Tag: Roy Herron

• FL-Sen: Here’s one late-30-something, telegenic conservative helping out another: WI-01’s Rep. Paul Ryan just endorsed Marco Rubio in the Senate primary. Ryan (who’s actually been getting some dark-horse presidential buzz lately) may in fact be the real beneficiary here, since it may direct some of Rubio’s healthy glow among the teabag set in Ryan’s direction, bolstering his future credentials. Speaking of the teabaggers, despite having claimed the scalp of Florida GOP chair and key Charlie Crist ally Jim Greer, they still aren’t happy with the annointment of John Thrasher as the new chair; apparently he too is insufficiently crazy, or at least part of the same backroom process. Finally, take this with a huge hunk o’ salt, but ex-Rep. Mark Foley is highlighting a rumor on his Facebook page (yes, Mark Foley is on Facebook, and I’m not eager to think about what else might be on his page) that Charlie Crist is on the precipice of pulling his FL-Sen bid altogether and running for another term as Governor instead.

• NY-Sen-B: Lots of walking-things-back going on in New York’s Senate race. Republican Rep. Peter King is now saying he’s “leaning against” a Senate bid. Taegan Goddard rightly invokes both Mario Cuomo and Hamlet in ridiculing King’s protracted public vacillations. And ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. also may be dialing things down too, in regards to a possible primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand. An operative working with Ford is now saying that Ford is “unlikely to take the plunge,” and seemed more interested in “creating buzz” for himself. (Why am I not surprised?)

• AZ-Gov: The GOP primary field in Arizona is getting even more scrambled, with the entry of Some Dude who claims to be bringing $2.1 million to the table with him. Owen Buz Mills’ campaign report was the first anyone has seemingly heard of him. He’s a member of the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, and owner of a company called Gunsite (which operates a 2,000 acre weapons training site). Current Gov. Jan Brewer said she wouldn’t be deterred by Mills’ presence, as did former state regent John Munger (who probably has more to lose by Mills’ entry, as he’s sort of the de facto non-Brewer for now, at least until or unless state Treasurer Dean Martin gets in the race).

• CO-Gov: While much of the speculation, in the wake of Gov. Bill Ritter’s surprise decision not to seek another term, has focused on Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, or a switch from the Senate primary by former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff, there’s one other high-profile possibility: Interior Secretary, and former Senator, Ken Salazar. Salazar, however, is staying mum, for now. PPP’s Tom Jensen is skeptical of a Salazar candidacy, though, pointing out that Salazar didn’t have strong favorables (39/36 in late 2008) even before he joined the Obama administration, and Colorado has seen one of the biggest drops in Obama approvals of any state, making his time in the Cabinet something of an anchor for him.

• CT-Gov: Three sort-of prominent local officials are all scoping out the already-crowded Governor’s race in the Nutmeg State. On the Dem side, the First Selectwoman of Simsbury, Mary Glassman, said she’ll seek the nomination (she was the 2006 Lt. Governor candidate). On the GOP side, Shelton mayor Mark Lauretti says he’s considering the race; he’s banking on his nearly 20 years of experience running the city, although he is currently the target of a federal corruption probe. (Although what Connecticut mayor isn’t?) Also, the Republican mayor of the much larger city of Danbury, Mark Boughton, says he’s reached a decision on whether or not to enter the race. The weird thing is, he doesn’t plan to let anyone know what that decision is for another month.

• AL-02: Businessman Rick Barber made it official today: he’s launching a teabag-powered primary challenge to the NRCC-crowned establishment favorite, Montgomery city councilor Martha Roby. He owns several “billiards facilities” in the area, as well as organizing tea parties in his spare time. The primary winner will face freshman Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright.

• AR-02: Another GOP establishment fave, former US Attorney Tim Griffin, just got bumped up a notch in the NRCC’s three-tiered fundraising pyramid [scheme]. He was promoted to “Contender,” leaving him just one step away from coveted “Young Gun” status.

• CA-19: With a big three-way brawl already brewing in the GOP open seat primary between ex-Rep. Richard Pombo, state Sen. Jeff Denham, and former Fresno mayor Jim Patterson, ex-SoS and 2004 Senate race loser Bill Jones has decided to give the race a pass.

• NJ-03: One possible alternative to Jon Runyan as the GOP nominee in the 3rd said “no thanks” yesterday. State Sen. Christopher Connors was apparently the first choice of the Ocean County Republican party; Runyan is the Burlington County party’s pick, so it remains to be seen whether Ocean County unites behind Runyan or pushes someone else (like Toms River city councilor Maurice Hill).

• TN-08: The NRCC, based purely on their own fantasies, has been attempting to “gay bait” Dem Roy Herron. And of course, the tradmed has dutifully transcribed whatever bullshit the NRCC has spewed out. Funny, then, that the kid spokesbot responsible for this smear enjoys attending “GOB festivals.” No, Arrested Development fans, this has nothing to do with erstwhile ne’er-do-well George Oscar Bluth. Just click the link and John Aravosis will tell you all you need to know. (D)

• VA-05: The teabagging right keeps coalescing behind businessman Laurence Verga as the Republican primary alternative to state Sen. Robert Hurt (who apparently voted in favor of a tax once)… and now Verga is getting the endorsement of one of their iconic figures: Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher. Could a Chuck Norris endorsement be far behind?

• UT-03, UT-Sen: Freshman Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz is expected to announce today that he’ll run for another term in the House. He’s been occasionally associated with a potential primary challenge to Senator Bob Bennett, but has more recently said he’s likelier to seek re-election to the House.

• WA-St. Sen.: This is getting way down in the weeds, but remember attorney Randy Gordon? He was briefly the leading Democratic candidate in the 2006 race in WA-08, before standing down in the primary in favor of a Camp Wellstone classmate with better fundraising chops: Darcy Burner. Well, it looks like he’s secured the temporary appointment to take over the vacant state Senate seat in the 41st LD, left vacant by Fred Jarrett’s move to become Deputy King Co. Executive; he should have a fairly easy time retaining this Dem-leaning seat based in suburban Bellevue.

• Mayors: Here’s a wild rumor (with Sally Quinn as its source): ex-Rep. and current CoS Rahm Emanuel isn’t planning on a long-term stay in the White House. Emanuel is reportedly eyeing a run for Chicago mayor in 2011. Also on the mayoral front, Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon is leaving office; she offered her resignation and an Alford plea on a count of perjury in order to settle a number of charges against her.

• DCCC: Chris Van Hollen offered some boilerplate reassurances today that few, if any, Democratic retirements in the House are in the offing. He said there would be a “couple more,” if that. (With almost all the troublesome seats accounted for, that’s not a surprise; SC-05’s John Spratt seems to be the biggest question mark outstanding in a difficult seat.) (UPDATE: Ooops, I missed Spratt‘s re-election announcement over the holidays. So now I don’t know who’s vulnerable and unaccounted for.)

• RNC: By now, readers should be familiar with the NRCC’s cash crunch, which severely hampers its ability to capitalize on recruiting successes and the favorable environment. But anyone thinking they might turn to the RNC for a bailout may be surprised to hear that the once-flush RNC is in almost equally dire shape. After a spending spree under Michael Steele’s leadership (to the tune of $90 million last year), the RNC is only sitting on $8.7 million in the bank. That’s down from $22.8 CoH at the start of Steele’s tenure. That’s the party of fiscal discipline at work for you, right there.

• CT-Sen: Joe Biden is stopping by Connecticut yet again to fill up Chris Dodd’s coffers with a fundraising event tomorrow. This comes against a backdrop of increasing questions from the press of whether or not Dodd will be retiring (or getting pushed out the door by the party)… suggesting the beginning of the same self-fulfilling downward spiral that dragged down Jim Bunning, who’d similarly worn down his welcome on the other side of the aisle.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio is making a strange ploy here, when the substance of his previous campaign has all been more-conservative-than-thou. He now says he would have accepted stimulus funds, had he been governor. Maybe he’s already thinking ahead to how he’ll have to moderate things, once he’s in the general?

• IL-Sen: With the Illinois primary fast-approaching, believe it or not, Alexi Giannoulias is hitting his cash stash to already go on the air with a second TV spot, again focusing on his jobs-saving efforts. On the GOP side, it looks like Rep. Mark Kirk‘s frequent flip-flopping is starting to catch the attention of the legacy media; the Sun-Times and AP are taking notice of his new McCain-ish attempts to harp on earmarks despite his own earmark-friendly past.

• NV-Sen: Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, recently cleared on corruption charges, had previously said that he wouldn’t seek to challenge Harry Reid in the Senate race. Now sources are saying Krolicki is, in fact, “interested.” It’s unclear whether Krolicki sustained an unfixable amount of damage as a result of the charges, though, or what sort of space he could seek to carve out in the already overcrowded GOP primary field.

• SD-Sen: You might recall a while back we noted that Matt McGovern, a clean energy activist, was considering a run to follow in his grandfather George’s footsteps in the Senate. Today he declined a run, leaving the Democrats without any candidate to go up against John Thune next year.

• TX-Sen: South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, increasingly the go-to guy for right-wing kingmaking, issued his fourth endorsement in a Senate primary, although this is the primary that may or may not ever happen. He gave his imprimatur to Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, who’s been a darling of the rightosphere but who’s polled in the single-digits in the few polls of the special election field.

• MN-Gov: Here’s a fundraising boost to state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, who has lots of behind-the-scenes support in her DFL gubernatorial bid but a big name rec deficit against names like former Sen. Mark Dayton and Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak. She secured an EMILY’s List endorsement, giving her a nationwide base to tap into.

• SC-Gov: Mark Sanford may have dodged his final bullet, allowing him to serve out his last year in ignominious peace. A 7-member state House Judiciary subcommittee voted 6-1 against impeachment and instead unanimously for censure. The matter still goes before the full Judiciary committee, but they seem unlikely to reverse course.

• Governors: PPP has one of their frequent good observations: of the nation’s governors who have the worst approval ratings, most of them are ineligible or not planning to run for re-election in 2010 (Baldacci, Doyle, Perdue, Rendell, Schwarzenegger). The three who are running for re-election next year are all likely casualties in their own primaries (Brewer, Gibbons, and Paterson).

• FL-12: Outgoing Rep. Adam Putnam, who’s leaving his job to run for Florida’s Ag Commissioner, has given his endorsement to former state Rep. Dennis Ross to replace him. It’s something of a formality, with no other major GOPers in the race, but should help keep anyone else from last-minute gate-crasing.

• IL-10: Lots of endorsements in the 10th. On the GOP side, state Rep. Beth Coulson got the endorsement of moderate ex-Gov. Jim Edgar, the state’s only recent ex-Gov who’s still on the right side of the law. For the Dems, Dan Seals got the endorsement of the powerful New Trier Township Democrats, while state Rep. Julie Hamos was endorsed by Citizen Action.

• IL-14: Recent dropout Mark Vargas finally confirmed that he’ll be pulling his name off the ballot, leaving only the two biggest names. This comes as a relief to the camp of state Sen. Randy Hultgren, who were worried that name of Vargas (who endorsed Ethan Hastert) would stay on the ballot to split the anti-Hastert vote.

• LA-03: Wondering why no one prominent is leaping at the chance to fill the open seat left behind by Charlie Melancon? They know what we redistricting nerds at SSP already know… that seat is likely to vaporize in 2012, leaving any victory a short-lived booby prize. No elected officials of either party have thrown their hat in yet; attorney Ravi Sangisetty and oil field manager Kristian Magar are the only Dem and GOPer, respectively, who’ve gotten in.

• MN-07: Long-time Rep. Collin Peterson says he won’t decide until February on whether to run for re-election (although he has filed his paperwork to run). That may have a few hearts skipping a beat at the DCCC, where a Peterson retirement would leave another GOP-leaning rural seat to defend — but Peterson says a late decision on sticking around is always standard operating procedure for him.

• NY-19: An initially generic Roll Call profile of Nan Hayworth, the moderate, wealthy ophthalmologist who’s the last GOPer left to go up against Rep. John Hall after more conservative and polarizing Assemblyman Greg Ball dropped out, has some interesting dirt buried deep in the article. They say that county-level party officials aren’t necessarily behind her, that there are three other (unnamed) persons interested in running, and there’s still a movement afoot in the district to get Ball back in the race.

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi, the underdog gaining steam in the Dem primary in the 6th, got an endorsement from a key moderate in the Pennsylvania delegation: the 10th district’s Chris Carney. Doug Pike got his own Congressional endorsement too, although from a little further afield: from Massachusetts’s Niki Tsongas. There are also rumors of a third potential Dem entrant to complicate matters: Lower Merion Township Commissioner Brian Gordon (not to be confused with his commission-mate Scott Zelov, who’s now considering a run on the GOP side).

• TN-08: State Rep. Jimmy Naifeh confirmed that he won’t run in a Democratic primary against state Sen. Roy Herron to take over retiring Rep. John Tanner’s seat. Naifeh, the House speaker for 18 years, is a legendary figure in Tennessee politics and would have posed a big challenge to Herron. Meanwhile, in a sign of their optimism, the NRCC bumped their farmer/gospel singer candidate, Stephen Fincher, up a slot in their three-tiered “Young Guns” program, from “On the Radar” up to “Contender.”

• VA-02, VA-05: The two top contenders in the GOP primary in the 2nd have already had one big proxy fight, backing different candidates in the Dec. 5 primary for an open, dark-red state Senate seat in Virginia Beach. Auto dealer Scott Rigell apparently won the skirmish, backing Jeff McWaters, who defeated Virginia Beach city councilor Rosemary Wilson, who was backed by businessman Ben Loyola. Loyola is running to the right of Rigell (who contributed to Barack Obama last year). Meanwhile, in the 2nd and the 5th, the GOP is faced with the same decision that often bedevils them: pick a nominee by primary election, party canvass, or party convention? With state Sen. Rob Hurt a strong general election contender in the 5th but generating suspicions among the base (for voting for Mark Warner’s tax hike), and with activist-dominated conventions often yielding unelectable candidates (see Gilmore, Jim), the decision can affect the GOP’s general election chances in each one.

• WA-01: Spunky Microserf rides to the rescue, against an entrenched, well-liked suburban Representative… on behalf of the GOP? That’s what’s up in the 1st, where never-before-elected Microsoft veteran James Watkins will go up against Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee, who’s had little trouble holding down the Dem-leaning district.

• NY-Comptroller: The New York Post (so keep the salt shaker handy) is reporting that ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer is still interested in a return to politics, and is looking seriously at the Comptroller’s race. It seemed up in the air as to whether he’d run in the Democratic primary against appointed incumbent Tom DiNapoli (also under reported primary threat from William Thompson) or as an independent.

• GA-St. Sen.: A famous family name is looking to get back into Georgia politics. Jimmy Carter’s grandson, 34-year-old attorney Jason Carter, is looking to run in the upcoming special election in the 42nd Senate district, a reliably Democratic area in western DeKalb County where current Senator David Adelman is resigning to become Ambassador to Singapore. Interestingly, Carter may run into trouble with the district’s large Jewish population, where his grandfather’s name has lost some of its luster because of his pronouncements on the Israel/Palestine saga.

• Mayors: In what seems like an astonishingly fast recount, state Sen. Kasim Reed was confirmed as victor in the Atlanta mayoral race. He defeated city councilor Mary Norwood by 714 votes, losing a grand total of one vote from the original count. Norwood has now conceded.

• House: Here’s a concept from the 70s we don’t hear much about anymore: the “misery index.” But Republican pollster POS dusted off the idea, looking at 13 “change” midterm elections where the average Election Day misery index (unemployment plus inflation) was 10.1, and in which the average loss among the White House party was 26 seats. They point out that today’s misery index is 10.02 (although, assuming unemployment declines over the next year, so too will the misery index).

• Redistricting: Moves are afoot in two different states to make the redistricting process fairer. In Illinois, a statewide petition drive is underway to take redistricting out of hands of the legislature and give it to an independent commission. And in Florida, as we’ve discussed before, two initiatives are on their way to the ballot that would require districts to be compact and not take partisanship into account. The GOP-held legislature is challenging them, however, in the state Supreme Court; part of their argument is that this runs afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision on “crossover” districts in Bartlett v. Strickland.

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon is in Washington DC this week to meet with Republican bigwigs about her bid for the Senate in Connecticut, meeting with Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, Orrin Hatch, and the knuckle-draggers at FreedomWorks. McMahon’s visit is accompanied, however, by stories in The Hill and Politico that focus on professional wrestling’s dangerous conditions, and lack of health insurance or union representation — and are replete with quotes from former wrestlers decrying McMahon and her company.

• KS-Sen: The previous few rounds of polling for Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the Kansas GOP Senate primary haven’t looked so hot, but the newest offering from SurveyUSA finds him back in the thick of things. Rep. Jerry Moran now leads Tiahrt 37-34, compared with a 43-27 gap in early October. Crosstabs suggest Tiahrt has pulled back into a tie in Kansas’s northeast (the Kansas City suburbs) — with Moran dominating the rural west and Tiahrt dominating the Wichita area, the KC suburbs are the decisive region.

• OR-Gov: State Republican leaders are still casting their nets about, despite former NBA player Chris Dudley bringing a lot of money to the table. With some troubled that Dudley “has not delivered any ideas at all” (and with their best-known candidate, Bill Sizemore, having gotten arraigned for tax evasion yesterday) many have now set their sights on state House minority leader Bruce Hanna, a conservative from the state’s rural southwest; Hanna says he’s “listening with interest” to their entreaties.

In the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department, Jerry Wilson, founder of exercise machine maker Soloflex, was originally going to run for Governor under the banner of Oregon’s Naderite Progressive Party, but somewhere along the way decided it would be better to run for one of the major party noms so he’d have a better chance, and inexplicably decided to run for a Republican. Wilson just found out that he  missed the deadline by several months to change his party registration to be able to do so (he’s a Democrat), so now he’s decided to run as a Democrat. (The pro-marijuana Wilson might want to, y’know, lay off it a little while he’s trying to put together a political campaign.) Also on the Dem side, the state’s AFL-CIO announced that it won’t be endorsing in the race until at least March, which has to be seen as a victory of sorts for ex-SoS Bill Bradbury in that they don’t view ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber as having the nomination locked down and are waiting to see how things shake out.

• TX-Gov: With heavyweight Houston mayor Bill White having settled into the Democratic field in the Governor’s race, the remaining candidates are assessing their options. Kinky Friedman was expected to drop out today, but announced that he’ll take at least a few more days to meet with supporters, and with White and Farouk Shami, before pulling the plug. (Shami was a big donor to Friedman last time.) The independently wealthy Shami sounds like he’s staying in, although he’s now suffering the usual fate of celebrity business candidates: the revelation of his paltry voting record (including no vote in the 2008 general, and no votes in any Democratic primary elections, with at least one in a Republican primary instead). And on the GOP side, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, faced with the realization that the Senate election may not be happening any time soon, just filed for re-election to another term as LG.

• FL-02: That was fast. (And not very good message discipline, either.) After confirming yesterday that he was considering a move over to Florida’s statewide CFO race, Democratic state Sen. Al Lawson backtracked today and said he’s sticking with his longshot primary challenge to Rep. Allen Boyd instead.

• ID-01: An intramural fight is breaking out among Idaho Republican legislators, as state Rep. Raul Labrador seeks the Republican nomination to take on Rep. Walt Minnick next year. State Sen. Mike Jorgenson is demanding Labrador drop out, attacking him for his work as a — gasp — immigration lawyer; the two have previously clashed over immigration policy in the legislature, including Jorgenson’s proposal to bar illegal immigrants from receiving state benefits. There’s no clue given where Labrador’s opponent, Vaughn Ward, stands on immigration issues, but it’s interesting to see the same cheap-labor/close-the-borders fissures opening up here that erupted in, say, the UT-03 primary last year.

• IL-14: One more dropout in the GOP field in the 14th, as young Mark Vargas, a former Defense Dept. employee in Iraq, got out of the race. Unlike other recent dropout Bill Purcell, though, Vargas endorsed Ethan Hastert on his way out the door. Jeff Danklefsen is the only minor player left on the playing field between Hastert and state Sen. Randy Hultgren.

• NJ-03: The 5’9″ John Adler is certainly vulnerable to wedgies and wet willies from the 6’7″ Jon Runyan, but now he’s vulnerable to the dreaded Rear Admiral as well. Maurice “Mo” Hill, a Toms River Township Councilor, dentist, and retired Navy rear admiral, says he’ll likely run in the GOP primary against Runyan, despite local party leaders’ hopes to avoid a contested primary like the one that sank their hopes last year. Hill says he’ll move forward if he gets the backing of his local Ocean County party, regardless of how the other counties’ organizations go.

• PA-06: Chester County Recorder of Deeds Ryan Costello bailed out on his run in the GOP field in the 6th, finding all the oxygen in the race gobbled up by self-funding moderate Steven Welch and well-known conservative state Rep. Curt Schroder. Schroder, meanwhile, nailed down the endorsements of two more Republican legislators in the area: Berks County state Sen. Mike Folmer and newly-elected state Montgomery County Sen. Bob Mensch.

• SC-01: Another Republican is getting into the primary against vulnerable Rep. Henry Brown in the Charleston-area 1st (joining “Tumpy” Campbell): attorney, Navy vet, and former Mt. Pleasant city councilor Mark Fava. Could this have the effect of splitting the anti-Brown vote, though? On the Dem side, restauranteur Robert “Bob” Dobbs was joined several weeks ago by commercial pilot and Air Force vet Robert Burton.

• TN-08: State Sen. Roy Herron isn’t getting a completely free shot in his primary to replace retiring Rep. John Tanner in rural western Tennessee: he’ll face off against 34-year-old Luther Mercer II, an educator and son of a Madison County Commissioner. Meanwhile, eager to generate more Tanners, the GOP has unveiled its target list of aging House Democrats in red districts to push to retire (mostly just via press release attacks for now — perhaps there will also be a sustained attempt to blanket their offices with brochures for oceanfront Florida condominiums as well). Recall, though, that Tanner said the prospect of a good fight was the one thing that was potentially keeping him from retiring, suggesting this has the potential to backfire in some cases.

• Mayors: Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu had said this summer that he wouldn’t seek to become the next mayor of New Orleans. When most other big-names like city council president Arnie Fielkow and state Rep. Karen Carter Peterson subsequently declined, Landrieu apparently sensed a mayoralty for the taking. Now he’s apparently changed his mind, and says he’ll launch a mayoral campaign next week. (Landrieu narrowly lost the mayor’s race to Ray Nagin in 2006.)

• WATN?: 80-year-old former New York state Sen. majority leader Joe Bruno, who turned Albany into his personal fiefdom for decades, just got convicted of two felony corruption charges. And former Rep. Chip Pickering, one of the C Street House residents who bailed from a promising career after an embarrassing affair, is staying classy. He was last seen getting into a physical altercation at his young son’s soccer game — with an opposing team’s soccer coach already wearing a neck brace.  

• AR-Sen: State Sen. Gilbert Baker has generally been treated as the frontrunner in the Arkansas GOP’s Senate field, and that became a little clearer over the weekend with the state party’s straw poll. It was a close race, though: Baker got 35% (out of 700 votes), followed closely by businessman and Huckabee crony Curtis Coleman at 33. The biggest surprise may be who finished 3rd: former Army colonel and “Christian identity” enthusiast Conrad Reynolds, at 23, followed by head teabagger Tom Cox at 4, state Sen. Kim Hendren an embarrassing 2, and some dudes Fred Ramey and Buddy Rogers at 2 and 1 apiece.

• LA-Sen: Republican SoS Jay Dardenne isn’t seeming to take any steps to gear up for a primary challenge to Sen. David Vitter, but he keeps not doing anything to make the rumors go away, either. Dardenne recently said he’s considering polling the race soon, which would require setting up an exploratory committee. The only poll of a Vitter/Dardenne matchup, from R2K in March, gave Vitter an 11-pt edge.

• MT-Sen: If Max Baucus is running again in 2014, this is the kind of publicity he doesn’t need in the meantime. It turns out that Baucus, who separated from his wife last year, then began an affair with his office director Melodee Hanes — and then nominated her to be Montana’s new US Attorney. She didn’t get the position, although she does now work in a different role for the DOJ.

• NC-Sen: After a lot of back and forth, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham made his campaign for the Democratic Senate nomination official today. You can see his launch video at the above link. However, Chapel Hill mayor Kevin Foy, who’d floated his name out there for the Democratic nod, confirmed that he won’t be getting in the race.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: After trumpeting the rumors a few weeks ago that Rudy Giuliani was poised to enter the Senate race against Kirsten Gillibrand, now the Daily News is assessing Rudy’s decision to take on a long-term, high-profile consulting gig as security expert for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and concluding that he’s not looking so likely as a candidate for anything now. Meanwhile, over on the Dem side of the aisle, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer, who briefly planned a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand, has now finally offered an endorsement to her.

• PA-Sen: Rep. Joe Sestak pulled in his first endorsement from a fellow Congressperson in his primary campaign against Arlen Specter. Rep. Barney Frank offered his support today, saying that he considers Sestak one of the most valuable members of Congress.

• NV-Gov: With a recent Mason-Dixon poll showing Democratic Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman with a small lead as an independent in various gubernatorial race permutations, Goodman is now publicly weighing the race. He says he’ll have an answer “real soon,” but that his wife has already given him the green light on a run.

• AL-02: Can teabagging save Bobby Bright next year? Not by him doing it (or we can only hope)… instead, Montgomery city counilor Martha Roby, the NRCC’s pick in the race, is going to face a primary challenge from the ultra-right. Businessman Rick Barber, who’s been active in local tea parties and the 9/12 Washington march, is planning to take on Roby. He has to be encouraged by an interesting new poll from Rasmussen, which suggests that, given a choice between a Democrat, a Republican, and a Tea Party member in the upcoming election, the Tea Partier would beat the Republican, 23-18 (with the Democrat prevailing at 36%).

• PA-06: Wealthy pharma executive Steven Welch, who fled from the race in the 7th to the 6th when Patrick Meehan appeared, is now earning “RINO” labels and the enmity of the RedStaters. Welch not only gave Joe Sestak $300 in 2006, but also was a registered Democrat from 2006 through 2008. Also, another GOPer is sniffing out the race (as the possible fifth entrant in the GOP field): Scott Zelov, commissioner of very wealthy and moderate Lower Merion Township on the Main Line.

• TN-08: State Sen. Roy Herron is fighting back against the wide-ranging attacks leveled against him by the NRCC, as his candidacy for the 8th enters its second week. (Recall from last week that the NRCC has been gay-baiting Herron.) Herron called the NRCC’s attacks “ridiculous and desperate,” to which the NRCC said Herron was “foaming at the mouth” and “hurling ‘Yo mama’-style insults.” As much as the NRCC is transparently guilty of what they accuse Herron of, they at least win some points for evocative language here. An article from the Tennessean lists a few other Dems who may be interested in the seat, despite Herron’s quick entry, one of whom is a big name: former state House speaker Jimmy Naifeh (who had considered a run in 1988, when John Tanner took over the seat). They also list state Sen. Doug Jackson as a possibility.

• NY-St. Sen.: State Sen. Hiram Monserrate is managing to escape his misdemeanor assault conviction with no jail time, leaving his colleagues wondering what to do with him (including censure, suspension, or expulsion). Also, good news for the Dems as they look for ways to expand their narrow majority: one of the last Republicans left in the Senate within the New York City limits, Frank Padavan, may get a top-tier challenge next year from former city councilor Tony Avella (last seen losing the mayoral primary to William Thompson).

• Mayors: Kasim Reed has been certified as elected as the new mayor of Atlanta. His opponent, city councilor Mary Norwood, still plans to request a recount of the election, decided by a margin of less than one thousand votes. In New York City, guess who finished fourth in the mayoral race: fictional character C. Montgomery Burns, who got more write-in votes than any other candidate. Why just vote for a billionaire buying the office who’s only a little bit creepy and evil, when instead you can go the Full Monty?

• History: Here’s an interesting piece of trivia: a woman was not elected to the U.S. Senate, without having been the wife or daughter of a previous Senator, until 1980. That woman was Republican Paula Hawkins, who served as Florida’s Senator for one term, and in her outspoken self-proclaimed averageness, telegenic ultra-conservatism, and resentments of liberal media elites, was something of a Sarah Palin prototype. Hawkins died over the weekend at age 82.

• Polltopia: Here’s another thoughtful article at Pollster.com on what’s driving Rasmussen’s perceptibly pro-Republican house effects, from professor Alan Abramowitz. He says that there’s more going on than just their use of a likely voter model; he sees a major difference between Rasmussen and other pollsters in terms of the Democratic advantage in party identification. Meanwhile, PPP is asking for your help yet again: they’d like your input on which House district to poll next. Should it be CO-03, CO-04, ID-01, NH-01, NM-01, NM-02, or SD-AL?

• MA-Sen: We’re half a week away from the primary special election in Massachusetts, and AG Martha Coakley is still in the catbird’s seat, at least according to an internal poll from her own camp (conducted by Celinda Lake) that got leaked to Chris Cillizza. Coakley’s at 41, with Rep. Michael Capuano at 21 (consistent with other polls seeing a last-minute surge by the Congressman), Stephen Pagliuca at 10, and Alan Khazei at 7.

• TX-Sen, TX-Gov: This has been broadly telegraphed already, but Houston mayor Bill White made it official today at a press conference: he’s dropping out of the Senate special election that looks less likely to ever happen, and getting into the Governor’s race instead. A Democrat has not won statewide office in Texas since 1994, but White is well-funded and, assuming he faces Rick Perry in the general, his centrist competence may match up well against Perry’s quick-draw conservatism. Also, I’m not the first wag to notice this, but it’s snowing today in Texas, so cue up all the jokes about hell freezing over and Democrats getting elected. (UPDATE: Former Ag Commissioner candidate Hank Gilbert is dropping out of the Dem field in the governor’s race today and heading for another Ag Comnissioner race, which probably isn’t a surprise. However, this part is a surprise: he’s endorsing hair-care guru Farouk Shami instead of White.)

• MN-Gov: Rumors were starting to pop up (via Politico, natch) that Republican ex-Sen. Norm Coleman was trying to raise his profile in preparation for a gubernatorial run. Coleman himself, however, said that’s not the case; he’s focusing on some think-tank work in Washington for now and will look at the “political horizon” later.

• OR-Gov: Here’s a surprise on the fundraising front: Republican Chris Dudley, who’s never run for office before and whose main claim to fame is being the Portland Trail Blazers’ designated free-throw-misser in the late 90s, filed records he already has $340K banked for a still-unannounced gubernatorial run (more than John Kitzhaber’s $280K). Worth noting, though: more than half of that came from only three huge donations, including $100,000 from Dudley’s ex-agent. (An interesting tidbit: $5,000 came from ex-teammate Terry Porter.) Also, Dudley is quickly swinging establishment endorsements his way, including from moderate state Sen. Frank Morse, who was briefly rumored as a candidate himself, and former House majority leader Wayne Scott, who is trying to walk back his previous endorsement of Allen Alley. However, as the Oregonian’s Jeff Mapes points out: “None of them have a firm idea of where Dudley will come down on the issues.”

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato has been teasing a big endorsement this weekend, but he pulled aside the curtain a day ahead: it’s Rep. Patrick Murphy, which is especially helpful for Onorato as he seeks to gain ground in the Philly suburbs to expand beyond his own Pittsburgh base. On the GOP side, there have been growing calls from newspaper editorial boards for Tom Corbett to either resign as AG or get out of the gubernatorial race, citing the conflict of interest in Corbett having accepted donations from those he’s now charging with crimes in the Bonusgate saga. Yesterday, the Lancaster Intelligencer-Journal joined in.

• SC-Gov: Two items of sort-of-good, or at least somewhat-less-bad, news for Mark Sanford: first, most of the 37 ethics charges against Sanford were dismissed by a state legislative panel. Nine of the charges (involving use of state aircraft) still stand, though, and on Monday, the panel meets again on whether to refer impeachment charges to the full Judiciary committee. And second, a Rasmussen poll finds a narrow plurality saying “no” to the issue of whether he should resign (41-42), and a 36-49 response to the question of whether he should be impeached if he doesn’t resign. 54% say he is “about as ethical” as other politicians.

• TN-Gov: The Democratic gubernatorial field in Tennessee is rapidly shrinking this week: not only did state Sen. Roy Herron jump out to pursue TN-08 instead, but businessman Ward Cammack pulled the plug yesterday after no progress on the fundraising front. That leaves beer baron and gubernatorial progeny Mike McWherter, state Sen. minority leader Jim Kyle, and former state House majority leader Kim McMillan in the hunt.

• CO-07: There’s another Republican entrant in the 7th, where Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier recently dropped down from the Senate race to take on sophomore Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter. Lang Sias, an Iraq vet who worked on veterans’ outreach for the McCain campaign, is getting in the race; he’s also getting some big-name help, including former RNC press secretary Alex Conant.

• IA-03: State Sen. Brad Zaun officially kicked off his campaign yesterday; he’ll face wrestling coach Jim Gibbons for the GOP nod to take on the perpetually shaky Leonard Boswell in the Des Moines-based 3rd.

• IL-14: The GOP field is getting re-arranged in the 14th, and there’s some strategic thinking behind it. Businessman Jim Purcell dropped out, probably because nobody knew who he was, but specifically argued that he didn’t want to split the anti-Ethan Hastert vote, saying that the Hastert name would be poison in the general election. Presumably, his absence will benefit Hastert’s main challenger, state Sen. Randy Hultgren.

• TN-08: TPM has a nice expose of the NRCC’s efforts to not-so-subtly gay-bait state Sen. Roy Herron, who just took over the helm for the Dems in the race in the 8th. They’re trying to get mileage out of Herron’s personal blog, asking why he’s allegedly so focused on his “body image” and then asking (on the issue that Herron has never been a businessman) “So why can’t Roy Herron just be straight with West and Middle Tennesseans and admit it?”

• Polling: I know Rasmussen gets a lot of grief in the comments (and on the front page sometimes, too), so it’s worth taking a look at a recent piece of Mark Blumenthal wondering “Why is Rasmussen So Different?” His answers center on their likely voter model (which should come as no surprise to SSP readers) and also the way they ask their approve/disapprove questions. The article also has a very helpful chart showing the “house effects” of all the major pollsters, showing Rasmussen one of the rightmost, right next to Zogby and Harris. (Interestingly, the graph also shows PPP skewing right-of-center… and Fox News skewing a bit left.)

• Maps: I also know that SSPers like maps, so here are some maps courtesy of the Seattle Times of last month’s King County Executive and Seattle mayor’s races. The KCE results are kind of a no-brainer — the more rural you are, the more likely you were to vote for losing quasi-Republican Susan Hutchison. The Seattle mayor results are very interesting, though, showing the more likely you are to have a scenic view from your house, the more likely you were to vote for Joe Mallahan, showing some class-based fissures between the coalitions of establishment progressive Mallahan and anti-establishment victor Mike McGinn.

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov: The rumors had been getting louder all week that ex-Ambassador Tom Foley would drop out of the complicated GOP Senate field, paring that field down to ex-Rep. Rob Simmons, Linda McMahon, and Peter Schiff, and head over to the seemingly easier Governor’s race instead. (Easier in the primary, at least — whatever Dem he faces in the general won’t come in with the same baggage as Chris Dodd.) Today Foley made it official, getting out of the Senate race and into the Governor’s race. Foley doesn’t have the field to himself, though, and in fact faces a formidable challenge from current Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, who’d also been rumored to run but made it official yesterday. Fedele claims to have outgoing Gov. Jodi Rell’s support, but Rell is only saying that there are several well-qualified Republicans running.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is red in the face today after it was noticed that his recorded message giving callers the number for Florida KidCare had several of the numbers mixed up, and the number he was giving out was a number for ‘hot, horny girls.’ And while we’re talking about hot, horny girls, we might as well talk about Bubba the Love Sponge. Crist’s appearance tonight on his endless fundraising carousel is being hosted by attorney Stephen Diaco. One of Diaco’s most renowned clients is the aforementioned Mr. Sponge, who once famously asked Crist “Are you a homo?” (UPDATE: The St. Pete Times apparently got its shock jocks mixed up; that wasn’t Bubba the Love Sponge, but rather “Randy and Dave” who asked that.)

• IL-Sen: With David Hoffman hitting the airwaves this week, it didn’t take long for Alexi Giannoulias to respond with his first TV spot. While Hoffman’s ad is just him intensely facing down the camera, Giannoulias is a more conventional touchy-feely bio spot that focuses on his efforts to save jobs at local company Hartmarx. Also, Jacob Meister has his own internal poll out of the Democratic primary field. Usually candidates don’t release internal polls that show them polling at 1%, but, well, Meister’s gotta start somewhere. It’s pretty well in-line with the other candidates’ internals, showing about half of voters still undecided, with Giannoulias at 33, Cheryle Jackson at 10, and Hoffman at 7.

• KY-Sen: An interesting National Journal piece on Rand Paul points to what we’ve been wondering about: whether the Paulists and the teabaggers can make common cause, despite the the ideological differences they bring to the table (if one can accuse the teabaggers’ incoherent and paranoid set of grievances to be an ‘ideology’). The answer is, yes, apparently they can, as they’re sufficiently united in their hatred of all things guvmint. Paul has apparently had some success reaching out to the tea party wing of the Republicans, and lately has taken to comparing himself to another successful upstart, Marco Rubio.

• FL-05: Florida Republican Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite isn’t really on anybody’s list of vulnerable House members, but, in case that needed to be quantified, she released an internal poll proving that. A Tarrance Group survey found her with a 62/18 approval. Her greatest concern in 2010 in this GOP-leaning district may be a primary challenge from teabagger Jason Sager, but her approval is in “the 70s” purely among conservative Republicans, so she’s probably safe on her right flank too.

• MN-06: It looks like the Democratic contest in the 6th is going to go to a primary, regardless of what happens with the DFL endorsement process. Maureen Reed says she’s won’t abide by the state party’s endorsement (which was probably already going to go to the well-connected state Sen. Tarryl Clark). Minnesota has a notoriously late primary, which could leave the primary winner with little time to replenish before the general against Rep. Michele Bachmann, but it’s possible the Minnesota primary may get moved earlier to comply with new federal election laws.

• NC-05: Rep. Virginia Foxx is protected by a deep-red district but has a great gift for inserting her foot into her mouth, so it’s always good to have a Dem on tap to go against her. The rumored candidate for 2010 may be Billy Kennedy, a former state and county Democratic party committee member and the host of a local radio talk show.

• NH-01: Manchester mayor Frank Guinta is quickly going from a solo show to Three’s Company, with businessman Rich Ashooh getting in earlier this week and now Fergus Cullen saying he’s interested in the race too. Cullen is the former state party chair in New Hampshire, and points out that offers some contrasts to the other two candidates, in terms of being more socially moderate and also being from the district’s rural part instead of Manchester.

• NH-02: Next door in the 2nd, it looks like we’re also about to expand to a three-person field on the Dem side. Katrina Swett, an attorney who lost to Charlie Bass in 2002, says she’s “very, very strongly” moving in the direction of running — this comes after people were starting to wonder where she is, despite her long-expected candidacy (she says she’s been busy with the Lantos Foundation, named after her father, former Rep. Tom Lantos). Attorney Ann McLane Kuster and state Rep. John DeJoie are already in, but Swett has the advantage of leftover funds that she stockpiled for a Senate run last year that never happened.

• NY-01: Here’s an internal in a race where the incumbent is considered potentially vulnerable: Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop, in Long Island’s 1st. The internal, taken by wealthy Republican Randy Altschuler by McLaughlin & Assocs. gives Bishop a big lead, 46-26. Still, Altschuler hasn’t introduced himself to the district yet and is likely only to gain ground, so Bishop might want to take notice that he’s polling below the magic 50% mark.

• PA-06: The Democratic primary in the 6th has suddenly escalated into a brutal barfight in the last few days, with both candidates’ camps throwing the kitchen sink and everything else handy at each other. The initial sound and fury focused on abortion, but it quickly devolved into general impugning of each other’s motives, and one of the issues then hurled by the Manan Trivedi camp via press release was the sockpuppetry engaged in here at SSP by a Doug Pike campaign official. So, that’s some food for thought for all the campaign pros (and amateurs) among the SSP readership: don’t give in to the temptation to sockpuppet, or it could actually wind up a campaign issue that bites you in the butt.

• PA-08: The Republicans found an elected official to go up against not-terribly-vulnerable Rep. Patrick Murphy in the suburban, Dem-leaning 8th: Judith Algeo, a lawyer who’s also on the Warwick Township Board of Supervisors. Warwick Twp. has a population of 12,000, though, so what little name rec that generates isn’t guaranteed to get her out of the GOP primary — there are three other candidates already, among whom attorney and Marine Reservist Dean Malik seems to have gotten the most attention.

• TN-06: Things still seem to be full speed ahead for Republican state Sen. Jim Tracy, who’s now meeting with the NRCC in Washington about the logistics of a challenge against long-time Rep. Bart Gordon in this increasingly-red district. He’d face a primary against former Rutherford Co. GOP chair Lou Ann Zelenik, though.

• TN-08: A couple more items about the newly-minted open seat in the 8th: state Sen. Roy Herron is already in the race (and out of the gubernatorial race), but he’s going to be refunding the money he raised for his gubernatorial run. On the one hand, it’s gotta suck to be giving back that $900K, but on the other hand, assumedly he can get much of that re-donated back to his new account and it does show that he knows how to raise the dough. Also, good news as the Dems seek to avoid a costly primary: fellow state Sen. Lowe Finney said that he wouldn’t seek the nomination.

• GA-St. House: It’s looking like Republican state House speaker Glenn Richardson’s resignation is imminent. People on both sides of the aisle have been urging him to step down in the wake of Richardson’s suicide attempt last month, although perhaps more damaging is the allegation that the suicide attempt was related to an affair with a utility lobbyist where there may have been some quid pro quos. (And I have to ask, thinking back to “Hot Mike” Duvall in California, is that just how utility lobbyists do business these days?)

• Election results: There was a grab-bag of southern state runoffs and special elections last night; the main event was the Atlanta mayor’s race. It looks like Democratic African-American ex-state Sen. Kasim Reed defeated self-proclaimed-independent white city councilor Mary Norwood, but the margin is only around 620 votes (out of 83,000 cast). Reed has declared victory, but Norwood is talking recount.

There were also four legislative runoffs in Georgia; the only one that wasn’t an intra-party affair was in HD-141 (a previously Dem-held seat) where independent Rusty Kidd easily beat Democrat Russell Black. Kidd is staying mum on which party he’ll caucus with, although he’s the son of a prominent long-time Democratic legislator (Culver Kidd) and a stem-cell-research supporter. In HD-58 in Atlanta, community organizer Simone Bell becomes the first LGBT African-American elected to Georgia’s legislature. And in Tennessee, Republican state Rep. Brian Kelsey was elected easily in the vacant SD-31 in heavily Republican Memphis suburbs; he takes over for GOPer Paul Stanley, who resigned in disgrace after a sex scandal.

• IL-Sen: Former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman is up with the first TV ad in the fast-approaching Senate primary. Hoffman lacks name rec, but uses the ad to highlight his corruption-fighting past (and take some implicit hits at Alexi Giannoulias’s banking background).

• NY-Sen-B: You may remember Michael Balboni, who was pried out of his Dem-leaning Long Island state Senate seat by Eliot Spitzer to become the state’s Homeland Security chief and paving the way for Democratic takeover of the state Senate. Now he’s reportedly considering a run against Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate, as the New York GOP starts casting its net wider for somebody.

• UT-Sen: A Deseret News poll has bad news for Bob Bennett, in the form of perilous re-elects: only 27% support his re-election, and 58% want someone new. Nevertheless, he has a big edge over the field of nobodies circling around him: he polls at 31%, with Democrat Sam Granato at 14, followed by a gaggle of right-wingers: Cherilyn Eagar at 5, Tim Bridgewater and Fred Lampropoulos at 4, Mike Lee at 3, and James Williams at 1. With the Republican nomination potentially to be decided at the state convention — dominated by hard-right activists — though, these numbers don’t help to project much of anything for next year.

• IA-Gov: Chet Culver’s campaign manager Andrew Roos is out, as Culver stares at double-digit deficits against ex-Gov. Terry Branstad. Culver mangled his Shakesperean shrug-off, saying it’s “much to do about nothing.”

• TX-Gov: Press releases are already going out saying that Houston mayor Bill White is announcing something big on Friday, and now leaks are confirming what most people have suspected, that he’s going to go ahead and jump into the Democratic field in the governor’s race.

• FL-10: Sorta-moderate GOP Rep. Bill Young has another challenger — this time from the right. Eric Forcade says he got interested in politics from participating in tea parties and the 9/12 movement. (In case you’re having trouble remembering where all these random teabagger primary challenges are popping up, Think Progress has a handy scorecard of all of them.)

• IL-10: Little-known rich guy Dick Green dipped into his self-provided funds and laid out $100K for a big TV ad buy, introducing himself to Republican voters in the 10th. While Democrat Julie Hamos already has hit the airwaves, Green beats out fellow GOPers Beth Coulson and Bob Dold.

• KY-03: Rep. John Yarmuth may not exactly be intimidated by the first Republican to show up to go against him in Kentucky’s lone Dem-leaning district. Jeffrey Reetz has never run for office before, but he does own 25 Pizza Hut franchises.

• MD-04: Rep. Donna Edwards, who got into office via primary challenge, is facing a big challenge of her own. Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey has formed an exploratory committee to go up against Edwards for the Democratic nod. Ivey worked as a senior congressional staffer in the 1980s and 1990s; although he expresses enthusiasm for moving the “progressive agenda forward,” he’s probably running at least a bit to the right of Edwards, one of the leftmost House members.

• MN-01: This marks the third entry to the field against Democratic Rep. Tim Walz in about one week’s time. Today, it’s Republican Jim Hagedorn, a former congressional staffer and a one-time blogger under the name “Mr. Conservative.” He joins ex-state Rep. Allen Quist and state Rep. Randy Demmer, although the party seems to still be watching what more moderate state Sen. Julie Rosen does.

• PA-11: Hazleton mayor and 2008 loser Lou Barletta is doing his best to stay in the news, announcing that he’ll make another announcement on Dec. 9 as to whether or not he’ll seek a third faceoff against Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski.

• TN-08, TN-Gov: In case you missed our late update last night, Democratic state Sen. Roy Herron got out of the governor’s race where he was something of a longshot, and into the now-open TN-08 field, where he’s probably the favorite to get the Democratic nod. (Although open seats are theoretically harder to defend, Herron’s long district presence and lack of ties to Washington could conceivably help him to perform better next year than long-time Beltway creature Tanner might have.) Party officials (and outgoing Rep. John Tanner too, although he declined to endorse anyone yet) are moving quickly to keep a contested primary from happening, although state Rep. Philip Pinion has also been publicly letting his interest be known. Also, in discussing his sudden retirement decision, Tanner claims he wasn’t scared off by the fundraising success of out-of-nowhere GOP challenger Stephen Fincher; he’d already been eyeing retirement and the challenge “got his competitive juices flowing” but finally decided to call it a career.

• UT-02: Morgan Philpot, a former Republican state Representative, is considering a race against Rep. Jim Matheson next year. Philpot is currently the state party’s vice-chair, so he would bring some insider backing to the race.

• NY-Comptroller (pdf): With all the sudden talk of recruiting NYC comptroller William Thompson onto the Cuomo “ticket” to wage a primary fight against current state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, it’s worth going back and noting that the most recent Siena poll from a few weeks ago actually polled this permutation. They found a 31-31 tie in the Clash of the Comptrollers. They also found that both would beat Republican John Faso in the general.

• TX-Comptroller: In fact, talking about comptrollers is so much fun I’m going to keep doing it. Ex-Rep. Nick Lampson, who couldn’t hold down dark-red TX-22 last year, says that’s he’s looking into next year’s comptroller’s race, which would bring top-tier Democratic talent to another statewide race in Texas.

• NY-St. Sen.: After a lot of optimistic predictions earlier in the day, the actual vote on gay marriage in the New York Senate today kind of fizzled. Eight Democrats voted against and no Republicans crossed the aisle, leaving it to go down 24-38. Ironically, Marist came out with a poll today showing public support in favor of gay marriage, 51-42.

• CA-St. Ass.: However, in the one-step-forward, one-step-back fight for LGBT equality, California looks like it’s poised to have its first-ever gay Assembly Speaker. Los Angeles Assemblyman John Perez apparently has the votes locked up to take over as Speaker from Karen Bass, who’s termed out.

• Nassau Co. Exec: Two-term incumbent Tom Suozzi, who was down by 377 votes to Republican challenger Ed Mangano after a recount, decided to concede rather than pursue legal options. Suozzi, who’d be considered a likely AG candidate next year, says he’ll be back in politics but he can’t “imagine it would be anytime soon.”

• Mayors: It looks like a premature end of the line for Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon, who was just convicted of misdemeanor embezzlement for helping herself to $1,500 worth of gift cards that had been donated to give to poor families. Dixon is supposed to be suspended from office, but post-trial motions and a possible appeal may push that until later. City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is in line to succeed her.

• DGA: There’s new leadership at the Democratic Governor’s Association, as fast-rising Delaware governor Jack Markell (who’s been in office only for a year) takes over from Montana’s Brian Schweitzer. One of the DGA’s first orders of business as they prep for 2010: committing $1 million to the GOP Accountability Project, whose first ad target is Florida Republican candidate Bill McCollum.

Hotline on Call:

Rep. John Tanner (D-TN), a leading Blue Dog Dem, will retire at the end of his current term, Dem sources tell Hotline OnCall.

Tanner has begun informing key House Dems of his decision — one that will make his seat a prime pickup opportunity for GOPers. He has served 11 terms in Congress representing northwest TN, a district based around Jackson, Clarksville and Union City. […]

Tanner was almost certain to have a tough election. GOPers are thrilled with the prospects of Stephen Fincher (R), a farmer and gospel singer who raised more than $300K in his first several weeks campaigning. Though Tanner has nearly $1.4M in the bank, he may not have wanted to deal with what would have been his first tough race in years.

At a PVI of R+6, Tanner’s 8th District isn’t the toughest of Tennessee’s Blue Dog bastions, but it will be a challenging hold nonetheless. Obama lost the district by a 43-56 margin in 2008, down from Kerry’s 47-53 loss in 2004 and Al Gore’s 51-48 edge at the start of the decade. For stats fans, that means that this district saw the 9th-worst district decline from Kerry to Obama, and the 12th-worst district drop from 2000 to 2008.

Presumably, Democrats will have a healthy bench down the ticket here, but it remains to be seen whether or not a candidate with solid campaign skills will take the plunge.

UPDATE: Here’s one downballot name who represents part of this district: Democratic state Sen. Roy Herron. Herron is currently running for Governor in a crowded Democratic field, but perhaps he’d be interested in a switch. There are also quite a few more Democratic state Senators and Representatives whose districts overlap with the 8th CD.

LATER UPDATE: Looks like Herron is operating on the same brainwave. From the Associated Press:

Democratic state Sen. Roy Herron tells The Associated Press he is dropping his gubernatorial bid to instead seek the northwest Tennessee congressional seat being vacated by Rep. John Tanner.

Herron, a Dresden attorney, said in a phone interview Tuesday night that representing the 8th Congressional District has long been a goal of his.

Well, that’s one hole filled — and by a pretty credible candidate, to boot. This will be a race well worth watching. (Hat-tip: TNDem)

RaceTracker Wiki: TN-08

Southern Political Report (7/13, registered voters, no trendlines):

Mike McWherter (D): 23

Roy Herron (D): 13

Jim Kyle (D): 6

Ward Cammack (D): 5

Kim McMillan (D): 3

Other: 16

Undecided: 34

Zach Wamp (R): 22

Bill Haslam (R): 15

Ron Ramsey (R): 7

Bill Gibbons (R): 4

Other: 13

Undecided: 39

(MoE: ±3.8%)

This is, as far as I know, the first poll out there of the still-coalescing Tennessee governor’s race. It’s from an outlet with no track record (although I suspect this may have been conducted by the reputable Insider Advantage, with whom the Southern Political Report is affiliated), primaries only, and the undecideds are huge (as one would expect at this point in the game), but it’s better than nothing, so let’s take a look.

On the Dem side, the leader is Jackson-area businessman (beer distributor, to be more precise) Mike McWherter, who’s never been elected before but whose claim to fame is that he’s the son of former Governor Ned McWherter (so factor in that a lot of respondents may think they’re talking about Ned instead). The other players here at state Senator Roy Herron from the state’s rural northwest, state Senate minority leader Jim Kyle from Memphis, businessman Ward Cammack of Nashville, and former state House majority leader Kim McMillan of Clarksville, the only woman in the race. The “other,” I suspect, is that a lot of people still think that country music star Tim McGraw is running as a Democrat (which he’s denied, but had long been rumored).

For the GOPers, the frontrunner is U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp of the 3rd District (Chattanooga), trailed by Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam, Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey from Blountville in the state’s far eastern tip, and Shelby Co. DA Bill Gibbons of Memphis. (I’m emphasizing the cities they’re from because both fields are composed of candidates each with their own clearly defined regional base, and if the fields stay this crowded, consolidating regional bases will prove very important for winning the primary. Bear in mind for the general, though, that Democrats are much stronger in the western half of the state and Republicans are much stronger in the east.)

RaceTracker: TN-Gov

• NJ-Gov: The latest poll of the New Jersey governor’s race shows that things aren’t getting any worse for Jon Corzine, but he is settling into a deep rut. Fairleigh Dickinson finds that he loses 42-33 to Chris Christie, the same 9-pt margin as their previous poll one month ago (41-32). Corzine’s approval rating is 40/49, and he beats even nuttier GOPer Steve Lonegan by only 37-36. There is some good news, though: he’d still win in a Democratic primary, if for some reason senate president Richard Codey or Newark mayor Corey Booker challenged him.

Could An incumbent Democratic governor of New Jersey come back after trailing by double digits in the polls for most of the campaign? It happened once before, when Gov. Brendan Byrne beat Republican Raymond Bateman, despite being down as much as twelve points in September of 1977. “Hopeful” at Blue Jersey does some excellent digging through the archives to tell Byrne’s story. (D)

• VA-Gov: National politics just injected itself into the Virginia governor’s race in a big way, as the GOP-held House of Delegates rejected $125 million in federal stimulus funds that would have extended unemployment benefits. Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell supported his party’s callous move.

• AK-Sen: Ted Stevens just filed his exploratory paperwork to get his old job back, by running for senator in 2014 (when he’ll be 91). Don’t actually expect to see Ted 2.0, though; his spokesman says it’s just a receptacle to receive donations that came in after the November election.

• FL-Sen, NH-Sen: In other unlikely comeback news, though, this one appears to be for real: Bob Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has filed the paperwork to run for Senate again… in Florida, where he now lives. This seems odd, since there are political titans jostling for the Florida nomination while the New Hampshire nomination still seems to be pretty much free for the asking. (As an indication of how far down the totem pole the NH GOP is looking, Ovide Lamontagne, last seen losing the 1996 gubernatorial race, is now eyeing NH-Sen.)

• AR-Sen: Mediocre polling and pressure on EFCA seem to have gotten Blanche Lincoln worried, but she may be able to breathe a little easier after her first quarter fundraising haul: $1.7 million, with $1 million of that coming at a campaign kickoff event headlined by Joe Biden.

• MI-Gov: Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson has announced that he won’t seek the GOP nomination for the governor’s race next year. Patterson narrowly led the primary field in a recent poll, so that leaves a wide-open field with a possible advantage to 2nd-place finisher Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

• TN-Gov: State senator Roy Herron entered the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, joining former state house majority leader Kim McMillan and Nashville businessman Ward Cammack. Mike McWherter, son of former governor Ned McWherter, also seems a likely candidate.

• PA-06: We have at least a warm body lined up in PA-06: Doug Pike, who hasn’t held elected office but wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer for a number of years, was an aide to Paul Tsongas, and is the son of Rep. Otis Pike (of New York). A better-known candidate may still crop up, especially if Rep. Jim Gerlach follows through on his likely plans to bail on his increasingly-Democratic seat (Obama won 58-41) and run for Pennsylvania governor instead.