Tag: Rand Paul

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon has picked up a major critic in her Senate run: one of her former employees, in the form of 66-year-old former pro wrestler Superstar Billy Graham. Graham is a physical wreck from his days in the WWF, thanks to steroid abuse and a number of hip replacements, with no pension or health care from WWE. He plans to keep dogging the McMahon campaign as McMahon keeps trying to sanitize her previous career.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is dropping the smiley above-the-fray approach; he’s promising to step up direct engagements with Marco Rubio, now that it looks like we’ve got a real race on our hands. Crist will go after Rubio for failure to move important pieces of conservative legislation during his time as state House speaker.

• KS-Sen, KS-04: This seems to exist mostly as whispers and rumors, but there’s word that Rep. Todd Tiahrt, not getting much traction in polls or fundraising or endorsements, may drop out of the GOP Senate primary against Rep. Jerry Moran. (Tiahrt’s people pushed back against the idea, saying they’re relying on movement grassroots forces that things like “polls” don’t pick up on. They actually also tried redbaiting Moran over his sponsorship of legislation to allow American travel to Cuba, indicating they won’t go quietly.) The question of Tiahrt running for House instead also presents a conundrum for state Rep. Raj Goyle in KS-04, who’s turning into one of the Dems’ best 2010 challengers — would Goyle be better off running in an open seat, or against the 16-year vet Tiahrt in what’s shaping up to be an anti-incumbent year?

• KY-Sen: There had been some talk about Cathy Bailey (a wealthy Bush Pioneer and W’s ambassador to Latvia), back when the GOP was still casting about for an alternative to Jim Bunning. All of a sudden, she’s back, saying she’s considering the race and sounding none too pleased with Trey Grayson (too “moderate” for her tastes) and Rand Paul (too “extreme”). I can’t see her winning the primary, but with her money, she could conceivably peel away enough mainstream GOP votes from Grayson to flip the primary to Paul.

• MT-Sen: It looks like Max Baucus may have suffered some residual damage from his high-profile role in health care reform; he’s down to 44% approval, from 67% approval at this point two years ago, according to an MSU-Billings poll. He’s lagging all other statewide officials, including Jon Tester (56/25) and Brian Schweitzer (62/20). The problem seems to be that Baucus gets only 67% approval among Dems, compared with 81% for Tester and 82% for Schweitzer; a plurality of Montanans, including 73% of Dems, support a public option, so Baucus’s decline among Dems doesn’t seem hard to diagnose.

• NC-Sen: Former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker said he won’t be running for Senate, although he’d strongly considered it. With Rep. Bob Etheridge’s recent “no” also, it’s looking more and more like SoS Elaine Marshall will have a lightly contested path to the Dem nomination (her main opponent is attorney Kenneth Lewis).

• NH-Sen: One other important “no” in a Senate race: RNC member and one-time House candidate Sean Mahoney, who had been making lots of candidate-like noises, said he won’t run in the GOP field. If you look a few moves ahead in the chess game, that’s good news for us, as having Mahoney out of the race means fewer votes split on the field’s right flank, giving right-winger Ovide Lamontagne a stronger shot at taking out establishment fave Kelly Ayotte, which would give Dems a much weaker opponent in the general.

• WI-Sen: Former Gov. (and brief presidential candidate) Tommy Thompson isn’t ruling out a Senate bid, although it seems unlikely; he’ll make a decision “next year.” Thompson’s rather strange statement is that he’s “looking at governor, looking at senator, and looking at mayor of Elroy. One of the three.” Seeing as how this is similar to the NY-Sen-B or ND-Sen races (an unlikely challenge to materialize, but one that would be a hot race if it did), SSP is moving the Wisconsin race back on to the big board, as a Race to Watch.

• WV-Sen: Congratulations to Robert Byrd, who hit an astonishing milestone today: the longest-serving Congressperson of all time. Byrd (a Representative from 1952-1958 and a Senator since 1958) has been in Congress for more than 25% of Congress’s existence.

• KS-Gov: Kansas Dems have finally nailed down a solid candidate to take on retiring Sen. Sam Brownback in the gubernatorial race. Retired pharmaceutical company executive Tom Wiggans will carry the flag for the Democrats in this uphill fight. (H/t Mike Nellis.)

• NY-19: I was tempted to put this story on the FP just so I could run the headline “Ball busted!” Roll Call is sounding pretty pissed off at having gotten initially snookered by Greg Ball and his sketchy poll from yesterday. His internal poll only sampled two-thirds of the district (Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess Counties), oversampling Republican Putnam County and leaving out Orange and Rockland Counties altogether, counties where Hall won last year. Ball’s backers say they’ll do a more traditional poll soon and are still pleased with their findings.

• PA-10: Good news for the GOP: they’ve found an elected official who’s interested in going up against Blue Dog Dem Chris Carney in the sprawling, red-leaning 10th, where they’ve been struggling with recruitment. The bad news is: Snyder Co. Commissioner Malcolm Derk is 27 (and is hard-pressed to look 17 — check out the photo at the link), and Snyder County, deep in the hills, has a population of 38K and is at the wrong end of the district from the population centers.

• WI-08: A line is forming among GOP challengers to Rep. Steve Kagen, and now there’s a former state legislator among them. Ex-state Rep. Terry McCormick served three terms and then lost the 2006 primary in WI-08 against then-state Rep. John Gard when it was an open seat, and now she’s back for another try. There are a couple county supervisors in the race, but the NRCC seems to like Reid Ribble, a businessman who can bring his own money to the race.

• CA-St. Ass.: Republican Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby finished first in the special election (to replace “Hot Mike” Duvall) in AD-72 last night. His 37% wasn’t enough to avoid a second round. He’ll face Democrat John MacMurray (who finished second at 27%) and a Green Party candidate; two other Republicans, Linda Ackerman and Richard Faher, pulled in 20% and 13% respectively, so if Norby consolidates the GOP votes in this red-leaning seat (which falls within CA-40 in the US House) he’s on track to holding the seat.

• NRCC: Pete Sessions, emulating the Dems’ spread-the-field strategy of recent cycles, says he wants to have 435 districts that Republicans are playing in. He may have missed an important piece of information: the Illinois filing deadline is past, and the Republicans are already guaranteed not to be playing in IL-01 and IL-04. Well, 433 is close.

• Mayors: There are dueling internal polls of the upcoming Houston mayoral runoff, one of the two big mayoral races left on the table (Atlanta being the other one). City controller Annise Parker leads former city attorney Gene Locke, 47-34 in her own poll, while in Locke’s poll, Parker has a narrower 43-39 lead.

• Demographics: NDN, a liberal think tank that spends a lot of time on Latino issues, has done some projecting of 2010 re-apportionment, and likes what it sees. They see Texas gaining four seats, and possibly three of those could be drawn as Hispanic-influence seats in Dallas, Houston, and the Rio Grande Valley. They also see Florida gaining a seat, and recommend creation of a Hispanic-influence seat in central Florida (where much of the state’s growth, both overall and among Hispanics, has been).

• Parties: CNN has a poll that points to the current disparity between the parties: Democrats are a lot more tolerant of the big tent. 58% of Dems prefer to see nomination of candidates who can beat the Republicans, even if they don’t agree on all the issues, while 51% of Republicans prefer to see candidates who agree with them even if they have a poor chance of beating the Democrat.

• Votes: Donkeylicious has an interesting project reminiscent of SSP’s own PVI/Vote Index, looking at Dems and seeing how they match up with their districts’ leans. A lot of the same names show up among bad Dems as we found, but they do some interesting breaking things down by region and by freshman or sophomore status.

• FL-Sen: Here’s a big score for Marco Rubio, who’s quickly cementing himself as darling for the conservative movement. He got the keynote address at CPAC’s 2010 gathering, the conservative movement’s version of Lollapalooza. Charlie Crist‘s response? Re-flip-flop on the stimulus! Today he said it was “pretty clear” he did support it at the time. The civil war in Florida is also resulting in a larger spotlight being shone on state party chair (and key Crist ally) Jim Greer, who’s the subject of an interesting (and very critical) Miami Herald piece.

• KY-Sen: A strange kerfuffle erupted in the GOP primary in Kentucky, when Rand Paul earlier this week declined to promise to support Mitch McConnell for minority leader in the face of a hypothetical leadership challenge by Jim DeMint. Paul’s rival, SoS Trey Grayson, pledged fealty to McConnell and attacked Paul for being more beholden to his “Libertarian donor base” than his fellow Kentuckians. Then, yesterday, Paul met privately with McConnell in Louisville, and after having had his brain implant installed a productive conversation, emerged filled with praise for McConnell and saying he had “no reason not to support him.”

• MA-Sen (pdf): Another poll from local pollsters Suffolk give a big lead to AG Martha Coakley, who’s pulling in 44% of the Democratic primary vote. She’s trailed by Stephen Pagliuca at 17, Rep. Michael Capuano at 16, and Alan Khazei at 3. (Coakley was at 47 and Capuano at 9 in September according to Suffolk.) Also, there appears to be one route to victory for Republican state Sen. Scott Brown: make sure that Alan Khazei somehow wins the primary. Brown beats Khazei 33-30, while losing 58-27 to Coakley, 48-29 to Capuano, and 49-27 to Pagliuca. (Brown leads perennial candidate Jack E. Robinson 45-7 in the GOP primary.)

Meanwhile, Capuano got another endorsement from among the ranks of his House colleagues, this one pretty high-profile: Nancy Pelosi. Pagliuca, on the other hand, is trying to dig out of his self-created hole, when he “misunderstood” a debate question and said that he supports reinstating a military draft.

• AL-Gov: Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks seems to have hit on an issue that differentiates him from Rep. Artur Davis in their Democratic gubernatorial primary fight: health care reform. Davis voted against it (seemingly earning him the sudden enmity of the entire netroots), and now Sparks has been loudly touting the public option, as he did at an appearance before the Madison County Democratic Women yesterday.

• CO-Gov: State Senate minority leader Josh Penry thumbed his nose rather unsubtly at ex-Rep. Scott McInnis as he departed the governor’s primary race, saying in a recent interview that not only was he not endorsing McInnis, but also that he still felt that he would be the better candidate. Is he heading for a Tom Tancredo endorsement instead? (After all, Tancredo did a lot to boost Penry’s campaign.) We can only hope.

• IL-Gov: State GOP chair (and would-be Mark Kirk antagonist) Andy McKenna got a substantial boost in his quest for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. He got the endorsement of Tom Cross, the state House minority leader.

• MD-Gov: Republican ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich seems to be giving more weight to the idea of a rematch against Martin O’Malley, if recent comments to the press are any indication. The Republican gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey may be giving him some added incentive.

• TX-Gov: A new Rasmussen poll finds Gov. Rick Perry opening up a big lead over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican gubernatorial primary: 45-36, with 4% to Paulist Debra Medina. This is a big reversal from September’s Rasmussen poll, which gave KBH a 40-38 edge. Hutchison is still racing to the right, as she said that she’d be likely to try to opt out of the public option as governor, but Perry is leading that race too, cheerfully let us know that Barack Obama is “hell-bent on taking America towards a socialist country.”

• DE-AL: State Rep. Greg Lavelle, one of the names dropped by Rep. Mike Castle as suggestions for a successor, said that he won’t take on the uphill task of trying to hold Castle’s seat. Businessman Fred Cullis is the only Republican running so far.

• NC-11: Rep. Heath Shuler’s role in a 2007 land swap has the potential to hurt him next year. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s inspector general cleared him of wrongdoing in the matter (as did the House Ethics committee), but the TVA is saying that Shuler wasn’t honest to the press about it, when he said that there hadn’t been any contact between himself and the TVA.

• NY-23: Although there’s nothing to suggest that Doug Hoffman is in a place where he can catch up to Bill Owens, it’ll still be a while till the election can be certified — possibly not till early next month. (Unfortunately, this means putting off the final results of our predictions contest from last week! We’ll keep you posted.)

• SC-04: Republican Rep. Bob Inglis keeps backing away from his party’s right wing (and probably away from his job, in his dark-red district). He said that he can’t “identify” with what we called the “hard right.” Interestingly, he still identifies as “religious right,” but seems to counterpose that against the teabaggers’ movement, also saying: “As a religious right guy, I’m thinking there was a guy named Jesus who had some things to say about these kinds of concepts. And I don’t want to live in a society that lets a few test cases die on the steps of the hospital. I can’t go there.”

• VA-St. Sen.: The Democrats still control the Virginia state Senate (thanks to none of its seats being in the balance in the election last week), but it’s a fragile 21-19 edge. Especially troublesome: 83-year-old Charles Colgan only reluctantly ran for reelection in 2007, Ralph Northam considered flipping to the Republicans earlier this year, and now Bob McDonnell seems interested in taking a page from Steve Beshear and Eliot Spitzer by appointing Senate Dems to cushy jobs in his administration. On the plus side, though, there are two special elections coming up, to replace Republicans who were elected to other positions last week. The seat of Ken Stolle (new Virginia Beach sheriff) is pretty Republican-leaning, but new AG Ken Cuccinelli’s seat in Democratic-leaning Fairfax County is a potential pickup.

• Redistricting: This is interesting; Republicans keep pushing to make redistricting fairer in Indiana, despite that they’ll control the process coming out of the next census. SoS Todd Rokita has already pushed for laws to make it a more neutral process, and now state Senate President Pro Tem David Long is pushing for an independent commission to draw legislative boundaries.

• Votes: Here’s a first: Republicans actually regretting doing something wrong. They’re privately saying that they “failed to anticipate” the political consequences of a no vote on the Franken amendment, that leaves them exposed to charges of insensitivity to rape victims and hands ammo to Democrats. (Well, maybe that’s more regretting getting caught, rather than regretting doing something wrong…)

• OFA: Organizing for America is firing up the Batsignal, summoning volunteers on the ground in 32 districts that were won by Obama but are held by House Republicans. The plan is for the volunteers to visit the Reps’ offices and demand support for health care reform.

Survey USA (10/30-11/02, likely voters for primaries, registered voters for general, 8/15-17 in parens):

Rand Paul (R): 35 (26)

Trey Grayson (R): 32 (37)

Other: 15 (20)

Undecided: 18 (17)

(MoE: 4.7%)

Dan Mongiardo (D): 39 (39)

Jack Conway (D): 28 (31)

Other: 18 (17)

Undecided: 16 (14)

(MoE: 4.1%)

Check out those GOP primary numbers. If Rand Paul knocks off Trey Grayson, that really would be quite the coup. The Paulists represent a different, weirder strain of outsider Republicans than do the teabaggers, but I almost wonder if they might make common cause in a race like this. On the other hand, I’ve gotten the sense that Greyson fits the mold of the tribal conservative, so he ought to satisfy the extremists despite his establishment cred. Despite his millions, Ron Paul’s high-water mark in the GOP primaries last year was just 24% (Idaho), so I’m a bit skeptical that Rand’s stronger fundraising alone is the reason for his surge – or perhaps this just means the comparison of son to father is imperfect. Either way, I’m eager to hear from folks on the ground in Kentucky. (And I also want to see if other pollsters confirm this movement.)

The Dem primary numbers are a bit frustrating. Despite getting crushed on the fundraising front and having several embarrassing tapes get released, Dan Mongiardo still leads Jack Conway. Not only do I like Conway far better, he performs better against both Republicans (more on that in a moment). Still, there are a lot of votes up for grabs, and the primary isn’t until May. What’s more, Mongiardo is beating Conway 2-to-1 among self-identified liberals (who make up a fifth of the Dem electorate); given that Conway is largely running to Mongiardo’s left, he ought to be able to make serious headway with that group. For his part, Conway just put out an internal poll from the Benenson Strategy Group showing him down just three points.

Dan Mongiardo (D): 38 (40)

Trey Grayson (R): 48 (46)

Undecided: 14 (16)

Jack Conway (D): 39 (37)

Trey Grayson (R): 43 (44)

Undecided: 18 (18)

Jack Conway (D): 44 (43)

Rand Paul (R): 39 (38)

Undecided: 17 (19)

Dan Mongiardo (D): 43 (43)

Rand Paul (R): 43 (41)

Undecided: 15 (16)

(MoE: ±2.4%)

The fact that Mongiardo has slipped all the way back to ten points behind Grayson troubles me, as does the fact that he’s tied with Paul. Meanwhile, Conway’s numbers have improved a touch. Still, a lot can and probably will change between now and election day. The real news, though, is that Mitch McConnell and his merry band of potentates have a lot to worry about right now.

• AR-Sen: With Blanche Lincoln already facing the vague possibility of a primary challenge from her right from Arkansas Senate President Bob Johnson, now there are rumors that she might face a primary challenge from what passes for the left in Arkansas, from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Halter would focus on Lincoln’s health-care related foot-dragging, but apparently has a track record of threatening to run for higher office and then not following through, so this, like Johnson’s bid, may amount to a big bowl of nothing.

• HI-Sen: Congratulations to Senator Daniel Inouye, who today becomes the third-longest-serving Senator in history and, adding in his House tenure, the fifth-longest-serving Congressperson. The 85-year-old Inouye has been in the Senate for almost 47 years. Inouye passed Ted Kennedy today, and will pass Strom Thurmond in another eight months, but is still chasing Robert Byrd. (Unfortunately, Inouye may be spending his special day being a jerk, by trying to remove Al Franken‘s anti-rape amendment from the defense appropriations bill.)

• KY-Sen: Feeling the heat from Rand Paul in the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky, establishment choice Trey Grayson played the “you ain’t from around these parts, are you?” card, calling himself a “5th generation Kentuckian” and Texas-born Paul an “outsider.” (Of course, by implication, doesn’t that make Grayson the… “insider?” Not exactly the banner you want to run under in 2010.)

• LA-Sen: David Vitter spent several days as the lone high-profile politician in Louisiana to not join in the condemnation of Keith Bardwell, the justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple. Given the uselessness of his response, he might as well not have bothered — Vitter’s spokesperson still didn’t condemn Bardwell, merely rumbling about how “all judges should follow the law as written” and then trying to turn the subject to Mike Stark’s Vitter-stalking.

• AL-Gov: This is a good endorsement for Ron Sparks, but it’s also interesting because it’s so racially fraught: former Birmingham mayor Richard Arrington, the first African-American to be elected that city’s mayor in 1979, endorsed Sparks instead of African-American Rep. Artur Davis Jr. in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Arrington puts it: “I think if we are ever to move forward, across racial lines in this state, we have got to begin to trust each other, work with each other, and I think Ron Sparks can be the kind of governor that helps to make that possible.”

• FL-Gov: Rasmussen released part III of its Florida extravaganza, finding that Republican AG Bill McCollum leads Democratic CFO Alex Sink 46-35. (This is the same sample that had Marco Rubio overperforming Charlie Crist against Kendrick Meek.)

• IA-Gov: Ex-Governor Terry Branstad’s Republican primary rivals aren’t going to go away quietly. Bob vander Plaats attacked Branstad on his insufficient conservatism, ranging from sales tax increases during his tenure, choosing a pro-choice running mate in 1994, and even fundraising for Nebraska’s Ben Nelson.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): One more poll out today, from Rutgers-Eagleton, finds Jon Corzine with a small lead. Corzine leads Chris Christie and Chris Daggett 39-36-20. This is the first poll to find Daggett breaking the 20% mark; also, with the addition of this poll to the heap, it pushes Corzine into the lead in Pollster.com and Real Clear Politics’ regression lines.

• OR-Gov: Two different candidates have suspended their campaigns due to family health problems. One is pretty high-profile: state Sen. Jason Atkinson, who was initially considered to have the inside track toward the GOP nomination in Oregon but who had, in the last few days, been the subject of dropout speculation. (Could this mean that Allen Alley might actually somehow wind up with the nomination?) The other is John Del Arroz, a businessman who had put a fair amount of his own money into a run in the Republican field in CA-11. Best wishes to both of them.

• RI-Gov: While conventional wisdom has seen ex-Republican ex-Senator and likely independent candidate Lincoln Chafee as having a strong shot at capturing the state house by dominating the middle, he’s running into big a problem in terms of poor fundraising. He’s only sitting on $180K, compared with Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio’s $1.5 million; that’s what happens when you don’t have a party infrastructure to help bolster the efforts.

• CT-04: While it’s not an explicit endorsement, Betsi Shays, the wife of ex-Rep. Chris Shays, gave $500 to state Sen. Rob Russo last quarter. Russo faces off a more conservative state Senate colleague, Dan Debicella, for the GOP nod to go against freshman Rep. Jim Himes.

• IL-14: Cross out Bill Cross from the list. With Ethan Hastert and state Sen. Randy Hultgren probably consuming most of the race’s oxygen, the former Aurora alderman announced that he wouldn’t be running in the crowded GOP primary field in the 14th to take on Democratic Rep. Bill Foster after all.

• LA-03: Houma attorney Ravi Sangisetty announced his run for the Democratic nomination for the open seat left behind by Charlie Melancon. He’s the first Dem to jump into the race, but certainly not expected to be the only one. He’s already sitting on $130K cash.

• PA-11: After a long period of silence, Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta has re-emerged and sources close to him are saying it’s “highly likely” he’ll try another run at Rep. Paul Kanjorski, who narrowly beat him in 2008. Barletta is encouraged by the lack of presidential coattails and the primary challenge to Kanjorski by Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien — although it’s possible that, if O’Brien emerges from the primary, he might perform better in the general than the rust-covered Kanjorski.

• NJ-St. Ass.: If you haven’t already, check out NJCentrist’s diary, filled with lots of local color, on the upcoming elections in New Jersey’s state Assembly. Republicans seem poised to pick up a couple seats in south Jersey, which would bring them closer but leave the Dems still in control.

• State Legislatures: Another fascinating graphic from 538.com, this one about the ideological makeups of various state legislatures. Apparently, political scientists have found a DW/Nominate-style common-space method of ranking all state legislators. The reason this is brought up is because of NY-23 candidate Dede Scozzafava, who it turns out is pretty near the center of New York legislative Republicans, not the flaming liberal she’s made out to be, although that puts her near the nationwide center of all state legislators, because NY Republicans are still, believe it or not, pretty centrist on the whole. There’s plenty else to see on the chart, including how Mississippi and Louisiana Democrats (who control their legislatures) are still to the right of New York and New England Republicans, and how (unsurprisingly, at least to me) California and Washington are the states with the simultaneously most-liberal Democrats and most-conservative Republicans.

• Mayors: In New York, incumbent Michael Bloomberg is holding on to a double-digit lead according to Marist, beating Democratic comptroller William Thompson 52-36 (with Thompson down from 52-43 last month). In Seattle, Joe Mallahan is opening up a lead over Mike McGinn according to SurveyUSA, 43-36, compared with a 38-38 tie three weeks ago. (The Seattle race is nonpartisan and both are very liberal by the rest of the country’s standards, but Seattle politics tends to be fought on a downtown interests/neighborhoods divide, and this race is turning into no exception as the previously amorphous Mallahan is consolidating most of the city’s business and labor support.)

• Nassau Co. Exec: Candidates slamming each other over ticky-tacky financial mistakes like unpaid liens is commonplace, but it’s not commonplace when the unpaid liens add up to almost a million dollars. Republican Nassau County Executive candidate Ed Mangano has a whopping $900K liens against property owned by his family business. (Nassau County is the western part of Long Island’s suburbs.)

• Fundraising: CQ has one more slice-and-dice of the third quarter fundraising information, listing the  biggest self-funders so far this year. Top of the list is Joan Buchanan, who already lost the Democratic primary in the CA-10 special election, who gave herself $1.1 million. In 2nd place is Republican Brad Goehring, running in CA-11 and self-funder to the tune of $650K; 7 of the list of 10 are Republicans.

• AZ-Sen: Does the persistent rumor of a J.D. Hayworth primary challenge to John McCain boil down to nothing more than a Hayworth grudge against former key McCain aide Mark Salter (and thus a way for Hayworth to keep yanking McCain’s chain)? That’s what the Arizona Republic is proposing, pointing to a 2005 dust-up between Hayworth and Salter over immigration reform. Hayworth, for his part, says that “spite” would never fuel a primary bid.

• IL-Sen: GOP Rep. Mark Kirk is touting an internal poll taken for him by Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies that has him beating Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in a Senate head-to-head, 42-35. It also shows Kirk in strong shape in the primary, leading developer Patrick Hughes (who seems to be cornering the wingnut vote) 61-3.

• KY-Sen: The allegedly third tape (although nobody seems to remember what the second one was) involving Lt. Gov. and Senate candidate Dan Mongiardo trashing his boss (and one of his few endorsers), Gov. Steve Beshear, has surfaced. This time, Mongiardo says people he talks to want to “yell” about Beshear and says, “It’s like being married to a whore.” This time it popped up directly on YouTube instead of on a Rand Paul fan blog.

• NV-Sen: Markos has an interesting observation, that may give some comfort to the Reid boys as they face an onslaught of bad polls. Democrats now have a registration edge of nearly 100,000 in Nevada, and it’s growing: since February, Dems have added 4,860 while the GOP has added 1,549. In fact, this sad performance puts the GOP fourth, as both nonpartisan registration and the right-wing Independent American Party gained more new registrants.

• PA-Sen (pdf): One more poll from Dane & Associates via GrassrootsPA, and it gives narrow edges to both Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak over Republican ex-Rep. Pat Toomey in the 2010 Senate race (46-43 for Specter and 43-38 for Sestak). Worth noting: this is only the second poll (after that freaky Rasmussen poll in August) that shows Sestak performing better against Toomey than does Specter.

• TX-Sen, Gov: Kay Bailey Hutchison may be getting some cold feet about committing to a resignation date from the Senate. In response to questions on a conservative radio talk show, it’s sounding like she’s unlikely to resign her seat by year’s end. However, she also doesn’t sound like she’ll stay in her seat all the way through to the gubernatorial primary election in March, saying “that’s not what [she wants] to do.” (Although it’s understandable she may want to keep her day job if the whole being-governor thing doesn’t work out.)

• NJ-Gov: PPP has its poll of the New Jersey gubernatorial race out, and like everyone else these days, they’re seeing it as pure tossup. Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine 40-39, with 13 for independent Chris Daggett. (It’s right in line with today’s Pollster.com average of 41-40 for Christie.)That’s tremendous progress for Corzine, who was down 44-35-13 last month. Also, it’s worth noting that not only is Corzine dragging Christie down to his level but he’s actually starting to improve his own favorables; he’s up to 37/55, still terrible but better than last month’s 32/60. The race will still depend on getting unlikely Dem voters to turn out; the likely voter pool went for Obama by only 4% last year, way off from the actual 15% margin. One last tidbit: the poll asks Daggett voters their second choice, and Christie wins that one 48-34 (suggesting that Daggett does more damage to Christie, but that Christie’s best hope is to peel off some of the vacillating Daggett supporters).

• VA-Gov: Not much change in Virginia, where Rasmussen finds a 50-43 lead for Republican Bob McDonnell in that gubernatorial race. (This is right in line with today’s Pollster.com average of 51-43.) Two weeks ago, Rasmussen found that McD led Creigh Deeds 51-42.

• FL-08: This seems kind of surprising, given freshman Rep. Alan Grayson’s over-the-top invitations to rumble (or who knows… maybe being aggressive actually works to cow Republicans?). After a lot of public vacillating, it turns out that Republican former state Sen. Daniel Webster, considered the strongest contender to go up against Grayson, won’t run. Rich guys Jerry Pierce and Armando Gutierrez Jr. are in the race, but the establishmenet Plan D (with Webster, state House speaker Larry Cretul, and Orange Co. Mayor Rich Crotty out) seems likely to fall to state Rep. Stephen Precourt, who expressed interest but said he’d defer to Webster.

• NC-11: Looks like businessman Jeff Miller declined for a good reason yesterday, as the GOP nailed down a stronger-sounding competitor to go up against Rep. Heath Shuler in the R+6 11th. Greg Newman, the mayor of Hendersonville (pop. 10,000 in 2000) since 2005, says he’ll take on Shuler.

• SC-05: State Sen. Mick Mulvaney looks ready to launch his candidacy, most likely on the 17th at a GOP gathering in the district. He’ll take on 27-year incumbent and House Budget chair John Spratt.

• TN-St. House: There’s a small House special election in Tennessee tonight, with big stakes. HD 62, located in rural south central Tennessee (its major town is Shelbyville) was vacated by a Democrat, Curt Cobb, who resigned to take a better-paying job; Cobb’s brother Ty is facing off against Republican Pat Marsh. It’s GOP leaning territory, though (this is part of the 6th CD, which had a very sharp Democratic falloff in 2008). The stakes are high because the Democrats hold the chamber by a 1-vote margin, 50-49, thanks only to a power-sharing arrangement with renegade Republican Kent Williams who serves as the Speaker elected with Democratic votes. A Republican victory here could give control of the House back to the GOP, if they’re able to reorganize in midterm. If the Republicans can control the state House and pick up the governor’s office in 2010, they’ll control the resdistricting trifecta.

• Mayors: One other election on the docket in Tennessee tonight Thursday: Shelby Co. Mayor A.C. Wharton is looking likely to become the new mayor in Memphis. Polling has him leading Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery by a wide margin. (There are 25 candidates in the race, including professional wrestler Jerry Lawler.) The mayoral job was vacated, of course, by long-time mayor Willie Herenton, who after several abortive attempts to resign in the past is leaving to challenge Rep. Steve Cohen in a primary.

Rasmussen Reports (9/30, likely voters, no trend lines):

Jack Conway (D): 40

Trey Grayson (R): 40

Undecided: 17

Jack Conway (D): 42

Rand Paul (R): 38

Undecided: 15

Dan Mongiardo (D): 37

Trey Grayson (R): 44

Undecided: 14

Dan Mongiardo (D): 38

Rand Paul (R): 42

Undecided: 13

(MoE: ±4.5%)

In the last two polls we’ve seen of this race (from R2K a month ago and SurveyUSA in August), Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo actually had a small electability edge over state AG Jack Conway. Not so in this poll, and maybe the leaked audiotape of Mongiardo’s foul-mouthed kvetching against Gov. Steve Beshear has something to do with it. (In this same poll, Beshear’s job approval is holding up pretty well — a rarity for Governors these days, it seems — at 59-41.)

Overall, these numbers aren’t bad, especially considering that Rasmussen has tended to put out some of the most R-friendly polling results of the major public firms this cycle. I wouldn’t mind seeing if Mongiardo’s stock has dropped in the Democratic primary, though.

RaceTracker Wiki: KY-Sen

• MA-Sen: A superior court judge today ruled that Deval Patrick did not overstep his authority by unilaterally declaring that there was an emergency that required immediate implementation of the new temporary Senate appointment law (instead of the usual waiting period). Bring on the usual Republican kvetching about judicial activism, but the judge did note that the GOP did “not cite any case law in support of its argument.” (Another interesting tidbit: Mitt Romney used his “emergency” power 14 times while in office, including to raise the boating speed limit in Charlton.) At any rate, this frees up Paul Kirk to be sworn in by Joe Biden this afternoon as the Bay State’s junior senator until January.

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina has unleashed her killer app: her new website, titled “Carlyfornia Dreamin’.” Unfortunately, the only killing that seems to be going on here is of her own credibility, as both Democrats and conservative Republicans alike are aghast at the site’s… well… vapidity. It’s more fuel for the fire for conservatives left wondering what — if, as rumored, Fiorina isn’t going to self-fund, her one potential advantage — she brings to the table.

• KY-Sen: Following his latest “moneybomb” (Sep. 23, timed to coincide with Trey Grayson’s DC fundraiser with much of the GOP Senate establishment), Rand Paul says he’s raised more than $900K this quarter and expects to report $1 million at month’s end.

• AZ-Gov: Fresh from posting godawful numbers in this week’s PPP poll, Jan Brewer is already facing her first Republican primary opponent: Paradise Valley mayor Vernon Parker. Parker, who was the Bush administration’s Asst. Sec. of Agriculture for Civil Rights, is African-American; Phoenix suburb Paradise Valley is small (pop. 13,000) but the state’s wealthiest place (2000 MHI $150K).

• CA-Gov: With stories dogging Fiorina and Linda McMahon for their spotty voting records, now it’s Meg Whitman’s turn in the spotlight. A Sacramento Bee investigation finds that her failing to vote “on a few occasions,” as she’s previously said, actually means “almost always,” with little record of voting or even registration in the six states and dozen counties where she’s lived.

• MI-Gov: Moderate businessman Rick Snyder, who’s languishing in the low single digits in the polls in the GOP gubernatorial field in Michigan, got a high-profile endorsement yesterday: from Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motors.

• NV-Gov: CREW has filed an ethics complaint against ex-AG, ex-federal judge Brian Sandoval, who recently quit his judgeship to move to the Republican gubernatorial primary (against DOA incumbent Jim Gibbons). There are strict prohibitions against political activity by the federal judiciary, but he may have had conservations with political consultants who then included him in polling, which could have crossed the line.

• PA-Gov: In the Pennsylvania Republican primary in the open seat governor’s race, conservative AG Tom Corbett got a big endorsement from moderate ex-Gov. Tom Ridge. Meanwhile, the moderate option in the primary, Rep. Jim Gerlach, unveiled a rather less impressive endorsement: conservative ex-Rep. John Peterson.

• KS-03: Steve Rose, the Republican publisher of the Johnson County Sun, announced last week that he’d run for the House against Rep. Dennis Moore. Today, he’s already out of the race, citing health reasons.

• DGA: Another sign of Barack Obama’s increasing engagement with the gubernatorial sphere (after the row over his involvement in the New York race): he’s headlining a DGA fundraiser in DC on Oct. 1 expected to raise at least $500K.

• House: An interesting lawsuit was filed in federal court this week, demanding that the size of the House be increased. The crux is the disparity between, say, WY-AL with less than 500K residents and MT-AL with more than 900K residents; the suit invokes the “one person one vote” requirement with its roots in Baker v. Carr, but that’s never been applied across state lines, only to equalizing districts within a state. It’ll be interesting to see how far this gets. (By the way, Tom Schaller looks at how a bigger House would create a small partisan advantage for the Dems in the Electoral College. No discussion on whether it would lead to a bigger advantage in the House, although that would obviously turn on how the new smaller districts get gerrymandered into existence.)

• WATN?: The Abramoff investigation may finally take down ex-Rep. John Doolittle, who was just named as a co-conspirator by federal prosecutors in the corruption case of former aide Kevin Ring.

• Pollsters: The American Association for Public Opinion Research took the unusal step yesterday of reprimanding Strategic Vision, LLC (the one whose polls you often see here… not to be confused with well-thought-of market research firm Strategic Vision, Inc.) for failing to respond to requests for basic information about the make-up of their polls. Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal had previously flagged SV for suspicious behavior.

• CO-Sen: Former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton is set to launch her bid for the GOP nomination for the Senate today; however, not every prominent Colorado Republican is on board. Ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo lit into her, saying she’s “not ready for prime time” and that he would have less of a problem with her if she’d worked the regular behind-the-scene channels in preparing for the race instead of parachuting in at the last minute, apparently at the urging of family friend John McCain. Those on the left, however, are casting a dark eye toward her lobbying past: she used be the head of government relations for a for-profit health care lobbying shop.

• KS-Sen: The GOP primary in Kansas is commonly understood to be an establishment/movement duel between Reps. Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt. However, the endorsements in the race are scrambling that a bit, as South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, maybe the nuttiest guy in the Senate, has endorsed Moran (the ‘moderate’ in the race, who surprisingly also got Tom Coburn‘s endorsement this spring). The somewhat more mainstream figures of John McCain and Richard Burr will also headline Moran fundraisers in DC.

• NH-Sen: Instead of linking to that Populus poll (with a bizarre sample that’s way off state party composition) that shows Rep. Paul Hodes losing 54-39 to a generic Republican, I’ll just direct you to Dean Barker’s authoritative takedown of the poll and of Populus in general.

• NY-Sen-B: As suspected, that Rudy Giuliani-for-Senate thing that happened yesterday was just cloud talk. Via right-hand-man Tony Carbonetti, the word is that Giuliani doesn’t see himself as a Senator, and only belongs in chief executive positions instead.

• CA-Gov: Here’s about as big an endorsement as SF mayor Gavin Newsom could have hoped for in his bid for California Governor, where he has been sinking into underdog status in the Dem primary against AG Jerry Brown. Bill Clinton will appear at an Oct. 5 event for Newsom. (Payback for Brown staying around in the 1992 presidential primary after it had been sorted out?) The popularity of the Clinton brand, especially among Latinos, may give Newsom a boost among the state’s Latinos, who haven’t shown much interest in Newsom yet.

• NJ-Gov: PPP, like most pollsters, shows a narrowing edge for Chris Christie in New Jersey but Jon Corzine still standing at the bottom of a hole. Christie leads Corzine 44-35 (improved from 50-36 last month), with independent Chris Daggett pulling in his strongest performance in any poll yet, at 13%. Corzine just isn’t gaining, but Christie seems to be leaking votes to Daggett, suggesting there are a lot of Dems and Dem-leaning indies who hate Corzine but can’t bring themselves to vote for a Republican (Corzine is polling at only 64% among Democrats). Also similar to other pollsters, there seems to be a big enthusiasm gap at work on the Dem side: among those who fit into PPP’s likely voter screen, Barack Obama won only 48-46 in 2008 (despite his actual 15-pt edge last year).

• VA-Gov: This bodes ill for Creigh Deeds: one of his electability assets was that he was the most gun-friendly of the Democratic candidates. However, the National Rifle Association — who, in the 2005 Attorney General’s race endorsed Deeds over Bob McDonnell — turned around and endorsed McDonnell over Deeds in the Governor’s race.

• IL-10: State Rep. Julie Hamos got a key endorsement in her primary fight against 06/08 nominee Dan Seals, from EMILY’s List. That gives her a national fundraising profile that may help counteract Seals’ netroots backing.

• NH-02: It seems like there has been an endless supply of “Charlie Bass is weighing his options” stories out of New Hampshire, but the ex-Rep. now says he’s “leaning toward” a run to get back his old seat. However, the moderate Bass would first have to survive a primary against conservative radio blabber Jennifer Horn, who was the 2008 candidate against Rep. Paul Hodes and has said she’s back for another try.

• PA-03: John Onorato made it official: he’ll be running against freshman Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper. He’s currently general counsel for the Manufacturer and Business Association, but he used to be Erie County Solicitor, an elected office with a constituency that makes up almost half of the district.

• SC-04: I might as well just start the “Bob Inglis Deathwatch” series today. The South Carolina Republican, who used to be one of the most conservative House members but has been sounding increasingly moderate (and sick of Republican hypocrisy) lately, Twittered a suggestion for neighbor Joe Wilson to apologize on the House floor for his outburst. This is the same Inglis who voted for TARP and against the Iraq Surge, and who told town hall screamers to turn off the Glenn Beck; he faces several serious primary challengers in this mega-evangelical R+15 district.

• VA-05: Cordel Faulk, the former spokesperson for Larry Sabato’s Univ. of Virginia Center for Politics, said that he won’t run for the GOP nod to oppose Tom Perriello after all. Still no top-tier (or even second or third-tier) GOP candidate in this district that presents, on paper, one of their best pickup opportunities.

• VA-07: A local real estate developer, Charles Diradour, has announced that he’ll run as a Democrat against Republican whip Eric Cantor in Richmond’s suburbs. He’ll need to bring a lot of developer money to the table if he’s going to have a chance at Cantor, the House Republicans’ biggest fundraiser, in this R+9 district.

• CfG: The Club for Growth is havnig a busy day. They just announced endorsements in the area where they can do the least harm, in open-seat GOP primaries in super-red districts. They endorsed state Sen. Tim Huelskamp in KS-01, and state Rep. Tom Graves in GA-09. Interestingly, they’re also interviewing both Rand Paul and Trey Grayson to see if they want to get involved in the Kentucky primary.

• NYC: It’s primary election day for New York City’s elective offices, and the final SurveyUSA poll (sampled the 11th through the 13th) is out today. In the mayor’s race, Comptroller William Thompson, at 46%, seems clear of the 40% mark that necessitates a runoff. We’re seeing momentum in two different directions below that, though. Former PA Mark Green is losing steam in the Public Advocate’s race, down to 33%, making a runoff likely against city councilor Bill DeBlasio (who’s at 23%). Meanwhile, city councilor John Liu is making a break for the 40% line; he’s at 37%, while David Yassky and Melinda Katz are fighting for 2nd (at 22% and 21% respectively).

• CO-Sen: That was fast… two days after saying he was probably going to drop out of the Colorado Senate race, now Weld County DA Ken Buck is likely to stay in the race. Apparently there has been enough conservative discontent over the seeming annointment by the NRSC and state party of former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton as the nominee that Buck may feel he can ride that backlash to primary victory. (Norton may well be conservative herself, but she’s such a blank slate that there’s no way to tell, and at any rate, conservative activists aren’t taking kindly to DC meddling this year, as we’ve seen in the Missouri and New Hampshire races.)

• FL-Sen: Too cute by half? Charlie Crist’s appointment of his ex-Chief of Staff, George LeMieux, to the Senate is getting panned by many of the major newspaper editorial boards in the state. (J)

• IA-Sen: Big Bruce Braley boffo boomlet busts! The sophomore Representative confirmed that, despite a sudden flurry of speculation, he’ll stay where he is, and not run against Chuck Grassley for the Senate. Former state legislators Bob Krause and Tom Fiegen are already in the race.

• IL-Sen: Here’s another Senate race where the GOP rabble is getting restive about one candidate getting the establishment stamp of approval. There are eight other candidates besides Mark Kirk, and religious right ultra-conservatives are trying to coalesce behind one, with Hinsdale real estate developer Patrick Hughes seeming to get the most mention. The most notable name in the anti-Kirk camp? Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum, who’s 85 and still going strong. The article does mention that there have been several other Senate primaries in Illinois where a conservative upstart beat the establishment moderate, most notably Al Salvi’s upset of Bob Kustra in the open seat race of 1996.

• KY-Sen: You better believe it’s on. Rand Paul’s backers are gearing up for another Moneybomb!, this time cleverly scheduled for the same day (Sep. 23) as Trey Grayson’s big DC fundraiser where he’ll be feted by 23 Republican Senators.

• LA-Sen: David Vitter seems like he has an endless supply of horse’s heads to put in the beds of potential GOP primary opponents. This time, former Lt. General and Katrina recovery hero Russel Honore backed down within a few days of his rumored interest appearing, much the same as with Suzanne Terrell and John Cooksey.

• MA-Sen: There was a brief flurry of speculation that Vicki Kennedy, Ted Kennedy’s widow, would be the placeholder short-term appointee to his seat (assuming Massachusetts Dems followed through on changing state law regarding appointment), pushed along by Sens. Dodd and Hatch. However, it now appears she’s not interested in the interim appointment (or running in the special). Meanwhile, the many contenders among the Massachusetts House delegation are watching what ex-Rep. Joe Kennedy II does; Ed Markey and Michael Capuano, for instance, both sound eager to run in the special election but will defer to a member of the Kennedy family.

• NV-Sen: There’s the old expression about not picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrel, but Harry Reid and the Las Vegas Review-Journal are getting into a little pissing match. Reid told the LVRJ that “I hope you go out of business.” The LVRJ’s publisher shot back, calling him a “bully” and decrying his “creepy tactic.” (I expect a Reid press release saying something about rubber and glue is forthcoming.)

• AL-Gov: The specific details seem few and far between, but Ben Smith leaks some tidbits about an AL-Gov poll commissioned by the Alabama Education Association (the state’s teacher’s union, naturally a pro-Democratic organization). It’s good news for Rep. Artur Davis, who leads all GOPers in the race, ranging from ex-judge Roy Moore by 6 to Treasurer Kay Ivey by 12. Davis also leads Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks by 30 in the Dem primary, and has a 3-to-1 favorable ratio.

• NJ-Gov: The Jon Corzine camp is out with a hard-hitting new TV spot, nailing Chris Christie over his undisclosed loan to carpool buddy Michele Brown. Also, unsurprisingly but critical to his survival, Corzine got the SEIU‘s endorsement last Friday.

• PA-Gov: Scranton mayor Chris Doherty has been casting a wide net as he looks for a step up, considering the Lt. Gov. spot and a PA-11 primary challenge against Paul Kanjorski, but now he may be considering the big enchilada: a run for Governor. With the two Dem frontrunners both anti-abortion Pittsburgh-area Dems (Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato and state Auditor Jack Wagner), there’s may be an opening for someone pro-choice from the East (which is something ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel is also considering).

• VA-Gov: Republican AG Bob McDonnell’s attempts to position himself as a moderate in the Virginia Governor’s race hit a big snag this weekend, as the Washington Post took a look at the master’s thesis he wrote while a 34-year old graduate student at Pat Robertson’s Regent University. McDonnell railed against feminists, working mothers, contraceptive use by married couples, cohabitators, homosexuals, and fornicators. McDonnell protests rather weakly that his views have “changed” since he wrote the thesis.

• CA-10: SurveyUSA is out with their final poll of the special election to replace Ellen Tauscher, and finds little movement in the past two weeks. Lt. Gov. John Garamendi (D) leads with 25%, followed by Republican David Harmer with 20%. The other two major Dems in the race, state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, are at 16% and 12%, respectively. (J)

• MO-04: Retiring GOP Sen. Kit Bond seems displeased that national Republicans are trying to knock off veteran Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton next year. In an interview during a recent Cardinals game, Bond said that “it’s very very important for us to have a man like Ike Skelton” in Congress. (J)

• Data: The Office of the House Clerk has released its biennial summary of the 2008 presidential & congressional elections (PDF). The document contains official results for every federal race in the nation, all in one place. (D)

• CO-04: When asked whether or not he believes if Barack Obama was born in the United States at a recent town hall meeting, Republican Cory Gardner, running against frosh Dem Rep. Betsy Markey, walked a delicate line in front of his mouth-breathing audience, but did drop this golden nugget: “I think the administration is trying to say he was born in this country”.

• CT-04: I believe we can now label the ever-growing list of Republicans challenging freshman Democratic Rep. Jim Himes as a “posse”. In addition to previously-announced candidates state Sen. Dan Debicella, former state Sen. Bob Russo, and 24 year-old Will Gregory, Norwalk businessman Rob Merkle is joining the field. Merkle, who has no elected experience, thinks that the economy and the healthcare crisis will fix themselves as long as the government practices some gosh-darned fiscal restraint. In other words, Chris Shays he is not.

• FL-Sen: Ex-GOP Rep. Mike Bilirakis says that he’d gladly serve as a Senate placeholder if Crist was interested in tapping him, but he’s also very displeased with Mel Martinez’s quitting ways.

• KY-Sen: It’s Moneybomb! day for Rand Paul, who’s running surprisingly close to GOP candidate Trey Grayson in the polls. His supporters have raised $100K overnight, and he’s hoping to grow that total to a cool million by the end of the day. You can watch the tally online here.

• NH-Sen: Feel free to trust this poll as far as you can chuck it. Populus Research, polling for the conservative NowHampshire.com, finds Republican Kelly Ayotte leading Democrat Paul Hodes by a 51-49 margin. Yes, that’s right — no undecideds. On the generic ballot, Dems edge Republicans by 51-48 for the seat, with a whopping 2% undecided. And just when you thought that they couldn’t get any worse than UNH and ARG…

• NH-02: Most Democrats hoping to succeed Paul Hodes in the House have been keeping their powder dry, with attorney Ann McLane Kuster being the only declared candidate so far. That changed today with the entry of state Rep. John DeJoie, a Concord firefighter, into the race. The field is expected to grow again at some point in the future with the entry of Katrina Swett and possibly Executive Councilor Deb Pignatelli or her husband, Mike.

• NV-Sen: Disgraced GOP Sen. John Ensign again reiterated yesterday that he won’t resign in the wake of revelations that his parents paid off his mistress’s family with $96,000 worth of hush money. Oh, and he’s also still refusing to answer any questions about the money, either. At the same time, Ensign says that you can’t accuse him of hypocrisy based of his vote to impeach Bill Clinton, because he, unlike Clinton, did “nothing legally wrong”.

• NV-03: Here’s a nice bit of oppo research just hurled by the Nevada Democratic Party at recently-announced Dina Titus challenger John Guedry. Guedry, a banker, began his campaign by railing against out-of-control spending. What he didn’t mention, though, is that his bank, City National, received $400 million worth of TARP funds in 2008… just as City National cut Guedry a check for his annual bonus.

• PA-Gov: Things are starting to get pretty testy in the Republican gubernatorial primary in the Keystone State. Jim Gerlach, the decided underdog in the race, has called on Attorney General Tom Corbett to either resign his office or drop out of the race. Gerlach is calling out Corbett, the man in charge of the Bonusgate investigation that has so far mostly hit Democratic lawmakers, as having a conflict of interest due to the fact that he’s investigating GOP legislators while at the same time seeking their endorsements for his gubernatorial bid. Gee, I don’t see how that could ever lead to any problems…

Meanwhile, for the Democratic nomination, Montgomery County Commissioner/ex-Rep/’04 Senate candidate Joe Hoeffel says that he’s going to poll the race to test his strength in a possible bid.

• VA-09: Confirming rumors that spread through the tubes on Tuesday, Republican state Del. Terry Kilgore, the twin brother of ex-state AG/’05 GOP gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore (quick tip: Terry’s the one with the ‘stache), said yesterday that he has, in fact, been in contact with the Eric Cantor and Pete Sessions about a run against longtime Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher in this R+11 southwestern Virginia district. Kilgore would probably give Boucher the race of his life if he ran, but he’s sounding noncommittal for now. Kilgore says that he generally likes Boucher, but his recent vote for the cap-and-trade bill left him sour. A decision will come after the Viriginia gubernatorial election later this year.