Tag: Maureen Reed

• AR-Sen: The Bill Halter campaign is looking for last minute phonebanking help to seal the deal. And you can do it from the comfort of your own home.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (pdf): The Senate GOP primary portion of the Field Poll came out over the weekend, and it’s right in line with the various other pollsters finding a last-minute Carly Fiorina surge into a double-digit lead. She leads Tom Campbell and Chuck DeVore 37-22-19. (Campbell led 28-22-9 in the previous Field poll in March.) Also, it looks like Campbell’s last-minute ad pitch, centered around his electability, may fall on deaf ears: 42% of primary voters think that Fiorina has the best chance of beating Barbara Boxer, while 22% think that Campbell does (and 12% think that Chuck DeVore does — which is also about the same percentage of Californians who believe there is a 1,000 foot high pyramid in Greenland). There are also primary polls out from Republican pollster Magellan (who don’t have a horse in this race), who find things even worse for Campbell: they have Fiorina leading Campbell and DeVore 54-19-16. They also give a big edge to fellow rich person Meg Whitman in the gubernatorial race; she leads Steve Poizner 64-22. The unfortunate moral of the story here: have a lot of money.

• DE-Sen: New Castle Co. Exec Chris Coons is pre-emptively getting ahead of Republican charges that he raised taxes, by, instead of hiding under the bed like conventional wisdom dictates, saying ‘guilty as charged’ and explaining how it helped. The county wound up with a AAA bond rating and a eight-digit surplus. Coons also previewed one of his lines of attack against Mike Castle: Castle’s role in deregulating the banking sector.

• FL-Sen: As Charlie Crist rebuilds his team from scratch, he’s rolling out a new media team that’s heavy on the Democratic ties. Most prominently, Chuck Schumer’s former chief of staff, Josh Isay, will be Crist’s lead media person. Isay’s firm SKD Knickerbocker may be best-known for helping out other moderate independents, like Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg. One of the fires that Isay will have to put out as soon as he gets in the building, though, is what to do about the Jim Greer situation. Greer’s lawyer is saying that Crist gave the initial OK on Greer’s fundraising workaround which avoided usual party channels (which Greer allegedly turned into a scheme for filling his own pockets).

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk’s very, very bad week last week just seems to be spilling over into this week. There are allegations popping up that he fibbed on getting shot at in Afghanistan too, and also evidence that he made a lot of stuff up while talking off the cuff about the Somalia situation last year. Taking a page from Richard Blumenthal, late last week he finally dropped the playing offense against the charges and instead went to the Chicago Tribune’s e-board to say “I’m sorry” — but that apology comes after letting the story fester all week.

• NH-Sen: After a year and a half of having the Democratic primary to himself, there are hints that Rep. Paul Hodes might get some late-in-the-game company. Mark Connolly, the former head of the state’s Securities Division who resigned to become a whistleblower in the wake of the Financial Resources Mortgage coverup (the same one that’ll have Kelly Ayotte testifying before the state legislature soon), expressed some interest and said “he’s angry enough to do it.” (Looks like a common theme this year.) Speaking of Ayotte, it sounds like she doesn’t know how to read a poll: she says she won’t take drilling for oil off New Hampshire’s tiny coastline “off the table.”

• WA-Sen: You might remember from last week that the Univ. of Washington engaged in some methodologically weird stuff by adding an extra week’s worth of samples on the end of their already-released poll and re-releasing the numbers (which were nevertheless unchanged, at Patty Murray 44, Dino Rossi 40). Well, now they’re re-releasing the poll yet again with even more samples, with changed toplines and with specific numbers for that tiny extra sample for the days May 24-28 (following Rossi’s official announcement). The number that’s getting all the press is that Rossi led Murray 42-39 in that batch, although that’s only based on 221 likely voters with a margin of error of 6.6%, so its usefulness is, well, questionable. Their full numbers are now 42-40 for Murray for the entire RV sample and 46-40 for Murray for the entire LV sample (i.e. those who voted in 2006), and she leads Generic R 44-39 among RVs (and 46-41 in the May 24-28 sample), but this poll has gotten so methodologically convoluted I’m not really sure it’s worth much of anything at this point.

Murray got some good news today in the form of an endorsement, and it’s not from a human but a corporation: Boeing. While she’s received plenty of Boeing money in the past, I’m not aware of Boeing ever having explicitly endorsed her or anyone else before (although anyone with a pulse knows that Murray has taken over for Scoop Jackson as the “Senator from Boeing”). Frankly, in the state of Washington, this is a bigger endorsement than any human politician’s endorsement would be, considering the way Boeing’s tendrils reach so much of the state. Finally, the field of miscellaneous Republicans kept shrinking today, as chiropractor Sean Salazar (probably the first guy to try to grab the teabagger mantle here, although he got shoved over by Clint Didier) bailed out of the race and backed Rossi.

• WI-Sen: Here’s a strange vulnerability for Ron Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race: his fixation on opposing bipartisan Wisconsin state legislation making it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers. That’ll require some explanation, and I assume it’ll be something other than his current explanation, that such legislation would only lead to more victims of sexual abuse by making organizations likelier to sweep it under the carpet.

• IA-Gov: After endorsing a variety of misspelled odds-and-ends last week (“Cecil Bledsoe,” “Angela McGowen,” and Joe Miller), Sarah Palin went with a big gun this weekend, and it was one who doesn’t match her carefully cultivated teabagging/religious right image at all: establishment retread Terry Branstad in Iowa. Is she counting on getting repaid by Branstad in the 2012 caucuses, if she decides to give up the grifting lifestyle and take the huge pay cut associated with running for President? (Branstad also has the backing of Mitt Romney, who seems more of a kindred spirit for him.)

• MI-Gov: The Schwarz is not with us after all. Joe Schwarz, the moderate ex-Rep. who got bounced from MI-07 in 2006 in the GOP primary by Tim Walberg, has decided against pursuing the independent bid in the Governor’s race that he’d been threatening. On the surface, the loss of a center-right indie looks like bad news for the Dems, but depending on which two candidates match up in November, Schwarz could just have easily pulled more left-of-center votes… and in all likelihood, he wasn’t going to rack up more than a few percent anyway.

• NY-Gov: In their standoff with Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo, the Working Families Party seems to have blinked first. They went ahead and nominated placeholders in the Governor, Lt. Gov, and AG slots, presumably to allow coordination with the Dem choices later. Cuomo had been leaning hard on the WFP to do so. The person most affected by this is state Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a Cuomo foe who had been considered the most likely WFP candidate for AG; instead, the WFP may wind up going with Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice, who’s Cuomo’s preferred AG for his informal “ticket.”

• TX-Gov: The Greens are actually going to be on the ballot in Texas this year, for the gubernatorial race? I’m as surprised as you are, but it’s less surprising when you find out who’s behind it: Arizona Republican consultant Tim Mooney, who set up the petition drive to get them on the ballot (and who’s also a veteran of the 2004 efforts to get Ralph Nader on as many states’ ballots as possible). GOP incumbent Rick Perry faces a tough race from Dem former Houston mayor Bill White, and he can have a little breathing room if the Greens siphon off a few lefties.

• AR-01: Chad Causey has an interesting argument for Democratic runoff voters in the 1st not to vote for ex-state Sen. Tim Wooldridge: he’s likely to bolt for the Republican Party at his earliest convenience. Causey’s evidence for the flight risk posed by Wooldridge includes his very conservative voting record in the state legislature, starting with his pro-public hanging legislation. Wooldridge, for his part, said he’d never switch. The Wooldridge camp is also offering up an internal poll (no word on the pollster) claiming a 48-24 lead over Causey in the runoff.

• CA-19: SurveyUSA has one last poll of the race in the 19th’s GOP primary, which they’ve polled exhaustively (and found almost exactly the same thing each time). However, this time it’s a little more interesting: there seems to be some late movement to former Fresno mayor Jim Patterson, who now leads state Sen. Jeff Denham 34-30. Ex-Rep. Richard Pombo is back at 17, with Larry Westerlund at 8. On the Dem side, it’s a 26-26 tie between Loraine Goodwin and Les Marsden.

• MN-06: What started out as a thorny three-way primary (when Elwyn Tinklenberg was in the race) has turned into a walk for Democratic state Sen. Tarryl Clark. Maureen Reed, a physician and former Independence Party Lt. Gov. candidate, ended her bid and endorsed Clark against Rep. Michele Bachmann. Reed had done surprisingly well at fundraising, but didn’t have the institutional advantages that Clark did, especially once Clark got the DFL endorsement. Clark still has an uphill fight against Bachmann, who’s insulated against likely future foot-in-mouth incidents by the district’s reddish lean as well as a huge war chest.

• TN-08: A Hill piece on the possibility of another NRCC-touted candidate (in the form of Stephen Fincher) going down in flames actually has some nice dirt on all three Republicans contesting the primary in the 8th. Fincher, of course, is widely noted for his hypocrisy on attacking the federal government while receiving millions in farm subsidies, but it’s also been revealed that he has voted in three Democratic primaries in the last eight years, “used virtually the same TV ad as a candidate for Alabama Agriculture Commisioner” (I have to assume it was an ad from one of the “thugs,” since if he’d riiiiiiipped off Dale Peterson’s ad, the whole blogosphere would already know about it by now), and perhaps most pathetically, misspelled “Tennessee” in a mailer. His challengers, Ron Kirkland and George Flinn, have their own troubles; Kirkland contributed to outgoing Democratic Rep. John Tanner in 2000 and 2004, while Flinn tried to cover up a lawsuit by a contractor who wasn’t paid for remodeling work.

• AZ-Sen: Maybe she was scared off by that R2K poll that had her down more than 20-odd points? Nan Stockholm Walden, a wealthy attorney and businesswoman who had been the subject of DSCC interest as a candidate in Arizona, decided not to run. That gives Tucson city councilor Rodney Glassman a pretty clear path to the nomination (assuming he runs; he’s still in exploratory mode).

• CT-Sen: Did you know that Linda McMahon actually held (until now) a political position, in addition to, of course, all the important work she does at WWE? She was on Connecticut’s Board of Education (an appointed position, courtesy of Jodi Rell), but just resigned from that role. She says that there are too many restrictions on political activities by board members for her to be able to remain in that position, as she tries to get the GOP Senate nomination.

• SD-Sen: John Thune may have dodged having to run against a Democrat in November, but he won’t be running purely unopposed. He’s still facing off against an independent, perennial candidate Kurt Evans.

• WI-Sen, WI-Gov: I had no idea that St. Norbert was the patron saint of fucked-up polls. A poll from Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert College is tilted even further in the Republican direction than recent offerings from Rasmussen and the decidedly conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. They find Russ Feingold losing to Tommy Thompson 45-33 (with 14% for an independent/third party, whoever that might be), and beating Generic R by only 40-37. Their gubernatorial numbers find Tom Barrett losing to Scott Walker 44-28 and to Mark Neumann 43-29. Even the GOP primary numbers seem screwy, with underdog Neumann almost even with Walker, who leads 24-23.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman rummaged around in her purse and found another $20 million to throw on the table, bringing her personal contributions to the race up to a whopping $59 million. Despite her big lead over Steve Poizner in the primary, she may need to prepare to shore things up, as Poizner has been telegraphing that he’s going to start going hard at her on the hot-button issue of immigration, in a last-ditch effort to get the state’s right-wingers to pay some attention to him.

• GA-12: There were some poorly sourced rumors yesterday that Rep. John Barrow — a conservadem in a swing district facing a primary challenge and the ire of a large swath of his African-American constituency after his HCR “no” vote — was going to switch parties. Barrow now says he was never even contemplating that, though.

• KS-03: After the Kansas City Star reported last week that Stephene Moore was going to run to replace her husband, Dennis, in the 3rd, she started acting coy about it (despite insider assurances that it was a done deal). As expected, though, today she made it official, filing a glaring hole in this R+3 open seat.

• LA-03: It looks like the NRCC is finally getting a top-tier participant in the open seat race in the 3rd (despite that winning it won’t be much of a prize, as the 3rd is poised to vaporize in 2012 redistricting). Former state House speaker Hunt Downer says he’ll announce his candidacy very soon. Probably the surest indication that Downer is serious is that state Rep. Nickie Monica, who may have been the strongest GOPer in the field to date, now says he’s getting out of the race to make way for Downer. With attorney Ravi Sangisetty the only Dem willing to stick his neck out for this one, this one’s pretty thoroughly in the GOP column.

• MN-06: State Sen. Tarryl Clark has been putting up some monster fundraising numbers against Michele Bachmann this cycle; I guess that’s what happens when you run against one of the nation’s top lightning rods for teh crazy. She pulled in $505K last quarter, bringing her to $1.1 million in total receipts this cycle. Unfortunately, Clark (or her primary opponent Maureen Reed, who’s also raised well but hasn’t released Q1 numbers yet) will likely have to contend with the presence of spoiler Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson. Anderson pulled in 10% of the vote in 2008 (while Elwyn Tinklenberg lost by only 3%), and he’s seeking the IP’s endorsement again.

• NH-01: RNC committee member Sean Mahoney made a big show out of resigning his post, ostensibly out of disgust with the Michael Steele administration and its free-spending, strip-clubbing ways. Speculation, though, is that Mahoney is planning to run in the GOP primary in the 1st (where Manchester mayor Frank Guinta is considered frontrunner, although so-so fundraising has diminished his luster a bit), which would require him to resign anyway. Mahoney isn’t promising anything on that front yet, though.

• NY-29: The Democrats have literally chosen Some Dude as their standard bearer in the 29th. The party chairs in the eight counties in the district issued a statement where they said they’ve chosen a consensus nominee to replace Eric Massa in the special election that may or may not happen. However, they neglected to actually say who that candidate might be. We’ll know the masked man’s identity next week.

• TN-03: A Huck divided against itself cannot stand? In a prime example of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, HuckPAC (Mike Huckabee’s national financial arm) and Team Huck Tennessee (the local grassroots operation) are endorsing different candidates in the GOP primary in the 3rd. Team Huck is endorsing former state GOP chair Robin Smith, while HuckPAC (and presumably, Huckabee himself) is going with attorney Chuck Fleischmann.

• TN-08: State Sen. Roy Herron had another fine fundraising quarter as he tries to keep this open seat in Democratic hands; he pulled in $490K last quarter, leaving him with more than $1 million cash on hand. It’s not an expensive district, media-wise, but he has some strong fundraising competition from humble gospel-singing farmer agribusiness mogul Stephen Fincher, who pulled in over $300K himself and is sitting on $820K CoH.

• PA-St. Sen.: As if the Pennsylvania legislature couldn’t be held in any lower esteem, here’s another fresh scandal. Luckily, this one seems to be falling on the Republican side of the aisle: state Sen. Jane Orie, the body’s third-ranking GOPer, was just accused by a grand jury of repeatedly using her staff for political campaigns on the state’s dime (include the campaign of her sister, state Supreme Court justice Joan Orie Melvin). Charges are expected, but Orie is shrugging it off, saying it’s a politically motivated smear by Democratic Allegheny Co. DA Stephen Zappala.

• Filings: The filing deadline in Missouri has passed, on March 30. Rep. Roy Blunt wound up with (count ’em) 10 Republican primary opponents in the Senate race, although state Sen. Chuck Purgason seems the only one worth paying attention to. The number of GOPers vying to take on Ike Skelton in MO-04 also reached the double digits. Probably the biggest surprise and disappointment was in MO-09: not that the DCCC would likely have strongly contested this district that they barely lost in 2008 when it was open, but not a single Democrat showed up to run in this race.

• Teabaggers: Here’s a nice catch from Ruy Teixeira: teabagging is about as popular as socialism. In slightly-differently-worded questions from two different 2010 polls, Gallup found that 37% had a favorable opinion of “the Tea Party movement” (including 14% of Democrats), while 36% had a positive image of “socialism” (including 17% of Republicans?!?).

Only one digest a day this week. Too much candy is bad for you!

FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek will qualify for the ballot today in an apparently unprecedented manner. Rather than pay the $10,000 filing fee, he plans to submit 130,000 signatures from across the state. (You need 112,500, so he has some wiggle room.) While this obviously was a vastly more expensive undertaking, Meek’s earned a bunch of free media as a result, and has also padded out his campaign database. On the GOP side, Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist squared off in their first debate yesterday. The Politico also has a take on the proceedings.

MA-Sen: Rachel Maddow took out a full-page ad in the Boston Globe to deny rumors that she had any interest in running against Sen. Scott Brown in 2012. But actually, it’s much better than that – click the link and check out her letter for yourself. She lands some good blows on Brown, who had sent out a letter trying to raise money off the oogedy-boogedy threat of a Maddow run. Says Maddow: “It’s standard now for conservatives to invent scary fake threats to run against.” Like her.

UT-Sen: Republican Gov. Gary Herbert says he won’t take sides in the primary battle against his fellow GOPer, Sen. Bob Bennett. Given that incumbents usually stick together, this seems worrying for Bennett – a guy who already has a long list of worries.

AL-05: Local conservative activist Hugh McInnish is seeking to bar Rep. Parker Griffith from the GOP ballot, calling him an “impostor.” A petition he filed with local party leaders was shot down in January, but he’s going to try to make his case to the state party next week.

CT-05: Former Hill aide Justin Bernier is complaining about how the House Conservatives Fund (a PAC run by Rep. Patrick McHenry) decided to endorse state Sen. Sam Caligiuri rather than himself. The HCF asked Bernier to fill out a survey and return it to one Evan Kozlow. The problem? Kozlow does work for the HCF, and he’s also Caligiuri’s general consultant.

MN-06: Dems in MN’s 6th CD have given their endorsement to state Sen. Tarryl Clark. Clark will still have to face off against Maureen Reed (formerly a member of the Independence Party) in an August primary.

NY-29: Upstate Dems are staying tight-lipped about their pick for a nominee in the special election to fill ex-Rep. Eric Massa’s seat. They are meeting today to interview six candidates, one of whom is Assemblyman David Koon. The other names are still unknown, though Paterson aide Mary Wilmot may be among them.

PA-10: A group called Catholics United, which pushed Chris Carney to support the healthcare reform bill, is now running an ad (on FOX News!) to thank him for his “yes” vote. No word on the size of the buy, but obviously it’s a cable dealie, so probably not big.

WA-03: Nurse and Democrat Maria Rodriguez-Salazar is dropping out of the race to succeed the retiring Rep. Brian Baird. This cuts the Dem field down to Denny Heck, Craig Pridemore, and Cheryl Crist.

IL-Lt. Gov: Illinois Democrats went the ultimate outsider route to pick a replacement Lt. Gov. candidate, choosing… the child of a former senator. Uh, I’m sure Sheila Simon, the daughter of the late Sen. Paul Simon, is a great person. But considering the lengths IL Dems went to try to open up this process and look like they weren’t just conducting another backroom deal (you could even apply online!), this almost seems like an absurd result. Not to mention the fact that this isn’t exactly the kind of year where a gubernatorial candidate wants to remind voters of any ties to DC. Seriously strange move here.

DSCC: Joe Biden just did a Dallas fundraiser for the DSCC, which took in $250,000. He also did a DNC fundraiser the same day. No word on how much that netted, though.

• 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?)

• NY-23: Well, it didn’t take long for Doug Hoffman to start bringing the crazy. (Maybe his new mentor Glenn Beck is already rubbing off on him.) First came the unconceding (and un-unconceding, as the absentee count wasn’t getting him any closer), but now he’s sending around a fundraising letter saying that “ACORN, the unions, and the Democratic Party” “tampered” with the election results, and that he was “forced to concede” on election night. Hoffman presents no evidence, the Republican elections commissioner of Jefferson County says that’s “absolutely false,” and the Owsego County Republican party chair says that’s “not accurate,” but why should that stop Hoffman? It’s actually a good argument to make, considering that it came out today that more than half of all Republicans polled by PPP think that ACORN stole the presidential election for Barack Obama (by stuffing the ballot boxes with more than 9 million votes, apparently). Meanwhile, aware of the risk next year from hordes of revenge-seeking teabaggers, the DCCC added new Rep. Bill Owens to its Frontline list of key defenses.

• KS-Sen: A lot of smoke seems to be pouring out from under the hood of Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s Senate campaign, and this can’t help matters. Tiahrt’s campaign’s field coordinator in the state’s most populous county (Johnson Co., in the Kansas City suburbs) resigned after it was revealed he had been arrested in July for an alleged sexual assault in 2008.

• MA-Sen: With the fundraising reporting deadline past for the Oct. 1-Nov. 18 period, Rep. Michael Capuano reported raising $1.8 million during the period, leaving him with $1.1 million cash on hand. That’s dwarfed by AG Martha Coakley, though, who reports via press release that she raised $4.1 million during the same period It looks like Coakley’s press release reported cumulative totals – she actually raised around $2 million, with $1.9 million cash on hand left.

• UT-Sen: Lawyer Mike Lee (son of Reagan-era Solicitor General and former BYU president Rex Lee) is in Washington DC this week and is making a big play for Club for Growth backing in his potential primary duel with incumbent GOP Senator Bob Bennett. Bringing the CfG into Utah would open up one more front in the GOP civil war.

• TN-Gov: The Democratic primary field in the Tennessee governor’s race is as clear as mud, and current governor Phil Bredesen isn’t clearing anything up. He confirmed that he won’t endorse anybody.

• CO-04: There’s one more candidate in the GOP field in the 4th, and he’s pretty explicit about his status as what’s come to be known at SSP as “Some Dude.” Dean Madere works for a heating and air-conditioning company, and is a self-proclaimed “regular guy” who’s upset about the country’s direction (and, surprise surprise, is a member of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 movement).

• FL-24: He seems a little late to the party, but one more elected Republican is getting into the field in the 24th: former Winter Springs mayor (from 1998 to 2002) Paul Partyka. Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel and state Rep. Sandy Adams are already in the hunt to go up against freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas.

• IA-03: There were rumors of a top-rate Republican challenger to Rep. Leonard Boswell, and we got our first look at him: former Iowa St. wrestling coach Jim Gibbons.  Gibbons doesn’t have previous electoral experience (and isn’t guaranteed a free path in the primary, as state Sen. Brad Zaun had sounded likely to run), but college wrestling is a high-profile sport in Iowa. (Maybe he and Linda McMahon win, they can form the Congressional Wrestling Caucus.)

• MN-06: State Sen. Tarryl Clark got a high-profile endorsement as she preps for a Democratic primary fight against Maureen Reed in the 6th. Al Franken threw his support behind Clark.

• TX-23: Rep. Ciro Rodriguez got a second GOP opponent; former CIA agent Will Hurd filed to run in the 23rd. Hurd will face a GOP primary against wealthy lawyer Quico Canseco, who lost the 2008 primary despite establishment backing.

• Ads: The NRCC is dipping into its skimpy funds to hit three veteran Dems who voted “yes” on health care with weeklong runs of TV spots: Reps. Vic Snyder, John Spratt, and Earl Pomeroy. Snyder seems to have a real race on his hands against Tim Griffin and Spratt is up against a state Senator, but Pomeroy faces only token opposition so far.

• Fundraising: This is odd; the NRCC and NRSC have canceled their President’s Dinner for next year. The joint fundraiser, held in June each year, is one of the Republicans’ biggest fundraising nights of the year. (Remember the brouhaha last year when Sarah Palin couldn’t decide whether or not she was headlining the fest.) The committees are exploring other more effective ways to fundraise now that they, uh, don’t have a Republican President anymore.

• Election law: Important election reforms passed the state House in Ohio yesterday, although it remains to be seen what happens in the GOP-held Senate. Reforms include: increasing number of locations for in-person early voting, requiring absentee ballots to be ready earlier, simplifying voter ID requirements, reducing the number of categories that require provisional ballots, adding automatic motor-voter and high-school-graduation registration, and automatically updating voting records upon changes to driver’s license records.

• CO-Sen: Here’s an amateur-level mistake from the Bennet campaign: electioneering in the Denver public schools (where Michael Bennet used to be Supernintendo before being appointed Senator). The campaign sent mailings to a school asking for the principal’s support and fliers were given to principals at a district workshop.

• FL-Sen: The Kendrick Meek campaign is touting its own fishy poll that says that Meek leads Charlie Crist… among voters who know both of them. The lead is 45-43 for Meek among those 25% of the sample who know who the heck Meek is. In the larger sample, Crist is up 47-31.

• KS-Sen: Kansas Senate news three digests in a row? I’m as surprised as you are. Anyway, retired advertising executive and journalist Charles Schollenberger confirmed that he will run for the Senate. With seemingly no Dems higher up the totem pole interested in the race, Schollenberger may wind up carrying the flag.

• NC-Sen: It’s not quite confirmed, but the rumor mill is churning up stories that youthful former state Senator and Iraq vet Cal Cunningham is moving to formally jump into the North Carolina Senate race. SoS Elaine Marshall is already in the Democratic primary field.

• PA-Sen: There’s an unexpected fourth Democratic participant in the Senate primary all of a sudden: Doris Smith-Ribner, a recently retired Commonwealth Court (which apparently is one of two intermediate appellate courts in Pennsylvania; don’t ask me why there are two) judge for two decades. Her presence could prove nettlesome to Rep. Joe Sestak, by eating a bit into his share of liberal anti-Arlen Specter votes in what’s likely to be a close primary. (“Fourth,” you say? State Rep. Bill Kortz is running too, and has been for many months.)

• AZ-Gov: He was probably seeing the same terrible polls that everyone else was, and ex-Governor Fife Symington decided to put the kibbosh on a gubernatorial comeback. Instead, Symington endorsed not the current Governor, Jan Brewer, but one of her minor opponents, former state GOP chair John Munger.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman scored a victory of sorts with the publication of a story titled “Meg Whitman’s voting record not as bad as originally portrayed.” It turns out she was registered at several points in California in the 1980s and 1990s, but there’s still no indication that she actually voted during this period.

Meanwhile, Whitman’s primary rival ex-Rep. Tom Campbell may get a big leg up: rumors persist that he may get picked as California’s new Lt. Governor (once John Garamendi gets elected to CA-10). I’d initially thought that was a way of scraping him out of the gubernatorial primary and giving him a door prize, but it could give him a higher profile and bully pulpit to compensate for his vast financial disadvantage as he stays in the race. Campbell was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Finance Director for a while, and they operate in the same centrist space, so maybe Ahnold would do him the favor? (Of course, he’d still have to survive confirmation by the Dem-controlled legislature, who might be reluctant to promote Campbell, who they rightly see as the most dangerous general election opponent.)

• FL-Gov: It had seemed like state Sen. Paula Dockery, who threatened repeatedly during the spring to run in the GOP gubernatorial primary, had faded back into the woodwork. However, she’s front and center again today, saying that she’s “leaning toward” running and giving herself a three-week timeline (she put off the decision because of her husband’s surgery this summer). Another minor embarrassment for her primary opponent, AG Bill McCollum: the co-chair of his campaign, former state GOP chair Alex Cardenas, had to explain that, no, he didn’t actually host a fundraiser for Democratic rival Alex Sink. (It was hosted by Democratic partners in Cardenas’s lobbying firm.)

• NJ-Gov: Jon Corzine and Chris Christie have sufficiently reduced each other’s statures that the state’s largest newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger, took what may be an unprecedented step, and endorsed the independent candidate in the race: Chris Daggett. I still can’t see this giving Daggett the momentum to break 20%, but more Daggett votes are good, as they seem to come mostly out of the Christie column. Meanwhile, Chris Christie got an endorsement he may not especially want in the blue state of New Jersey — from the Family Research Council (who also just endorsed Conservative Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election). Also, Christie is living large after getting an endorsement that may carry more weight, from the New Jersey Restaurant Association.

• VA-Gov (pdf): There’s one new poll of VA-Gov to report today: Mason-Dixon, and they come in with a 48-40 edge for Bob McDonnell over Creigh Deeds, closely tracking today’s Pollster.com average of 51-43. The poll finds Deeds getting only 81% of the African-American vote (with 9% to McD), far too little, especially in combination with what PPP‘s Tom Jensen is seeing, as he teases that he’s projecting abysmal black turnout of 12% in the coming election. At any rate, Deeds is now touting his underdog status in fundraising e-mails, and is alluding to more possible visits from Barack Obama in the stretch run.

• FL-20: Here’s an understatement: Republican candidate Robert Lowry, hoping to defeat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in this D+13 district, conceded it was a “mistake” to shoot at a target labeled “DWS” while at a Southeast Republican Club gathering at a gun range.

• MN-06: As state Sen. Tarryl Clark seems to be building a fundraising and labor endorsement edge, her primary opponent for the Democratic nomination, Maureen Reed, says she won’t follow traditional decorum and abide by the DFL endorsement. Reed (a former member of the Independence Party) says she’ll keep open the option of taking the fight all the way to the primary, a reversal of her position from months earlier (although from before Clark got into the race and Elwyn Tinklenberg left). (UPDATE: The Reed campaign writes in to say that the Minnesota Public Radio story that underpins this story is incorrect and that Reed never stated whether or not she would abide by the DFL endorsement.)

• NC-11: One reddish southern district where the Republicans are still at square one on recruitment is the 11th. Businessman Jeff Miller said that he won’t challenge sophomore Dem Heath Shuler.

• NY-15: As ethics allegations take a toll against long-time Rep. Charlie Rangel, he’s getting a primary challenge… from his former campaign director. Vince Morgan, now a banker, says “it’s time for a change.”

• OH-17: Republicans may have found someone to run in the 17th against Rep. Tim Ryan: businessman and Air Force vet Bill Johnson, who’s now exploring the race and will decide in December. Ryan probably isn’t too worried, as he’s won most of his races with over 75%, in this D+12 district.

• PA-04: Pennsylvania Western District US Attorney Mary Buchanan is reportedly considering running as a Republican against Dem sophomore Jason Altmire. (Hopefully she isn’t violating the Hatch Act too much while she considers it.) Buchanan was one of the USAs who weren’t fired in the Bush-era purge (in fact, she allegedly helped consult on the list of those who were fired). State House minority whip Mike Turzai has been reputed to be the GOP’s desired recruit here, but Buchanan’s flack says that Turzai is focused on winning back GOP control of the state House in 2010 instead.

• PA-11: Attorney and hedge fund manager Chris Paige is the first Republican to take on Paul Kanjorski (or Corey O’Brien, if Kanjorski goes down in the Dem primary). Still no word on whether Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta is interested in yet another whack at the race.

• Supreme Courts (pdf): News from two different state supreme court races? Sure, why not. In Pennyslvania, there’s another Dane & Associates poll out, of a hotly contested 2010 race for a state supreme court seat; Democrat Jack Panella leads Republican Joan Orie Melvin 38-35. Also, in Texas, Democrat Bill Moody, who came close to winning a seat in 2006 (better than any other Dem statewide candidate that year), will try again in 2010, and he has an interesting new campaign gimmick: he’s going to tour the state in a big orange blimp.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist got an endorsement today from one of the guys who was considered to be one of the likeliest GOP nominees up until the point when, well, Crist got into the race: Rep. Vern Buchanan. (If you’re keeping score among Florida’s Reps., the Diaz-Balarts and Cornelius McGillicudy IV have endorsed Crist, while Jeff Miller has endorsed Rubio.)

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk has drawn another seemingly-minor challenger in the GOP primary. John Arrington, an African-American former city councilor from Chicago’s southern suburb of Harvey, will run. He also sought the party’s nomination for the same seat in 2004 after GOP primary winner Jack Ryan dropped out, although the state party gave the nomination to the much more fun Alan Keyes.

• NC-Sen, NC-07: As most people expected, Rep. Mike McIntyre announced that he will run for re-election instead of for the Senate seat held by Richard Burr. Which is just as well, as McIntyre is pretty conservative and also needed to hold down his reddish district. SoS Elaine Marshall is probably the biggest name left who’s sounding interested in the Senate race.

• OH-Sen: George Voinovich had one of his occasional moments of independence the other day, telling the Columbus Dispatch that too many conservative southerners (specifically citing Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn) are dragging down the party’s brand nationwide. “They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr,'” he said. “People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'” (I’m not quite sure what “errrr, errrr” means — maybe it’s supposed to be some sort of Frankenstein’s Monster noise — but otherwise it’s spot on.)

• CT-Gov: State senator Gary LeBeau, from East Hartford, seems to be the first Democrat to actually announce his candidacy for Governor. He’s been a Senator since 1996. Potential candidates he may face in the primary include Stamford mayor Daniel Malloy, SoS Susan Bysiewicz (both of whom have outpaced incumbent Governor Jodi Rell at fundraising so far), former state House speaker James Amman, and former Senate candidate Ned Lamont.

• MI-Gov: Although Lt. Gov. John Cherry seems on track to the Dem nomination, he got another primary opponent, former state Rep. John Freeman. Freeman’s hook is strong ties with organized labor, but Cherry is also friendly with labor. State Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith is also in the race, and former MSU football coach George Perles is all but in.

• MN-Gov: Will he or won’t he? After the news broke last night that Norm Coleman wasn’t planning to run for Governor, that has been updated today to reflect that he won’t really decide until some point in spring 2010… which seems intended to give his personal brand some time to, uh, recover his interminable contesting of the Senate election, but still sounds very odd, as the party’s endorsing convention is in late April, giving him almost no time to ramp up.

• SD-Gov: If there’s one job that’s even more thankless than being state Senate minority leader in South Dakota, it’s being the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate in South Dakota. Kudos to Scott Heideprem for doing both. Likely GOP contenders include Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard and state Senate majority leader Dave Knudsen.

• TX-Gov: Kay Bailey Hutchison is already shaking up her campaign staff, confronted with polls that show her faltering in the gubernatorial primary as incumbent Rick Perry consolidates the hard-core base with his ranting against the feds. Campaign manager Rick Wiley is out, replaced by Terry Sullivan.

• CA-26: Rep. David Dreier has reimbursed himself an unusually high $200,000 out of his congressional campaign funds this decade, without the proper level of itemization required by the FEC, and watchdog groups are starting to wonder why. He says these are mostly mundane food expenses and that he’ll provide additional documentation if the FEC makes him. Hopefully he’s not making the same mistake a lot of small-time crooks make: when you launder money, you don’t put it in the Dreier afterwards.

• FL-16: With state Sen. Dave Aronberg running for AG, our next best bet is probably St. Lucie Co. Commissioner Chris Craft, and he’s “leaning” toward jumping into the race against freshman GOPer Tom Rooney in the next few weeks.

• LA-02: The first Democrat to announce a run against improbable GOP Rep. Joseph Cao is state Rep. Juan LaFonta. LaFonta had been rumored to be thinking about avoiding the Dem primary and running as an Independent, but won’t. State Rep. Cedric Richmond, who lost last year’s primary, and State Sen. Cheryl Grey Evans also sound likely to get in.

• MN-06: State Sen. Tarryl Clark made her run official, filing the paperwork for her candidacy ysterday. She’ll face off against 06 candidate Elwyn Tinklenberg and former IP member Maureen Reed in the primary.

• MS-01: This has been expected since state Sen. Merle Flowers said he wouldn’t run, but state Sen. Alan Nunnelee made it official yesterday, filing to run against Rep. Travis Childers. Nunnelee’s opening salvo against Blue Dog Childers was that he votes with Nancy Pelosi “100 percent.” Which is true, if by 100%, you actually mean 61%.

• TX-32: Here’s a profile of Grier Raggio, the locally-prominent attorney who’s running for the Democrats in the 32nd. The district still is Republican-leaning, but demographics are poised to move it quickly in our direction.

• FL-St. House: Term limits look like they’ll cut a sizable swath through the GOP delegation in Florida’s state House, with Republicans facing 25 open seats in 2010 — many of which are narrowly GOP-leaning and in Dem-trending central Florida — compared with only three for Democrats. Dems are starting out in a very deep hole in the state House, so an outright takeover isn’t likely, but it may bring them closer to balance.

• NH-Sen: You may remember several weeks ago when John Sununu reassured the rabble that Kelly Ayotte was, in fact, a fire-breathing conservative. A recent hire, though, suggests she might be trying to position herself as a New England moderate — she brought aboard Thomas Daffron for her campaign, a former Susan Collins consultant and CoS to William Cohen. Which, again, will only increase the likelihood of a Fred Tausch and/or Ovide Lamontagne challenge from the right.

• NY-Sen-B: Harry Reid weighed in on the New York Senate primary, endorsing Kirsten Gillibrand, calling her a “rising star in the Democratic caucus.” Meanwhile, Joe Trippi, who’s been working for the Carolyn Maloney campaign (for which he received $10K in the second quarter), got busted for one of blogging’s cardinal sins when posting at HuffPo: not disclosing a paid relationship with a candidate.

• AK-Gov: Sean Parnell isn’t even Governor yet (he takes over on the 26th), and would-be rivals are already sizing him up. The former state House Speaker, John Harris, announced that he’ll run against Parnell in the 2010 GOP primary. Which may seem odd, since Parnell is nowhere near as polarizing as predecessor Sarah Palin… but that may be exactly what’s motivating the more combative Harris, as he may think the inoffensive Parnell is something of a pushover, as seen by Parnell’s inability to close the deal against corrupt Don Young in the 2008 GOP House primary.

• MN-Gov: The field keeps growing, as two more Republicans made it official in the last couple days that they’re candidates for the gubernatorial nomination next year: state Senator David Hann and former state Auditor Pat Anderson.

• NY-Gov: AG Andrew Cuomo’s mouth may be saying that he’s not running against David Paterson in next year’s gubernatorial primary, but his wallet says otherwise. Cuomo raised $5.1 million in the last six months, which more than doubles up on Paterson, who raised $2.3 million in the same period.

• CO-04: The media war over cap-and-trade continues in CO-04 as well as in VA-05; the Environmental Defense Action Fund (paid for by green energy companies) is running a thank-you ad on TV in favor of Rep. Betsy Markey’s cap-and-trade vote. She’s already had a thank-you TV ad from Americans United for Change run in her favor, and been the target of NRCC robocalls as well (but no TV from them, at least yet).

• FL-10: More bad PR for Rep. Bill Young, whose bad fundraising quarter suggests he might be looking to cash in his chips. Young had to kill a $4 million earmark for St. Petersburg defense contractor Conax, after Conax was raided by federal agents several days ago. Conax has been a frequent recipient of the largesse of Young, the ranking Republican on Appropriations, to the tune of $28.5 million in earmarks since 2005. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Young received $123,000 in contributions in the last two years from defense contractors for whom he’s seeking earmarks this  year.)

• FL-13: With Rep. Vern Buchanan facing big legal questions over sketchy campaign finance practices, Dems need to have someone credible on deck here to capitalize in case Buchanan implodes. Looks like they’ve found a credible challenger: pastor and former Bradenton city councilor James Golden.

• MN-06: With local heavyweight state Sen. Tarryl Clark jumping into the Democratic field, 2008 candidate Elwyn Tinklenberg (who came within 3 points of unseating Rep. Michele Bachmann) is making noises that he may go all the way to the primary regardless of what Clark does. In most states, that wouldn’t be the least bit surprising, but remember that Minnesota picks its DFL nominees by nominating endorsing convention prior to the primary and it’s highly unusual to see contested primaries. With former UM regent Maureen Reed clearly also a serious candidate (based on her last fundraising quarter), this looks like it’ll be dramatic.

• MS-03: So maybe you were wondering what was happening a year ago when thirty-something GOP rising star Rep. Chip Pickering, who’d been considered a likely successor to Trent Lott’s Senate seat, instead of going for that or even running for re-election, simply dropped out of politics altogether. Well, turns out he was given an ultimatum by his mistress of choosing between her or politics (which, in rural Mississippi, would require continuing his sham marriage to his wife) — and, somewhat unpredictably, he chose the mistress. The kicker? Pickering was, at the time, a resident of the now-infamous C Street townhouse, making him a roommate of John Ensign and ex-roomie of Mark Sanford.

• NY-23: Just a reminder, in case you were thinking of running for Congress: today is the deadline for Democratic applicants for the nomination in the open seat race in NY-23 to make their intentions known. Still no word on whether or not state Sen. Darrel Aubertine is planning to take the plunge or not.

• OH-AG: We finally have some confirmation about what “statewide” office former Sen. Mike DeWine was planning to run for. It’s been leaked that next week he’ll announce a run for Attorney General (and not Governor). He’ll face Democratic incumbent Richard Cordray, who took over in mid-term from Marc Dann.

• PA-Sen: Well, something finally went right for Arlen Specter. After Specter got condemned to the basement on all his committees on Tuesday night, Majority whip Dick Durbin doled out a little charity this morning by giving up his own chair (Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs) and handing it over to Specter (apparently without Pat Leahy‘s say-so). I’m wondering what Specter had to do behind the scenes to smooth things over; if the rumors flying that Specter is poised to re-flip-flop back to supporting EFCA are true, that’s probably the answer.

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn McCarthy is still making noises about a primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, but with her frequent caveats about stepping aside if someone younger takes on the challenge, it seems like she’s doing it more to yank Gillibrand’s chain on gun control issues. Gillibrand has been a reliable vote in favor of gun controls since entering the Senate, going so far as to co-sponsor the current bill to close the gun-show loophole. McCarthy confesses to being “very happy about it. I just want her to stay there.”

• NH-Sen: Judd Gregg tells CQ that wherever he goes, he’s bombarded by Republicans begging him to run for another term in the Senate. He says he’ll listen to their entreaties, but he’s “comfortable with where” he is.

• AK-Gov: Governors in general are having a rough go of it these days, and now even the once-mighty Sarah Palin is suffering, falling to a mundane 54/41 favorable rating according to Hays Research. Senator Lisa Murkowski, by comparison, is still at 76/18.

• OK-Gov: Ex-Rep. J.C. Watts is still publicly undecided about the governor’s race, and kicking the can down the road on a formal decision. Reading between the lines of his statement, it sounds like he’s having some trouble fundraising, saying “You don’t take on something like this unless you know you will have the resources to do it.”

• CO-04: The GOP got the candidate it wanted, to go up against freshman Rep. Betsy Markey in this now R+6 district. State House minority whip Cory Gardner, who represents the vast emptiness of eastern Colorado, announced that he’ll be running. Univ. of Colorado regent Tom Lucero is already in the hunt for the GOP nod.

• MN-06: One day after former Independence Party Lt. Gov. candidate Maureen Reed said she’ll be a Dem candidate in 2010, the 2008 candidate, Elwyn Tinklenberg, confirmed he’ll be running again, against one-woman gaffe machine Michele Bachmann.

• CA-47: GOP Assemblyman Van Tran made it official, setting up his exploratory committee for an uphill bid against Rep. Loretta Sanchez in this D+4 Latino-majority district in the heart of the O.C. (Discussion underway in Gus Ayer‘s diary.)

• ID-01: Idaho state Treasurer Don Crane spent the last week glad-handing GOP leaders and fundraisers in Washington, DC, fueling speculation that he’s ready to challenge frosh Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick next year. Would his candidacy dampen the spirits of ex-Rep. Bill “Brain Fade” Sali, who is currently mulling a rematch? (J)

• GA-09: When you have an R+28 district, the only question about an open seat is what variety of wingnut you’re going to get next. Former state Senator Bill Stephens (who lost the SoS primary to Karen Handel in 2006) announced he’ll run to succeed Rep. Nathan Deal, retiring to run for governor. Former state Transportation Board chair Mike Evans is already seek the GOP nom.

• IL-11: The GOP has lined up Air Force Captain Adam Kinzinger to run against freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson in the Chicago suburbs. His exploratory committee is open, but he’s currently serving in Iraq and won’t be able to make a formal announcement until summer.

• MI-11: We’ve got somebody willing to step up against Bad Thad McCotter in this Dem-trending seat in the economically hard-hit Detroit suburbs: fundraising consultant Natalie Mosher. The DCCC sounds like it’s going to keep looking for someone else, but if that fails, bear in mind that McCotter barely won in 2008 against a different Dem nobody.

• GA-12: When you’re running for office, it’s important to sell yourself… but not oversell yourself. Surgeon and Iraq vet Wayne Mosely, who’s running against Rep. John Barrow in the D+1 rural Georgia district, recently tweeted that the NRCC rated his race as one of the top 3 in the nation! Uh, no, there’s no ranking system, responded the NRCC, although they did concede that they were “very excited” about Mosely’s candidacy.

• PA-Sen: In a big diss to Arlen Specter, the Democratic caucus last night voted to slot Specter into the most junior spots on his committees for the remainder of this Congress. The issue won’t be revisited until after the midterm. This strips Specter of one of his strongest re-election arguments: seniority, and the power to make things happen that comes with it (especially on his Appropriations subcommittee… although that’s not as huge a problem in a big state like Pennyslvania as it would be in an Appropriations-dependent state like Alaska).

• KY-Sen: There’s another potential GOP primary challenger to Jim Bunning sniffing out the race, in case SoS Trey Grayson doesn’t show up despite having opened an exploratory committee. Cathy Bailey hasn’t held elective office before, but she’s strong on the fundraising front. She was a Bush Pioneer in 2000, and was rewarded for that with a post as Ambassador to Latvia. She’s married to the former CEO of Providian as well, so she can self-fund if need be.

• NC-Sen: Kenneth Lewis, a Durham attorney and fundraiser for Barack Obama, is telling state Democratic Party leaders that he will run against Richard Burr next year. Still no word on state AG Roy Cooper’s intentions. (J)

• IL-Gov: DuPage County Board chair Robert Schillerstrom is setting up an exploratory committee to run for the GOP nomination in the 2010 gubernatorial race. He’ll join state Senator Bill Brady, who’s already in the hunt. Brady has the “my turn” advantage, having finished 3rd in the 2006 primary, but the suburban Schillerstrom would have the population advantage over downstate’s Brady.

• NJ-Gov: The Democratic Governors’ Association has been reading the Gray Davis playbook (or maybe my advice?): they’re going hard after Chris Christie this month with an ad barrage in order to damage Christie in the hopes of getting the much less-known and more-conservative Steve Lonegan the GOP nomination instead. The Corzine camp is not involved in the efforts, which aims at Christie’s strength: questioning his supposed corruption-fighting credentials as U.S. Attorney.

• VA-02: Ex-Rep. Thelma Drake announced she won’t seek a rematch against Rep. Glenn Nye, who upset her in 2008. This may actually be bad news! for Nye, as there are potential GOP candidates more impressive than the polarizing Drake waiting in the wings. Nye has to be bolstered, though, by the blue shift in this now R+5 district, narrowly won by Obama.

• MN-06: Maureen Reed, a former Univ. of Minnesota regent who ran for Lt. Gov on the Independence Party ticket, will be running in MN-06 in the DFL primary in 2010. While she might not make it through the primary, especially if Elwyn Tinklenberg runs again and/or state Senator Tarryl Clark runs, I’m taking this as a positive sign, in that the IP might not be looking to shoot us in the foot this time. (See also Populista‘s diary.)

• NRCC: The NRCC has launched another offensive on what they perceive as vulnerable (or at least soften-up-able) Dems, with radio ads against Marion Berry, Charlie Melancon, Earl Pomeroy, Zack Space, and John Tanner. Space is the only one who’s on Frontline, but Berry, Melancon, and Tanner are all in districts that moved sharply toward McCain in 2008. The ad attacks the Blue Dogs for being “lap dogs” on the Obama budget.

• Gay marriage: The gay marriage train just keeps building up speed, picking up one more state today. After some public hemming and hawing, Maine Governor John Baldacci signed gay marriage legislation this morning after it passed both chambers of the legislature. (Discussion underway in David Kowalski‘s diary.)

• King County Executive: The first poll is out in the race to lead King County (which puts you in charge of 1.8 million constituents, and is a frequent stepping stone to Washington governor). In a bit of a twist, the Republican (it’s an ostensibly nonpartisan race, but everyone knows who’s what) is in the lead in this dark-blue county: former TV news anchor Susan Hutchison is at 20%, followed by two county councilors from Seattle proper (Dow Constantine at 6 and Larry Phillips at 5) and two Eastside state legislators (Fred Jarrett at 7 and Ross Hunter at 3). All the Dems (each of whom is largely unknown outside his district) added up together beat the widely-known Hutchison, though, so whichever Dem survives the primary seems likely to pull this out in the general election, in Nov. 2009.

• Mayors: Republican Dan Sullivan beat Democrat Eric Croft to replace Mark Begich as Anchorage mayor yesterday, 57-43. (Sullivan has the advantage of being the son of former mayor George Sullivan.) Discussion underway in benjso99‘s diary. Also, yesterday in Detroit, Dave Bing defeated newly-minted mayor Ken Cockrel by 4 points. (Which makes him the second legendary NBA point guard to ascend to mayor, following Sacramento’s Kevin Johnson.)