Tag: MI-07

NV-Sen: Looks like the chicken may have gotten hit by a bus while crossing the road: Sue Lowden is getting ripped for apparently accepting what might be an illegal campaign donation of a luxury RV. Though she says her campaign is leasing it from a supporter, her name appears on the title to the bus. The vehicle costs more than $100,000, so that would sorta exceed the $2,400 FEC limit.

PA-Sen: After campaigning for Creigh Deeds, Jon Corzine, and Martha Coakley, I can understand why Barack Obama suddenly thinks Arlen Specter’s developed a case of the cooties. But even if the president hopes to avoid swirling in some stink lines now, he’s not going to be able to be that choosy in the fall. P.S. How come he never made an appearance in Hawaii? He could have done a joint event for Case & Hanabusa, and the locals would have gone nuts for it.

Meanwhile, this seems remarkably douchey: Joe Sestak said he’s “looking forward” to Arlen Specter’s support after Tuesday, but wouldn’t say whether he’d do the same! I’m not sure how you can be so nakedly hypocritical with a straight face and expect to get away with it.

CA-Gov: Social issues just haven’t seemed to dominate Republican primaries this year, but Steve Poizner seems to be throwing everything he can at Meg Whitman these days. He has a new ad (no word on the size of the buy, natch) attacking Whitman for creating a special porn-only section on eBay. I feel bad for that poor teenager on the laptop feature in the spot. Also, I find it odd that he mentions Whitman “cleaned up” gun sales on eBay in something of a positive light. Shouldn’t that be a bad thing, too?

KS-04: Richard Pompeo, the GOP’s Chosen One to succeed Rep. Todd Tiahrt, is coming under fire for a D.C. fundraiser held by convicted (and later pardoned) Iran-Contra felon Bud McFarlane. John McCain was in attendance, but so were a ton of lobbyists – something Pompeo originally tried to deny. Not a good year to be sucking up to D.C. vampire squids, but Pompeo is well ahead in the money race in his primary.

MA-10: State Rep. Jeff Perry’s record as a police sergeant is coming under scrutiny, for two abusive strip searches of teenage girls conducted by an officer under his command in the early 1990s. The officer, Scott Flanagan, was later convicted of assault, and Perry and the town were sued, with both cases settling. Perry resigned his job six months after the allegations were made public in 1993, but he claims the two were not related.

MI-07: A little dust-up in the GOP primary: A surrogate for ex-Rep. Tim Walberg blasted Brian Rooney for failing to show up at an anti-abortion dinner (sounds lovely, right?) so that he could instead attend a fundraiser at the home of a past president of the “liberal” Republican Main Street Partnership. Rooney says he’s super-duper anti-abortion, yadda yadda, this is divisive, etc. Keep it up, Walberg!

NY-01: Stuck behind Newsday’s paywall is a tantalizing story that suggests GOPer Randy Altschuler is getting blasted by his primary opponents for – get this – his one-time membership in the Green Party. Not exactly a sterling credential for someone hoping to land the Republican nomination.

VA-05: Earlier this month, the GOP 5th CD convention held a straw poll, and teabagger Feda Kidd Morton won with 30%. State Sen. Rob Hurt, who Republican activists really seem to love to hate, was second with 25%. Despite also getting the endorsement of the Family Research Council, Morton has no money, and the field is pretty fractured.

NY-Comptroller: Eliot Spitzer says he won’t make a comeback attempt – at least this year – for comptroller or any other office. Since petition time is almost upon us (and petitioning is very difficult in NY), he can’t really change his mind at this point.

CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer says she raised $2.4 million in Q1, with $8.7 mil on hand. GOPer Tom Campbell raised $1.6 mil. No word yet from the other Republicans.

NC-Sen: Cal Cunningham is launching his first TV ad, in introductory spot. Apparently the buy (so far) is just $45K. Separately, Cunningham told the AP that he doesn’t support the card check provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act, despite apparently telling a Teamsters official that he does. Still, the Teamsters are standing by their endorsement of Cunningham.

AL-07: Collingwood Research for Shelia Smoot (3/30-4/1, likely Democratic primary voters):

Shelia Smoot (D): 33

Earl Hilliard Jr. (D): 28

Terry Sewell (D): 12

Martha Bozeman (D): 6

Undecided/other: 20

(MoE: 4%)

FL-24: Steak baron Craig Miller says he raised $340K in his first two months in his race to unseat Dem Rep. Suzanne Kosmas. There’s still a very competitive GOP primary to contend with, though.

MA-04: Surprise, surprise: Laura Ingraham is full of shit. The wingnut radio hostess tweeted some b.s. “rumor” that Barney Frank was going to retire. Frank did not hesitate to call Ingraham’s post a “lie.”

NY-14: Reshma Saujani raised $400K in Q1 in her bid to unseat Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the Democratic primary. Maloney, however, raised $475K and has $2 million on hand.

PA-12: Joe Biden, who is originally from Pennsylvania, will return to the state of his birth later this month to campaign for Dem Mark Critz in the upcoming PA-12 special election.

PA-17: Another Pennsylvania ballot challenge, this time against Dem Sheila Dow-Ford, has come undone in the courtroom. Dow-Ford is challenging Rep. Tim Holden in the primary.

DCCC: D-Trip Chair Chris Van Hollen was a busy man over the congressional recess. In addition to mucking up the HI-01 special election, he also campaigned for Reps. Leonard Boswell, Steve Kagen (twice), Mark Schauer and Gary Peters.

Polltopia: Voting is now open in PPP’s next pick-a-poll. I don’t think we’ve tried to freep these before, but come on, people – don’t you want to see a poll of PA-12?

WATN?: Former NM-01 Rep. Heather Wilson is being treated for thyroid cancer. We wish her a speedy recovery. Meanwhile, ex-Rep. Jim Saxton (NJ-03) has joined up with – you’ll never believe it – a DC lobbying firm. It never ends.

Babka: Did you know that Green’s babkas are so dense that airport x-ray scanners cannot see through them? Extra density = extra deliciousness – and, apparently, good insulation against high-frequency electromagnetic radiation. If only Lex Luthor had known!

AR-Sen: The Communications Workers of America, a union supporting Bill Halter, is firing back with an ad on black radio to combat Blanche Lincoln’s bullshit spot claiming she “stood with our president to pass healthcare reform.” CWA’s ad is in heavy rotation around the state, running “50 times a day” around Little Rock. They also have a new TV ad out, but no word on the size of the buy.

AZ-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has given its first endorsement of the 2010 cycle to Sen. John McCain – but apparently cash ain’t attached. I guess the CoC, the grand doyenne of “cheap labor conservatives,” doesn’t believe Johnny Mac’s nativist turn is for real. Given what a fraud McCain has shown himself to be from top to bottom, I guess this makes sense.

CA-Sen: No, the reason John McCain can’t be found in Arizona isn’t because they took him “to a farm upstate.” He’s out in California, campaigning with Carly Fiorina.

IN-Sen: It’s not just that Dan Coats has an unsavory record as a lobbyist – his voting record seems pretty out-of-step with the crazies who make up the modern GOP base. John Hostettler is hitting Coats (albeit in the form of a web video) for things like his votes in favor of the assault weapons ban, the Brady Bill, and the Clinton crime bill – a set of votes tradmed analysts usually like to ascribe many 1994 Dem losses to.

UT-Sen: While they haven’t picked a specific horse to back yet, the Club for Growth has nonetheless spent $133K against Sen. Bob Bennett.

AZ-Gov: Democrat Terry Goddard has finally made his gubernatorial bid official.

AL-02, AL-05: GOP State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, who endorsed Dem Bobby Bright for re-election, has been kicked off her own re-election ballot by the Alabama Republican Party in retaliation. Smith lost the GOP primary in 2008 to Jay Love and apparently is still smarting over that – but this has to sting quite a bit more. Smith hasn’t decided if she’ll run as an independent instead. (Switch! Switch!) Meanwhile, the AL GOP said that turncoat Parker Griffith could stay on the Republican ballot, despite a challenge thanks to his party-switching ways.

FL-08: I’ve totally lost track of how many Republicans are trying to challenge Rep. Alan Grayson, so what’s one more? Wealthy businessman Ross Beiling, owner of a medical parts supplier, is throwing his shrimp on the barbie.

MI-07: While two Michigan Republicans have endorsed ex-Rep. Tim Walberg in his comeback bid, five others are staying neutral in the primary, which also includes Brian Rooney, younger brother of Rep. Tom Rooney (FL-16).

NY-05: Dan Halloran, a Republican who won a Dem-held seat on the NYC City Council last year, is weighing a challenge to Rep. Gary Ackerman. Halloran, a practicing Theodist, thinks he can make Ackerman pay a price for voting in favor of healthcare reform. Ackerman, for his part, has $1.1 million on hand and the support of the Queens Independence Party. This district also went 63-36 for Obama (but notably, that’s the same percentage that Kerry got, suggesting there was something of a “conservative white ethnic New Yorkers for McCain” effect here).

NY-13: The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500 is backing Rep. Mike McMahon, in spite of his vote against healthcare reform, citing his support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Speaking of the CWA again, though, a day ago, its local vice president, Chris Shelton, called McMahon “the Judas from Staten Island.” Personally, I think that phrase is overused, and I’m going to start calling traitors “Brutuses.”

Across the Pond: Our friends in the U.K. have scheduled their elections for May 6th. Imagine if we only had one-month campaigns here!

INITIAL GOAL OF 200 CONTRIBUTORS: DECIMATED.  We’re now going for $25,000 total raised today.

We did quite a lot of good in November — almost 400 Kossacks made 5,545 individual contributions to the twenty most vulnerable Democrats who voted both for health care reform and against the anti-choice Stupak-Pitts amendment, raising over $30,000 to help these candidates secure reelection in 2010.

What we demonstrated then to Democrats in vulnerable districts that when they stand with our party and for progressive causes, the netroots will have their backs. And they noticed. Several of them called or emailed me personally to thank all of you for your efforts, including Members who have never had anything to do with the netroots before then.  And last night, almost all of them went back and voted for health care again.

And we need to have their backs.

Listed below are the twenty Democrats (plus one) who have cast the toughest votes for health care reform — for HCR last night, and against the Stupak Amendment in November.  A few of them voted “no” the first time around (Boyd, Markey, Kosmas, Murphy), but we should welcome them into the fold and thank them for supporting health care reform now.

These are the Democrats whose districts are most likely to oppose them for what they have done to make health care affordable for all.  It’s up to us to demonstrate to these often-moderate candidates that when they stand up for progressive causes, progressives will stand behind them.

I believe it’s especially important for those of us who’ve decided to turn the spigot off when it comes to Democratic party institutions based on their multitude of failures to take this opportunity to demonstrate what we’re capable of doing for specific candidates who are taking risks to make progress happen.

My initial goal is 200 contributors.  Then we’ll take it as high as you’re willing to go.

Here’s who you should be supporting — these Democrats (listed by District, Name, PVI), elected in Republican and swing districts (and mostly in the past three years), for whom every close vote for reproductive freedom and health care reform can become the next opposition campaign ad:

AZ-01 Kirkpatrick, Ann R+6

FL-02 Boyd, Allen R+6

CO-04 Markey, Betsy R+6

AZ-05 Mitchell, Harry R+5

AZ-08 Giffords, Gabrielle R+4

FL-24 Kosmas, Suzanne R+4

NY-19 Hall, John R+3

FL-08 Grayson, Alan R+2

MI-07 Schauer, Mark R+2

NY-20 Murphy, Scott R+2

WI-08 Kagen, Steve R+2

CA-11 McNerney, Jerry R+1

IL-08 Bean, Melissa R+1

IL-11 Halvorson, Debbie R+1

IL-14 Foster, Bill R+1

MN-01 Walz, Tim R+1

NY-23 Owens, Bill R+1

NH-01 Shea-Porter, Carol R+0

NY-01 Bishop, Timothy R+0

OH-15 Kilroy, Mary Jo D+1

VA-05 Perriello, Tom R+5**

** Technically, Tom Perriello shouldn’t be here: he voted for the Stupak Amendment the first time. But he has also voted for ACES and the stimulus bill despite being a freshman member elected by less than 1000 votes in an R+5 district — McCain and Bush both carried it — so if you’re willing to make one exception, Perriello is the exception you should make.

The overwhelming majority of these twenty Members were elected in 2006, 2008 or, in the case of Scott Murphy and Bill Owens, 2009.  As the most recent additions to Congress, almost every one of them is on the NRCC’s primary target list for 2010.

We need to protect them for having done the right thing.  We need to show that when Democrats act courageously in the interests of our country, progressives will have their backs and support them.

So please, visit the WE’VE GOT YOUR BACK v2.0 ActBlue page and spread some sugar around today — $3 each? $5?  $10, $20 or more?  That’s up to you.  And then promote it on your Facebook page, your Twitter feed and your own diaries.

If politicians in tough districts see that national support exists when they do the right thing on a big vote — and there may be no bigger one than the one they cast last night — they will feel more comfortable doing it again the next time.  They won’t have to worry about losing some donors over these pro-choice and pro-health care votes if they’ve gained our loyal support instead.  And when the NRCC targets them this fall, they will be able to fight back.

Give now.  If you have given to some of these candidates in the past, give to the rest today.  Show them, right now: WE’VE GOT YOUR BACK.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FL-Sen: Insider Advantage, polling on behalf of the Florida Times Union, confirms what PPP sees in the GOP primary. They have Marco Rubio eviscerating Charlie Crist, 60-26. Charlie Crist better figure out his exit strategy in a hurry, or else he’ll have a lot more time to spend on back waxes come September.

KY-Sen: Some Dude Bill Johnson said he’s bailing on the GOP primary to succeed Jim Bunning, saying his internal polling looked cruddy. He’d spent a few hundred grand of his own money, but yeah, I never heard of him either. He does have a perfect Some Dude name – according to the SSP tags, there’s another Bill Johnson running in Ohio this cycle, and still another running in Alabama!

NV-Sen: How is this man still in office? The New York Times reports:”Previously undisclosed e-mail messages turned over to the F.B.I. and Senate ethics investigators provide new evidence about Senator John Ensign’s efforts to steer lobbying work to the embittered husband of his former mistress….”

CO-Gov: In an apparent bid to out-nut his party-mate Jane Norton when it comes to outlandishly conservative proposals on the “restructuring” of basic governance, Scott McInnis was caught on tape at a recent Tea Party candidate forum suggesting that the state Department of Education be looked at as a possible target for elimination. (JL)

GA-Gov: Georgia Dems are pressing the House Ethics Committee to wrap up its investigation of Rep. Nathan Deal, who is slated to resign from the House at the end of the month. If they don’t finish by then, there’s a good chance they’ll just drop the investigation – something, in fact, they just did with regard to Eric Massa.

HI-Gov: This is interesting. We noted the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s endorsement of Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hanneman in the Dem primary yesterday, but we didn’t look at their rationale. One of their reasons ought to appeal to progressives: Hanneman, like the ILWU and Sens. Dan Akaka and Dan Inouye, has backed Colleen Hanabusa over Ed Case for the HI-01 May special election. Rival Neil Abercrombie has stayed neutral, which looks like a big mistake, given how powerful the ILWU is in Hawaii.

NY-Gov: Trying to forestall attempts to find a better candidate (or shove him from the race), Rick Lazio rolled out a bunch of endorsements from a bunch of Republicans who are all retired these days: former Gov. George Pataki and former Reps. Amo Houghton, Sherwood Boehlert, and George Wortley. I had to look up Wortley – he hasn’t served since 1989.

MI-07: Look out, John Kasich! Tim Walberg says “I was Tea Party before there was a Tea party.” He also says he lost in 2008 “because McCain was not a true conservative and people were tired of moderates.”

NY-14: With Democratic majorities at risk and progressive power in Congress at a troubling ebb, too many powerful New Yorkers seem only too happy to back an unabashed pro-bankster neophyte challenging a liberal female incumbent. I’m talking about Reshma Saujani, who’s running on a platform of kissing Wall Street’s ass (“If you go to Texas, you’ll never hear a Congressional member speak poorly of the oil industry”) against Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Oh, but don’t worry – Saujani’s got all the important things covered. At a recent women’s fundraiser, one of her supporters assured the crowd, “But it gets better, look how fashionable she is. She’ll definitely be the best dressed person in Congress.”

NY-29: Former Rep. Randy Kuhl has decided he won’t try to win his old seat back. Instead, he’s endorsing ex-Corning Mayor Tom Reed. Incidentally, Kuhl must have had the worst oppo team ever when he was actually running for office, no?

SC-02: Ugh – Dem Rob Miller, who raked in a couple mil he never otherwise would have seen after Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst, is making some unforced errors. He kicked a TV reporter and camera crew out of a speech to a local Democratic club, and then tried to later claim he had done no such thing. Unfortunately, contemporaneous emails contradicted Miller’s claims. I really hope that Miller’s elevation to Red to Blue status means he’s going to get some professional campaign assistance, and that he’s not just being fleeced for his Brewster’s millions.

Redistricting: I love this diary – possumtracker takes us on a magical mystery tour of some of the most extreme possible majority-minority districts, in places you probably never thought such districts could exist. Let’s hope actual map-drawers (or the DoJ) don’t take too many cues, though, since these kinds of districts would likely kill many neighboring Democratic seats.

Robocalls: The Republican Attorney General of Indiana, Greg Zoeller, chastised the NRCC yesterday for its use of robocalls introduced by a live operator. Zoeller says that, while legal, the NRCC’s tactics violate the spirit of a tri-partisan treaty signed between the state’s Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties banning the use of robocalls in the state. Zoeller asked the NRCC to suspend its use of robocalling in the state. Typical for the NRCC, they told Zoeller to go twist. (JL)

Believe it or not, the world continues to turn today, even outside Massachusetts…

• Site News: A minor site change: We’ve had to disable HTML on user bio pages (like this one). We apologize if this winds up killing your links or spewing ugly HTML characters in your bio, so you may want to edit yours if so. You can still post links – they just won’t be HTML-ized. The reason we did this is because spammers have been exploiting the bio pages to post links to their own sites. It’s easy for us to catch them when they post comments or diaries, but harder to stop them from creating new accounts. This takes away their incentive. Suck on it, spammer scum! (D)

• NV-Sen: I don’t know what you envision when you see “probe” and “John Ensign” in the same sentence, but this is rich: the FBI is getting involved in the investigation, indicating this may go beyond the Senate Ethics Committee, headed in the direction of a criminal inquiry. The Feds have been contacting former aides about the Hampton affair.

• NY-Sen-B: Ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. just seems to be digging his self-inflicted hole deeper, as he runs damage control from the NYT profile that portrayed him as a helicopter-riding, pedicure-getting richie-rich. For his new interview with the Daily News, he insisted that it be limited to his rationale for running, not “issues” (issues, of course, are for the little people). Still, that contrasts with his defense of the pedicure thing, about which he said: “This race isn’t about feet, it’s about issues.” Meanwhile, observers are wondering if Al Sharpton (who has endorsed Kirsten Gillibrand) is telegraphing a potential switch in sides.

• IA-Gov: Ex-Gov. Terry Branstad is out with an internal poll showing him in commanding position in the Republican primary as he seeks to regain his old job, despite the discomfort some social conservatives have with him. Branstad polls at 62%, followed by Bob Vander Plaats lagging at 18%, with Christopher Rants at 4 and Rod Roberts at 2.

• IL-Gov: Next door in Illinois, though, where things don’t seem quite as settled in the Republican primary, three different candidates are citing polls that claim to have them in the lead. State Sen. Kirk Dillard has an internal that has him leading at 22, with state party chair Andy McKenna at 14 and ex-AG Jim Ryan at 10 – which is odd, since the Chicago Tribune’s poll several weeks ago gave Ryan a substantial lead and saw Dillard in fourth place. McKenna also claims to have a poll with him in the lead, although he didn’t even bother giving any details. Dillard seems to be the “moderate” horse in the GOP race, with endorsements from ex-Gov. Jim Edgar, Rep. Judy Biggert, and even the Illinois Education Association (hopefully only as far as the primary goes).

• TX-Gov: Rasmussen is out with fresh polls of the Texas governor’s race, and this time, they’re even doing the general, now that it got competitive, with the entry of Democratic Houston mayor Bill White. As one might expect, both incumbent Rick Perry and GOP primary rival Kay Bailey Hutchison lead White, and KBH overperforms Perry. Hutchison leads White 52-37, while Perry leads 50-40. (In the unlikely event White faces off against Paulist activist Debra Medina, he wins 44-38.) More interestingly, Medina seems to be getting a serious foothold in the GOP primary, which seems like it has the potential to push the Perry/Hutchison battle to a runoff, keeping Perry below 50%. Perry leads Hutchison and Medina 43-33-12.

• MI-Gov, MI-13: The amazingly brief gubernatorial campaign of state Sen. Hansen Clarke ended yesterday, after about one week in existence. It seems like party insiders steered him in a different direction, saying that he’s been offered big financial support if he takes on vulnerable (in a primary) Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick instead, and he says he’s strongly considering that race now. Kilpatrick (mother of embattled former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) nearly lost a 3-way primary in 2008.

• AZ-03: One aspiring House Republican didn’t wait long to announce her run to fill the recently-vacated seat of Rep. John Shadegg. State Sen. Pamela Gorman announced her campaign.

• MI-07: One more race that hasn’t drawn much scrutiny yet but where it looks like Dems will have to play hard defense is in the 7th. Freshman Rep. Mark Schauer faces a rematch with ex-Rep. Tim Walberg, who is now promoting his own internal poll showing him with 46-37 edge over Schauer. There’s been some establishment skepticism over whether the polarizing Walberg is “electable” enough, which may really be the point of the poll: it also shows attorney Brian Rooney, the supposedly more palatable (but currently less-known) GOPer, trailing Schauer 39-31.

• PA-04: Republicans are banking on former US Attorneys to get them back a few House seats in the Keystone State, and they got one of their desired recruits. Mary Beth Buchanan, one of the chief enforcers among the “loyal Bushies,” has apparently decided that she’ll take on Rep. Jason Altmire in the GOP-leaning 4th in Pittsburgh’s suburbs, and may announce her candidacy later this week.

• WV-01: The NRCC had hoped to put a scare into longtime Democratic incumbent Alan Mollohan, frequently drum-beating his name as a potential retirement. Unfortunately for them, Mollohan has filed his paperwork to seek a 15th term in Congress. (J)

• OH-Lt. Gov: Ted Strickland announced today that he’s tapping ex-Franklin Co. Judge Yvette McGee Brown to be his running mate. Brown is the president of the Center for Child and Family Advocacy, a Columbus organization based at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. (J)

• Mayors: Another election to keep an eye on is a runoff for Birmingahm’s next mayor. The seat became vacant in October upon the conviction of Larry Langford on corruption charges. Langford and other insiders have endorsed William Bell (who currently holds Langford’s former seat on the county conmission). Naturally, Patrick Cooper is running against Bell on a change platform. The campaign has been full of nasty accusations and innuendo with many glad it’s coming to an end. (T)

• Polltopia: Mark Blumenthal looks at the rapidly reducing cost of polling, and only sees even more of a proliferation of it in the near future as robo-calling gets within the reaches of the masses, even the crazy bloggers. Even Rasmussen is getting into the act, with plans to spin off a new service that will allow anyone to poll on anything for a fee of $600. That leaves Blumenthal wondering how to screen in the future for proper quality and against abuse of time-honored standards.

• CO-Sen: Former state Sen. Tom Wiens made it official; he’s entering the Republican field in the Senate race. With former Lt. Governor Jane Norton wearing the mantle of establishment anointment in this race, Wien’s entry may actually help Norton, by taking non-Norton votes away from conservative Weld County DA Ken Buck. Wiens is a wealthy rancher prepared to put up to half a million of his own dollars into the race.

• FL-Sen: If anyone has to sweating the movement conservatives’ takedown of the pre-selected moderate establishment candidate in NY-23, it’s gotta be Charlie Crist. Here’s one more thing for him to worry about: his job approval according to a new St. Petersburg Times poll is only 42/55. They don’t have him in as dire straits against Marco Rubio in the GOP primary as a number of other pollsters, though — Crist leads Rubio 50-28 — but the ultimate indignity is on the question of whether respondents would choose Crist or Jeb Bush to lead Florida right now, 47% opt for Bush (with 41 for Crist). On the Dem side, Rep. Kendrick Meek leads newly-announced former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre 26-6.

• IL-Sen, IL-07: There a lots of interesting plot lines forming as today is the filing deadline in Illinois. But the big one is: what the hell is up with Patrick Hughes? The real estate developer was considered to be the right-wingers’ go-to guy to against alleged moderate Rep. Mark Kirk in the GOP primary, but now rumors are swirling that he doesn’t have the signatures to qualify. There also seem to be some major ball-droppings for progressives: there’s nobody challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski in the primary in IL-03, and there’s nobody, period, to go up against GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in the R+0 IL-06. In the 7th, where it’s unclear whether Rep. Danny Davis will be coming back or not (he’s filed for his seat, but also for Cook County Board President), he’s facing primary competition from only one elected official: state Sen. Rickey Hendon (Cook Co. Deputy Recorder of Deeds Darlena Williams-Burnett is also a big name, but I don’t think deputy recorder is an elected position). Hendon says he’ll bail out and run for Lt. Governor if Davis sticks around.

Meanwhile, on the Senate front, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is touting his own internal poll from GQR giving him a 3-point edge on Rep. Mark Kirk in a general election, 46-43. The same poll finds less-known Democrat former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman trailing Kirk 48-39.

• IN-Sen: Research 2000 (on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, rather than Kos) found last week that Blanche Lincoln was in serious trouble electorally and that her troubles would mount if she opposed health care reform. They also looked at Evan Bayh, and they found that, a) he’s not in trouble (62/30 approvals, although no head-to-head test against his erstwhile opponent, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman), and b) a majority wouldn’t be moved one way or the other by his health care actions.

• MA-Sen: The start of debates haven’t done much to reshape things in the Democratic primary in the special election in the Bay State. AG Martha Coakley holds a 25-point lead over Rep. Michael Capuano, according to an R2K poll commissioned by local blog Blue Mass Group. Coakley is at 42 and Capuano at 16, with Stephen Pagliuca at 15 and Alan Khazei at 5. Only 52% of Coakley’s voters are firm about it, though, but that’s not much different from any of the other candidates.

• FL-Gov: That aforementioned St. Petersburg Times poll also looked at the governor’s race, and they gave Democratic CFO Alex Sink her first lead in a while; she’s up a single point on GOP AG Bill McCollum, 38-37. More trouble for McCollum: state Senator Paula Dockery, as threatened, now appears to be jumping into the Republican primary, which had been painstakingly cleared for him.

• MN-Gov: If a candidate falls in the Minnesota gubernatorial Republican field, does it make a sound? State Rep. Paul Kohls dropped out, having not gotten much traction according to recent straw polls. That leaves approximately eleventy-seven zillion Republicans left in the hunt.

• VA-Gov: He’s dead, Jim. Four more polls on VA-Gov are out:

YouGov (pdf): McDonnell 53, Deeds 40

Mason-Dixon: McDonnell 53, Deeds 41

PPP (pdf): McDonnell 56, Deeds 42

SurveyUSA: McDonnell 58, Deeds 40

• MI-07: Unseated wingnut Tim Walberg — who’d like to get his job back from freshman Dem Mark Schauer — has some company in the GOP primary next year: attorney and Iraq vet Brian Rooney (the brother of Florida Rep. Tom Rooney) is getting in the race. It’s not clear whether Rooney is any more moderate than Walberg, though; he’s an attorney for the right-wing Thomas More Law Center, the theocons’ answer to the ACLU.

• NY-23: A few more odds and ends in the 23rd. One more key Republican endorser working for Doug Hoffman now is Rudy Giuliani (like George Pataki, not the likeliest fellow you’d expect to see make common cause with the Conservative Party — with neither of them having ruled out 2010 runs, they seem to want to be in good graces with the national GOP, who are all-in for Hoffman now). Rudy’s crack team of robots is making calls on his behalf. Another possible useful endorsement: Watertown’s mayor Jeff Graham is now backing Hoffman. Former candidate Dede Scozzafava, on the other hand, is now cutting robocalls on Democrat Bill Owens’ behalf. Finally, here’s an ill omen on the motivation front: sparse turnout was reported for Joe Biden‘s appearance on behalf of Owens.

• PA-06: One more Republican is getting in the field in the open seat race in the 6th: Howard Cohen, a consultant who is the former Revenue Secretary from the Dick Thornburgh administration decades ago. He’ll face a financial gap against pharma exec Steven Welch, and a name rec gap against state Rep. Curt Schroder, though.

• AL-AG: One incumbent who looks badly endangered going into 2010 is Alabama’s Republican Attorney General, Troy King. Having buddied up with the state’s trial lawyers (thus angering the local business establishment) and also pissed off many local DAs by interfering in their cases, King has lost most establishment support in the upcoming GOP primary against Luther Strange. Two of Strange’s biggest backers are both of the state’s Senators, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby.

• ME-Init: Two more polls on Maine’s Question 1 (where “yes” is a vote to overturn the state’s gay marriage law), both pointing to an excruciatingly close vote. PPP (taken over the weekend) sees it passing 51-47, while Research 2000 (taken last week) gives a tiny edge to “no,” 47-48. (R2K also confirms that Olympia Snowe’s numbers are way off; the once bulletproof Snowe now has approvals of 50/44.)

• NYC: Three more polls all show Michael Bloomberg with an easy path to a third term, beating Democratic comptroller William Thompson. Bloomberg leads 50-38 according to Quinnipiac, 53-42 according to SurveyUSA, and 53-38 according to Marist (pdf).

• Mayors: There are fresh polls in a few other mayoral races. In St. Petersburg, Florida, one of the most hotly contended races around, Bill Foster leads Kathleen Ford 48-44 according to SurveyUSA. (Foster leads among both blacks and conservatives.) The racially polarized race in Charlotte gives a small edge to the conservative white candidate, Andy Lassiter, who leads 50-46 over Anthony Foxx. And in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, all we know is that someone with a difficult-to-spell last name will be mayor. Matt Czajkowski leads Mark Kleinschmidt 45-44. (Czajkowski seems to be the conservative and Kleinschmidt the liberal.)

• State legislatures: In case there wasn’t enough to focus on tomorrow, Josh Goodman points to five legislative special elections tomorrow. The big one is Michigan‘s 19th Senate district, which was vacated by Democratic Rep. Mark Schauer. Republican former state Rep. Mike Nofs may have an edge for the pickup against Democratic state Rep. Martin Griffin, at least based on fundraising. There are also Dem-held seats up in Alabama’s 65th House district, Missouri’s 73rd House district, and Washington’s 16th House district (the reddest Dem-held seat in Washington), and a GOP-held seat in South Carolina’s 48th House district. (UPDATE: TheUnknown285 points us to a whopping seven legislative seats up from grabs in Georgia, too, in his diary.)

• NRCC: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 1? This seems odd, given that he’s had some pretty good success on the recruiting front, but apparently the behind-closed-doors potshots are hitting NRCC head Sessions just as heavily as they did Tom Cole last cycle. The complaints aren’t about recruiting, though, but rather about fundraising, where the NRCC is still lagging the DCCC despite the superficial conventional wisdom that Republicans come into 2010 with momentum, and about not keeping enough of a lid on all those nagging intraparty skirmishes that somehow only the blogosphere ever seems to notice.

• Polling: Mark Blumenthal has a thought-provoking piece on polling the cap-and-trade issue. The key problem: no one knows exactly what it is (reminiscent of polling the public option question, too).

• Voting: States are still trying to figure out what to do about the new federal law intended to make sure that military ballots from overseas get counted. At least a dozen states are now actively considering moving their September primaries up in the calendar to comply (including Minnesota, Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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