Tag: Chris Chocola

Senate:

• IN-Sen: Chris “Count” Chocola, head of the Club for Growth and himself a Hoosier, says his organization may step in to help oust apostate Sen. Dick Lugar. The CFG has already talked to Treasurer Richard Mourdock, and if they get involved, they could make up for his lackluster fundraising so far.

• MA-Sen: Remember when ThinkProgress busted Scott Brown for sucking up to David Koch for donations while he was publicly saying he wasn’t even thinking about 2012? His pitch worked, I guess: Koch Industries coughed up a $2,500 donation to Brown’s campaign last quarter.

In other MA-Sen news, why does Barney Frank keep doing this? On Monday, he repeated his remarks that he thinks Newton Mayor Setti Warren shouldn’t run for Senate, this time to local blog Newton TAB. I honestly think this is a bit embarrassing for Frank, and makes him look like a jackass. It’s an admission that his private suggestions to Warren haven’t been well-received, and that he’s had to take to the press to accomplish what he apparently doesn’t have the power to do on his own. It’s ugly, and what’s more, I don’t even see the percentage in it. Why does Frank care so much whether Warren runs? Really, just enough.

• MN-Sen: Former state Sen. and unsuccessful 2010 SoS candidate Dan Severson says he might seek the Republican nod to challenge Amy Klobuchar, who so far has drawn no opponents. Severson says he’ll decide by May. Also, attorney Chris Barden, another unsuccessful statewide candidate last year (he ran for AG), says he may attempt a Senate race, too.

• MO-Sen: It’s getting’ mighty crowded in here… well, maybe. Wealthy businessman John Brunner (who can at least partially self-fund) says he might join the GOP field to take on Sen. Claire McCaskill. Reps. Todd Akin and Blaine Leutekemeyer are also still weighing bids, while former Treasurer Sarah Steelman and teabagger fave Ed Martin are already in the race.

• TX-Sen: This is just weird. Ashwin Madia (who you may remember as the Dem candidate in MN-03 back in 2008) is also chair of the progressive veterans group VoteVets. His organization put out a statement the other day in which he said it was “encouraging” to see Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez considering the Texas Senate race as a Dem. It’s strange, as Adam Serwer points out, because Sanchez had a very suspect record on torture during his tenure as US commander in Iraq, while VoteVets has been very critical of torture. Another spokesman for the group hurried to say that VoteVets was not issuing a formal statement of endorsement, just an attaboy for a fellow servicemember.

• VA-Sen: Teabagger Jamie Radtke raised just $55K in Q1 and has only $47K on hand. I’m betting that if George Allen does wind up dealing with a serious speed bump on his way to the GOP nomination, it’s going to take the form of Del. Bob Marshall, not Radtke. Still a big if.

• VT-Sen, VT-AL: Sen. Bernie Sanders raised $770K in Q1 (not bad for the 49th-largest state in the nation) and has over a million in the bank. The Burlington Free Press pegs an uptick in donations to Sanders after his now-famous eight-hour speech on the Senate floor in which he blasted tax cuts for the wealthy. Meanwhile, Rep. Peter Welch now has a million on hand.

Gubernatorial:

• NJ-Gov, NJ-Sen: Chris Christie’s starting to smell like a plate of scungilli left out in the sun after a July picnic. His job approval has dropped to 47-46, according to Quinnipiac, from 52-40 just a couple of months ago. Sen. Bob Menendez isn’t doing so hot either, 42-40, but those sorts of numbers are nothing new for him (and are actually better than what he was getting last year). In news of more immediate importance, Dems improved to 47-39 on the generic legislative ballot, up from 43-41. (Thanks to andgarden for spotting that question, tucked away at the very end of the poll.) Also fun: Q asked respondents for an unprompted, open-ended one-word description of Christie. The number one response, by far? “Bully,” with 140 mentions.

House:

• AL-05: This is just odd. Freshman Republican Mo Brooks cancelled a town hall and replaced it with one-on-one meetings with constituents-by appointment only. What makes this extra-weird is that these meetings are scheduled to take place across the state line in… Tennessee. Reminds me of this infamous incident from the classic MS-01 special back in 2008.

• IA-04: Some great number-crunching from G-squared: The new 4th CD went for Terry Branstad 59-37 in 2010, 50-48 for GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle in 2006, and 49-48 for Tom Vilsack in 2002. I’ll go one further and tell you that Vilsack lost the new 4th in 1998, 47-52. Greg also says that Rep. Steve King currently represents 47% of new CD.

• IL-03: Politico has a profile of John Atkinson, the Democratic businessman who may challenge Rep. Dan Lipinski from the left. Atkinson, who has already raised a boatload, hasn’t formally declared yet (and may be waiting on redistricting), but a main theme for him is Lipinski’s vote against healthcare reform.

• NY-13: Ex-Rep. Mike McMahon, recently speaking to the Bay Ridge Democratic Club, definitely sounds like he’s leaning toward a comeback. The linked piece from the Brooklyn Eagle contains McMahon’s ruminations on why he lost last year, but I’m not sure I understand what he thinks the reasons are. On the one hand, he says “[t]here was a drop-off in progressive voters.” On the other hand, he cited a memo from Third Way (ugh, but what do you expect) which polled Obama “switchers” and “dropouts.” The memo claims that “[s]witchers were eager to vote in this election, whereas droppers didn’t come out for a multitude of reasons, none of them being they were upset with Democrats.”

What this misses out on, of course, is that Democratic organizations who were pissed with McMahon’s vote against healthcare reform were less inclined to bust their asses for him and drag apathetic voters to the polls on his behalf-something members and officials of the Bay Ridge club made plain to him. (The article says some attendees used “harsher language,” so since this is Brooklyn we’re talking about, enjoy a moment or two imagining what this sounded like.) I’m not sure what McMahon thinks the solution is for next year, if he runs again, but it doesn’t sound like he’s ready to take back his anti-HCR vote. I think he’d be wise to do so.

• RI-01: Former Republican state Rep. John Loughlin, who lost by six points to now-Rep. David Cicilline last year, says he’s considering a rematch, but first he’s serving another tour of duty in Iraq. I wonder if Cicilline’s self-inflicted wounds regarding the financial woes of Providence (the city of which he used to be mayor) will make him vulnerable-if not next year (which of course is a presidential year), then at some point in the near future… or in a primary.

Other Races:

• WI Recall: Republicans say they will file recall petitions against three Democrats today: Dave Hansen, Jim Holperin, and Robert Wirch. Meanwhile, Greg Sargent says that Dems will file petitions against a fifth Republican, Alberta Darling, also today.

• WI Sup. Ct.: Yesterday, JoAnne Kloppenburg asked for a recount, which will come at state expense since the final margin of 7,316 votes was less than 0.5%. I’m pretty surprised at the decision, since overturning that kind of result seems almost inconceivable.

Grab Bag:

• Alaska (PDF): Dave Dittman, a pollster and former aide to the late Sen. Ted Stevens, tested Alaskans’ feelings about local pols last month. Sen. Mark Begich, up for re-election in 2014, has a 57-33 job approval rating, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski is at 71-27 and Rep. Don Young is at 63-32. Joe Miller, who says he might run against Young next year or against Begich next cycle, has a hilariously awful favorability rating of 18-73. (FWIW, Sarah Palin is at 36-61.) Note that the poll had oddly long field dates: March 3 through March 17.

• Demographics: Aaron Blake has another good piece looking at the changing demographics of majority-black districts.

• House Majority PAC: The new Dem “super PAC” is out with its first-ever media buy (which they claim is “substantial”-you better be telling the truth), hitting ten GOP freshmen who voted for Paul Ryan’s budget plan with radio ad. You can listen to a sample spot against Sean Duffy here. Click the first link for the other nine names.

• DCCC: Speaking of ad buys, props to Dave Catanese for busting what turned out to be a comically bullshit media “blitz” by the DCCC. I groused about this one yesterday, complaining that the size of the buy was sure to be “quite small,” but I had no idea that it would be this comically small: The total purchase was just $6,000 across twenty-five districts, with just $40 (yes, $40!) spent against Larry Buchson in IN-08. Of course, it was the NRCC which provided this info to Catanese, which I’m not sure is such a smart move, since they play this stupid game, too. But my bigger concern is whether local reporters who wrote about these ads will be insulted by the joke dollar values and ignore the D-Trip in the future. I sure as hell would.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: After instantly descending into a whole bunch of acrimony (mostly, it seemed to me, from the GOP side) after the first batch of maps were produced, both parties agreed to go back to the drawing board and start with a clean slate. Republicans sound a lot more excited about the prospect than Dems, but we’ll see if this actually produces any kind of agreement… or if a stalemate eventually leads to court-drawn maps.

• Pennsylvania: No surprise here: The Republican majority on the PA Supreme Court picked a Republican superior court judge to serve as a tiebreaker on the panel which will re-draw Pennsylvania’s state legislative maps. This is a direct consequence of a shameful loss of an open Dem-held seat on the court in 2009.

• Texas: A new plan for the Texas state House passed a House committee yesterday. The map increases the number of Latino districts from 28 to 30, but Democrats seem convinced that there are serious VRA issues with it.

• CO-Sen: The field is slow to take shape for the Republicans in the Colorado Senate race, where they should theoretically have a decent shot at the never-before-elected and uncharismatic appointee Michael Bennet. One more candidate seems to be moving to join the field: former state Sen. Tom Weins, from the exurban GOP stronghold of Douglas County. Weins is the CEO of a real estate finance company, so he brings self-funding to the table (although some of that may be contingent on finding a buyer for his $38 million ranch). Inexperienced Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier and grumpy Weld Co. DA Ken Buck are the leading candidates for the GOP nod for now.

• NH-Sen: The Nashua Telegraph points to some skepticism from the conservative wing of the GOP about newly minted candidate Kelly Ayotte; apparently, her joining Gov. John Lynch in urging communities to apply for stimulus funds makes her not sufficiently fiscally conservative for some in the rightosphere, who are wondering if they’ve got another Susan Collins on their hands here. With the presumably-more-conservative businessman Fred Tausch and former gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne still checking out the race, it seems like she may not have a clear primary path. Sensing some trouble here, the state party establishment is pushing back, rolling out ex-Sen. John Sununu to offer some promises that she’s a conservative, including that he “believes” that she opposes abortion rights.

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn Maloney has apparently been holding off on her Senate primary announcement so that she won’t drive Bill Clinton off from her upcoming fundraiser. Clinton has vowed neutrality in the likely primary with Kirsten Gillibrand, and everyone is taking pains to point out that the fundraiser is for Maloney’s House account and intended as a ‘thank you’ for her support of the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008. (Of course, she’ll still be able to transfer her House funds to a Senate race.)

• CO-Gov: Strange that the Colorado GOP is throwing all its top talent at Gov. Bill Ritter while leaving the Senate race with the second-stringers. Today 33-year-old state Senate minority leader Josh Penry made it official: he’s running for Governor, setting up a big primary collision with ex-Rep. (and Penry’s former boss, when he was a staffer) Scott McInnis.

• NJ-Gov: Dueling leaks of internal polls from the New Jersey governor’s race, as expected, paint very different pictures. The Corzine camp offers a poll showing a 4-point lead (42-38) for Chris Christie when factoring in independent Christopher Daggett (who polls at 4%). The RGA, however, has a poll giving Christie a showy lead of 15 pts. The polls were both conducted before Corzine hit the airwaves with an attack ad focusing on Christie’s ethical troubles.

• SC-Gov: The State, Columbia’s newspaper, takes a look at why, all of a sudden, Mark Sanford seems poised to survive his tango de la muerte, despite his dire straits before Sarah Palin stole the show. It’s broken down helpfully into bullet points: his wife is defending him for the first time, state law enforcement investigations found he broke no state laws, and state party leadership opted for censure rather than asking him to resign.

• MI-St. Sen.: If you haven’t seen Menhen’s diary rating our prospects in each of the upcoming Michigan State Senate races in 2010, take a peek. (The diary got some notice over at the DLCC‘s blog.) With the entire Senate up for re-election and control over Michigan redistricting in the balance, this is one of the key legislative battles in 2010… and with term limits hitting hard, there are only 8 incumbents running, with a whopping 30 open seats, so this is very much a wide-open battle.

• CfG: Roll Call takes a look at the Club for Growth under the new leadership of ex-Rep. Chris Chocola and finds, unfortunately for us, a slightly saner version of the CfG that seems more interested in playing in the general election rather than mucking up the primaries… although they did just put out that call for primary challengers against the 8 cap-and-trade defectors. For Tom Cole fans, the former NRCC head gets in some nice digs at the CfG.

• NY-20 (pdf): This morning’s update from the BoE has Scott Murphy’s lead increasing a bit, up to 56 votes. Brace yourself for later today, though, when Saratoga County (Jim Tedisco’s base) is scheduled to report absentees for the first time.

• PA-Sen: Arlen Specter picked up an important backer in the 2010 primary: NRSC chair John Cornyn (who’d, of course, like to limit the number of seats lost on his watch). “As I survey the political landscape of the upcoming 2010 elections, it’s clear we need more candidates that fit their states,” said Cornyn. Although Cornyn doesn’t mention his name, he obviously has in mind a guy who doesn’t fit his state: Pat Toomey, who just happened to officially announce his long-rumored Senate bid yesterday.

• MN-Sen: No surprise here; Norm Coleman, having lost the election yesterday according to a three-judge panel, has filed an appeal with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Election law blogger Rick Hasen looks at yesterday’s opinion and the difficulty Coleman will face in getting it reversed.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio reported raising $250,000 in the last month since opening his exploratory committee, a solid start. Meanwhile, Kendrick Meek continued to dominate the labor endorsement front, picking up the nod from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, AFL-CIO.

• IL-10: State senator Susan Garrett says she’ll decide within the month whether or not to challenge Mark Kirk (sounding like she’s trying to wait as long as possible to see if Kirk jumps into the senate race and leaves an open seat). Kirk has turned back a number of serious challenges in the 3rd-most Dem-leaning district still occupied by a Republican (won by Obama with 61% of the vote).

• NV-02: A credible Democratic challenger to Dean Heller has materialized. Douglas County school board president Cindy Trigg plans to announce her candidacy next week. This district, once a Republican stronghold, went for McCain by less than 100 votes.

• ID-01: Walt Minnick just got some fundraising help from an unexpected place. Former two-term GOP senator from Idaho Steve Symms is headlining Minnick’s April 23 breakfast fundraiser.

• NRCC: Campaign Diaries has the full list of all 43 Dems targeted in the GOP’s big radio-spot-and-robocall blitz.

• Where Are They Now?: Tom Feeney: just took a job with noted think-tank the Heritage Foundation, to focus on “community outreach.” Bob Ney: just got the 1-3 pm slot on a conservative talk radio station in Moundsville, WV. Chris Chocola: just made it official, that he will be replacing Pat Toomey as head of the Club for Growth. Vito Fossella: just pled guilty to DWI and will serve four days in Alexandria city jail.

• Red Menace: Spencer Bachus (AL-06) just announced that he is holding in his hand a list of 17 socialists in Congress. We all know about Bernie Sanders; anyone care to hazard a guess who the other 16 are?

• IL-05: Congratulations to our newest House member, Mike Quigley. The Cook County Commissioner won the special election in this safe Dem seat last night, defeating GOPer Rosanna Pulido 70-24 (with the balance going to Green Party candidate Matt Reichel). (There were only about 34,000 votes cast in this election, compared with about 58,000 in the primary, since that’s where all the action was.)

• AK-Sen: Gov. Sarah Palin will not be challenging Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the 2010 senate primary; in fact, she’ll be assisting Murkowski with raising money (despite simmering tensions between the two factions). It remains to be seen whether she’ll be running for re-election as governor in 2010, or bailing out after one term to focus on the 2012 presidential race (which, geographically speaking, is hard to do from Alaska).

• VA-Gov: If there’s one thing Terry McAuliffe is good at, it’s raising money. He raked in $4.2 million in the first quarter for his gubernatorial campaign. He started April with $2.5 million CoH as the race heads toward the June 9 primary.

• IA-Gov: With Iowa’s Supreme Court having effectively made same-sex marriages legal, the 2010 governor’s race could turn into a proxy referendum on the issue (with Gov. Chet Culver unwilling to amend the state constitution to block the courts). And this may draw a higher-profile challenger to the race: nutty GOP Rep. Steve King, whose name has been occasionally associated with this race, says the sudden rise of this issue makes him “more likely” to enter the race.

• GA-Gov: As noted by fitchfan28 in diaries, state House minority leader Dubose Porter has thrown his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination for Georgia governor. He joins AG Thurbert Baker and former SoS David Poythress as announced candidates, with former governor Roy Barnes scoping out the race as well.

• NJ-12: Rush Holt may receive a credible challenge in 2010, from Fair Haven mayor Mike Halfacre, who just filed exploratory paperwork. Fair Haven is in Republican-leaning Monmouth County; the district as a whole, though, is blue, if not overwhelming so (Obama won 58-41).

• EFCA: In the wake of yesterday’s announcement that Blanche Lincoln would oppose EFCA’s current form, two more moderate Dem wafflers got off the fence in favor of EFCA (or, more technically, in favor of cloture): Mark Udall and Mark Warner. Campaign Diaries has a very handy head count, indicating that possible passage is still very close, and an unpacked version of the bill (for instance, containing the binding arbitration portion, leaving ‘card check’ for another year) may still be passed.

• CfG: With Pat Toomey about to leave the helm of the Club for Growth to pursue his senate bid against Arlen Specter, they need someone new to wave the sword for the circular firing squad. Looks like the job may fall to yet another ex-Rep who brought the crazy to a swing district, Chris Chocola. (Chocola got bounced from IN-02 in 2006 by Joe Donnelly.)

• Omaha-Mayor: In last night’s Omaha mayoral all-party primary election, former GOP Rep. Hal Daub (himself a former Omaha mayor) squeaked into first place with 35.6% of the vote to Democratic concilman Jim Suttle’s 34.3%. Republican Councilman Jim Vokal came in third, picking up 28.2% of the vote. New Nebraska Network’s Kyle Michaelis argues that despite the Republican candidates picking up more votes overall, Daub’s weak finish is not a good sign for his chances in the general election. (J)