Tag: HI-01

• CT-Sen: You know you’re in trouble when the trade publications that cover you start asking what your exit strategy is. CQ has an interesting piece that delves into the how, when, and where of how Chris Dodd might excuse himself from his not-getting-any-better Senate race, and it also asks who might take his place.

• DE-Sen: CQ has another speculative piece about another troublesome seat for Dems: what happens if Beau Biden doesn’t show up for his planned Senate race (he’s been mum so far, although most people expect him to run). The uncomfortable truth is there just isn’t much of a Plan B there, but options could include New Castle County Exec Chris Coons, or elbow-twisting Ted Kaufman to actually stand for re-election.

• CO-Gov: Considering how deep a hole Michael Bennet was in vis-a-vis Jane Norton, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Rasmussen’s gubernatorial numbers from last week’s Colorado sample aren’t very appetizing either. Republican ex-Rep. Scott McInnis leads incumbent Dem Bill Ritter 48-40, despite Ritter having 50% approval. (The thing is, he also has 50% disapproval. Rasmussen still managed to find 1% of all likely voters who don’t know. Which, of course, adds up to 101%.)

• HI-01: Rep. Neil Abercrombie is saying he’ll resign in a matter of weeks, not months. He still wouldn’t give a specific date, citing the uncertainty of timing of major votes coming up in the short term (not just health care reform, but also the locally-important Native Hawaiian recognition act).

• IA-03: Another Republican is getting into the field against Rep. Leonard Boswell, who’s never quite gotten secure in this swing district. Retired architect Mark Rees will join state Sen. Brad Zaun and former wrestling coach Jim Gibbons in the GOP primary; Rees seems to be striking a lot of moderate notes, in contrast to the rest of the field.

• IL-10: With state Rep. Julie Hamos having gotten the AFSCME’s endorsement yesterday, her Democratic primary opponent, Dan Seals, got his own big labor endorsement today, from the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

• MS-01: Despite having a painstakingly-cleared field for him, state Sen. Alan Nunnelee is still getting a primary challenge, apparently from the anti-establishment right. Henry Ross, the former mayor of Eupora, made his campaign official. Eupora, however, is tiny, and nowhere near the Memphis suburbs; remember that Tupelo-vs.-the-burbs was the main geographical fissure in the hotly contested and destructive GOP primary last year that paved the way for Democratic Rep. Travis Childers to win.

• NJ-03: Here’s another place where the Republican establishment got hosed by a primary-gone-bad last year, and where they’d like to avoid one next year: New Jersey’s 3rd. This is one where the county party chairs have a lot of sway, and candidates aren’t likely to run without county-level backing. Burlington County’s chair William Layton is already backing NFL player Jon Runyan, so the real question is what happens in Ocean County. Other possible GOP candidates include Toms River councilman Maurice Hill, assistant US Attorney David Leibowitz, Assemblyman Scott Rudder, and state Sen. Chris Connors.

• NY-19: Another report looks at the discontent brewing in the 19th, where Assemblyman Greg Ball bailed out, leaving wealthy moderate ophthalmologist Nan Hayworth in command of the GOP field. Much of the discontent seems to be less teabagger agita and more about a personal dispute between the Orange Co. GOP chair and Hayworth’s campaign advisor, but there are also concerns that Hayworth’s country-club positioning won’t work well in the blue-collar counties further upstream from her Westchester County base. Alternative challengers being floated include Tuxedo Park former mayor David McFadden and Wall Street guy Neil DiCarlo, as well as state Sen. Vincent Leibell, who may be unethused about running a GOP primary to hold his Senate seat against Ball and looking for something else to do.

• TN-06: The newly-open 6th may not be as much of a lost cause as everyone thinks; despite its dwindling presidential numbers, Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen won the district in both 2002 (with 52%) and 2006 (with 67%). The article also names some other Republicans who might show up for the race, besides state Sen. Jim Tracy and former Rutherford Co. GOP chair Lou Ann Zelenik (both already in): businessman Kerry Roberts, state Sen. Diane Black, Army Reserve Maj. Gen. Dave Evans, and real estate agent Gary Mann. One other Dem not previously mentioned is former state Sen. Jo Ann Graves.

• TX-17: Although they didn’t get the state Senator they wanted, Republicans seem pleased to have lined up a rich guy who can pay his own way against Rep. Chet Edwards: businessman Bill Flores. Flores has also made a name as a big contributor to his alma mater Texas A&M, a big presence in the district. 2008 loser Rob Curnock also remains in the GOP field.

• WA-03: Lots happening in the 3rd. One official entry is no surprise, given what we’d already heard this week: young Republican state Rep. Jaime Herrera is in. On the Dem side, as I expected, state Sen. Craig Pridemore is telling people he’s in, although hasn’t formalized anything. (H/t conspiracy.) Pridemore, who’s from central Vancouver, is probably one or two clicks to the left of state Rep. Deb Wallace (who’s already running), as befits his safer district; in recent years, he’d been the recipient of lots of arm-twisting from local activists eager to find someone to primary the increasingly uncooperative Brian Baird. Speaking of local activists, someone named Maria Rodriguez-Salazar also plans to run; she sounds like she’s on the moderate side of the Dem equation, though. Finally, for the GOPers, there have been persistent rumors that conservative radio talk show host Lars Larson is interested, although he may have debunked that.

• WV-01: Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan is already facing state Sen. Clark Barnes (whose district has little overlap with the 1st), but that’s not stopping other GOP entrants: today, it’s Mac Warner, a lawyer and former West Point grad.

• DCCC: The DCCC is playing some offense against vulnerable GOP House members, with radio spots in five districts: Charlie Dent, Dan Lungren, Mary Bono Mack, Lee Terry, and Joe Wilson. The ad attacks the GOPers for voting for TARP last year but then voting against financial services reform now. The DCCC is being coy about the actual cost of the ad buy, though, suggesting it’s more about media coverage of the ads than the actual eyeballs.

• House: Bob Benenson has a lengthy piece looking at House retirements, finding that the pace really isn’t that much different from previous years, and talking to a variety of Dems who can’t decide whether or not it’s time to panic. The article suggests a few other possible retirees, some of whom shouldn’t be seen as a surprise (John Spratt, Ike Skelton) and a few more that seem pretty improbable (Baron Hill?).

• NRSC: The NRSC is doing what is can to shield its hand-picked establishment candidates from the wrath of the teabaggers, often by denying their transparent efforts to help them fundraise. Here’s one more example of how the NRSC isn’t doing so well at hiding those ties, though: they’ve set up joint fundraising accounts for some of their faves, including Kelly Ayotte, Trey Grayson, Carly Fiorina, and Sue Lowden, which is sure to fan more teabagger flames.

• AK-Legislature: Alaska’s tiny legislature (20 Senators and 40 Reps.) is looking to grow (to 24 and 48), hopefully before the next redistricting. As you can imagine, the small number of seats leaves many districts extremely large, geographically, and also stitching together many disparate communities of interest.

• Redistricting: I know everyone here likes to play redistricting on their computers, but for Californians, here’s an actual chance to get your hands on the wheel! California’s new redistricting commission is soliciting applications from members of the public to become members. Anyone who has worked for a politician or been on a party’s central committee is excluded, but there are seats for 5 Democrats and 4 “others” (including decline to state), so there are lots of slots that need progressives to fill them.

• Polltopia: PPP wants your input yet again. Where to next? Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, or Massachusetts? (Although it looks like the poll has already been overwhelmingly freeped in favor of Kentucky by Rand Paul supporters…)

Add one more special election to the list:

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie announced today that he is resigning from Congress to run for governor full time….

The resignation will trigger a special election to fill the remainder of Abercrombie’s current congressional term which ends January 2011. The seat will also be up for grabs in the general election in November for the next two-year term.

This may not be too much of a surprise (although Abercrombie in April said he wouldn’t resign his seat), as Abercrombie needs to spend a lot of time in Hawaii to win the race, and that’s a rather long commute from Washington DC. This decision doesn’t affect the overall electoral calculus much, as Abercrombie was already in the middle of his last term, as he can’t run for House and Governor at the same time. On the Democratic side, state Senate president Colleen Hanabusa and ex-Rep. Ed Case are already running to succeed Abercrombie; Honolulu city councilor Charles Djou is running for the Republicans. Assumedly, they will all choose to participate in the special election, although they could choose to run only in the regularly scheduled election.

Abercrombie hasn’t set his final day in office, so the date of the special election won’t be known for a while. (I’m wondering if we could have a weird circumstance like Abercrombie’s first election to the House, where on the same day he won the special election to take over the House seat but lost the Democratic primary for the full term.)

UPDATE: If the special election held in 2003 to replace Patsy Mink (which is how Ed Case won) is any indication, it looks like Hawaiian special elections are just one big pool of people from all parties, with the first-past-the-post winning the whole thing (instead of a primary and then a general). If so, that could set up a weird scenario where Djou narrowly wins the special election because Hanabusa and Case split the majority of Democratic votes (say 40% Djou, 35% Hanabusa, 25% Case).

LATER UPDATE (James): In the comments, local SSPer skaje makes the case that the special election will only hurt Djou’s chances by splitting the right-of-center vote with Ed Case. It’s an interesting argument, and I have to admit that this thought crossed my mind. There’s no denying that Case has based a lot of his appeal on his position on the rightward side of Hawaii’s political equilibrium, but whether or not we see Republican-leaning voters splitting may end up hinging upon the type of campaign that Case chooses to run.

LATE LATE SHOW UPDATE (David): When would a special election occur? Essentially, whenever the Chief Election Officer wants to. According to Hawaii statutes, the only requirement is that the “CEO” must conduct a special election within sixty days of making a proclamation that there will be a special election. But the law is silent as to how soon such a proclamation must be issued. Indeed, CEO Kevin Cronin says that his department is strapped and that there may not even be a special election, or may be delayed until the September primary. Another wrinkle is that Cronin recently announced he was stepping down at the end of this month, so the decision may not fall to him.

RaceTracker Wiki: HI-01

• IA-Sen: Check out the nosedive in Chuck Grassley’s approvals, polled by SurveyUSA but helpfully arranged in an easy-to-view downward trajectory by Senate Guru. He’s down from 71/22 in January to 50/40 in September. Was his bad faith negotiating on health care so transparent that it moved his numbers this much? At any rate, this ought to provide some encouragement to high (or at least medium) profile Dems still considering the race.

• NC-Sen: Not much change in the newest PPP look at the North Carolina Senate race, although Richard Burr might be benefitting a bit from broader Republican momentum. Burr’s approval is still a paltry 36/35, but he’s beating Generic Dem by 45-34 now (he lost that race 41-38 in June). He beats named Democratic opponents by at least 10 points, including Rep. Bob Etheridge 44-33 and SoS Elaine Marshall 44-32.

• NV-Sen: This is not the headline you want for the launch of your campaign in Nevada, where support of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is something akin to support for syphilis: “Yucca Dump Backer Runs for Senate.” The dump backer in question is Sue Lowden.

• KS-Gov, Sen: Nowhere is a bigger recruiting disaster for the Dems than Kansas, where they don’t have anybody lined up for the open seats for either Senate or Governor. However, it now sounds like state Dem party chair Larry Gates is expected to enter the gubernatorial race. The Senate race is a bigger question mark, although state Treasurer Dennis McKinney hasn’t exactly ruled it out.

• MD-Gov: Bill Clinton is doing some fundraising for someone not named Kendrick Meek. He’ll headline a fundraiser this week for Gov. Martin O’Malley (a Hillary endorser in 2008). O’Malley has yet to draw a noteworthy opponent for 2010.

• FL-08: Although the GOP is waiting around for state Sen. Daniel Webster to make up his mind on a run, another less-known Republican figure is charging straight into the race: 30-something real estate developer Armando Gutierrez Jr., who’s expected to announce his candidacy today. Gutierrez, via his father (who was spokesman for the Elian Gonzalez family during that bit of nastiness), is well-connected in the Cuban community. (Although, with the exception of ex-Sen. Mel Martinez, there’s not much of a Cuban political community in the Orlando area.)

• HI-01: State Sen. Colleen Hanabusa got a boost today, with an endorsement from EMILY’s List. This will give the progessive Hanabusa a nationwide fundraising profile to go against moderate ex-Rep. Ed Case in the open seat primary.

• MN-01: GOP State Sen. Julie Rosen is considering a race against Rep. Tim Walz in the rural 1st District. Rosen, however, is a prominent moderate, and she might be on the losing end of a GOP intramural fight, much as happened to state Sen. Dick Day in the 2008 primary.

• NY-15, Gov: Weird rumors were going around last week that the dual dilemmas of David Paterson and Charlie Rangel would be solved by Rangel stepping down and Paterson being given the Democratic nomination by party bosses in the ensuing special election, giving him a nice permanent job in NY-15 to pry him out of the Governor’s Mansion. Well, yesterday Paterson said thanks but no thanks.

• NY-29: This is kind of cryptic: Rep. Eric Massa says he’ll be making an important annoucement on the 10th. It may just be an announcement of his re-election, but it’s strangely worded; I’ll leave it to you to parse the verbiage.

• MT-St. Sen.: Legal trouble for the Montana state Senator who was behind the wheel in the drunk boating accident that injured Rep. Denny Rehberg and several others. Greg Barkus was hit with three felony charges for his role in the accident.

• CA-Sen: We’re starting to get fundraising reports filtering in, via the media and the rumor mill. And one of the most eyebrow-raising numbers comes from Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, of all places: he pulled in $330K in the third quarter, leaving him sitting on over $700K. He’s been given afterthought status as the NRSC and tradmed have rushed to fawn over Carly Fiorina, but his seeming success at tapping movement conservative wallets indicates that he won’t be going away quietly.

• FL-Sen: When you have so many people giving you money, a few of them are bound to be very bad apples…. Alan Mendelsohn, a prominent eye doctor and chief fundraiser for the Florida Medical Association PAC, was also a key financial backer of Charlie Crist and a member of his transition team. Yesterday he was charged by a federal grand jury with mail and wire fraud, aiding and abetting fraud, and lying to federal agents.

• IL-Sen: Maybe Mike Ditka doesn’t have the same iconic power that he used to, but if he does, then upstart GOP primary challenger Patrick Hughes got a really big get. The former coach of da Bears endorsed Hughes, who seems to be coalescing most of the hard-right, anti-Mark Kirk sentiment in the Senate primary.

• MA-Sen: More showy fundraising numbers out of Massachusetts, where everyone is scrambling for money in view of the primary election a few months away. Most notable is AG Martha Coakley, whose only real weakness seemed to be a lack of money (as she already has statewide name rec, is the only woman in the race, and a big edge in the polls). That’s a weakness no longer, as she raised $2.1 million in less than a month. By contrast, Rep. Michael Capuano raised only $300K in that period; even with the $1.2 mil in his House account, his one advantage — money — has now vaporized. The big surprise is City Year founder Alan Khazei, who raised $1 million in just a week after a late start to his candidacy; the question is whether he can convert that into a decent share of the vote. Celtics co-owner Steven Pagliuca raised only $200K, but can dip into his own money to advertise.

• NV-Sen: A long but must-read piece from the NYT looks at the tangled web between John Ensign and the Hampton family. Most significantly, it looks like Ensign not only went further than previously thought in trying to line up a job for Doug Hampton (the mistress’s husband) but then used his governmental power to do favors for Hampton’s new employer, Allegiant Air — certainly a violation of Senate ethics rules. And this is the Ensign that new GOP golden girl Sue Lowden was trying to circle the wagons around, even long after most of the rest of the local GOP had decided he was better served under the bus.

• NY-Gov: This is interesting: Mitt Romney is moving to back ex-Rep. Rick Lazio in the governor’s race and hosting a Lazio fundraiser. Since polls show Lazio getting completely flattened by Rudy Giuliani if they face off in a gubernatorial primary, Romney’s expenditure of political capital is either a) a sign that insiders are pretty well aware that Giuliani won’t be getting into the governor’s race after all, or else b) a repayment for Lazio’s backing in the 2008 prez primary and a thumb-in-the-eye for primary rival Giuliani.

• GA-12: More news out of the 12th: Wayne Mosley, a wealthy doctor and the NRCC’s recruit in the race thanks to his self-funding capacity (in fact, one of their top recruits in the nation, if you believe Mosely himself), had to drop out of the race. Mosely is being sued by his hospital for breach of contract, and apparently that’s taking up all his time and money. That leaves Thunderbolt Fire Chief Carl Smith and activist Jeanne Seaver as options to go up against Blue Dog Dem Rep. John Barrow.

• HI-01: Here’s some good news for those of us who’d like to see the House stay nice and Ed Case-free: state Senate president Colleen Hanabusa is getting in the race for the Democratic nomination for the open seat in the 1st being vacated by Neil Abercrombie. Hanabusa’s main opponent looks like it will be ex-Rep. Ed Case, who beat Hanabusa in the 2002 race in HI-02; the progressive Hanabusa may have better odds against the moderate Case this time, as Case alienated a lot of the local party with an ill-advised primary challenge to Sen. Dan Akaka in 2006.

• MO-03: Rep. Russ Carnahan picked up a Republican opponent: attorney Ed Martin. The 3rd is a D+7 district that has presented Carnahan with little trouble in the past.

• NY-23: Dede Scozzafava finally hit the TV airwaves with a new ad, leading the polls but lagging both her opponents in the battle for the airwaves. Also, check out Robert Harding’s thorough examination at the Albany Project of Scozzafava’s not-so-liberal actual voting record in the Assembly, if you’re looking for a counterpoint to yesterday’s Daily Kos piece about Scozzafava.

• SD-AL: Republican state Rep. Blake Curd, a Sioux Falls surgeon, is the first opponent to officially get in the race against Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. Secretary of State Chris Nelson is still considering the race, though, and given his statewide profiel seems like he’d be likelier to win the GOP primary if he got in.

• VA-10: Rep. Frank Wolf, the Republican dean of the Virginia delegation, has picked up a Democratic challenger in the form of attorney Patrick Lewis. Demographics are quickly moving this NoVa suburban/exurban district in the Democratic direction (it’s up to R+2 now), but Wolf has the kind of personal staying power that makes Lewis’s challenge an uphill fight.

• OH-SoS: Bad news out of the Ohio Secretary of State race (on the short list as one of the nation’s most important downballot statewide offices): Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown decided to end her bid for the Democratic nomination, preferring instead to run for re-election. While this may spare the Dems a contested primary, this leaves only the much more conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison in the race, which may leave the base unenthused for the general election.

• ME-Init: Democracy Corps has a poll out on the anti-gay marriage ballot measure in Maine. They find 41% “yes” and 50% “no.” (Remember, as with California’s Prop 8, a “yes” vote is a vote against gay marraige.) These numbers are slightly better than the near-even split an R2K poll found a couple of weeks ago. But as Markos notes, D-Corps tested registered voters, while R2K looked at likely voters. (D)

The NRCC made a splash earlier today by releasing a target list of 70 Dem-held House districts that they hope to put into play next year. Let’s take a closer look at all 70 — including their PVIs, the closeness of each race in 2008, and whether or not the GOP has recruited a “legitimate” challenger this time (this is a bit of a subjective assessment, but we’ll get to that later):

That’s a big fat, honkin’ list of incumbents, including several that haven’t seen a competitive race in years — or ever (Boren, Skelton, the Arkansas delegation, Matheson, Pomeroy, Kind, and Boucher, to name just a few). Many of these races probably won’t produce competitive contests, but there’s absolutely no downside for the NRCC to be putting these incumbents on notice — not only will the targets being painted on these members’ backs have the potential to affect legislative votes, it helps to promote the idea that the NRCC is preparing for a big wave in their favor in 2010. (One thing’s for sure, if we have to worry about David Effin’ Wu next year, we’ll be preparing for life in the minority again.)

Now, what makes a challenger “legitimate”, you ask? That’s a good question. I define legitimacy as something that must be earned — whether it’s through an electoral track record or a demonstrated ability to fundraise (or self-fund), or some combination of both. In other words, just because the NRCC has met with some random businessman and asked him to challenge his local congressman, it doesn’t mean that the challenger has established himself as legitimate until he’s coughed up a quarterly filing with the FEC. Let me put it this way: for every Richard Hanna (the guy who nearly beat Mike Arcuri last year), there are a dozen or more Luke Pucketts or Carl Mumpowers. It’s just a lot harder at this point in the game to separate the wheat from the chaff, so our methodology is not to list a challenger without a record of electoral success as “legitimate” until they have demonstrated their ability to raise the dough. (And no, raising phat loads of cash through BMW Direct, like Bill Russell does in PA-12 does not count as a legitimate means of fundraising in our book.) The NRCC would no doubt disagree pretty strongly with my chart in some places, but I already feel that I’m being overly generous by granting OR-04 candidate Sid Leiken, who has had some pretty severe fundraising difficulties, “legit” status.

So, many of these districts marked with an “N” have challengers that have yet to prove the merit and mettle of their respective candidacies. There’s no doubt that many of these Ns will turn into Ys by the time the year’s over, but the GOP still has a lot of work to do. The GOP also has a stock of credible candidates considering bids in many of these “unchallenged” districts (FL-08, LA-03, and VA-05, in particular), so some of these holes will be easier to fill than others.

Also interesting is who is not listed on such an expansive list as this — guys whom the NRCC spent a lot of time targeting last cycle like Joe Donnelly (IN-02), Jim Marshall (GA-08) and Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23) stand out as conspicuous absences, especially considering the number of extreme longshots thrown into the mix.

• MO-Sen: This is actually starting to be a theme with Rep. Roy Blunt: he’s willing to go on the record as hating Medicare. An interview this weekend included the comments:  “We’ve had Medicare since 1965, and Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy.” I think tens of millions of senior citizens might take exception to that.

• NC-Sen: SoS Elaine Marshall is “pretty seriously leaning toward” getting into the race against Richard Burr, according to strategist Thomas Mills in CQ (although with no mention of whether or not he was speaking on her behalf or just running his mouth). He says she doesn’t have a firm timeline, but will let us know in late summer or early fall.

• TX-Sen/Gov: When the tradmed actually refers to a conversation with a Senator as a “bizarre series of interviews,” you know something’s seriously gone awry. Kay Bailey Hutchison seemed to try to walk back her resignation announcement from yesterday when talking with the Houston Chronicle, but after some more probing, made it sound more like all she wanted was for Rick Perry to get out of the race. Because it’s her turn. Sounds exactly like something someone who’s leading in all the polls would do for her.

In the meantime, Rick Perry said he’d consider moving up the date of the special election to replace KBH, by way of mocking her resignation sort-of-decision, saying that there were too many important things going on in Washington. (Although I’m not sure Texas law would let him do so; it’s pretty clear about the election’s date.) Also, all this dissonance can only help Democratic Houston mayor Bill White in the special election, who got some good news from the FEC yesterday: they issued an advisory opinion saying he can go ahead and additional funds for the special election that technically doesn’t exist yet. (It’s kind of complex; he’s already raised $4 million in his regular 2012 Senate fund, but now he can raise additional money from the same maxed-out donors in the new fund.)

• CA-Gov: It’s not just Democratic governors who are taking a hit in approvals. Arnold Schwarzenegger is running at 28% approval and 59% disapproval in California, according to PPIC. (By contrast, Obama is at 65/27 in the state!)

• PA-Gov: Rep. Jim Gerlach is making coy reference to an internal poll that shows him losing the GOP primary to AG Tom Corbett, but with “the profile” to win. The poll says Corbett beats Gerlach (and Pat Meehan) 39-11-7 overall, but that Gerlach leads in the Philly area and that he wins when only biographical info is read. (For those not familiar with the concept, the “biographical info” poll question is the internal polling equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.)

• UT-Gov/Sen/02: Here’s one more name to take off the Open Seat Watch: Jim Matheson verified that he will run for re-election to his House seat, rather than roll the dice on a Senate bid or a run in the 2010 gubernatorial special election (despite having a conceivable shot against as-yet-to-be-promoted Gary Herbert or whatever other weirdo makes it out of the convention process).

• AK-AL: Nice to see that Rep. Don Young isn’t being forgotten, despite the gravitation of all of Alaska’s Democratic talent (ex-state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz, State Sen. Hollis French) toward the gubernatorial race. State Rep. Harry Crawford says he’s interested in the race, and has met with the DCCC in DC about it.

• CT-04: Here’s a bullet dodged for Democrats, and a miss for the NRCC, who’ve haven’t had too many targets decline them lately: state Senate minority leader John McKinney, a noted environment-minded moderate and son of former Rep. Stewart McKinney, who represented the area prior to Chris Shays, said he won’t run against freshman Rep. Jim Himes. The GOP may look to fellow state Sen. Dan Debicella instead.

• HI-01: Another bit of good news on the recruiting front: state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa has met in DC with the DCCC about the open seat being left behind by gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie. She’d probably be our best bet at keeping ex-Rep. Ed Case from making a comeback.

• IL-07: The first Democratic candidate has filed for the open seat that Danny Davis is likely to leave behind. Darlena Williams-Burnett is the Cook County chief deputy recorder of deeds; she’s married to Chicago alderman Walter Burnett.

• MI-07: Although ex-Rep. Tim Walberg is committed to running to regain his seat from freshman Democrat Mark Schauer, it looks like he’ll have some competition in the primary and may not even be the establishment’s choice in the GOP primary. Brian Rooney, an attorney at the right-wing Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, brother of Florida Rep. Tom Rooney, and grandson of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, has been talking to the NRCC about the race.

• MN-03: One more recruiting tidbit. This one sounds like it’s far from a sure thing, but state Sen. Terri Bonoff has said she’s “undecided” but taking a MN-03 race “under consideration.” (Bonoff lost the DFL endorsement to Ashwin Madia in MN-03 last year.)

• TX-32: I’m not sure why stories involving blimps are just inherently funny, but Rep. Pete Sessions got into a bit of a blimp-related brouhaha. The ardent foe of all things earmark got busted by Politico, of all places, for very slowly and quietly steering a $1.6 million earmark for blimp construction to an Illinois company with no track record of government contracting, let alone blimp making — but it did have one of Sessions’ former aides lobbying for it.

• MN-Sen: Our long national nightmare is finally over: Senator Al Franken was sworn in today, without any weird last minute gambits by Norm Coleman. Harry Reid announced he’ll be on the HELP, Judiciary, Aging, and Indian Affairs Committees.

• KY-Sen: Jim Bunning, via his regular teleconference with reporters, reminds us that he’s still running for Senate. Bunning also thinks that he won’t outraise SoS Trey Grayson (who raised $600,000 in the 2nd quarter) for the quarter, but it doesn’t matter because Grayson won’t stay in the race if Bunning stays in too.

• OR-Gov: Here’s a surprise: Democratic rising star state Rep. Brian Clem suddenly made his presence known in the Oregon governor’s race, launching an exploratory committee and filling up his coffers with a $500,000 loan from his mother-in-law. The 37-year-old Clem, who has represented part of Salem since 2006, implied that he wouldn’t pull the trigger on a run, though, if former Gov. John Kitzhaber got into the race.

• SC-Gov: Mark Sanford may get to keep his job after all (thanks in part to Sarah Palin creating a distraction). The state GOP voted yesterday to censure Sanford over his doomed tango, rather than call for his resignation.

• HI-01: Roll Call takes a quick look at who might run for the seat being left behind by Rep. Neil Abercrombie. Top of the list is Ed Case, a Blue Dog who used to represent HI-02 but gave up his seat for an ill-fated primary run against Sen. Dan Akaka and pissed off a lot of the Democratic base along the way. They also cite state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, former state House majority leader Kirk Caldwell, state Democratic Party chair Brian Schatz, and also Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who’s currently exploring the governor’s race but conceivably could switch races if he doesn’t get any traction in the primary against Abercrombie. Also, we can’t rule out Republican Honolulu city councilor Charles Djou, who seems well-thought-of but faces a steep climb given the state’s lean.

• IL-07: CQ provides a similar laundry list of potential candidates in IL-07, assuming Rep. Danny Davis leaves an open seat to run for President of the Cook County Board instead. Davis’s former Chief of Staff Richard Boykin tops the list, but there’s also state Reps. LaShawn Ford and Karen Yarbrough, state Sen. Rickey Hendon, and Aldermen Dorothy Tillman and Ed Smith. (No mention of any Republicans here, unsurprising since it’s D+35.)

• NY-03: Here are some folks who’d especially like Rep. Peter King to Beat It, following his Off the Wall remarks disparaging the nonstop coverage of Michael Jackson. They’ve started “Michael Jackson Fans Against Peter King” on ActBlue and have already raised several thousand dollars for whoever steps up to run in the 3rd.

• NY-14: With Rep. Carolyn Maloney looking more likely to follow through on her Senate primary challenge, state Sen. Liz Krueger, whose turf closely overlaps the 14th, has been getting a lot of encouragement to run for the open seat. Krueger sounds politely interested, saying “I’ve never been in Congress so I don’t know if it’s less frustrating. But I suspect pretty much any job in the United States of America would be less frustrating than Albany in the last three weeks.”

• NY-23: A potentially strong candidate for the GOP nomination in the upcoming NY-23 special election has taken himself out of consideration: Assemblyman Will Barclay. Unfortunately for us, this may make the primary path easier for moderate GOP Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who would be a tougher general election foe; the more conservative Barclay, remember, was the loser of the state Senate special election to Darrel Aubertine last year. Two other minor GOPers added their names to the list as well: YMCA director Andrew Bisselle and businessman Bart Bonner.

• OH-15: His candidacy was already well in the works, but GOP former state Senator Steve Stivers made it official today that he’s seeking a rematch against Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, who barely won the open seat in 2008. Stivers may have an opening in 2010 if there’s less Obama-driven college turnout in this district dominated by Ohio St., and no pro-life independent candidate siphoning votes from his right flank.

• TN-09: Burned-out Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton seems to have a pattern and practice of delaying his planned resignations whenever things don’t quite go right for him. Herenton, who’d planned to resign in order to devote himself full-time to his primary challenge to Rep. Steve Cohen, pushed back his resignation date (planned for July 11) to July 30, citing some unfinished items of business.

• House: The Hill throws together an interesting catch-all of ten “dark horse” House races, one of which is already threatening to be top tier (TX-10), one of which features an intriguing Dem primary (FL-02), and some of which are interesting because of changing demographics (TX-32) or changing political tides (all three Dem seats in Arkansas).

• DGA/RGA: In keeping with the sense that the real battlegrounds in 2010 are going to be the gubernatorial races, the DGA and RGA are both raising like gangbusters. The DGA raised $11.6 million in the first half of the year, a record for them, but the RGA nosed ahead of them, raising $12.2 million.

• Census: A coalition of Colorado local governments joins New York’s legislature in laying out its own funds to help assist the Census Bureau in putting together an accurate count by reducing undercounting. While Colorado isn’t likely to gain or lose a House seat in 2010, it’s still important in terms of securing federal funds, and with much of the state’s growth coming among Latinos, the risk of undercounting is high.

• Campaign Finance: Florida’s Republican SoS, Kurt Browning, has decided not to appeal a federal court’s ruling that found a state law regulating 527s was unconstitutional. With major implications for the Florida governor’s race, now 527s can operate without disclosure requirements on who they are and who funds them. (Florida has strict $500 limits on individual contributions, so 527s are especially important there.)

• Trivia: Wondering who the last Governor to resign in mid-term to focus on a presidential run was? New York’s Nelson Rockefeller, in 1973. He never made it to the presidential run, although he did wind up briefly serving as Gerald Ford’s fill-in vice-president.

• DSCC: Friend of SSP and once-and-future DKos editor Arjun Jaikumar (f/k/a brownsox) is not just the DSCC’s new media guru – he’s also up for The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful in DC. Vote for the good-looking bastard by sending an email. (D)

Ugh:

Former Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) wants to come back to Capitol Hill. The former two-term Member entered the race Saturday for retiring Rep. Neil Abercrombie’s (D) seat.

Abercrombie announced last month that he was running for governor, opening up his Honolulu-based district for a slew of candidates in Hawaii looking to take higher office. Case represented the 2nd district for two full terms before stepping down in 2006 to challenge Sen. Daniel Akaka in the Democratic primary. Case lost his challenge to Akaka, but has since openly discussed another bid for governor or the House.

“I represented Manoa and Makiki for eight years in our state legislature, have crisscrossed the First in two statewide campaigns, and have addressed its needs in Congress,” Case said in a statement. “I know the First, and I know I can represent its 600,000 citizens well in Congress.”

In Hawaii, it is not uncommon or illegal for candidates to run in either Congressional district. Case’s predecessor, the late Rep. Patsy Mink (D) represented both districts over the course of her 24-year Congressional career.

Case is the only announced Democratic candidate so far, although Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, state House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell, state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and former state Rep. Brian Schatz have also been mentioned as possible candidates.

Hardcore DLC’er Ed Case hails from the same school which has produced some of our dimmest, most annoying lights: Harold Ford, Dan Boren, Bob Kerrey, Joe Lieberman. He sucked the first time he was in the House – hopefully a strong progressive like Colleen Hanabusa will get in so that we can help deny him a second opportunity to muck things up.

Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie made it pretty clear last December that he no longer had any ambitions in Washington, but he’ll soon be making it official. From the Politico:

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) will be stepping down from Congress at the end of his term to run for governor, according to a source close to the congressman.

Abercrombie will be making his announcement official this weekend with a video to supporters announcing his gubernatorial intentions.

Republicans have a hyped recruit for this race in Honolulu City Councilor Charles Djou, and are quick to point to Bush’s strong 47% showing in this district in 2004 as evidence that an open seat battle could get hot. But Djou will face long odds in a district that delivered 70% of its vote to Obama last November (according to SSP’s Prez-by-CD project) and where Republicans are dwindling in number further down the ballot.

So who will run on the Democratic side? The Politico has a few ideas:

On the Democratic side, former state House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell, Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hanneman, state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and former state Rep. Brian Schatz have all been mentioned as candidates.

Roll Call also mentions former Rep. Ed Case as a possible candidate. Barf.

We’re going to try out a new feature for weekday afternoons here at Swing State Project: four or five links to various items that we want to get out there but don’t feel like investing a diary’s worth of effort on. Enjoy the bullet points! (We encourage you to add your own bullet points in the comments, and otherwise treat this as an open thread.)

• UT-Sen: Daily Kos polls the 2010 Utah Senate race, where the action appears to be in the primary, but Bob Bennett looks safe for another 6 years. Bennett beats David Leavitt 44-23 in the primary, and, in the general, manhandles Rep. Jim Matheson 55-32 and Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings 57-21, not that we should expect either of them to run.

• OH-Sen: A third Dem has jumped into the primary field for the 2010 Senate race: state representative Tyrone Yates. He doesn’t have the stature of Fisher or Brunner, but as the only African-American and only Cincinnati-area candidate, he may well complicate things.

• WA-08: The first Dem challenger has announced, and it’s another wealthy ex-Microsoft executive, Suzan DelBene. Don’t look for her to have the field to herself this time, though.

• MN-Sen: In an indication that the Coleman camp has exhausted every possible legal argument that can win in court, he’s moved onto arguing that it was basically a tie so let’s just have a do-over election. Not the kind of thing that someone who has a hope of winning in court ever says.

• Census: The Congressional Black Caucus is pushing the White House to keep the Census within its portfolio even though reliable Dem Gary Locke will now be taking over at Commerce.

• Blogospheria: Blogger brainpower (including Jane Hamsher, Glenn Greenwald, Markos Moulitsas, and Nate Silver) and union bucks come together in the new Accountability Now PAC. The goal is to pressure (and where there’s a good target, primary) bad Dems and create more space for good Dems to maneuver on the left.

• RI-01: Republican state representative John Loughlin is strongly considering a suicide mission against challenge to Rep. Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy got 69% against no-names in his last two elections, but apparently his approval ratings are softening.

• HI-01: In another district where you might be surprised to know there’s an elected Republican, Honolulu city councilor Charles Djou has announced his candidacy for HI-01, which is expected to be vacated by Neil Abercrombie as he goes for governor. Djou claims the endorsement of every Republican in Hawaii’s legislature (all 7 of them).

• NC-Sen: Former state treasurer, and gubernatorial primary loser, Richard Moore won’t be getting involved in the Dem primary to take on Richard Burr in 2010. The field looks clearer for AG Roy Cooper.