollina has a shot at winning the Democratic primary. The other development is that old-school moderate Republican Michael Bernhardt is considering running as an independent, which presumably would siphon votes out of the Republican column. The 72-year-old Bernhardt is the former state House minority leader, last seen losing the 1988 gubernatorial race to Democratic incumbent Madeleine Kunin.

Big news out of the Nutmeg State:

Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell says she will not seek re-election next year.

Rell made the announcement in a news conference with reporters Monday at the statehouse in Hartford.

This comes as a surprise, as Rell has had fairly high job approval ratings, although they’d been trending downwards lately, and a recent bit of ethical bad news couldn’t have helped matters. Democrats already in the hunt include Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, 2006 Senate candidate Ned Lamont, and Stamford mayor Dan Malloy. Without a Republican in the field yet, and given the state’s bluish hue, Swing State Project is immediately moving the Connecticut race to “Tossup” (and may move it further in the Democrats’ direction once the field gets better sorted out).

UPDATE: The Hartford Courant sheds a little more light on the possible Republican field. Current Lt. Governor Michael Fedele has apparently already said he would seek the GOP nomination if Rell didn’t, and also says that Rell privately promised her support in such a case. The article also cites state House minority leader Larry Cafero and state Senate minority leader John McKinney (who begged out of a CT-04 run recently) as possible candidates.

RaceTracker Wiki: CT-Gov

• Volunteering: Marriage/partnership equality campaigns in three states are looking for help down the home stretch. The best part is, you don’t even have to leave your chair – all three organizations are looking for folks to make calls to help get out the vote. So if you’d like to help, follow the links for Maine, Washington state, and Kalamazoo, Michigan. The folks in Kalamazoo are also looking for in-person volunteers – click here if you are in the area. (D)

• CT-Sen: With Joe Lieberman back to his usual self-promoting mavericky ways, vis a vis the public option, and with the netroots worked up into a lather, it’s a perfect time for Ned Lamont to step back into the spotlight. The 2006 Democratic primary winner attacked Lieberman’s statements, although he sounded interested but noncommital about the idea of a 2012 rematch.

• FL-Sen: Here’s another sign that the Charlie Crist camp is starting to take the Marco Rubio threat more seriously. They’ve launched an anti-Rubio website, TruthAboutRubio.com.

• KS-Sen: Oklahoma’s Jim Inhofe endorsed Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the GOP primary in the open seat Senate race in Kansas. Inhofe seems to be the first sitting senator to endorse Tiahrt (although Rick Santorum already did); several senators (John McCain, John Thune, and Inhofe’s colleague Tom Coburn) have already endorsed the less hardline Rep. Jerry Moran.

• MA-Sen: Rep. Niki Tsongas (the only woman in the Massachusetts House delegation) endorsed AG Martha Coakley in the Dem primary for the upcoming Senate special election. It’s Coakley’s first endorsement from a House member; four other House members have gotten behind Rep. Michael Capuano.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Franklin & Marshall has another poll of the Pennsylvania races out, and like a lot of other pollsters, they’re finding that people aren’t very enthused about Arlen Specter, and are getting even less enthusiastic, giving him a 28/46 favorable (down from 35/42 in August), and a 23/66 reading on the “deserves re-election” question. Specter currently leads ex-Rep. Pat Toomey 33-31 (down from 37-29 in August), and beats Rep. Joe Sestak in the Dem primary 30-18 (down from 37-11). Sestak loses to Toomey, 28-20. F&M also look at the gubernatorial primaries (no general matchups, though). AG Tom Corbett leads on the GOP side over Rep. Jim Gerlach, 30-8, while the Dem field plays out: 10 for Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato, 9 from Auditor Jack Wagner, 6 for ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel, 3 for Tom Knox, and 3 for Scranton mayor Chris Doherty.

• SD-Sen: Democrats may turn to an old family name for a Senate candidate against John Thune: Mark McGovern, the 37-year-old grandson of former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern. McGovern is state director for Repower America, a clean energy advocacy group, and was state director for the 2008 Obama campaign.

• CT-Gov: The campaign for Democratic SoS Susan Bysiewicz is making references to an internal poll that has her trailing by only 6 to the once-thought-unassailable Jodi Rell in 2010, 47-41. (And that assumes Rell runs — given her fundraising, and now the possibility of a hard race, she may not be on track to do so.) The poll also finds Bysiewicz overperforming Stamford mayor Dan Malloy (who loses to Rell 52-31), and beating Malloy in the primary, 44-12.

• SC-Gov: An impeachment resolution against Mark Sanford was introduced today by Republican state Rep. Greg Dellenny during the brief special session. However, fellow Republican speaker Bobby Harrell ruled it out of order, as outside the scope of the special session. It’ll have to wait until January.

• VA-Gov (pdf): Looks like we’ll have to wait another day (and probably a lot longer than that) for signs of life in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Virginia Commonwealth issued their first poll of the race, giving Bob McDonnell a 54-36 edge over Creigh Deeds (51-33 without leaners pushed). Rasmussen chimes in with similar numbers at 54-41 for McDonnell (finding a spreading McDonnell lead like most pollsters; two weeks ago they had it at 50-43). Pollster.com‘s regression line has the overall total moving today to the exact same result: 54-41.

• TX-Gov: Maybe this falls under the category of an endorsement you don’t really want to tout, but Kay Bailey Hutchison needs every vote she can get in what looks like a tight GOP primary with incumbent Gov. Rick Perry. KBH secured the endorsement of Dick Cheney today.

• CA-19: I’m still not sure what conservative Rep. George Radanovich did to wrong the local GOP, but the hunt goes on for an even more conservative Republican to challenge him in the primary. One possible challenger is former Fresno mayor Jim Patterson, who’s looking for a new political gig. (Patterson ran for Congress in 2002 in then-new CA-21, losing the GOP primary to Devin Nunes.) Patterson may also be interested in replacing termed-out Mike Villines in the state Assembly.

• FL-08: Buried in a longer Politico piece titled, appropriately, “Rivals shy away from Alan Grayson” are three more potential Republican challengers: first-term state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, attorney Will McBride (who lost the 2006 Senate primary to Katherine Harris), and businessman Bruce O’Donoghue. O’Donoghue, who’s close to Mel Martinez, sounds like the likeliest of those three to run.

• NY-23: Big money continues to flow into the 23rd on the pro-Bill Owens side, with another $245K from the DCCC, and $200K from the AFSCME. MoveOn.org has also started flogging this race in its fundraising e-mails, saying that it’s a chance to rebuke the Palin/teabagger wing of the GOPers. Meanwhile, Doug Hoffman continues to rack up the endorsements from people that no one in the 23rd has ever heard of: South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and even Oklahoma House candidate Kevin Calvey and California Senate candidate Chuck DeVore. RNC chair Michael Steele is still standing by Dede Scozzafava, though.

• TN-09: It looks like former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton may self-destruct before Rep. Steve Cohen even lays into him in the Dem primary in the 9th. Herenton is reportedly the target of a criminal probe by the local US Attorney’s office focusing on “personal business transactions” during his time as mayor. Herenton, naturally, is calling the investigation politically-motivated.

• VA-02: Here’s a screwup for Ben Loyola, one of the Republicans jostling to take on freshman Dem Rep. Glenn Nye and one who made a big self-funding impact last quarter. Loyola may have low-balled estimates of the value of a division of his company that he sold to a Swedish firm, at best a disclosure violation in terms of reporting his net worth, and at worst an illegal campaign contribution.

• EMILY’s List: EMILY’s List added four Democratic House members to its list of endorsees. Three are swing-district freshmen (Debbie Halvorson, Ann Kirkpatrick, and Dina Titus), and the other one is the perpetually shaky Carol Shea-Porter.

• WA-Init: A slew of polls out of Washington yesterday and today, containing good news. UW’s Washington Poll finds that R-71 (a referendum in favor of expanded domestic partnership) is passing 57-38, while I-1033 (the latest TABOR-style anti-tax initiative from initiative huckster Tim Eyman) is failing 40-49. These numbers are confirmed by SurveyUSA, which finds R-71 passing 50-43, and I-1033 going down 38-50. The Washington Poll also looks at the King County Executive race, which (though ostensibly nonpartisan) sees Democratic county councilor Dow Constantine beating Republican former news anchor Susan Hutchison 47-34 — they don’t have trendlines, and the only comparison point is SurveyUSA, who last showed Hutchison with a surprising 47-42 lead, so this one still bears watching. The Washington Poll finds Joe Mallahan leading Mike McGinn in the Seattle mayor’s race, 44-36.

• Census: An independent analysis of the effect of the proposed David Vitter legislation that would only count U.S. citizens for purposes of reapportionment finds a very different looking House. California post-2010 would lose five House seats, and Texas would gain only one House seat (instead of the projected three). The proposed change would also spare Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania the expected loss of one seat each. (The study is worth a look also because it projects which states gain and lose seats according to normal rules, and also looks at which metro areas are experiencing ‘brain drain.’)

• CA-Sen: What’s with the California politicians who are too busy to vote? Carly Fiorina has previously conceded that she didn’t vote in all elections, but today her camp is admitting that she didn’t vote at all in the period between 1989 and 1999.

• CT-Sen: After a mediocre fundraising quarter (of course, between prostate cancer and pinch-hitting at the helm of the HELP committee, he may have had better things to do), Chris Dodd is getting some high-level help. Barack Obama will appear on Dodd’s behalf at a fundraiser in Connecticut next week.

• FL-Sen: Two very different pictures of where Charlie Crist’s approval stands, from different pollster. Insider Advantage finds his approval at a puzzlingly low 48/41,and 55/38 among Republicans. (They didn’t poll the primary or general.) On the other hand, a poll by Republican pollster Cherry Communications on behalf of the Florida Chamber of Commerce finds 62/28. Meanwhile, Charlie Crist’s losing streak among the party base continued, as Marco Rubio racked up a big win with the Palm Beach GOP, winning their straw poll 90-17. (While most of the straw polls have happened in rural, teabaggy places, this is moderate, country club terrain, where Crist should play better.) Interestingly, ex-NH Senator Bob Smith, whose existence most people, me included, had forgotten about, pulled in 11 votes.

• NV-Sen: Facing bad poll numbers but armed with gigantic piles of cash, Harry Reid has already started advertising for his re-election. Despite his decades in office, he’s running a TV spot basically intended to introduce himself to Nevada, seeing as how many of the state’s residents have moved in since the last time he was elected in 2004.

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand reported another large cash haul this quarter, bringing in $1.6 mil and sitting on $4.1 mil CoH. Nevertheless, she still needs to work on introducing herself to her constituents (granted, there’s a lot of them); a Newsday/Siena poll of Long Islanders find that she has a favorable of 23/27, with 50 saying they don’t know.

• OH-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Portman doubled up on Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in the money chase in Ohio, raising $1.3 million to $620K for Fisher. Portman will still need to get past wealthy auto dealer Tom Ganley in the primary, though, who’s pledging to spend up to $7 million of his own money on the race, which could drain Portman nicely before he faces off against a Democrat. No word yet from Fisher’s Dem opponent, SoS Jennifer Brunner, although the fact that she just replaced her campaign finance team can’t be an encouraging sign.

• PA-Sen: This would be a big ‘get’ for Joe Sestak if he were running in Connecticut: Ned Lamont, whose successful primary defeat of Joe Lieberman in 2006 established some precedent for Sestak, gave Sestak his endorsement.

• CT-Gov: Jodi Rell is not looking much like a candidate for re-election, if her fundraising is any indication; she raised just $14K over the last quarter. The Dems in the race (who are running with or without a Rell retirement), Stamford mayor Dan Malloy and SoS Susan Bysiewicz, have each raised over $100K.

• FL-Gov: The poll paid for by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, mentioned above, also took a look at the Florida governor’s race. They see GOP AG Bill McCollum beating Dem state CFO Alex Sink, 42-35.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen polls the New Jersey gubernatorial race again, and there’s a pretty important distinction between their results with and without leaners pushed. Their topline numbers are 45 for Chris Christie, 41 for Jon Corzine, and 9 for Chris Daggett, a bit more Christie-favorable than what else we’ve seen this week. However, in Rasmussen’s words, “when voters are asked their initial choice,” it’s a 38-38 tie between Christie and Corzine, with 16 for Daggett. This should superficially cheer Democrats, but it also points to some hope for Christie, in that it shows just how soft a lot of Daggett’s support is. (Rasmussen also finds that 57% of Daggett’s supporters say they could change their minds before Election Day.)

• WY-Gov: Gov. Dave Freudenthal is at least offering some sort of timeline on deciding whether to seek a third term, but we’ll need to wait a long time. He says he’ll let us know after the end of the next legislative session, in March; the end of the filing period is May 28. He also didn’t offer much insight into when he’d set about challenging the state’s term limits law in court (a challenge he’d be expected to win, but one that could be time-consuming) if he did decide to run.

• FL-10: The retirement speculation surrounding 79-year-old Rep. Bill Young isn’t going to go away with his fundraising haul this quarter: only $4,500, with $419K on hand. He’s also giving away money (to the tune of $10,000) to the NRCC, despite facing a strong challenge next year. Unfortunately, his Dem challenger, state Sen. Charlie Justice, had a second straight lackluster quarter of his own, bringing in $77K for $101K CoH.

• FL-19: A roundup from the newly-merged CQ/Roll Call looks at the quickly developing field in the dark-blue 19th, for a special election to replace the soon-to-resign Robert Wexler. The big question is whether Wexler throws his support behind state Sen. Peter Deutch; Deutch won Wexler’s old state Senate seat (which covers more than half the 19th) in 2006 partly due to Wexler’s endorsement. West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel is another possibility; so too are Broward County mayor Stacy Ritter and state Sen. Jeremy Ring, although their Broward County bases don’t overlap as well with the 19th. Broward County Commissioner Ben Graber (who finished 3rd in the 1996 primary that Wexler won) is already in the race.

• LA-02: Um, what? GOP Rep. Joe Cao will be appearing with Barack Obama in New Orleans at several events today. While it’s apparently customary for presidents to invite local lawmakers to appearances in their districts, it’s also customary for members of the opposition party to decline. Cao, however, probably sees hitching his wagon to Obama as at least a faint hope of staving off defeat in this strongly Democratic district. Cao’s fundraising numbers for last quarter were pretty good, with $394K raised, but his burn rate was terrible, churning through nearly all of it ($382K) with high costs for direct mail fundraising.

• NY-01: We could have a real races on our hands in the 1st, where Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop’s Republican challenger Randy Altschuler reported $659K in the third quarter. Of course, $450K of that was from his own pocket, and a grand total of one donor was actually from within the 1st, with the bulk of the rest of the money coming from Manhattan.

• Census: David Vitter, who, with Robert Bennett, is leading the Republican charge to get the Census to ask respondents about their citizenship status, has decided to modify his amendment to this year’s appropriations package after one of the academics who he was relying on said that such a measure would scare off respondents from participating in the census at all. Not that it would matter, since it’s not likely to get an up-or-down vote, and Commerce Sec. Gary Locke already made clear that it’s way too late to make changes to the 2010 forms, which have already been printed and shipped.

• Polling: PPP’s Tom Jensen notes, that generally, Republicans aren’t picking up any new voters; the main problem with the upcoming New Jersey and Virginia elections is that Democrats have disproportionately lost interest. If the 2008 voter universes still applied in NJ and VA, Democrats would be winning both races handily.

• TX-Gov: Holy crap, Kay Bailey Hutchison is running for Governor of Texas! Of course, everyone with a pulse has known this for most of a year, but it’s now official: she’s done exploring the race and formally launched her campaign yesterday. She also found a lot of cash under the couch cushions during all those explorations, as she put together $6.7 million during the first half of the year. Factoring in her $8 million transfer from her Senate account, she’s sitting on about $12 million CoH. Her primary opponent, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, raised $4.2 million in the year’s first half (a lot, considering he couldn’t raise during the legislative session) and has $9.3 million CoH.

• FL-Sen: Ordinarily, you probably wouldn’t want to spotlight an endorsement from an unlikable jerk with a ridiculous name, but Marco Rubio is trying to rally the nationwide wingnut brigade to his financially faltering campaign ($340K last quarter), so he rolled out an endorsement from ex-House Majority Leader Dick Armey today.

• IL-Sen: Now that he’s done holding his breath and turning blue until that nasty Andy McKenna would go away, Rep. Mark Kirk has announced that he’ll announce that he’ll announce that he’ll announce his candidacy, or something like that, “in one week.” Roll Call also has a look at the consternation that Kirk’s messed-up rollout caused both local and national GOP figures, stepping on their attempts to crow “recruitment success.”

Meanwhile, people are starting to wonder openly when if ever businessman Chris Kennedy is going to pull the trigger on getting into the Dem field. His hesitation is already landing him in legal hot water: a local police officer filed an FEC complaint against Kennedy for allegedly spending more than $5,000 on campaign outlays without actually having a campaign in place.

• NV-Sen: John Ensign (apparently emboldened by fellow C Street dweller Mark Sanford’s seat-of-his-pants survival of his own affair) is proceeding full speed ahead, not just planning not to resign but to run for re-election in 2012. TPM wonders out loud if Harry Reid is one of the Dems who’ve urged Ensign to stay on board.

• PA-Sen: The NRSC finally officially endorsed Pat Toomey today. This comes hot on the heels of news that state Sen. Jane Orie (who was being chatted up by the NRSC last week) has decided against running against Pat Toomey in the GOP senate primary. Rumors abound that Rick Santorum, nursing some sort of grudge against Toomey, was the driving force behind the Orie boomlet. Meanwhile, Arlen Specter today announced a 2Q haul of $1.7 million, narrowly topping both Toomey ($1.6 million) and Joe Sestak ($1 million in his House account).

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman is sitting on a ton of cash now, having added $15 million of her own money on top of $6.7 million in private contributions, bringing her total stash to more than $25 million. Her GOP primary rival, Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner anted up $5 million of his own money, along with $1.2 million in contributions, during that same period.

• CT-Gov: A strangely quiet fundraising period for Jodi Rell has some wondering if she’s going to run for re-election. She raised $20,000 in the most recent quarter, with $71K CoH, outpaced by potential Democratic challengers SoS Susan Bysiewicz ($141K for the quarter) and Stamford mayor Dan Malloy ($147K).

• OH-Gov: Betcha didn’t know that ex-Rep. John Kasich had an opponent in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Ohio: state Sen. Kevin Coughlin. Well, apparently no one else knew that either, and having gotten nowhere on the fundraising front in the face of party opposition, Coughlin bailed out yesterday.

• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds beat Bob McDonnell in fundraising in June ($3.4 million for Deeds, $1.8 million for McDonnell), but he had to blow through a lot of that in the primary. McDonnell is sitting on a lot more cash on hand, with almost $5 million compared with Deeds’ $2.7 million.

• CA-11: This is the first I’ve heard of this guy — vintner Brad Goehring — who’s planning to challenge Jerry McNerney in the 11th. He’s not getting off on the right foot, though, with the appearance of 2006 statements where he shrugged off the problem of 40% of his workforce being undocumented immigrants… not likely to help him much with the nativist core of what’s left of the California GOP base.

• CA-32: In case you’d forgotten (and most likely you had; I know I did), the general special election for the race to fill the vacant seat left behind by Labor Sec. Hilda Solis is today. Today’s election is an afterthought, given that the race was basically won in a heavily-contested May primary in this solid Dem district. Someone named “Chu” is guaranteed to win, although in all likelihood it’ll be Democratic Board of Equalization member Judy Chu over Republican Monterey Park city councilor Betty Chu.

• FL-12: The Blue Dogs have already weighed in with their first endorsement of the cycle, endorsing Polk Co. Elections Supervisor Lori Edwards in the open 12th district to replace Rep. Adam Putnam, who’s running for Florida Agricultural Commissioner.

• KY-St. Sen.: Gov. Steve Beshear is seemingly taking a page from Barack Obama, picking off Republican legislators and giving them secure appointive positions instead, opening up their seats for possible Democratic takeove. Sens. Dan Kelly and Charlie Borders were appointed to a judgeship and the Public Service Commission, respectively. Dems are optimistic about retaking both the seats, with state Rep. Robin Webb looking at Borders’ seat in Kentucky’s NE corner, and former state Rep. Jodie Haydon looking at Kelly’s seat in Bourbon territory in the state’s center. This will hopefully put a dent in the GOP’s 21-16-1 edge.

• Census: Census Director Robert Groves was finally confirmed after the Dems used a cloture vote to break the hold on him, leaving him with only eight months to whip the Census into shape. Only 15 GOPers voted against cloture, including Richard Shelby and David Vitter, the ones who’d had the hold on the nomination, and some of the other dead-enders (Brownback, Bunning, Cornyn, Ensign, Sessions, etc…. although, interestingly, Coburn and Kyl voted for cloture). Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann continues her one-woman war on the Census, proposing legislation that would limit the number of question the American Community Survey (the annual supplement, not the 2010 full count) can ask.

• Polltopia: PPP is asking for your input on another state to poll, so let ’em hear it. The finalists are California, Iowa, and Louisiana.

Just a quick diary: I overheard on the news earlier tonight that Stamford, CT mayor Dan Malloy wants to run for governor, but is waiting for Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to announce a decision.

Disclaimer: I am not endorsing Malloy, Blumenthal, or anyone else.  I’m just writing this because I heard about it.

Also, don’t forget the Election 2008 Superlatives thread!