Tag: Pat Toomey

Quinnipiac University (5/20-26, “Pennsylvania voters,” early May in parens).

Primaries:

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 50

Joe Sestak (D): 21

Undecided: 27

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Pat Toomey (R): 38

Jim Gerlach (R): 10

Peg Luksik (R): 3

Undecided: 47

(MoE: ±4.3%)

General:

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 46 (53)

Pat Toomey (R): 37 (33)

Undecided: 14 (10)

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 45

Jim Gerlach (R): 36

Undecided: 15

Joe Sestak (D): 37

Pat Toomey (R): 35

Undecided: 23

Joe Sestak (D): 36

Jim Gerlach (R): 30

Undecided: 30

(MoE: ±2.8%)

I still gag whenever I have to put a (D) after Arlen Specter’s name, and I don’t think I’m the only one. Specter’s approval margin among both Dems and independents dropped a dozen points over the last month. And the ratio of Dems willing to vote for him fell from 85-4 to 73-10. These numbers are still pretty high, though, so is there enough discontent for Joe Sestak to get in?

Interestingly, Sestak & Jim Gerlach have almost identical approvals, yet Sestak starts with a six-point lead. That points up the natural advantage Dems hold over Republicans in Pennsylvania these days.

P.S. In a move sure to anger wingnuts already steamed about the NRSC’s endorsement of Charlie Crist, Big John Cornyn said it was “premature” for the GOP to back Toomey, even though there are no other Republicans in the race (and the prospects of any getting in look slim).

• PA-Sen: Now that Rep. Steve Israel got chased out of the New York Senate race, the Dems have turned their negative-charm offensive to Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania. No phone call from the POTUS, apparently, but the DSCC and Bob Menendez are on the case. (Sestak has been dialing down the rhetoric on Arlen Specter in the last week, so he may already be arriving at this decision on own.) Meanwhile, on the GOP side of the ledger, the party seems reconciled to Pat Toomey‘s candidacy. They’ve stopped (publicly, at least) looking for a more moderate alternative to Toomey for the primary.

• OK-Sen: Insiders seem to believe that Tom Coburn is going to opt for re-election to the Senate, despite his public unenthusiasm. Potential successors Reps. Tom Cole and Dan Boren both told the Oklahoman that they’re confident he’ll run again.

• FL-Sen: He hadn’t sounded likely to run even before Charlie Crist got into the race, but Rep. Ron Klein finally made it official that he won’t run for Senate and will run for re-election instead. If state Sen. Dan Gelber jumps to the AG race, that leaves only Rep. Kendrick Meek alone for the nomination. (H/t Senate Guru.)

• IL-Sen: With the Republicans steeling themselves for the possibility that Rep. Mark Kirk doesn’t come to save them in the Senate race, they’re starting to coalesce around an unexpected Plan B: Steve Preston, who was the HUD Secretary during the last year of the Bush administration. Preston has never been elected before, and “Bush cabinet” isn’t exactly good resume material these days, but he would at least bring fundraising connections to the table.

• NY-Gov: Ed Cox, a Manhattan lawyer best known for being Richard Nixon’s son-in-law, is considering the New York Governor’s race. He’s a behind-the-scenes guy (he ran the McCain campaign in New York and may run for the next state GOP chair), but may emerge from behind the curtain to run if Rudy Giuliani doesn’t get into the race. Also, Siena has another poll (PDF) of both the Gov & Sen races, but little has changed except for a drop in support for gay marriage.

• NC-08: The NRCC’s plans to mount a high-profile challenge to freshman Rep. Larry Kissell in the 8th just got intercepted. Mike Minter, former Carolina Panthers safety who’s never run for office but is well-connected among local megachurchers, declined to run after a lot of wooing. (I could have said Minter punted, but that wouldn’t have made as much sense.)

• AL-05: The Republicans did land an African-American candidate to run against freshman Rep. Parker Griffith in the Huntsville-based 5th, though, albeit a lower-profile one. Lester Phillip is a navy veteran who’s currently the state GOP’s “minority outreach director.”

• 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: Tom Ridge’s appearance on Hardball yesterday may have set a new bar for equivocation. He wouldn’t commit to whether or not he’d vote for would-be rival Pat Toomey in the GOP primary, instead veering off into extolling the virtues of the secret ballot. On the flipside, in a nice bit of symmetry, Arlen Specter told Fox News that he can’t promise to vote with the Dems “all the time” on procedural votes. So, the takeaway is: nobody’s promising anything.

• NY-Sen-B: Charles Schumer has ratcheted up his efforts to grease the wheels for Kirsten Gillibrand’s re-election path in 2010, hooking her up with donors, lobbying to get her on the good committees, and trying to tamp down possible primary challenges. “There is not going to be a primary!” he recently announced at a fundraiser (to the laughs of the audience… although I’m not sure whether the insiders were laughing due to his comic timing or the audacity and/or futility of his statement).

• IL-Sen: Roland Burris is starting to seem like that last guest at the party who isn’t getting the message that it’s time to go home. Burris says he would like to keep his Senate seat, but will have to make “a formal decision in the next few weeks based on his ability to raise money for a campaign.” With a total of $845 raised so far… well… you do the math.

• KY-Sen: One more Kentuckian is touring the state gauging potential support for the GOP Senate primary, which may or may not contain Jim Bunning. It’s Rand Paul, a doctor who’s never held elected office before but has one important ace in the hole: he’s the son of Rep. Ron Paul, which, if nothing else, establishes his liberatarian bona fides and gives him a nationwide fundraising base of fringe weirdo small donors.

• NM-Gov: Two new candidates have emerged as possible contenders for the Republican nomination for governor in the Land of Enchantment: former state GOP chair Allen Weh (who was intrumental in the firing of US Attorney David Iglesias), who opened an exploratory committee this week, and state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, who’s in the “considering” stage. National Guard Brig. Gen. Greg Zanetti is already in the race. This race could get more interesting if ex-Rep. Heather Wilson joined this paltry lot, but with the Dems already coalesced behind Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, the GOP is starting out in a hole here.

• CA-47: Remember how Bill Sali had his campaign HQ in the wrong district? GOP assemblyman Van Tran seems to be following in Rep. Brain Fade’s fine footsteps, at least in the map skills department. He kicked off his campaign with an event in the Little Saigon neighborhood in Westminster… in CA-46.

• CA-32: In the run-up to the May special election, state Sen. Gil Cedillo has turned his fire toward the race’s third wheel: Emanuel Pleitez. Pleitez, a 26-year-old up-and-comer who was part of the Obama transition team, threatens to eat into Cedillo’s share of the Latino vote (which he’ll need to dominate if he’s to beat Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu). Cedillo is sending flyers using photos grabbed from Pleitez’s Facebook page to make the case that he’s too young and immature for Congress.

• TN-04: A stem-winding progressive-sounding speech came from a very unlikely place: Blue Dog Rep. Lincoln Davis, holder of a newly-minted R+13 seat, speaking at last weekend’s Tennessee Democratic Party summit.

• Mayors: There’s another batch of big-city mayoral elections this Saturday, all in Texas. In San Antonio, 34-year-old former city councilor Julian Castro is favored to win. Castro finished second four years ago to Phil Hardberger, who’s now termed-out. In Austin, the best-known mayoral contender is Carole Strayhorn, who was mayor of Austin in the 1970s and ran for governor as an independent in the crazy 2006 gubernatorial election. Strayhorn, however, is probably too conservative for today’s Austin, and the frontrunner seems to be city councilor Brewster McCracken.

• Census: The state of New York is ponying up $2 million in state funding to bolster participation in the 2010 Census, mostly for outreach campaigns to traditionally undercounted populations. Assumedly, they think this money will pay much greater dividends later, if a more accurate count reveals more New Yorkers and thus brings in more federal funding for social programs.

• LA-Sen: In a tantalizing item, the Hotline teases that “The DSCC won’t let Rep. Melancon (D) alone.” Does this mean Melancon could be back in the recruiting crosshairs, despite previously saying he was “not contemplating a run”? The Hotline’s note is behind a subscription paywall; if you have access to it, please feel free to elaborate in comments.

For a few days there, it was looking like PA-Sen had turned from a coup for Democrats to a giant exploding cigar. Not just because Arlen Specter was having great trouble adjusting to Democratic, uh, behavioral norms, but also because GOP pollsters had former Governor and DHS Secretary Tom Ridge not only beating Pat Toomey in the primary, but also beating Specter in the general.

Ridge threw cold water on that idea this morning, issuing this following statement:

“After careful consideration and many conversations with friends and family and the leadership of my party, I have decided not to seek the Republican nomination for Senate,” Ridge said in a statement.

“I am enormously grateful for the confidence my party expressed in me, the encouragement and kindness of my fellow citizens in Pennsylvania and the valuable counsel I received from so many of my party colleagues.”

Without Ridge, GOP efforts to find an anti-Toomey may turn back to Rep. Jim Gerlach, who is looking to bail out of the increasingly blue PA-06 and has launched a gubernatorial exploratory committee, but has been publicly open to switching to the Senate race.

Public Opinion Strategies (R) for RNC Committeeman Bob Asher (5/3-4, likely voters, no trendlines). Primary results:

Tom Ridge (R): 59

Pat Toomey (R): 21

Peg Luksik (R): 2

Undecided: 17

Tom Ridge (R): 60

Pat Toomey (R): 23

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±4.6%)

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 57

Joe Sestak (D): 20

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±5.2%)

And general election matchups:

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 41

Tom Ridge (R): 48

Undecided: 10

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 49

Pat Toomey (R): 40

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±3.7%)

Amusingly, POS was Specter’s pollster (they parted ways (PDF) after his switcheroo)… and now they’re showing him trailing Tom Ridge in a general election matchup. A little post-breakup revenge polling? Ridge, who’s supposedly “50-50” on a race, also seems to have something of a Santorum problem: On various official documents, he’s listed his residence in Maryland, not Pennsylvania. This guy was governor and he doesn’t even want to live in the Keystone State any longer? Jeez.

Anyhow, POS also has the first primary tests we’ve seen, with Ridge pounding Toomey. Doubtless Toomey’s weak ID among Republicans is holding him back – 50% either have no opinion or have never heard of him. With movement conservatives already taking aim at Ridge, these numbers would be sure to change by the end of what would be a bruising, year-long primary.

Among all voters, meanwhile, Specter clocks in with a 50-40 favorability score, while Sestak has just a 15-3 rating. If Sestak mounted a serious campaign (presumably with labor backing), this too would change. Sestak has been talking pretty tough, though I’m a bit concerned that SEIU’s Andy Stern might be using him to put pressure on Specter over EFCA. At the same time, Joe Torsella is apparently trying to gather anti-Specter Dems into his fold. But would Torsella, an acolyte of Ed Rendell, really stick it out against Specter, given that Fast Eddie pledged a clear primary to Arlen?

Specter, though, is making it harder and harder for Dems to stomach him. In fact, it seems that everything he’s said since his switch has been designed to alienate rather than embrace his new party. He reiterated his newfound opposition to Employee Free Choice; said he’d still oppose Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s choice to head the Office of Legal Counsel; declared he would not be a “loyal Democrat”; voted against Obama’s budget; denied he was committed to the President’s healthcare plan (contradicting Obama himself); said the one vote in his entire career that he publicly regrets was his vote against Jeff Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship; and then this gem:

There’s still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner.

He’s since tried to walk that back, hilariously claiming he “conclusively misspoke”. I think Markos got it right – Specter seemes to be rejecting his (D) transplant. He’s starting to piss me off more as a “Democrat” than he ever did as a Republican.

Susquehanna Polling & Research (R) for PEG PAC (“end of last week”, registered voters, no trendlines):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 38

Tom Ridge (R): 39

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 42

Pat Toomey (R): 36

(MoE: ±2.8%)

PEG PAC describes itself as “Pennsylvania’s oldest pro-business political action committee and the affiliated PAC of the Pennsylvania Business Council (PBC)”. I personally don’t know much about them, but I think the remarks of PBC’s president tell us everything we need to know about where their political biases lie: “We don’t know how [Specter’s] positions and voting might change now that he has joined the Democrat Party.” Democrat Party, huh? And Susquehanna is a Republican firm, FWIW.

Anyhow, the Ridge numbers are pretty similar to the Quinnipiac poll we saw yesterday, but this poll makes Toomey out to be a lot more competitive. Color me skeptical – though Dave Weigel does report that Toomey claims to have already raised half a million bucks since his April 15th entrance. In any event, Research 2000 will have a new poll out soon, so I’m waiting for that. And unlike the two surveys we’ve seen so far, it will test both the D and R primaries.

Speaking of Dem primaries, the anti-Specter sentiment appears to be heating up from labor quarters. SEIU’s Andy Stern said yesterday, “It is hard to imagine any union supporting a candidate in the Democratic Party for the US Senate who doesn’t have strong positions on both healthcare and Employee Free Choice.” An AFL-CIO official said something similar. Personally, I like Stern’s framing – yet another flip-flop on EFCA from Specter (were one to happen) would hardly be soothing and would not constitute a “strong position.” So this leaves the door open for a primary challenge even if Specter does change his mind for the umpteenth time. And I increasingly think I’d like to see that challenge.

Quinnipiac University (4/29-5/3, “Pennsylvania voters,” no trendlines):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 53

Pat Toomey (R): 33

Undecided: 10

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 46

Tom Ridge (R): 43

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Specter gets an impressive 77-8 approval rating among Democrats, though that may fade as the afterglow wears off. His overall approvals jumped a bit, too, from 45-31 to 52-34. Former Gov. Tom Ridge, though, has an even better 55-19 rating – but if Arlen Specter was hopeless against Pat Toomey in a GOP primary, does the also-moderate Ridge really have a shadow of a chance? Nonetheless, he’s apparently considering a run.

On the Democratic side, meanwhile, Rep. Joe Sestak continues to seriously explore a challenge to Specter. Appearing yesterday on CNN, he said of Specter, “I’m not sure he’s a Democrat yet,” and acted undaunted by Obama’s support for party-switchin’ Arlen. Sestak’s also apparently meeting with SEIU’s iconoclastic leader Andy Stern. The labor movement is of course deeply unhappy with a different Specter flip-flop: his shameful decision to abandon the Employee Free Choice Act.

Unsurprisingly, Specter also appeared on the Sunday talk shows, and he just provided the script for Sestak’s (or Joe Torsella’s, or Patrick Murphy’s, etc.) first attack ad. Specter supposedly told Obama over the phone last week that “I’m a loyal Democrat. I support your agenda.” But he told David Gregory yesterday:

I did not say I would be a loyal Democrat. I did not say that.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary, just like the Republican contest, is closed, a fact Arlen already seems to be ignoring.

(Hat-tips: Political Wire & Politico)

• PA-Sen: Apparently, Arlen Specter’s campaign has only received 15 requests for donation refunds so far in the wake of his switch to the Democratic Party. The returned funds only add up to a paltry $15K. (J)

The NRSC has launched a new robocall targeting Specter, by linking him to the NRSC’s arch-enemy… George W. Bush? (It replays Bush’s 2004 endorsement of then-GOPer Specter.) Apparently, the goal is to soften Specter up among the Dem electorate to lose a Democratic primary to a more reliable Dem, who would then be a little more vulnerable to Pat Toomey in the general… or something like that? This is one of those moments when you can’t tell if the GOP is crazy like a fox, or just crazy.

Specter bringing his decades of seniority with him over to the Democratic caucus is angering some key Democrats who get bumped down the totem pole as a result, according to The Hill. Specter could find himself wielding the gavel in an Appropriations subcommittee, or even back in charge of Judiciary if Patrick Leahy takes over Appropriations in 2010.

Specter’s switch has the whining flowing among some of the GOP’s sourest senators: Jim Bunning says the GOP “coddled” Specter for too long, while Jim Inhofe shows his grasp of GOP dead-ender logic, saying that Specter’s fleeing the party is a sign of conservatism’s strength and presages a comeback. In much the same way that if my house is on fire, that indicates that its value is about to go up, because it’s finally clearing out all that clutter.

• FL-Sen: The DSCC is pulling out all the stops against Charlie Crist, and he hasn’t even taken any steps toward getting into the Senate race yet. They’ve launched a new TV spot (airing in the Tallahassee market) that attacks Crist for leaving Florida in financial disarray to jump to Washington, and attacks his heavy-on-socializing, light-on-work schedule.

• CO-Sen: The GOP’s Weld County DA Ken Buck is trapped in the grey area between candidate and not-candidate for Senate; his website is up and running and has a “donate” button, but hasn’t filed his official paperwork and denied Monday’s reports that he was officially in.

• RI-Gov: Lincoln Chafee seems to be having similar problems on just how official a candidate he is, too. His exploratory committee is open and he said he “is” running when appearing on Rachel Maddow on Tuesday, but then issued a release yesterday walking that back, to “my intentions are” to run for governor.

• WI-Gov: The GOPers aren’t waiting any longer for Gov. Jim Doyle to publicly announce his re-elections; Milwaukee Co. Scott Walker launched his campaign yesterday. Walker (who briefly ran in the primary in 2006) doesn’t have the race to himself, though; last week, Mark Neumann, who represented WI-01 from 1994 to 1998 and then lost the 1998 senate race to Russ Feingold, announced his candidacy, touting his support from Tommy Thompson surrogate James Klauser.

• AL-Gov: Not one but two more Republicans are sizing up the governor’s race, although neither one seems top-tier material: Hoover mayor (in the Birmingham suburbs) Tony Petelos, and Bill Johnson, the head of the Alabama Dept. of Economic and Community Affairs. (Johnson has a colorful backstory that wouldn’t help him much in the primary.)

• OR-Gov: Local Republican pollster Moore Insight polled potential Dem candidates for governor on their favorables. Ex-gov. John Kitzhaber and Rep. Peter DeFazio posted pretty similar numbers: 49/21 for Kitz, 48/17 for the Faz. (Kitzhaber has higher negatives among Republicans, thanks to all those vetoes he handed out.) Former SoS Bill Bradbury is at 29/10, and Steve Novick, who barely lost the 2008 Senate primary, is at 14/4.

• GA-01: Long-time Rep. Jack Kingston has often been the subject of speculation in the Georgia governor’s race, but he confirmed that he’ll be running for re-election to the House. Interestingly, he’s supporting state senator Eric Johnson in the race instead of fellow Rep. Nathan Deal, but that’s because Johnson is a fellow Savannah resident and his son’s godfather.

• VA-10: The subject of much retirement-related speculation due to age and a rapidly bluening seat (now R+2), Rep. Frank Wolf confirmed he’ll be running for re-election in 2010. He may face state senator Mark Herring or delegate David Poisson.

• OH-18: Rep. Zack Space has been added to the DCCC’s defense-oriented Frontline program. Space was the target of an NRCC TV spot earlier, but this isn’t so much a question of newfound vulnerability as it’s confirmation he’s done flirting with a Senate run and committing to his House seat for 2010.

• CA-36: Suddenly embattled Rep. Jane Harman has hired Clinton-era fixer Lanny Davis to help her negotiate the legal and PR minefield she finds herself in, regarding the wiretap imbroglio. 2006 primary challenger Marcy Winograd is revving up her efforts, sensing Harman’s weakness. Winograd, who earned 38% in 2006, has begun raising funds for another try.

• NY-20: Republican Jim Tedisco says that he is “not planning” on seeking a rematch against freshly-minted Democratic Rep. Scott Murphy, but refuses to explicitly rule out a run. (J)

• WA-08: One more tea leaf that Suzan DelBene may be left holding the bag in WA-08: State Rep. Ross Hunter, one of the first Dems to crack the GOP stranglehold on the Eastside and a potentially strong contender in WA-08, is running for King County Executive. The already-crowded Exec race is in Nov. 2009, not 2010, but indicates Hunter’s interests lie locally, not in DC.

• Votes: The 17 Democrats who voted against the Obama budget are all familiar dissenters, and most of them are in difficult Republican-leaning districts: Barrow, Boren, Bright, Childers, Foster, Griffith, Kratovil, Kucinich, Markey, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Minnick, Mitchell, Nye, Taylor, and Teague.

• NY-20: Scott Murphy gets sworn in today as the newest member of the House Democratic caucus. Congratulations! (D)

• PA-Sen: All of a sudden, the Pennsylvania GOP is beating a path to Jim Gerlach’s door to get him to consider jumping over to the Senate race, now that they’re stuck facing an Arlen Specter vs. Pat Toomey wipeout in the general election. (Gerlach has been associated with the open governor’s race, but is still in the exploratory stage.) Gerlach says “Don’t rule anything out.” The rather moderate and Philly-burbs-based Gerlach might face the same weaknesses in a closed primary against Toomey that Specter did, though (although Gerlach hasn’t been cultivating conservative ill-will for decades like Specter).

• OK-Gov: Stuart Rothenberg reports that ex-Rep. J.C. Watts is getting close to a decision on whether to run for the governor’s seat in Oklahoma, and that he’s likely to get in. This would pit him in a battle royale with retiring Rep. (and former Lt. Gov.) Mary Fallin for the GOP nod.

• CA-03: Here’s some proof that there’s a lot of blood in the water in the eight GOP-held House seats that Obama won in California: some pretty big sharks are sniffing out the races. Phil Angelides (the former treasurer, and loser of the 2006 governor’s race) is reportedly “taking a serious look” at a run against Dan Lungren in the Dem-trending R+6 district in the Sacramento suburbs.

• OH-08: Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones, widely known as an anti-immigration activist, may challenge House GOP leader John Boehner in a primary in this R+14 district. (D)

• CA-44: No surprise here, but Bill Hedrick, who held Rep. Ken Calvert to 51-49 in this R+6 Inland Empire seat last year, officially announced he’s back for another try. The Corona/Norco School Board chair can’t expect another under-the-radar surprise attack, but can expect a lot of DCCC help this time.

• RNC: Although he seems to have publicly escaped the NY-20 loss without calls for his head, the behind-the-scenes attempts to take down or at least circumvent Michael Steele continue. Some RNC members are proposing a new rule that would place new restrictions and oversight on Steele’s power of the purse-strings. (Seems like they might get better results if they sought better restrictions and oversight on Steele’s mouth instead.)

• Gay Marriage: I’m pleasantly surprised how fast gay marriage is gaining widespread acceptance and turning into a winning issue for us: a CBS/NYT poll finds 42% support nationwide for legalized gay marriage, with another 25% supporting civil unions and only 28% opposed to any legal recognition. 57% of those under age 40 support gay marriage.

• Census: Here’s another example of how there’s no such thing as a neutral and apolitical census: there’s a debate raging over the issue of where to count persons who are in prison. While the Census Bureau currently plans to continue its policy in 2010 of counting prisoners where they reside (often in rural counties where a sizable percentage of the population is incarcerated), civil rights groups and even NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg support counting them at their last known address… which would mean more funds, and a redistricting advantage, for major cities.

• History: For the history fans among us, the Senate’s website has profiles of all 20 previous Senate party-switchers. (Here’s a chapter from US History I’d completely forgotten about: more than one-third of these switches were western-state senators in the 1890s during the free silver movement.)