Tag: NJ-Gov

{First, a cheap plug for my blog Senate Guru.}

While 2010 will be chock-full of exciting races at all levels of government.  In 2009, though, there will be two marquee races across the country: the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey.  Republicans are favored in both races, but both races should come down to the wire, and Democrats can hold both seats – with your help.

In Virginia, Democratic State Senator Creigh Deeds won an impressive, come-from-behind victory for the nomination this past Tuesday, demonstrating a strong ground game.  The Republican nominee will be far-right-winger Bob McDonnell.  The best description for McDonnell’s brand of Republicanism is that he is a Pat Robertson disciple.  You can learn more about McDonnell at TheRealBobMcDonnell.com.  Deeds and McDonnell have tangled before, in the 2005 Virginia Attorney General race, where McDonnell barely edged Deeds by 323 votes (yes, just 323 votes – that’s not a typo with zeroes missing) out of over 1.94 million votes counted.  This race will be exceptionally close, so every single dollar contributed and every single hour spent volunteering will make a real difference.  A bit of good news is that the first poll taken after Tuesday’s primary, by Rasmussen Reports, shows Deeds with a 47-41 lead over McDonnell, but this could just be due to a primary bump.  Rasmussen’s last poll showed McDonnell leading Deeds 45-30.  Your support will help Deeds sustain his new lead.

In New Jersey, Democratic incumbent Governor Jon Corzine will square off against Republican former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie.  Christie is very much at home in the Republican Culture of Corruption.  Republican Christie has faced scandals involving no-bid contracts, abuse of the state pension system, pay-to-play, and even allegedly cutting a deal to get his younger brother’s sentence reduced after being implicated for fraudulent trading practices on Wall Street.  Despite Christie’s mountain of scandal, New Jersey’s lagging economy has hurt Governor Corzine’s poll numbers.  Recent polling gives Christie a 7 to 13 point lead over Corzine.  Research 2000, May 25-27: Christie 46, Corzine 39; Rasmussen Reports, June 4: Christie 51, Corzine 38; and, Quinnipiac, June 10: Christie 50, Corzine 40.  In other words, Christie has an edge, but the fundamentals of the race moving forward favor Governor Corzine.  As the economy gradually picks up over the coming months and voters learn more about Christie’s corrupt background, New Jersey’s blue state status will shine through and Governor Corzine should tighten the race back up.  Your support will help Governor Corzine tighten the race up even faster.

Below are the links to how you can connect with the gubernatorial campaigns (and – please – contribute anything you can to these campaigns, and spread the word!).  Republicans are expecting (and expected) to win both of these races.  However, after being upset in the NY-20 special U.S. House election and losing a U.S. Senator to a Party switch, the GOP is reeling.  Losing either (or both!) VA-Gov or/and NJ-Gov would be a major body blow and simply crush Republicans heading into the 2010 calendar year.  If Democrats across the country are able to support these Democratic campaigns, we can flush the conventional wisdom down the toilet and deliver two more embarrassments to the Rush-Newt-Cheney Republican Party and two more losses to the Michael Steele RNC.

Creigh Deeds for Governor of Virginia	Deeds Website	Deeds Facebook	Deeds Twitter	Deeds YouTube	Deeds Blog	Deeds CONTRIBUTE
Jon Corzine for Governor of New Jersey	Corzine Website	Corzine Facebook	Corzine Twitter	Corzine YouTube	Corzine Blog	Corzine CONTRIBUTE

• CT-Sen: I guess I wasn’t dreaming when I thought I heard economist and talking head Peter Schiff say he was still looking into the GOP primary for the Connecticut Senate race Tuesday night on the Daily Show… apparently he’s making a full-court press all week gauging his support for a run. Schiff is a favorite of the Paulist wing of the party, and true to anarcho-libertarian form, he shrugs off the fact that he can’t remember the last time he voted.

• FL-Sen: The Club for Growth doesn’t get involved in Senate primaries very often (RI in 2006 and NM in 2008 being the exceptions), but the fact that Marco Rubio met this week with the CfG and they admitted to being “impressed” suggests that they might get involved here. The CfG may still be reluctant to get involved, though, simply given the unlikely return on their investment with the long odds Rubio faces against Charlie Crist.

• NY-Sen-B: Writer Jonathan Tasini, who got 17% in a challenge from the left to Hillary Clinton in the 2006 Senate primary, announced that he’s going to run against Kirsten Gillibrand in the 2010 primary. It’s still as unclear as ever if Rep. Carolyn Maloney will officially join Tasini in the hunt (and Tasini getting in may make it more difficult for her, seeing as how Tasini would eat into her share of the purer-than-thou vote), but Maloney seems to be testing out various attack lines against Gillibrand in a prerecorded interview with NY1 that will air tonight. Meanwhile, Gillibrand got another prominent endorsement today, although this one may help her more in the general than with the liberal base: former NYC mayor Ed Koch.

• UT-Sen: Somehow Bob Bennett has become flypaper for wingnuts lately. He’s pulled down his fourth primary challenger, businessman and conservative activist James Williams.

• NJ-Gov: The Philadelphia Inquirer looks at a new conundrum for both Jon Corzine and Chris Christie: picking running mates. (This is the first New Jersey gubernatorial election since the creation of the Lt. Gov. position, a need made apparent by the resignations of both Christie Todd Whitman and Jim McGreevey.) This looks like an exercise in ticket-balancing, both in terms of gender and geography. State Senator Diane Allen from the Philly burbs in Burlington Co. (who declined the chance to run in NJ-03) may have the inside track for the GOP nod, although (paging open seat fans) one other name that gets a mention is NJ-02’s Rep. Frank LoBiondo.

• OK-Gov: No surprise here, but AG Drew Edmondson today officially launched his exploratory campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor. Edmondson faces Lt. Gov. Jari Askins in the primary, giving the Dems two strong candidates facing a steep climb uphill against Oklahoma’s ever-darker shade of red.

• DE-AL: Rep. Mike Castle said today that he won’t seek the newly-open position of ranking member on the Education and Labor Committee, saying he wanted GOP stability on the panel. While this doesn’t help us know whether he’s planning to run for the Senate or retire, it does send a pretty clear signal the 69-year-old Castle isn’t staying in the House.

• FL-24: This race is barely a couple days old, and already it’s one of the most heated in the nation. Once Winter Park City Commissioner Karen Diebel announced her run, some local Democrats (although not the Kosmas camp) began pointing to a 2007 Orlando Sentinel article discussing some of her odd actions and outbursts. That brought on a counterattack from state GOP chair Jim Greer, who attacked freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas directly for gutter politicking.

• NV-03: The NRCC hasn’t had much luck on the recruiting front in this D+2 district in the Las Vegas suburbs to take on freshman Rep. Dina Titus. Local banking executive John Guedry looks willing to step up to the plate, though, saying he’s “seriously considering” it. Other possible GOPers include former Clark County GOP chair Brian Scroggins and former state Controller Steve Martin.

• SC-01: With Linda Ketner turning down the rematch against Rep. Henry Brown, all eyes have turned to state Rep. Leon Stavrinakis as a potential Dem nominee. He said he’ll make a decision “sometime in July.”

• TN-09: Rep. Steve Cohen is getting fundraising help from an interesting source, and still one of the most powerful forces in Memphis politics: former Rep. Harold Ford Sr. At first this seems odd, since Ford campaigned against Cohen and in support of his son, Jake Ford, in the 2006 general election (where Ford was running as an independent). However, Ford Sr. is a long-time foe of Cohen’s 2010 primary opponent, Memphis mayor Willie Herenton, so that would tend to explain it all.

• HI-Gov: Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann looks like he’ll be running against Rep. Neil Abercrombie for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination; he launched an exploratory committee yesterday. Hannemann and Abercrombie actually faced off once before; Hannemann defeated Abercrombie in the 1986 primary for HI-01 (but lost the general to GOPer Pat Saiki). Either one would seem to have an edge over Republican Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona in the general, based on the state’s lean, although Aiona’s fundraising has been impressive so far.

• NJ-Gov: Quinnipiac may be finding a bit of a post-primary bounce for Republican challenger Chris Christie; he leads Jon Corzine 50-40 in their newest poll. (Last month was 45-38 for Christie, although this poll is a switch from registered voters to likely voters.) Corzine’s favorables are his worst-ever at 35-53; Christie’s are 36-16, but with 46% “haven’t heard enough,” allowing some room for Corzine to define him if he hits hard with his new ad blitz.

• NY-Gov: How’s this for an unsurprising headline: “Poll Finds Paterson Deeply Unpopular.” The NYT polled Paterson’s favorables (no head-to-heads, though) and found that Paterson has an approval of 21%, compared to a finding of 26% approval of ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer in the same poll.

• MN-Gov: CQ comes the closest I’ve seen to consolidating the name of every single person planning to run for Minnesota governor in one place. I count 10 Democrats and 11 Republicans, which I won’t bother trying to reproduce here.

• IN-08: Rep. Brad Ellsworth finally has a Republican opponent, auto worker Dan Stockton. Stockton hasn’t held office, but he is active in community theater and “heavily involved in motorcycle rights.” Well, I’m glad someone is willing to take a courageous stand for those oppressed motorcycles.

• MD-01: State Sen. Andy Harris may not get a clear path to the GOP nomination in his rematch with Rep. Frank Kratovil. State Sen. E.J. Pipkin is considering a face off with Harris again in the primary. (Pipkin finished third in the 2008 primary, getting 20% of the vote to 43 for Harris and 33 for then-Rep. Wayne Gilchrest. In fact, Pipkin may have thrown the election to BaltCo resident Harris, by vacuuming up more conservative votes on the Eastern Shore that may have otherwise gone to Gilchrest on the basis of geography.) Pipkin has the advantage of self-funding; he spent $2 million of his own money en route to racking up 34% against Sen. Barb Mikulski in 2004. While Pipkin isn’t as conservative as Club for Growth favorite Harris, he isn’t as moderate as Gilchrest. Other Republicans interested in the primary include Anne Arundel County Exec John Leopold and former state House minority leader Al Redmer.

• NH-02: The field to replace Rep. Paul Hodes got a third Dem contestant: former state Senator Mark Fernald got into the race yesterday. Fernald may retain a bit of name rec from his 2002 loss in the governor’s race (he lost to Craig Benson, who then lost in 2004 to John Lynch).

• NY-23: One GOPer is already launching his “campaign” for the nomination to replace John McHugh (in the sense that he’s publicly saying that he’s going around and talking to the right kingmakers on all the county party committees). It’s a guy who wasn’t on anybody’s list: Franklin County legislator Paul Maroun, whose day job is counsel to state Senator Betty Little (who doesn’t sound likely to run, especially since she lives in NY-20).

• Census: We’re less than a year away from the 2010 Census, and we’re still short a Census director, as the GOP has put a mystery hold on Obama’s nominee for the job, Robert Groves. The Census is also facing an appropriations fight in coming weeks, as it requested a 135% increase in funding for next year (seeing as how 2010 is the year when it does most of its work, but try explaining that to a Republican). A leaderless, underfunded Census isn’t likely to put together an accurate count, and an inaccurate count is likely to undercount traditionally Democratic harder-to-count groups.

• DC Voting Rights: The bill to give the District of Columbia a fully functioning representative in the U.S. House (and give an extra seat to Utah, increasing the size of the House to 437 and the Electoral College to 539) seems to be stalled for now, according to Steny Hoyer. Nobody seems to know how to get around the GOP-added poison pill attached to it that will strip DC’s gun laws, so it’s just going to sit.

• CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons needs to look like one of those allegedly-not-quite-extinct moderate New England Republicans in order to get elected in Connecticut, but he’s not doing himself any favors by appearing with Newt Gingrich at the annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner. With a large Puerto Rican population in Connecticut, Simmons probably doesn’t want to be anywhere near Sonia Sotomayor’s loudest and most toxic critic. Another problem for Simmons: businessman Tom Foley, the former ambassador to Ireland, made his official entry into the GOP primary field today. Foley, unlike Simmons, has deep pockets he can self-fund with.

• MN-Sen: Sources close to Norm Coleman are suggesting he won’t appeal at the federal level if he loses his case with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Republicans still publicly say they’ll try to stop any Dem efforts to seat Al Franken until Coleman has conceded or exhausted his appeals. John Cornyn has sent some mixed signals, though, saying it’s “entirely” Coleman’s decision whether to keep fighting and that he’s “amazed that Sen. Coleman’s been willing to persevere as long as he has.”

• NV-Sen: Wondering why the GOP is having a hard time attracting a challenger to supposedly-vulnerable Harry Reid? Maybe it’s because of his deep levels of support among much of the state’s Republican establishment. The Reid camp released a list of 60 GOP endorsers, including, most prominently, soon-to-be-ex-First Lady (and former NV-02 candidate) Dawn Gibbons, Reno mayor Bob Cashell, and, in a move guaranteed to nail down the key 18-29 demographic, Wayne Newton.

• NH-Sen: Could it be that the NRSC could actually be stuck running Ovide Lamontagne against Rep. Paul Hodes? Just the very fact that the NRSC is talking to Lamontagne (a businessman whose one claim to fame is losing the 1996 governor’s race to Jeanne Shaheen) with an apparently straight face should be a red flag that their top-tier possibilities (ex-Sen. John Sununu, ex-Rep. Charlie Bass) aren’t looking likely.

• NY-Sen-B: Joe Biden reportedly had a sit-down earlier this week with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who may or may not be running in the Senate primary against Kirsten Gillibrand. Presumably the meeting would contain some of the same content as Barack Obama’s now-famous phone call to Rep. Steve Israel.

• OH-Sen: If a candidate falls in the woods with no one around, does he make a sound? State Rep. Tyrone Yates has been exploring the Senate race for several months, and apparently found nothing that would help him overcome Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and SoS Jennifer Brunner, as he bowed out of the race.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen has the first post-primary poll of the New Jersey governor’s race. Chris Christie may have gotten a bit of a brief unity bounce in the wake of his primary victory, as he’s up to a 51-38 edge over Jon Corzine now, as opposed to 47-38 last month. There’s one spot of ‘good’ news, as it were, for Corzine: his approval rating is back up to 42%.

• AZ-08: Construction company executive and ex-Marine Jesse Kelly seems to be the establishment GOP’s choice to go against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2010. He announced endorsements from three House members: Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, and Frank Wolf. (Not quite clear how endorsements from Hunter and Wolf help him in Arizona, though.)

• KS-01: State Senator Jim Barnett got into the race for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jerry Moran, who’s running for Senate. Barnett may quickly become front-runner, based on his name recognition from being the 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate (where he lost the state as a whole to Kathleen Sebelius, but won the dark-red 1st). He’s up against a more conservative state Senator Tim Huelskamp, and Sam Brownback’s former chief of staff, Rob Wasinger. The primary is the whole shooting match in this R+23 district.

• KY-01: After the purchase of “whitfieldforsenate.com” got people’s attention yesterday, Rep. Ed Whitfield had to tamp that down, confirming that he’s running for re-election in his R+15 House seat.

• MN-06: Even if this goes nowhere, it’s great to have a GOPer doing our framing for us… attorney Chris Johnston is publicly mulling a primary challenge to (his words, on his website) “‘anti-American’ hurling, malaprop-spouting, ‘they took me out of context'” Rep. Michele Bachmann. He confirms that he and Bachmann share “strong conservative beliefs;” he just thinks the 6th would prefer someone “who thinks before they speak.”

• NH-02: Attorney Ann McLane Kuster is launching an exploratory committee to run for the open seat left behind by Rep. Paul Hodes. St. Rep. John DeJoie is already in the primary field, and they may soon be joined by Katrina Swett.

• NY-03: Dems are scoping out potential candidates in Long Island’s NY-03 (which fell to R+4 in the wake of 2008), thinking that even if Rep. Peter King doesn’t vacate to run for Senate he’s still vulnerable. The biggest fish would be Nassau Co. Exec Tom Suozzi, who seems to have bigger fish to fry (reportedly AG if Andrew Cuomo vacates). The next-biggest fish would Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice. Smaller fish listed include Isobel Coleman of the Council of Foreign Relations, and minor league baseball team owner Frank Boulton.

• NH-Legislature: It took a rewrite of a couple sentences that Gov. John Lynch didn’t like, but after a few weeks of back-and-forth New Hampshire finally enacted gay marriage. Both chambers passed the amended bill yesterday (clearing the House 198-176) and Lynch signed it into law on the same day.

RESULTS: Associated Press (county-by-county results available here)

10:04PM (David): Thanks to diligent work and zero ganja breaks over at the New Jersey Board of Elections, the AP is now able to call the race for Chris Christie. Good luck, Mr. Corzine.

9:57PM (David): 53% of precincts are in, and Christie is up 55-42. In other words, Lonegan now has to do better than Christie has all night to eke out a win. Maybe Jon Corzine should have spent $10 mil on the GOP primary.

9:42PM: 2885 precincts in, and Christie has upped his lead to nearly 22K votes, but the percentage spread is still the same: 56-41. Corzine’s scraped his way up to 80%.

9:15PM: 1651 precincts in, and Christie is ahead by 56-41… or just under 13,000 votes. Corzine back up to 79%.

9:00PM: With 922 precincts under our belt, Christie’s lead has dropped ever-so-slightly to 57-40. Corzine at 76%.

8:45PM: 361 precincts now complete, and Christie is looking fairly comfortable at 59-39. Corzine’s up to 80%.

8:34PM: 139 precincts reporting (of 6302), and Christie is ahead, but by a slightly tighter margin: 60-38. Corzine’s at 79%.

8:11PM ET: Chris Christie has the very early lead in the GOP primary over Steven Lonegan with just a wheelbarrow-full of votes counted: 62%-35%. Anyone care to guess what share of the vote Jon Corzine will end up with against his three no-name challengers?

Rasmussen Reports (5/27, likely voters, mid-May in parens):

Chris Christie (R): 46 (39)

Steve Lonegan (R): 35 (29)

Undecided: 15 (29)

(MoE: ±5%)

The primary is tomorrow, June 2nd, and Chris Christie has led in every single public poll of the race:

Rasmussen has actually shown some of the closer results we’ve seen, and the trendline shows Lonegan closing a bit, but Christie still looks to be in command. The conventional wisdom says Corzine would be better off against the far-right Lonegan – the DGA went so far as to run ads bashing Christie in the hopes of bolstering Lonegan, Gray Davis/Crisitunity-style – but a win for the former Bogota, NJ mayor seems unlikely. Of course, it’s possible pollsters have badly misjudged the nature of Jersey’s likely GOP voters circa mid-2009, and indeed this same group has gone with wingers over moderates in the past (see Brett Schundler, 2001).

Either way, we’ll be here tomorrow to liveblog the results.

P.S. Daily Kos/Research 2000 polled the general and found exactly the results you’d expect.

UPDATE: A new FDU poll also shows a big Christie lead – 54-30.

Monmouth (PDF) (5/13-18, registered voters)

Chris Christie (R): 50

Steve Lonegan (R): 32

Rick Merkt (R): 2

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±3.7%)

Quinnipiac (5/13-18, likely voters for primary, registered voters for general, 4/22 in parens)

Chris Christie (R): 56 (46)

Steve Lonegan (R): 33 (37)

Rick Merkt (R): 2 (2)

Undecided: 9 (14)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

Jon Corzine (D-inc): 38 (38)

Chris Christie (R): 45 (45)

Undecided: 13 (14)

(MoE: ±2%)

After months of everyone fixating on Corzine vs. Christie, it seems like everyone has suddenly realized that there’s a competitive GOP primary and that it’s not a done deal that former US Attorney Chris Christie will win it against the race’s conservative insurgent, former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan. In fact, Rasmussen last week gave only a 10-point lead to Christie, 39-29.

Now two more polls of the primary are out, and they give a little more breathing room to Christie; in fact, the only poll with primary trendlines, Quinnipiac, finds Christie strengthening his position from last month. Looks like the Democratic Governors’ Association plan of helping to beat Christie in the primary may not pan out, but he may be still be softened up by Lonegan’s attacks going into the general. (Or, the contrary view may be that it’s helping Christie better define himself as an acceptable moderate… although hopefully yesterday’s anti-stimulus comments can be used to debunk that.) At any rate, Corzine (like the economy, to which his fortunes seem inextricably linked) seems to have finally bottomed out, with his general election numbers exactly the same as last month and his approval numbers, though still terrible even by New Jersey standards, starting to tick back up (38/53, up from 37/54).

New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie apparently wants to join his party’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:

Transcript:

HANNITY: What do you think of some of these governors who aren’t taking some stimulus money? Governor Palin, Sanford, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry. What do you think of that?

CHRISTIE: I think it makes sense. If they’re going to put strings on that money, then they’re going to tie your hands and make you expand programs. And not be able to have the freedom of choice that people elected you for. Then you shouldn’t take the money.

Jed Lewison (my Daily Kos colleague who pulled together this clip) observed that it seems as though Christie isn’t just defending the governors who’ve made noise about rejecting stimulus money. Rather, he’s making it sound like if he doesn’t have complete disrection to spend the funds however he wants, he’d reject the stimulus cash outright himself. That’s $2 billion he’d be spurning, including $60 million in law enforcement funds. Christie, by the way, is a former US Attorney.

• NJ-Gov: Believe it or not, we’re in the home stretch heading toward the June 2 primary in the New Jersey governor’s race, and Rasmussen takes a quick look at the GOP primary field. US Attorney Chris Christie leads former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan 39-29, with 3% voting for someone else and 29% still undecided. That’s a lot of undecideds with just a few weeks to go, and I have no way of knowing whether they’d tend to break for the better-known establishment figure of Christie, or the anti-tax raging of Lonegan.

• TX-Sen: The last thing John Cornyn wants is a special election on his watch at the NRSC, but he may get one anyway. Despite his pressure on fellow Texan Kay Bailey Hutchison to remain in place while she runs for Governor, Cornyn is now publicly warning to expect her resignation “this fall sometime.”

• PA-Sen: Seems like the GOP is going through its whole Rolodex looking for someone more normal than Pat Toomey to run in the Pennsylvania primary. Two of the more moderate members of the Keystone State’s House delegation, Charlie Dent and Todd Platts, felt compelled to announce today that they won’t be running. Dent, in fact, endorsed Toomey, the previous holder of PA-15 (making him the first PA House GOPer to endorse Toomey).

• AR-Sen: State Senator Kim Hendren, the GOP’s only candidate so far against Blanche Lincoln (and they may want to keep looking…), has been in politics a long time (one claim to fame is that he lost a gubernatorial race to Bill Clinton). But now he actually seems to be caught in a timewarp from a different century. Today he’s trying to walk back having called Chuck Schumer “that Jew” (and, in doing so, tried using The Andy Griffith Show by way of explaining himself).

• IL-Sen: Speaking of shifts in the space-time continuum, Mark Tiberius Kirk’s end-of-April deadline on announcing his Senate plans has seemingly disappeared into a wormhole, while the GOP waits impatiently for him to emerge at the other end. (No backup date for a decision has been set.) A likely explanation is that he’s waiting to see what Lisa Madigan does, and he may meekly go wherever she doesn’t.

• SC-Gov: Who would’ve guessed that the South Carolina governor’s race would be one of 2010’s hottest tickets? Two more GOPers are trying to hop onto that ride: state Senator Larry Grooms, who officially launched a campaign, and state Rep. Nikki Haley, who now says she’s considering it. (Haley is a young rising star who’s a close ally of Mark Sanford and the hardcore anti-taxers.) They’d join Rep. Gresham Barrett and professor Brent Nelsen, as well as likely candidates Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and AG Henry McMaster, in the hunt for the GOP nod.

• NC-08: Freshman Rep. Larry Kissell has drawn a potential opponent with no previous political background, but very high name rec: Mike Minter, who was safety for the Carolina Panthers for 10 years until recently retiring. Kissell handily beat incumbent Rep. Robin Hayes in 2008 in this now R+2 district, but Minter, who’s still scoping out the race, is well-connected in the local megachurch community and could also eat into Kissell’s African-American support. Minter is apparently looking with Hayes’ encouragement, suggesting that the 10-year Congressman is looking to spend more time with his money instead of seeking out a rematch.

• NRSC: Here’s a double shot of John Cornyn news: in another one of his occasional reality-based moments, Cornyn slapped down strange remarks by his NRCC counterpart, Rep. Pete Sessions, alleging that Barack Obama is intentionally sabotaging the American economy. When asked if he was comfortable with Sessions still leading the NRCC, Cornyn equivocated, deferring the judgment of the House Republicans on the matter. (Because “judgment” and “House Republicans” always go together so well.)

• PA-Sen: In a big diss to Arlen Specter, the Democratic caucus last night voted to slot Specter into the most junior spots on his committees for the remainder of this Congress. The issue won’t be revisited until after the midterm. This strips Specter of one of his strongest re-election arguments: seniority, and the power to make things happen that comes with it (especially on his Appropriations subcommittee… although that’s not as huge a problem in a big state like Pennyslvania as it would be in an Appropriations-dependent state like Alaska).

• KY-Sen: There’s another potential GOP primary challenger to Jim Bunning sniffing out the race, in case SoS Trey Grayson doesn’t show up despite having opened an exploratory committee. Cathy Bailey hasn’t held elective office before, but she’s strong on the fundraising front. She was a Bush Pioneer in 2000, and was rewarded for that with a post as Ambassador to Latvia. She’s married to the former CEO of Providian as well, so she can self-fund if need be.

• NC-Sen: Kenneth Lewis, a Durham attorney and fundraiser for Barack Obama, is telling state Democratic Party leaders that he will run against Richard Burr next year. Still no word on state AG Roy Cooper’s intentions. (J)

• IL-Gov: DuPage County Board chair Robert Schillerstrom is setting up an exploratory committee to run for the GOP nomination in the 2010 gubernatorial race. He’ll join state Senator Bill Brady, who’s already in the hunt. Brady has the “my turn” advantage, having finished 3rd in the 2006 primary, but the suburban Schillerstrom would have the population advantage over downstate’s Brady.

• NJ-Gov: The Democratic Governors’ Association has been reading the Gray Davis playbook (or maybe my advice?): they’re going hard after Chris Christie this month with an ad barrage in order to damage Christie in the hopes of getting the much less-known and more-conservative Steve Lonegan the GOP nomination instead. The Corzine camp is not involved in the efforts, which aims at Christie’s strength: questioning his supposed corruption-fighting credentials as U.S. Attorney.

• VA-02: Ex-Rep. Thelma Drake announced she won’t seek a rematch against Rep. Glenn Nye, who upset her in 2008. This may actually be bad news! for Nye, as there are potential GOP candidates more impressive than the polarizing Drake waiting in the wings. Nye has to be bolstered, though, by the blue shift in this now R+5 district, narrowly won by Obama.

• MN-06: Maureen Reed, a former Univ. of Minnesota regent who ran for Lt. Gov on the Independence Party ticket, will be running in MN-06 in the DFL primary in 2010. While she might not make it through the primary, especially if Elwyn Tinklenberg runs again and/or state Senator Tarryl Clark runs, I’m taking this as a positive sign, in that the IP might not be looking to shoot us in the foot this time. (See also Populista‘s diary.)

• NRCC: The NRCC has launched another offensive on what they perceive as vulnerable (or at least soften-up-able) Dems, with radio ads against Marion Berry, Charlie Melancon, Earl Pomeroy, Zack Space, and John Tanner. Space is the only one who’s on Frontline, but Berry, Melancon, and Tanner are all in districts that moved sharply toward McCain in 2008. The ad attacks the Blue Dogs for being “lap dogs” on the Obama budget.

• Gay marriage: The gay marriage train just keeps building up speed, picking up one more state today. After some public hemming and hawing, Maine Governor John Baldacci signed gay marriage legislation this morning after it passed both chambers of the legislature. (Discussion underway in David Kowalski‘s diary.)

• King County Executive: The first poll is out in the race to lead King County (which puts you in charge of 1.8 million constituents, and is a frequent stepping stone to Washington governor). In a bit of a twist, the Republican (it’s an ostensibly nonpartisan race, but everyone knows who’s what) is in the lead in this dark-blue county: former TV news anchor Susan Hutchison is at 20%, followed by two county councilors from Seattle proper (Dow Constantine at 6 and Larry Phillips at 5) and two Eastside state legislators (Fred Jarrett at 7 and Ross Hunter at 3). All the Dems (each of whom is largely unknown outside his district) added up together beat the widely-known Hutchison, though, so whichever Dem survives the primary seems likely to pull this out in the general election, in Nov. 2009.

• Mayors: Republican Dan Sullivan beat Democrat Eric Croft to replace Mark Begich as Anchorage mayor yesterday, 57-43. (Sullivan has the advantage of being the son of former mayor George Sullivan.) Discussion underway in benjso99‘s diary. Also, yesterday in Detroit, Dave Bing defeated newly-minted mayor Ken Cockrel by 4 points. (Which makes him the second legendary NBA point guard to ascend to mayor, following Sacramento’s Kevin Johnson.)