Tag: CT-Sen

AR-Sen: Bill Halter has a new ad up going after Sen. Blanche Lincoln for her vote in favor of TARP – aka the bailout. As is all too often the case with these kinds of reports, there’s no indication of how big the ad buy is.

CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Man, the news cycle moves fast these days. The RNC bondage-themed nightclub scandal (which I’m sure you’ve read all about) already had some same-day blowback. GOP senate candidate Chuck DeVore says he’s “severed all ties” with Erik Brown, a consultant who seems to be responsible for the expenses racked up at Voyeur West Hollywood. The Daily Caller (which broke the story originally) also says that Brown did work for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner. Meanwhile, Politico’s Dave Catanese tweets that freshman Sen. Claire McCaskill is sending out a fundraising email for Barbara Boxer.

CT-Sen: In the somewhat strange Connecticut Republican senate primary, Paulist economist Peter Schiff has put out his first TV ad… and it doesn’t mention that he’s a Republican. Schiff is spending half a mil to run the ad statewide for two weeks. Schiff also promised to run in the August primary even if he doesn’t get the party nomination at the May convention.

KS-Sen: Things have gotten a little worse for Todd Tiahrt in his race against Jerry Moran in the GOP primary to succeed outgoing Sen. Sam Brownback: SUSA now shows Moran up 42-32. Two months ago, Moran led by seven points – and by just three two months before that. The Kansas primary is not until August 3rd, so Tiahrt still has time, but he doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction.

KY-Sen: Now things are getting good:

Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state, used his latest ad to again hammer his rival, Bowling Green eye surgeon Rand Paul, on national security issues.

“Paul even wonders whether 9/11 was our fault,” a female announcer says in the spot that began airing Thursday. The commercial then shows Paul speaking at a Blue Grass Policy Institute forum in March 2009, saying: “Maybe some of the bad things that happen are a reaction to our presence in some of these countries.”

I just hope that Grayson doesn’t nuke Paul before our nominee (hopefully Jack Conway) gets a chance to pummel him in the general.

NC-Sen: A good get for former state Sen. Cal Cunningham: Gen. Wesley Clark endorsed his fellow Army veteran for the Democratic senate nod. Interestingly, Clark specifically noted Cunningham’s support for ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

NY-Sen-B: Marist finds ex-Gov. George Pataki with the narrowest of leads over Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, 47-45, essentially unchanged from last month’s 48-45 margin. This is all well and good for Republicans, but Pataki hasn’t given the slightest indication that he’s interested in running.

GA-Gov: Looks like Nathan Deal didn’t quit quite fast enough. The Office of Congressional Ethics found (according to the NYT) that Deal “appeared to have improperly used his office to pressure Georgia officials to continue a vehicle inspection program that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for his family’s auto salvage business.”  I wonder how much of an impact this will have in the governor’s race, though, since Deal had mostly been floundering in the polls. Maybe it’ll just be the final nail in his political coffin – a suiting end for a party-switching ex-Democrat.

IA-Gov: GOP ex-Gov. and comeback hopeful Terry Branstad is up with his first TV ad of the campaign. No word on the size of the buy, though.

MD-Gov: The Baltimore Sun profiles would-be GOP gubernatorial candidate (and ex-gov) Bob Ehrlich and finds that his current job is “‘rainmaker’ for the Baltimore branch of North Carolina-based law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice. Ehrlich describes his job as being ‘the face of the firm,’ with his duties including ‘speeches, coffees, dinners, lunches, meetings.'” Sounds like Ehrlich’s been working on honing his Dan Coats/Tommy Thompson pedigree.

FL-08: Rep. Alan Grayson, one of the wealthiest members of Congress and a man who has largely self-funded his past campaigns, raised almost half a million dollars in a recent “moneybomb.”

NY-13: It looks like the GOP has some primary woes of its own in the 13th CD. Though the Republican establishment is coalescing around former FBI agent Mike Grimm, lawyer Michael Allegretti is vowing to fight on. He’s recently gone up with an ad on cable (so presumably a small buy) demanding repeal of the healthcare reform bill.

NY-23: Hah! Could the unlikable Doug Hoffman foment yet another right-wing split? Hoffman is laying claim to the Conservative Party line in this fall’s election, and he’s making the argument that whoever runs for the Republicans will need both lines in order to win. (Pretty plausible!) This is pissing off local GOP leaders, though, who are taking this as a threat to nominate Hoffman – or else face yet another divided ballot. This is some Fancy Feast-level cat fud we’re talking about.

NY-29: A more complete list of candidates interviewed by upstate Dems as potential nominees for the special election to fill ex-Rep. Eric Massa’s seat:

Mary Wilmot, an aide to Gov. David Paterson, Assemblyman David Koon of Perinton, past candidate for state Senate and businessman David Nachbar of Pittsford, Southern Tier native Matthew Zeller, and Michael McCormick of Allegany County

Wonder if we might be missing a name, though, since yesterday word was that the Dems would be interviewing six people.

OH-16, OH-18: CQ: “Businessman Jim Renacci, who is taking on freshman Rep. John Boccieri in the 16th district, and state Sen. Bob Gibbs, who is running against two-term Rep. Zack Space in the adjacent 18th district, established a joint fundraising committee, ‘Gibbs-Renacci for Congress’ and will split the proceeds evenly.”

PA-06: Manan Trivedi is chipping away at Doug Pike’s big lead among organized labor. He picked up a couple of local union endorsements, from the Transport Workers and the Iron Workers.

TN-08: Republican potentates are showering even more love on Steve Fincher, this time in the form of a campaign tour with GA Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (of “Obama is uppity” fame). Fincher has a lot of money, but like almost every GOP candidate with establishment backing, he faces a primary from ever-truer conservatives.

Census: There’s some speculation that anti-government attitudes (and paranoid black-helicopterism) might be the cause of low Census response rates in Texas. Though the biggest challenge for the Census is typically presented by undercounted groups like blacks and Latinos, some of the lowest response rates are in fact coming from very Republican counties. It’ll be very interesting to compare response rates and voting history when all is said and done.

Redistricting: Nathan Gonzales has a detailed look at the powers that are gathering on both sides for the upcoming post-census redistricting battle.

CT-Sen: Mike Slanker, former political director of the NRSC when John Ensign ran the organization, has been caught up in connection with the investigation of his former boss’s attempts to steer lobbying work to his mistress’s husband. Slanker is currently running Linda McMahon’s media operations as a consultant, but the campaign is mum on whether he’ll stay involved with them.

NV-Sen: Republicans are trying to nuke the nascent candidacy of Tea Partier Jon Ashjian. Apparently, Ashjian was still a registered Republican when he filed as the Tea Party candidate, which may run afoul of Nevada election laws.

MN-Gov: State Sen. Tom Bakk, who represents the northeastern part of Minnesota known as the Iron Range, has dropped out of the gubernatorial race, citing what he felt were his slim chances.

CA-19: SurveyUSA, an uncharacteristically quiet pollster this cycle, is offering up a poll of the Republican and Democratic primaries for the open seat of retiring GOP Rep. George Radanovich. For the Republicans, state Sen. Jeff Denham leads the way with 26%, followed closely by ex-Fresno mayor Jim Patterson with 25%. Ex-Rep. “Dirty” Dick Pombo lags behind at 13%, while Fresno city councilor Larry Westerlund gets 7%. For the Democrats, real estate consultant John Estrada leads physician/attorney Loraine Goodwin by 24-14, with retired thespian Les Marsden clocking in at 8%. (JL)

CA-20: I really can’t believe we missed this one. Term-limited GOP state Sen. Roy Ashburn had been considering a run against Dem Rep. Jim Costa as recently as December, and it looked like he could have posed a pretty serious challenge. In January, however, he did an abrupt about-face and said he was taking a break from public life. Perhaps it was a portent. A few weeks ago, Ashburn, who had long cultivated an anti-gay voting record, was arrested for drunk driving after leaving a gay nightclub. He subsequently admitted on a radio show that he is gay.

GA-09: Nathan Deal previously said that he’d wait until March 31 to resign from the House, but he only waited about 31 minutes after HCR passed to say sayonara. (JL)

IN-03, IN-Sen: Hah, check out this multidimensional episode of wingnut-on-wingnut violence. GOP Rep. Mark Souder is already on the air with negative radio ads against his opponent, wealthy car dealership owner Bob Thomas. Souder is dousing some haterade on Thomas, who until very recently was an Indianapolis-area resident, for his shallow roots in the district. Thomas, for his part, is blasting Souder for his hypocrisy, citing his endorsement of beltway lobbyist Dan Coats in the state’s Senate race. (JL)

MA-10: Who gets hurt by this move? Taking a page from the playbook of Tim Cahill, lobbyist and former four-term state Rep. Maryanne Lewis has “unenrolled” from the Democratic Party in an apparent step to run for the seat of retiring Dem Rep. Bill Delahunt as an independent. State Democrats are on the record as saying that a Lewis candidacy would hurt Republicans more than Democrats, given Lewis’ more conservative record in the state legislature. (JL)

MI-07: Republicans have found yet another specimen itching to take on frosh Dem Rep. Mark Schauer. Potterville city councilman Mike Stahly has thrown his hat into the race, where he’ll face ex-Rep. Tim Walberg and Rooney clan member Brian Rooney in the GOP primary. Stahly, who is unemployed in his spare time, says that he’ll be “the only candidate in the nation” to refuse donations from outside the district. Sounds like a winner! (JL)

ND-AL: North Dakota Republicans have opted to endorse state Rep. Rick Berg over North Dakota Public Service Commission Kevin Cramer as their standard bearer against Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy. Cramer now says that he’s “95 percent sure” that he’ll run for re-election to the PSC now that Congress isn’t an option. (JL) As it happens, Berg’s campaign manager resigned last week for abusing a state party email list and then lying about it.

NY-20: David Harper, who recently resigned as an assistant district attorney in Saratoga County, has dropped out of the race for the Republican nod to take on Rep. Scott Murphy this fall. Harper endorsed his opponent, retired Army Col. Chris Gibson, who pretty much seems to be the GOP frontrunner now. None of these guys have filed any FEC reports yet.

NY-24: Well that was monumentally stupid. Despite the risks of being branded as a John Kerry-esque flip-flopper, of losing the Working Families Party line, and of earning himself a union-backed primary challenge, dumb-as-rocks Rep. Mike Arcuri voted “no” on healthcare reform anyway. Even before the vote, labor was busy looking for someone to take Arcuri on in the primary, and they’re already talking to epidemiologist and professor Les Roberts, who briefly ran for this seat in 2006 (when it was open) before deferring to Arcuri. Roberts sounds pretty interested. Some other possible names (my own speculation) would include Cortland Mayor Bruce Tytler and Utica attorney Leon Koziol, both of whom also ran in 2006 before bowing out to avoid a contested primary.

PA-12: More good news for Mark Critz – Cambria County Controller Ed Cernic Jr. has decided to drop out of the Democratic primary for the late John Murtha’s seat, citing party unity as a pressing concern. Critz will now face Navy veteran Ryan Bucchianeri and attorney Ron Mackell, Jr. as his only competitors in the Democratic primary. (JL)

Quinnipiac (3/9-15, registered voters, 1/8-12 in parens):

Richard Blumenthal (D): 62 (62)

Rob Simmons (R): 26 (27)

Undecided: 10 (10)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 61 (64)

Linda McMahon (R): 28 (23)

Undecided: 10 (11)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 64 (66)

Peter Schiff (R): 21 (19)

Undecided: 13 (14)

(MoE: ±2.6%)

And the GOP primary:

Rob Simmons (R): 34 (37)

Linda McMahon (R): 44 (27)

Peter Schiff (R): 9 (4)

Undecided: 12 (28)

(MoE: ±5%)

Let me ask you this: If you were Rob Simmons, why would you possibly want to stay in this race? Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad to see him duke it out against McMahon’s millions instead of making more winnable runs for Governor or his own old Congressional seat, but staying on this course makes little sense if he actually is planning on winning something in November.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Lots of pollsters that I’ve never heard of seem to be coming out of the woodwork to poll California lately, and here’s yet another one of them: some firm called ccAdvertising. They polled the Republican primaries, finding, on the Senate side, that Tom Campbell leads at 24, with Carly Fiorina at 12 and Chuck DeVore at 8. On the gubernatorial side, Meg Whitman leads Steve Poizner 40-15.

• CO-Sen: Tonight is the first step in the Colorado caucus process, with precinct-level gatherings. The results are non-binding, really more of a straw poll than anything, but are monitored as a sign of candidates’ strength. (Of course, in 2004, neither Ken Salazar nor Pete Coors won the caucuses yet went on to win their primaries.) The bigger hurdle is in May, when candidates must clear 30% at the state assembly to make the primary ballot (although those that don’t can still get on by collecting signatures). With the Governor’s race pretty much locked down, there’s still action aplenty on both the Dem and GOP sides in the Senate. Michael Bennet comes into tonight’s caucuses with a boost: he just got the endorsement from the state’s AFSCME, which may help fight the perception that rival Andrew Romanoff is labor’s one horse in the race.

• CT-Sen: Paulist economist Peter Schiff is finally dipping into the spoils from his moneybombs, running ads on Connecticut radio introducing himself to Republican primary voters and touting his having predicted the financial crisis of 2008.

• ID-Sen: Democrats are already way ahead of where they were in their last race against Mike Crapo in 2004: they’re actually fielding a candidate. Two, in fact, have filed, although they’re little known: Tom Sullivan and William Bryk.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk is up with his first TV spot for the general election campaign, calling himself an “independent-minded Republican.” Having beaten back various teabagger challengers in the primary, he’s now free to label himself as such.

• MD-Sen: File this under news of the weird: Bob Ehrlich is confirming he’s interested in running for office this year, but one idea he’s floating is running for Senate against Barbara Mikulski instead of for Governor against Martin O’Malley. That’s a very strange choice, as Mikulski is more popular than O’Malley and generally considered unassailable, but maybe Ehrlich thinks he can goad the 73-year-old Mikulski into retirement.

• NC-Sen: Two polls of the Democratic primary in the Senate race show fairly different pictures, with the main difference being how well Cal Cunningham is keeping pace with Elaine Marshall. PPP’s most recent poll of the primary shows Cunningham gaining four points from last month, trailing Marshall 20-16, with 11 for Kenneth Lewis (up from 5). On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 58%, with his minor rivals all in the low single digits. Marshall, on the other hand, released her own internal yesterday, from Lake Research. The poll’s a little stale (in the field mid-February), so if the PPP poll reflects late movement to Cunningham, Marshall’s poll wouldn’t capture it. At any rate, her internal has her up 31-5 over Cunningham, with Lewis at 4.

• NJ-Sen: A weird-ass ruling from a New Jersey appellate court says the Tea Party may proceed with collecting recall petitions to recall Bob Menendez. The court, however, stayed its own decision in order to allow Menendez to appeal, presumably to a federal court which will disabuse the state judges of the notion that one can recall federal officials. (Adam B. points to the crux of the case here and here).

• AL-Gov, AR-Gov: Financial filings for gubernatorial candidates in Alabama and Arkansas are both available. In Alabama, Tim James ($2.6 mil) leads the GOPers, while Artur Davis ($2.1 mil) has the most cash among the Dems. In Arkansas, Mike Beebe is sitting on $1.2 million (having raised $313K in February); his opponent, Jim Keet, hasn’t been in long enough to report.

• ME-Gov: It looks like there won’t be a Green Party candidate on the ballot this year; Lynne Williams suspended her campaign after failing to gather the 2,000 required signatures. That’s good news for Dems, as this could turn out to be a close race (although with this little information and the fields this cluttered, who the hell knows?) and Greens often poll well in Maine, getting 9% of the vote in the convoluted 2006 gubernatorial election.

• PA-Gov (pdf): There was a gubernatorial portion to that poll from Republican pollster Susquehanna released yesterday, too. As with every poll of this race, undecideds are still very heavy, but Republican AG Tom Corbett leads Democratic state Auditor Jack Wagner 37-26, and leads Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato 39-24. Wagner has been dominating in terms of getting the endorsements of county-level party apparatuses, and he picked up one more yesterday, getting the nod from Cambria County (i.e. Johnstown) Democrats.

• WY-Gov: To almost no one’s surprise, Republican state House speaker Colin Simpson pulled the trigger, officially entering the gubernatorial race. (If his name sounds familiar, he’s the son of popular ex-Sen. Alan Simpson.) He faces three other high-profile GOPers, while Democrats, sorting out what to do after Dave Freudenthal’s late decision not to seek a third term, are still lining up a candidate.

• AK-AL: Rep. Don Young is refusing to get with the program, as far as the GOP’s new self-imposed ban on earmarks goes. Considering that Young seems most valued by his constituents for his ability to bring home the bacon (which may have saved his bacon twice, in both the primary and general in 2008), that may actually be the politically savvy thing for him to do.

• HI-01: The first debate was held in the special election in the 1st, and it may be most interesting in that ex-Rep. Ed Case was trying to stake out positions that sound pretty, well, Democratic. Case spoke out in favor of both health care reform and the stimulus package. Moderate Republican Charles Djou tried to differentiate himself by railing against both.

• IA-03: I don’t know if this is just one ex-wrestling coach sticking up for another, or if there’s an establishment movement afoot to coronate Jim Gibbons in the 3rd, but ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert is showing up to host a Des Moines fundraiser for Gibbons tomorrow. They’ll be joined by ex-Rep. Greg Ganske.

• PA-07: I love the smell of cat fud in the morning. While former local Fox affiliate news anchor Dawn Stensland didn’t file to run in the Republican primary as has been rumored, now she’s not ruling out an independent, teabagger-powered run instead. While she hasn’t begun gathering signatures, she is looking to move into the 7th. Even if she only garners a few percent, that could still tip the balance in what promises to be a very close race between Democrat Bryan Lentz and GOPer Pat Meehan.

• House: The Hill has an interesting survey of eight different primaries where the one participant’s vote on TARP could weigh heavily on the results (as it seemed to do in the Texas gubernatorial primary). Most are on the GOP side, but one Dem race to watch is PA-11, where Paul Kanjorski, the chair of the House subcommittee on Capital Markets, was one of TARP’s architects.

• NRCC: The NRCC is threatening to go on the air against Dems who change from “no” to “yes” votes on HCR, targeting them with the dread “flip-flop” label that served them so well in 2004. They have 42 Dems in mind to target, although there’s still the little wee matter of the NRCC finding the money to pay for the ads.

• NY-St. Sen.: Tonight’s the special election in SD-13 in Queens, where Hiram Monserrate is trying to win back the seat he just got kicked out of after his assault conviction. Monserrate, now an indie, is running against Democratic Assemblyman Jose Peralta. Peralta had a dominant lead in the one poll of the race made public.

• Ads: With the Demon Sheep and Boxer Blimp ads having established Carly Fiorina’s campaign as the new gold standard in bizarre advertising, Huffington Post has a nice wrapup of some of the other craziest political ads of the last few years, ranging from the well-known (Mike Gravel skipping rocks, Big John Cornyn) to the “huh?” (Nancy Worley on strangling cats).

• TV: Obsessive-compulsive political junkies and opposition researchers alike are dancing a jig right now, as C-Span has announced that it’s releasing its entire archives onto the Web. All 160,000 hours worth. (If you don’t have a calculator handy, that’s 18 years.)

• Redistricting: Eager not to get behind the redistricting 8-ball in 2012 like they were ten years ago, the DLCC has launched a $20 million push aimed at keeping control of state legislatures in key states. They point to “swing” chambers in 17 states that have the capacity to affect almost half of all House seats. Dem-held chambers they’re focusing on are the Alabama State Senate, Colorado State Senate, Indiana House, Nevada State Senate, New Hampshire State Senate, New York State Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Assembly and the Wisconsin State Senate, while GOP-held chambers are the Michigan State Senate, Missouri House, Oklahoma State Senate, Tennessee House, and the Texas House.

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln is up with her first ad, as she runs for the Republican nomination for the Senate race. Wait… what? She’s running as a Democrat? Hmmm, that’s not what her ad says, as it’s a list of every which way she’s bucked the Democratic party line in the last year (and closing by saying “I don’t answer to my party, I answer to Arkansas”). That’d make sense if she were running in the general election, but there’s a little matter of her having to get out of the primary first… Meanwhile, the base continues to abandon Lincoln; today it was EMILY’s List, who say they won’t be lifting a finger to help Lincoln. She may still get a lifeline from Bill Clinton, though, who’s continuing to back her. And Bill Halter better be committed to seeing this Senate primary thing through, because state Sen. Shane Broadway just filed to run to keep the Lt. Governor spot in Democratic hands.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Republican polling firm Magellan (apparently not working on behalf of any candidates) issued more polls of the two Republican primaries in California. The polls are pretty much in line with what everyone else is seeing: on the Senate side, Tom Campbell leads at 33, followed by Carly Fiorina at 20 and Chuck DeVore at least cracking double-digits at 11. For the gubernatorial race, Meg Whitman is cruising, beating Steve Poizner 63-12.

• CT-Sen: When it comes to the Connecticut senate race, Dick Blumenthal is the Superfly TNT. Hell, he’s the Guns of the Navarone. In fact, he lays a massive mushroom cloud on Linda McMahon (60-31), Rob Simmons (58-32) and Peter Schiff (57-27) alike — and yes, this is according to Rasmussen. (D)

• IL-Sen: In an interview with the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board, Alexi Giannoulias said he believes his family’s bank is likely to get EATED (as Atrios would say) by the FDIC in the coming months. Perhaps worse, the Trib says that Giannoulias isn’t being forthcoming about what he knew about the bank’s loans to convicted bookmaker and pimp (i.e. mobster) Michael “Jaws” Giorango. Ugh. (D)

• KY-Sen: If the Dems are seeing a bit of an uptick in selected polls lately, they aren’t seeing it in Kentucky yet, at least not if Rasmussen has anything to say about it. Rand Paul leads Jack Conway 46-38 and Dan Mongiardo 49-35, while Trey Grayson leads Conway 45-35 and Mongiardo 44-37. Not much change in the trendlines, except for, oddly, Mongiardo’s standing vis-à-vis Grayson improves while Conway’s slips. Meanwhile, Conway is hitting the airwaves with a new TV spot, wisely taking Jim Bunning’s one-man crusade against unemployed people and hanging it around the necks of Paul and Grayson.

• NJ-Sen: Apparently the 2010 elections are just too boring. Farleigh Dickinson University tested Sen. Bob Menendez versus his 2006 opponent, Tom Kean, Jr., finding a tie (39-38 for Kean, with 17% undecided). Seriously, though, testing horserace numbers this far out just seems silly. Can you imagine what similar polls would have shown for the GOP in 2004? (D)

• NV-Sen: Jon Ralston sits down for a chat with erstwhile Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian, a.k.a. the only man who can inadvertently save Harry Reid. Ashjian, a wealthy contractor (whose company has more than its share of complaints and liens), plans to fund his own way, and discounts claims that he’s somehow being put up to it by the Reid camp as a vote-splitter.

• NY-Sen-B: Sigh, what could have been… Harold Ford Jr. met with Karl Rove in 2004 to discuss the possibility of running for Senate in Tennessee in 2006… as a Republican. Ford isn’t denying the meeting, but, in his, um, defense? says that it was Rove’s idea.

• UT-Sen: Bob Bennett keeps on being a punching bag for the GOP’s right wing, and today the Club for Growth weighed in with an anti-Bennett ad, airing on (where else?) the Fox News Channel in Utah. It’s targeted purely at state GOP insiders, urging them to send anti-Bennett delegates to the state nominating convention. The CfG hasn’t settled on one particular candidate they’re for; all they know is who they’re against.

• GA-Gov: PPP follows up its Georgia general election numbers from yesterday with a look at the Republican gubernatorial primary. (The Democratic primary seems to look like an adequately foregone conclusion to them.) No surprises: Insurance Comm. John Oxendine leads at 27, followed by Karen Handel at 19, Nathan Deal at 13, Austin Scott and Eric Johnson at 3, and Jeff Chapman and Ray McBerry at 2.

• MD-Gov: There’s been lots of focus on the leaked RNC strategy document today, mostly for its rather shameless descriptions of its fundraising plans. There are a few noteworthy strategic items here, though — maybe most interestingly, they’ve totally left Michael Steele’s home state of Maryland off the list of gubernatorial races they’re pushing. It remains to be seen whether it’s because Bob Ehrlich isn’t getting in after all, they don’t think he has a ghost of a chance, or just general RNC bungling. (Also interesting: on the Senate side, they’re even targeting Charles Schumer, but they’ve left off Patty Murray, which may suggest it isn’t getting any better for the GOP than Don Benton in Washington.)

• MI-Gov: Two endorsements in the pipeline in the Michigan gubernatorial race. Mike Huckabee weighed in on the GOP side, picking AG Mike Cox, calling him the “pro-life, pro-gun” candidate over the probably more right-wing Rep. Peter Hoekstra. (I’m not sure how much pull Huckabee has in Michigan. As for me, I’m waiting to see who Ted Nugent endorses.) On the Dem side, this is still purely rumor, but the word is that the United Auto Workers plan to endorse Lansing mayor Virg Bernero (who showed he had their backs with his passionate televised defenses of the auto bailout). The stamp of the state’s most powerful union would go a long way toward uniting union backing behind one Dem.

• NY-Gov: The clock seems to be ticking even louder for David Paterson, as today one of his top aides, spokesperson Peter Kauffmann, resigned and distanced himself. Kauffmann said that, in light of the ethics ruling about the World Series tickets, he could no longer “in good conscience continue.”

• OH-Gov, OH-01: VPOTUS Watch: Joey Joe Joe Biden Shabadoo will visit Cleveland on March 15 to do a fundraiser for Gov. Ted Strickland. He’ll also be doing a separate event for Rep. Steve Driehaus. (D)

• AR-01: The fields for both sides in the open seat left behind by Rep. Marion Berry are slow to take shape, but it looks like the Democrats found a decent-sounding candidate who can bring some of his own money with him. Terry Green, an orthopedic surgeon with his own practice, has filed, sounding some populist notes in his first comments to the press.

• IL-08: Ah, the party of fiscal responsibility. Joe Walsh, the GOP’s candidate in the 8th, stopped making mortgage payments on his Evanston condominium in May 2009 and lost it to foreclosure in October. Putting a positive spin on it, Walsh says “This experience helped me gain a better appreciation for the very real economic anxieties felt by 8th District families.”

• MI-03: Here’s a positive development: Democrats are actually lining up to contest the R+6 open seat in Grand Rapids left behind by retiring GOP Rep. Vern Ehlers. Former Kent Co. Commissioner Paul Mayhue is about to enter the Dem field, where he’ll join attorney Patrick Miles.

• MI-06: Ex-state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, who was badly beaten by Carl Levin in 2008’s Senate race, is now setting his sights on knocking off incumbent Rep. Fred Upton in the Republican primary. Hoogendyk, who has yet to make a decision on the race, sent out an email to supporters blasting Upton for his votes in favor of TARP, No Child Left Behind, and S-CHIP. Upton’s district has an even PVI, and went for Bush twice by seven-point margins before Obama won the district by a comfy 54-45 spread in ’08. (J)

• NH-01: A run in the 1st by RNC committee member Sean Mahoney is now looking much likelier, even though he’d scoped out the race and decided against it last year. Last year, it was looking like former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta had the nomination to himself, but Guinta’s bad fundraising and bad press have lured a few other contenders into the GOP field.

• NY-15: With Charlie Rangel’s position looking increasingly precarious, CQ takes a look at some possible names who might replace him, should he decide not to seek another term (including state Sen. Bill Perkins, Assemblymen Keith Wright and Adriano Espaillat, and city councilors Inez Dickens and Robert Jackson). He already has a few primary challengers – former aide Vincent Morgan and possibly Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV. Meanwhile, the chairmanship of Rangel’s Ways & Means Committee has hopscotched around in the last few days, to California’s Pete Stark and today to the less-controversial Michigan’s Sander Levin. The chair of this powerful committee (which oversees tax laws) tends to rake in tons of campaign contributions – and dole them out to fellow caucus members, so it’s worth keeping an eye on who actually replaces Rangel on a permanent basis. (This is also why so many peeps have returned money to Rangel – because he’s given out so much.) (D)

• New York: Could he really be eyeing a comeback? According to Time Magazine, Eliot Spitzer is “bored out of his mind” these days, but also says he doesn’t want to subject his family to the inevitable ugliness that would ensue if he ran for something again. Meanwhile, former Spitzer confidante Lloyd Constantine, the man Spitzer called right before the news of his involvement with prostitutes broke, has turned on his former mentee with a new tell-all book. The stars are definitely not aligned for Spitz, if they ever were. (D)

• Maps: You know you love them (otherwise you wouldn’t be at SSP). And jeffmd has a whole new bunch of ’em, looking at the results of the Texas Republican gubernatorial primary and how they might translate into the general.

• Healthcare: The Wall Street Journal has a chart laying out how members of the House might vote on the next iteration of the healthcare reform bill, listing public statements (if any) they’ve made since the last vote. This really should be in wiki form, though – for instance, they don’t have Mike Arcuri’s remarks (see Morning Digest). (D)

• Redistricting: The NYT takes a look at the people who applied for a spot on California’s state legislative redistricting commission. Fourteen spots have been set aside for ordinary citizens… and 31,000 people (including probably at least a few SSPers!) applied. Progress Illinois also has a detailed look today at the new proposals underway to make the redistricting process fairer (or at least less random).

• Blogosphere: Finally, we’re sad to see one of our favorite blogs apparently calling it quits. Over the last two years, Campaign Diaries became a must-read, both for insightful analysis and for making sure that no comings-and-goings in any races fell through the cracks. We wish Taniel well in his next endeavors.

• CA-Sen: Possibly the most bizarre political ad (well, web video) of all time has just gotten unveiled by the Carly Fiorina campaign, which makes their “Carlyfornia Dreaming” website look reasoned and well-thought-out. I mean, they’re going to be studying this in political rhetoric classes 50 years from now, as an example of what not to do. Not only is the imagery laughable (check out the glowing-eyed demon sheep at 2:24) but the metaphor completely falls apart (Tom Campbell is a “FCINO” (financial conservative in name only) and thus a crafty wolf, while good politicians are a herd of helpless mindless sheep?).

• CT-Sen: Even Rasmussen can’t find a way to put a happy face on the tombstone piledriver the Connecticut GOP suffered with the Chris Dodd-for-Richard Blumenthal swap. They find Blumenthal leading ex-Rep. Rob Simmons 54-35 and Gorgeous Lady of Wrestling Linda McMahon 56-36. Simmons is actually very well-liked, at 60/26 favorables, but that’s no match for Blumenthal at 70/27.

• IL-Sen: Republicans can content themselves with Rasmussen’s first post-primary poll of the Senate field; they find GOP Rep. Mark Kirk leading Dem state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias 46-40. This, of course, doesn’t jibe with not only last week’s PPP poll (with a 42-34 Alexi lead) but the last Rasmussen poll of the general, from December (with a 42-39 Alexi lead). Both those polls predate the strangely-timed consent decree between the FDIC and the Giannoulias-family-owned Broadway Bank, so it’s possible Giannoulias might have taken a hit from that. Also, Rasmussen’s numbers aren’t that far off from an internal (pdf) from Magellan that the Kirk campaign was quick to release yesterday: 47-35. One suggestion that might cast a little doubt on the samples, though, is Barack Obama’s approval ratings in his home state, oddly low at 54% and 51% respectively, only a few points ahead of his national average.

• IN-Sen: Ex-Sen. Dan Coats is leaving himself a lot of elbow room with the way he’s carefully phrased what he’s doing: “as I test the waters for a potential challenge…” I realize that SSP is pretty much powerless to change the nature of the political discourse, but we’re getting very tired of the whole “I’m not running, but I’m running, wink wink” kabuki that seems to be standard practice these days (John Boozman, we’re talking to you too). We fully intend to change the rating on this race, but not until Coats truly and officially gets in. At any rate, Coats may be wise leaving himself an escape hatch, if the dribs and drabs like this one keep piling up: one of his lobbying clients has been Hugo Chavez-connected oil company Harvest Natural Resources (but, then, making nice with Chavez is IOKIYAR, I guess).  

• WI-Sen: If you’re looking for a tea leaf on whether or not ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson is interested in taking on Russ Feingold this year, look no further: he just took a position as an advisor to a hedge fund. He’ll consult with Peak Ridge Capital Group on agribusiness matters. Not only will that keep him occupied in the near future, but it’s not really the kind of thing you want on your resume if trying to run at a time of anti-banker agitas. (Another hint: the talk of an ex-Rep. Mark Neumann switch from the Governor’s race, to a rematch with Feingold, suddenly bubbling up.)

• IL-Gov: We have winners in the gubernatorial primaries, as all of Illinois’s precincts reported by the end of the day yesterday. Pat Quinn wound up with a more than 8,000 vote margin over Dan Hynes (good for 50.4%), and Hynes conceded this morning. On the Republican side, state Sen. Kirk Dillard didn’t make up as much ground in Cook County on fellow state Sen. Bill Brady as anticipated, and Brady wound up finishing with a 406-vote margin. There’s no automatic recount law in Illinois, so it’s up to Dillard to decide whether or not to proceed with a challenge.

Meanwhile, down the ballot, both parties seem somewhat aghast at the winners of their Lt. Governor primaries. News came out today that pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen, winner of the Democratic nod, was arrested four years ago for misdemeanor assault after holding a knife to the throat of a girlfriend (who had also been convicted of prostitution). Needless to say, Quinn is already distancing himself from Cohen, calling on him to step aside. (Although Governor and Lt. Governor are elected separately in primaries, they’re then lashed together as a ticket for the general, which is how Rod Blagojevich and Quinn got put together despite their antipathy – I’m not sure if any other state does it that way.) Which isn’t to say that the Republicans fared much better on that front, nominating random teabagging businessman Jason Plummer (who, like Cohen, won by pouring his own money into the race) instead of state Sen. Matt Murphy.

• NY-Gov: I can’t see this being of any interest unless something goes seriously wrong and we somehow wind up with a David Paterson/Rick Lazio matchup and we need to shunt off some right-wing votes to get Paterson over the hump. But now there’s a teabagger-linked rich guy, Buffalo real estate developer Carl Paladino, saying that he’s considering a gubernatorial run, and that he “would go in as a pure independent.”

• PA-Gov: Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato has the big financial edge in the Dem gubernatorial primary, and now he has some key labor backing as well. The Teamsters are the first major union to endorse in the primary, and they went for Onorato.

• TX-Gov: Looks like there’s going to be a crazy Wang Dang Tango at Rick Perry’s Houston rally on Sunday: not only is Sarah Palin going to be there to endorse Perry, but so too is the Motor City Madman, the Ten Terrible Fingers of Doom, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Caveman: Ted Nugent (who plans to perform). In case you’re wondering where the normally reserved and understated Nugent stands on all things political, he recently said: “I think that Barack Hussein Obama should be put in jail. It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist. Mao Tse Tung lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I wanna throw up.”

• AR-01: The first Democrat making moves to replace retiring Rep. Marion Berry is Berry’s very own Chief of Staff, Chad Causey, who has already scheduled a fundraiser. State Sen. Steve Bryles, state Rep. Keith Ingram, and former state party chair Jason Willett are other Dems publicly eyeing the race. For the GOP, broadcaster Rick Crawford probably won’t have the race to himself, with state Sen. Johnny Key interested. Princella Smith is also likely to get in – she’ll definitely need a new job starting in November, as she’s currently a staffer to Rep. Joe Cao.

• FL-24: The 24th seems like an apt target for Republicans, with a Republican lean and freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas not quite finding her footing – but fundraising has gone poorly for the two GOPers in the race, state Rep. Sandy Adams and Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel, neither of whom has broken into the six digits in the last few quarters. The NRCC is now touting the likely entry of Craig Miller, the former CEO of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouses. He’s never held office before, but at least he brings his own money with him.

• NC-10: In the dark-red 10th, the only way odious chickenhawk Rep. Patrick McHenry is going to get dislodged is in a GOP primary – and it’s starting to look like that’s a possibility this year. Not one but two different opponents have outraised him (although mostly by dipping into their own wallets): dentist and Iredell Co. Commissioner Scott Keadle and businessman Vance Patterson. Keadle has some electoral experience, coming within 14 points of Mel Watt in NC-12 in 1998, during the brief period when the frequently-modified VRA district had a sizable white plurality. Keadle claims to be coming at McHenry from the right, which is hard to fathom as McHenry is already one of the most stridently conservative members of the House.

• NH-01: Another one-time NRCC fave who’s fallen by the side of the road somewhat as he’s put up quarter after quarter of mediocre fundraising is former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta. Sensing an opening, several other contenders have gotten into the GOP field; one, Richard Ashooh, has been exploring the race but made it official today. He comes with his own set of insider credentials, though: he’s the VP of governmental relations for large locally-based defense contractor BAE Systems.

• NY-23: Talk about not learning from the past. If Assemblyman Will Barclay wins the GOP nomination, he may find himself getting Scozzafavaed by the same guy. Doug Hoffman plans to run on both the Republican and Conservative lines, but Conservative party chair Mike Long says he’ll continue to back Hoffman on the Conservative line even if Hoffman loses the Republican primary.

• Redistricting: There’s still a chance to get on the newly-created California legislative redistricting board. The deadline to submit an application is Feb. 12. The state is taking notice that 73% of applicants are non-Hispanic whites and 70% are males, neither of which is very representative of the state’s makeup, and is shelling out for a last-minute outreach campaign to bring in some more minority applicants. Part of the problem is that applicants can’t have run for office or worked for a politician, which filters out many of the most politically engaged in minority communities. At any rate, it’s an opportunity to get more progressives behind the wheel of shaping a more competitive legislative map for next year, so any SSPers in the Golden State are urged to apply.

• AZ-Sen: Ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth has made it pretty clear already that he’s taking on John McCain in the Republican Senate primary, and now he’s made it official when he’s going to make it official. The launch date for his campaign: Feb. 15.

• CT-Sen, CT-02: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons did a whole lot of bobbing and weaving when an interviewer yesterday kept pressing him on the issue of whether he’d consider dropping down to run for his old House seat again (although a spokesperson followed up afterwards, saying he will not running for anything else, “period”). The idea has to be tempting to Simmons, though, who just watched his Senate dreams vaporize with Democratic AG Richard Blumenthal’s entry, and who may by enviously eyeing efforts by some of the other 2006 victims (like Mike Fitzpatrick) to turn back the clock.

• KS-Sen: There’s still six months to go before their Republican Senate primary, but time’s running out for Rep. Todd Tiahrt to make a move against fellow Rep. Jerry Moran. Moran leads this month’s SurveyUSA poll 40-33 (two months ago Tiahrt pulled within 3, but that’s the closest he’s been). Moran is currently up 38-23 in the state’s northeast, which will be the decisive region (as they each have their respective districts already locked down).

• NV-Sen: File this under “it’s bad news even if you have to be out there repeatedly saying this,” but Harry Reid again denied (this time to Las Vegas political reporter Jon Ralston) that he’d drop out of his fizzling Senate race to make way for a different candidate. On the GOP side, one potential opponent, Sue Lowden, is up with her first TV spot, a soft-focus biographical ad. Taking note of these developments, no doubt, are Dick Durbin and Charles Schumer; insiders are observing that the two of them are both busy doling out campaign cash to their colleagues in order to build loyalties for what looks like the fight to be the next majority leader.

• NY-Sen-B: In case you missed it, last night’s point-by-point dismantling of Harold Ford Jr. by Stephen Colbert is a must-see. It clearly wasn’t the coming-out gala that Ford had envisioned.

• UT-Sen: The establishment is riding to the rescue for Bob Bennett, who could be threatened in this year’s primary if the teabagging rabble somehow coalesced behind one of his many opponents. The NRSC just handed $43K to Bennett’s campaign (an important sign to other institutional contributors), and Newt Gingrich is headlining a big-bucks fundraiser for Bennett.

• CA-Gov: Republican pollster McLaughlin & Associates (apparently not working on behalf of any of the candidates) released a poll of the Republican gubernatorial primary, finding zillionairess Meg Whitman leading zillionaire Steve Poizner, 39-12. Apparently they were in the field when Tom Campbell bailed out, as they also offer up a three-way head-to-head, which was 31 Whitman, 17 Campbell, 5 Poizner.  

• CT-Gov: A couple comings and goings in Connecticut today: as expected, Danbury mayor Mark Boughton got in the Republican field. On the Democratic side, state Sen. Gary LeBeau, who’d been polling in the low single digits, dropped out. In a moment of unusual honesty for a politician, LeBeau said, “The state has no idea who Gary LeBeau is.”

• OR-Gov: This is a bit of a surprise, but in the wake of Al Gore’s endorsement, it’s certainly an indication that ex-SoS Bill Bradbury (something of an underdog in the Democratic primary against ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber) has some powerful friends back in DC. Howard Dean will appear at several fundraisers for Bradbury in Oregon next week.

• FL-08: Here’s another surprise: brash 20-something real estate developer Armando Gutierrez dropped out of the GOP field in the 8th, despite having attracted a lot of favorable buzz and even picked up a few endorsements from members of Florida’s House delegation. The national party never warmed up to him, though, seemingly put off by his line-crashing, and he may have finally gotten the message, between the NRCC’s preferred pick, businessman Bruce O’Donoghue, officially filing yesterday, and the endorsement by neighboring Rep. Cliff Stearns of yet another Republican in the crowded field, state Rep. Kurt Kelly.

• FL-19: In all the madness over the Illinois primaries today, it’s been almost universally forgotten that the primary in the safely-blue 19th to replace resigned Rep. Robert Wexler is also today. It’s hardly worth a look, though, as state Sen. Ted Deutch pretty much has it locked down, having raised many times more money than anyone else and nailed down the establishment endorsements. Former Broward Co. Commissioner Ben Graber is the only other candidate of note.

• IN-04: Despite the advantages that his statewide profile brings him, SoS Todd Rokita won’t have the GOP field to replace retiring Rep. Steve Buyer to himself. He’ll have to face state Sen. Brandt Hershman too. Hershman has one key advantage himself: he works as an aide to Buyer, and has Buyer’s backing.

• NV-03: Here’s some good news for ex-state Sen. Joe Heck: he just got $10K to go toward his campaign against vulnerable Dem freshman Rep. Dina Titus. The bad news is: that $10K came from the PAC of John Ensign, who just won’t stop trying to make himself useful to Nevada’s other Republicans despite the fact that he’s about as popular as shingles right now. But then Heck got some more good news: he won’t face a seriously contested primary, as self-funding businessman Rob Lauer dropped his teabaggish challenge to Heck to run for SoS instead.

• NY-13: A lot of people are asking who Michael Grimm is, after he banked over $300K last quarter to go up against Democratic Rep. Michael McMahon. He’s a former FBI agent, who apparently has a lot of friends in high places… in places outside of his district. Only $3,500 of that amount came from within the actual district, and $2,000 of that was from Staten Island Republican guru Guy Molinari.

• NY-14: Live by the primary challenge, die by the primary challenge. Rep. Carolyn Maloney now faces one of her own, a well-funded challenge from the apparent right from 30-something attorney Reshma Saujani, who has previously raised serious dollars within the Indian-American community for other Democratic candidates. Saujani, believe it or not, is running on an unashamedly pro-Wall Street platform (although this is maybe the one district in the country where that might still work).

• PA-06: Two more prominent local Democrats who had endorsed Doug Pike when he was the only game in town have switched their endorsements to Manan Trivedi instead. Significantly, they’re both in Berks County (which is also where Trivedi is from, and which is where Dems have tended to run the weakest in the district in the past): Reading mayor Tom McMahon and Berks Co. Commissioner Kevin Barnhardt.

• TN-01: Would you believe that there’s a Republican who lost in one of the wave elections who isn’t running for something this year? However, before you get too excited, it’s ex-Rep. David Davis, who’d been mulling a third matchup against Rep. Phil Roe, who knocked him off in a GOP primary in this super-red district in eastern Tennessee. The not-insane Roe may be the best we can hope for in this district, especially compared with Davis, who’d been making outreach to the local teabaggers in preparation for another run.

• WV-03: A credible challenger to Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall sneaked under the rope at the filing deadline: former state Supreme Court justice Elliott Maynard. Maynard was, until recently, a Democrat, but switched parties pushed along largely by his perception of Democrats’ anti-coal environmental policies (and no doubt also influenced by West Virginia’s reddish turn over the last decade).

• OH-SoS: This was painless and easy: not only did a more progressive alternative to conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison get into the Secretary of State race – Franklin Co. Court Clerk Maryellen O’Shaughnessy – but she won’t even face a contested primary. Getting the message that her establishment support was practically nil, Garrison got out of the race. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the GOP establishment seems to have settled the trouble it was having finding a replacement Auditor candidate after Mary Taylor ditched the job to run for Lt. Governor. They got Delaware Co. Prosecutor Kevin Yost to switch over from the AG’s race, where he was facing ex-Sen. Mike DeWine in a primary. That caused a lot of consternation among the state’s right-wingers, though – they were looking forward to Yost picking off the unacceptably moderate (and generally underwhelming) DeWine in the primary. Both the SoS and Auditor positions are key from a redistricting perspective, as along with the Governor they control the state’s legislative redistricting process.

• Republicans: If you haven’t checked out the details of Research 2000’s in-depth poll of the state of what Republicans believe today, please do. Although I’m not really still sure what to do with all this knowledge… except maybe acknowledge that you can’t negotiate with such irrational actors.

• Redistricting: CQ’s Josh Kurtz takes an interesting look at redistricting in California over the decades, as seen through the prism of a new book that covers the many ups and downs of legendary California Rep. Philip Burton. Will it be an incumbent protection map or an aggressive push, and how will the state’s fast-growing Latino population be accommodated?

• AR-Sen: Despite the seemingly imminent entry of Rep. John Boozman into the GOP field in the Arkansas Senate race, soon-to-be-former-frontrunner state Sen. Gilbert Baker says he’s staying in the race. The alternative would be to run for Baker, who represents Little Rock suburbs, to run for the open seat in AR-02 instead – but there he’d face a tough primary against Beltway GOP favorite Tim Griffin, who’s already established a solid fundraising foothold. (Some of the seven dwarves in the GOP field, who seem concentrated in the state’s right-leaning northwest, may be interested in switching to Boozman’s open seat in AR-03, though.) And unbelievably, yet another Republican is interested in getting in the Senate race: former NFL player Jim Lindsey is readying for a bid. Lindsey is a real estate developer and former University of Arkansas trustee.

• AZ-Sen: Sarah Palin is still dancin’ with the one who brung her. She announced yesterday that she’ll appear on behalf of John McCain, who plucked her from near-obscurity and is now needs a favor of his own as he’s facing a primary challenge from the right from ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth. Needless to say, this provoked a lot of disappointment from her supporters among the teabagging set, who would prefer to see her stab McCain in the back and then field dress him.

• CO-Sen: With right-wingers filled with antipathy toward establishment choice ex-Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, there’s been a lot of casting about for an alternative. Weld County DA Ken Buck seems more and more like he’ll be that guy, as he’s been making common cause with the Paulists, who are now planning to pay for a statewide advertising campaign on Buck’s behalf. Meanwhile, on the Dem side, primary challenger Andrew Romanoff is trying to energize his sleepy campaign with a big hire – pollster Celinda Lake, whose previously sterling reputation got driven off a cliff with her handling of the Martha Coakley campaign.

• CT-Sen: There’s not much left to see for the 2010 race, but everyone’s thinking ahead to 2012, with the new rumor afoot that – with the Senate Kennedy-free for the first time in more than half a century – Ted Kennedy Jr. may run against Joe Lieberman in 2012. Lieberman himself is up to his usual asshattery, speculating out loud that he could conceive of becoming a Republican, and also saying that he might support Linda McMahon in the 2010 race… seeing as how Richard Blumenthal (tepidly) supported Lamont in the 2006 general while McMahon supported Lieberman. Apparently Lieberman learned his politics from watching the Godfather: it’s not business. Just personal. (Lieberman also seems to be a believer in leaving the cannoli, and taking the guns.)

• FL-Sen: In the wake of new polling showing him falling behind Marco Rubio in the GOP Senate primary, the questions are getting louder about whether Charlie Crist might consider running as an independent instead. He said no to that idea… but people are noticing he didn’t rule out switching parties altogether. With Crist appearing side-by-side with Barack Obama today in Florida (something he wouldn’t consider doing if he saw any hope in trying to compete with Rubio – who just got the endorsement of ur-conservative Steve Forbes — on conservative bona fides alone), could that actually be a consideration? If so, he’d need to switch parties by April 30.

• MA-Sen: There are a couple more retrospectives worth reading on Massachusetts, as people try to make sense of the mixed messages sent by exit polls (with one particularly intriguing tidbit: 52% of Scott Brown voters approved of Ted Kennedy’s performance). Mark Blumenthal also looks at the shift in polling over the last few weeks, wondering again about the differing results gotten by live interviewers vs. robocallers, while also pointing to questions of how much pollsters’ views of a race can actually change the overall momentum of the race (fundraising and perception-wise) and thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And get ready for the teabaggers’ week-long love affair to end very soon: Scott Brown (who apparently has some self-preservation instincts) just served notice on the GOP that he won’t always vote with them.

• ND-Sen: This isn’t going to make the teabaggers any happier: Gov. John Hoeven, now running for the Senate, joined the Democratic Party in 1996 (at a time when he was head of North Dakota’s state-owned bank), ditching them in 2000 for his gubernatorial run. With Hoeven already on their naughty list for his insufficiently anti-government stances, now he’s just going to get more wrath.

• NH-Sen: Former AG Kelly Ayotte is wielding an internal poll by the Tarrance Group that gives her a big edge in the GOP primary against her challengers. She leads Ovide Lamontagne, coming at her from the right, 43-11. Random rich guys Bill Binnie and Jim Bender clock in at 5 and 3 apiece. No general election numbers were released.

• NV-Sen: One more disastrous poll for Harry Reid, which came out from Research 2000 a few days ago. This poll closely echoed one from PPP a few weeks ago that tested alternative Democrats, and finds that only Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman beats the Republicans (while Rep. Shelly Berkley and SoS Ross Miller don’t fare much better than Reid). Unfortunately, this was all rendered moot a few days ago by Goodman’s announcement that he wasn’t going to run for either Governor or Senator. Reid loses 52-41 to Danny Tarkanian and 51-42 to Sue Lowden. Berkley loses 46-40 to Tarkanian and 45-40 to Lowden, while Miller loses 44-36 to Tarkanian and 43-37 to Lowden. Goodman beats Tarkanian 44-41 and Lowden 44-40. Rep. Dina Titus, facing a tough re-election of her own, doesn’t seem to think much of Reid’s chances anymore: she publicly said “Reid is done; he’s going to lose.”

• NY-Sen-B: One other Research 2000 poll to talk about: they looked at the Democratic primary in New York, and find about what everyone else has found. Kirsten Gillibrand leads ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. by a 41-27 margin (with 3 for Jonathan Tasini), looking solid but still with a ton of undecideds. This also exists merely at the level of rumor, but with the potential presence of Ford scrambling things for the ever-so-briefly-thought-to-be-safe Gillibrand, sources say that Democratic Rep. Steve Israel (who got dissuaded from a primary challenge) and Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki (who hasn’t sounded interested until now) are both giving the race a little more consideration.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Franklin & Marshall’s previous polls in Pennsylvania have tended to have unusually high undecideds, suggesting that they don’t do any pushing of leaners at all – but this may have reached an all-time high with their new poll. Most notably, they find Allegeheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato completely dominating the Democratic gubernatorial primary… at 10% (more than doubling up on Jack Wagner, Joe Hoeffel, and Chris Doherty, all at 4)! They also find similarly low numbers in the Senate race, where Republican ex-Rep. Pat Toomey leads incumbent Dem Arlen Specter 45-31 and Rep. Joe Sestak 41-19 (?!?), and where Specter beats Sestak in the primary 30-13. (They didn’t do a general election poll in the Governor’s race, but find Republican AG Tom Corbett leading his remaining rival, state Rep. Sam Rohrer, 23-5 in the primary.)

• UT-Sen: The Mason-Dixon poll that gave us some (not so good) gubernatorial results also threw in some vague questions about the Senate race too. Incumbent Bob Bennett leads a Generic R in the primary, 46-27, and a Generic D 53-26 in the general. Nevertheless, Bennett drew yet another primary opponent, albeit someone seemingly of the Some Dude variety: local businessman Christopher Stout.

• WI-Sen: Wherever there’s a vacillating Republican needing convincing to get into a Senate race, there’s Rasmussen. (Whaddya wanna bet they have a Patty Murray/Dave Reichert poll in the field right now?) Contrary to PPP’s view of the race, Rasmussen finds ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson leading incumbent Dem Russ Feingold, 47-43. They find Feingold with a perplexingly low 47/48 approval.

• CT-Gov: Is ex-Rep. Chris Shays looking to get into the Governor’s race? Suddenly, it sounds like he’s at least thinking about it, saying he’d like to do it but not sure if it’s feasible. He’s currently in Washington as head of the Wartime Contracting Commission, meaning he’d need to re-establish his Connecticut residency, but given his long-time popularity in his district (which eventually got too blue for him to hold) he might have a leg up on the so-so GOPers already in the field.

• FL-Gov: Quinnipiac released the gubernatorial half of its Florida poll yesterday, finding that Republican AG Bill McCollum has a somewhat bigger lead on Democratic CFO Alex Sink, 41-31 (McCollum led 36-32 in October). Sink leads state Sen. Paula Dockery 35-29, but considering that McCollum leads Dockery 44-6 in the GOP primary, that configuration doesn’t seem likely.

• MI-Gov: Two guys who had been unlikely candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor both announced they wouldn’t run. Rep. Bart Stupak is the big name to say “no,” which is good as far as the DCCC is concerned, as he’s needed to hold down the fort in his R+3 district. The other is Detroit Pistons head of basketball operations Joe Dumars, who probably realized he’d get pretty banged up out there without Bill Laimbeer to run interference for him. One other interesting rumor of who might run, though, is ex-Rep. Joe Schwarz, the GOP moderate who got bounced out in a 2006 Club for Growth-fueled primary by Tim Walberg. And get this… he’s talking about running as an independent. Could he actually peel off enough center-right votes for the Dems to salvage this race?

• NY-Gov: Research 2000’s New York poll also looked at the Democratic gubernatorial primary, finding AG Andrew Cuomo defeating incumbent David Paterson, 63-19. Paterson is laboring under 34/54 approvals. The GOP primary to see who gets flattened by Cuomo is looking pretty uneventful: Erie Co. Exec Chris Collins, who continued to express vague interest despite having gaffed his way out of contention several months ago, finally pulled the plug on his exploratory committee. That leaves ex-Rep. Rick Lazio as the only major GOPer in the race, to few people’s enthusiasm.

• TX-Gov: Looks like Gov. Rick Perry isn’t much of a fan of the librul media, or at least he realizes that his key demographics aren’t really the newspaper-reading types. He’s decided not to sit for editorial board interviews prior to their pre-primary endorsements.  

Dear Attorney General Richard Blumenthal,

You had better learn and take to heart the lessons provided yesterday by your neighboring colleague.  In particular: (1) a gigantic lead now is VERY MUCH NOT the same as a blowout victory (or even any victory), and (2) neglect is NEVER the right way to run a campaign.

Your supporter,

Glenn Magus Harvey

More beneath the fold.

Dear Democratic Party,

I damn well hope that this costly lesson about the negatives of complacency has been well learned.

If we can win Idaho, they can win Massachusetts.

Your supporter,

Glenn Magus Harvey

~~~~

Dear progressive movement,

Stop whining about how watered-down the health care bill is, stop threatening to vote for all sorts of crazy people (on any side) against sane Democrats who can get elected (and possibly risk losing nasty districts), and start accepting political realities (remember the “living in reality” slogan?).

Stop whining about how the Obama administration isn’t progressive enough, and start asking yourself what realistic steps you can do to inch the country toward a better future.

You want results?  Be prepared to work very hard for them.  Whining and sulking do not produce results.  Do something better with your time–such as learning about on-the-ground political realities, figuring out how to use and to affect them to help your goals, coming up with productive ideas, and putting such ideas into action.

Your friend and ally,

Glenn Magus Harvey

~~~~

Dear Nevada State Democratic Party and other relevant persons and parties,

Figure out a way to deal with Reid.  Both of them.  Preferably, figure out a way to get rid of both of them.

Your fellow Democrat,

Glenn Magus Harvey

~~~~

Dear Senator Joe Lieberman,

You suck.

If Chris Dodd can afford to offend the insurance companies, then so can you.  So shut up.

Your detractor and former supporter,

Glenn Magus Harvey

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/11-13, likely voters):

Richard Blumenthal (D): 54

Rob Simmons (R): 35

Undecided: 11

Richard Blumenthal (D): 56

Linda McMahon (R): 34

Undecided: 10

Richard Blumenthal (D): 56

Peter Schiff (R): 33

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±4%)

While Blumenthal isn’t producing margins similar to the utter insanity of the latest Quinnipiac poll, I think we can all be happy with where we’re at here.

R2K also polled the gubernatorial race, including match-ups with Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who may or may not run:

Susan Bysiewicz (D): 52

Michael Fidele (R): 33

Undecided: 15

Susan Bysiewicz (D): 51

Tom Foley (R): 35

Undecided: 14

Susan Bysiewicz (D): 52

Mark Boughton (R): 32

Undecided: 16

Ned Lamont (D): 46

Michael Fidele (R): 36

Undecided: 18

Ned Lamont (D): 46

Tom Foley (R): 37

Undecided: 17

Ned Lamont (D): 46

Mark Boughton (R): 32

Undecided: 20

Dan Malloy (D): 44

Michael Fidele (R): 35

Undecided: 21

Dan Malloy (D): 43

Tom Foley (R): 37

Undecided: 20

Dan Malloy (D): 44

Mark Boughton (R): 34

Undecided: 22

Unfortunately, Susan Bysiewicz, the Secretary of State, has decided to pull out of her gubernatorial campaign in favor of a run for Attorney General. However, as we noted in today’s digest, the legality of her candidacy is an open question. If the legal hurdles prove too challenging to clear for Bysiewicz, reversing course and running for Governor again would probably look foolish (though maybe not fatal), but if she’s just looking for another place to bide her time before she makes a run against Joe Lieberman in 2012 (as some have speculated), perhaps she’ll just end up running for re-election.

And finally, the 2012 Senate picture:

Chris Murphy (D): 25

Jodi Rell (R): 47

Joe Lieberman (I-inc): 23

Chris Murphy (D): 45

Joe Lieberman (I-inc): 26

I kinda doubt that Rell would pull the trigger on a run like this, but you never know.