Tag: WI-Sen

• GA-Sen: Here’s some great news out of Georgia: we may actually score a late top-tier challenger in the Senate race. Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, who’s held that office since 1998, has been considering promotion opportunities (including, reportedly, not just this but also a GA-12 primary challenge), and it looks like he’s likely to pull the trigger on a run against Johnny Isakson. Isakson has had soft approval ratings, but has benefited from lack of much of a challenge (R.J. Hadley is the only announced Dem). A recent R2K poll had Thurmond losing to Isakson 53-26, but maybe that poll gave some encouragement to Thurmond in that he might be able to ride the surging Roy Barnes’s coattails a bit (and maybe also give a boost to Barnes, by driving up African-American turnout).

• NV-Sen: Mason-Dixon, for the Las Vegas Review-Journal did another poll of the Nevada Senate, despite having issued one just a week ago. I’m not exactly sure why; perhaps they felt that, in the wake of Jon Scott Ashjian’s bad week (with revelations of the financial disaster in his personal life, as well as the kerfuffle about whether he even qualifies for the ballot), they needed to re-evalute. They also added another right-wing third-party candidate to the mix, Tim Fasano of the American Independent Party. Polling only on the Harry Reid/Sue Lowden matchup, they find not much has changed. Ashjian’s support has dropped, but that may have more to do with the addition of Fasano to the mix and the splitting of the hardcore no-RINOs crowd. They found Lowden 47, Reid 37, Fasano 3, and Ashjian 2. (Compared with last week’s 46-38, with 5 for Ashjian.) At least one thing is going right for Ashjian: he was just given the green light by a court to remain on the ballot for the Tea Party, despite the fact that he was still a registered Republican when he filed.

• NY-Sen: The search goes on for a challenger to Chuck Schumer, and the GOP may have a willing victim: George Maragos. You can’t fault Maragos for lack of ambition: he was just became Nassau County Comptroller at the start of the year, as part of the GOP’s comeback in Nassau in November, and he’s already looking to move up. Political consultant Jay Townsend has also floated his name for the race.

• WI-Sen: Beer baron (and former state Commerce Secretary) Dick Leinenkugel didn’t waste much time following Tommy Thompson’s rambling announcement of his non-candidacy; he issued a statement last night that sounds very candidate-ish, although the jist of it was to “stay tuned” over the next couple weeks.

• MN-Gov: Coleman endorses Rybak! No, relax, not Norm Coleman. Chris Coleman, mayor of St. Paul and an oft-rumored candidate himself last year, endorsed R.T. Rybak, mayor of the other Twin City (Minneapolis) for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

• CA-11: Here’s a race to keep an eye on. David Harmer, who performed above expectations in the CA-10 special last year, is doing well in the next-door 11th also. He raised $380K last quarter, outpacing Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney’s $286K.

• MN-06: Rep. Michele Bachmann rode the Crazy Train all the way to Moneyville, it looks like. She raised $810K in the first quarter, giving her $1.53 million CoH. If that number seems eerily familiar, it’s almost exactly what was reported by Alan Grayson, her lightning-rod bookend at the other end of Congress.

• MO-08: Sleeper candidate Tommy Sowers reported a nice cash haul ($295K for the quarter), and now it looks like he’s outraised incumbent GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson for the second straight quarter. She brought in only $223K.

• NC-08: One guy’s who’s lagging on the fundraising front — although it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, given the last four years of history — is Democratic freshman Rep. Larry Kissell (lauded, or notorious, depending on your perspective, for preferring to work on a shoestring budget). He raised only $72K for the quarter, giving him $326K CoH, as he was outpaced by self-funding GOP opponent Tim D’Annunzio.

• NV-03: Rep. Dina Titus may not be faring well in the polls against Joe Heck, but she’s whupping him in the cash department. Titus raised $254K last quarter and has $902K CoH, compared with $148K raised and $257K CoH for Heck.

• NY-24: There’s a less somewhere in here about keeping your base (you know, the ones holding the wallets) happy. Rep. Mike Arcuri’s fundraising wasn’t that impressive for a competitive race, as he raised $208K, leaving him with $493K CoH. He was outpaced by GOP rival Richard Hanna, who raised $358K (and reports the same amount as CoH).

• OH-15: Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy had a good quarter, raising $308K. It still wasn’t enough to top her GOP competition, Steve Stivers, though; he reported $367K for the quarter.

• PA-10: Here’s a loudly-touted GOP candidate who’s not living up to the hype yet. Ex-US Attorney Tom Marino’s first quarter was unimpressive, raising $111K and ending up with $74K CoH. Democratic incumbent Rep. Chris Carney sits on $665K CoH.

• PA-12: The DCCC is getting involved in a big way in the 12th, laying out $136K for ad time in the special election in the 12th. The ad is a negative ad against the GOP’s Tim Burns. Also, while he has a small cash edge over Dem Mark Critz right now, it’s fitting that, given his name, Mr. Burns is self-funding his campaign. Of the $325K raised by his campaign so far, $221K has come from his own pocket.

• VA-11: It looks like this is going to be a big money race all around. As the gear up for the GOP primary, Fairfax Co. Supervisor Pat Herrity and rich guy Keith Fimian are engaged in a tiresome spin battle about who has more money. Herrity raised $275K despite a late entry during the quarter and has $195K CoH, while Fimian raised $278K and has $609K CoH. Rep. Gerry Connolly can marshal his resources for the general; he bested them both, raising $446K and sitting on $1.04 million CoH.

• WV-01: Mike Oliverio, running in the Democratic primary, had a big quarter: he raised $240K and has as much cash on hand as Rep. Alan Mollohan.

• NY-AG: Former Rep. and NYC controller Elizabeth Holtzman looks poised for yet another comeback; she’s released an internal poll showing her with a big lead in the Democratic AG primary, which, while she’s not running yet, isn’t the usual action of someone who doesn’t plan to run. Her poll finds her at 29%, with Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice in second at 9%.

• DNC: Someone at the DNC seems to know what to do: they’re pledging to spend $50 million on cash and field operations for the 2010 midterm. They say there’s going to be a big emphasis on base turnout (youth, African-Americans and Latinos, first-time voters); in other words, they understand they need to rebuild the Obama coalition as much as possible to limit losses in November.

Whoooosh! That sound is Democrats dodging a bullet — an odd bullet with enough vulnerabilities that it wasn’t as likely to hit its mark as many assumed — but a big bullet nonetheless. Ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson won’t run for Senate against Russ Feingold, he announced this afternoon at a Tea Party rally in Madison. Feingold’s election seems much easier now, although it’s unclear who he’ll face (real estate mogul Terrence Wall or beer baron Dick Leinenkugel?).

Taniel tweets, regarding Thompson’s impetus:

Thompson weirdly puts all blame on his family: he says he wanted to run, family vetoed. Trying to keep Tea Partiers’ good will for future?

• Election results: Yesterday’s big event was the special election in FL-19, the first real electoral test after the passage of HCR. The allegedly massive opposition to healthcare reform on the part of the district’s many seniors never really materialized. Democratic state Sen. Ted Deutch beat Republican Ed Lynch 62-35, with very little falloff from Obama’s 65-34 performance in 2008. (Contrast that with John Garamendi’s so-so 53-43 performance in November’s CA-10 special election, a similarly 65-33 district in 2008.)

I should also pause to offer a little credit to Texas’s Republicans, who voted for the less crazy candidates in the Board of Education and Supreme Court runoffs, and in a bigger surprise to me, for the Hispanic-surnamed candidates in the TX-17 and TX-23 runoffs (which, based on incumbent Victor Carrillo’s trouncing in the Railroad Commissioner primary, seemed unlikely to happen). The NRCC has to be pleased to see the wealthier and less wingnutty Bill Flores and Quico Canseco emerge. Rep. Chet Edwards, however, is one guy who knows how to stand and fight, and he wasted no time hitting Flores hard and defining him as a carpetbagger in big oil’s pocket.

One other leftover issue from last night: two races in California, as expected, are headed to runoffs. In Republican-held SD-12, Republican Assemblyman Bill Emmerson will face off against Democrat Justin Blake (the GOPers combined got more than 60% of the vote, so this is a likely hold), while in safely-Democratic AD-43, Democratic lawyer Mike Gatto will face off with Republican Sunder Ramani to replace now-LA city councilor Paul Krekorian. Gatto seemed to shoot the gap in this heavily Armenian-American district after the two Armenian candidates, Chahe Keuroghelian and Nayiri Nahabedian, nuked each other.

• AR-Sen: Bill Halter’s primary campaign gained more momentum, as he picked up an endorsement from the Alliance for Retired Americans, pleased with his time as a Social Security Administration official. One group that really isn’t getting on board with Halter, though, is the Berry family; first outgoing Rep. Marion Berry dissed Halter, and now his son, Mitch, is head of a group, Arkansans for Common Sense, that’s running ads attacking Halter on the Social Security front. (Are there any Arkansans who are actually against common sense?)

• CO-Sen: Looks like GOP establishment candidate Jane Norton sees the handwriting on the wall and is taking a page from Democrat Michael Bennet’s book: not able to rely on getting on the ballot via activist-dominated convention (where teabagger-fueled Ken Buck seems likely to triumph), she’s making plans to qualify by finding 1,500 signatures in each of the state’s seven congressional districts. Speaking of Bennet, he’s still the fundraising kingpin in this race; he just announced he raised $1.4 million last quarter, well ahead of Norton’s $816K.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist may have sounded Shermanesque last week in his determination not to switch to an Independent bid for Governor, but apparently now there’s increasing moves within his inner circle to move in that direction. Unnamed advisors are floating the idea to the WSJ today.

• IN-Sen: Dan Coats seems to be having more trouble making the transition from the free-wheelin’ world of high-stakes lobbying back to the humdrum electoral politics world, where you actually have to follow the rules and stuff. He’s 10 days overdue on filing his finance disclosure reports with the FEC. One note that the Beltway press seemed to miss though: his main GOP primary opponent, ex-Rep. John Hostettler hasn’t made his filing yet either. (Of course, fundraising was never Hostettler’s strong suit. Or even his weak suit.)

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP issued its latest installment in polls of the Senate general election in its home state. Maybe the biggest surprise is that incumbent Republican Richard Burr’s approvals are just continuing to fall; he’s currently at 32/41 (while likeliest opponent Elaine Marshall is in positive territory at 19/11). Also encouraging, I suppose, is that the actual human Democrats are starting to draw even with Generic D (while previous polls have had Generic D far outpacing them), showing they’re getting better-defined. Burr leads Generic D 43-38, while he leads Marshall 43-37, and leads both Cal Cunningham and Kenneth Lewis 43-35.

• NY-Sen-B: With ex-Gov. George Pataki’s phantom interest in this race finally having been dispelled, Swing State Project is removing this race from its “Races to Watch” list.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): One more poll in the rapidly-becoming-overpolled Pennsylvania Senate race, this time from Republican pollster Susequehanna. They use an LV model, and find Pat Toomey with a 48-38 lead over Arlen Specter. Of more immediate consequence, they find Specter leading Joe Sestak 42-28 in the Dem primary. They also polled both primaries in the gubernatorial race, finding Dan Onorato seeming to break away from the ill-defined pack among the Dems. Onorato is at 32, followed by Joe Hoeffel at 13, Jack Wagner at 6, and Anthony Williams at 4. Tom Corbett beats down Sam Rohrer on the GOP side, 50-7. After marshaling his resources, Specter is finally starting to open fire; he’s up with his first TV ad of the cycle starting today.

• WI-Sen: The only thing that’s sure is that Tommy Thompson likes to see his name in the press. There’s been a lot of conflicting reporting about Tommy Thompson today, with many outlets running with the story that he’s decided against running for Senate (that all traces back to one leak to a local TV station, although it sounds like Politico got some confirmation from an anonymous GOP source). Other outlets are emphasizing that Thompson’s spokesperson says that Thompson hasn’t made a final decision, though. Either way, Thompson will be announcing his plans at a Tea Party rally tomorrow in Madison, so our pain will be ended tomorrow one way or the other.

• MA-Gov: Here’s more evidence for my expectation that Dem-turned-indie Tim Cahill will be running to the right (or at least to the incoherent-angry-working-class-Catholic-guy-position) of the Republican in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race this year. He’s appearing at today’s Tea Party rally on Boston Common today, the same one with Sarah Palin that Scott Brown ditched (although MA-10 candidate Joe Malone and GOP gubernatorial underdog Christy Mihos will be there). Likely GOP gubernatorial nominee Charlie Baker (from the party’s old-school moderate WASP tradition) decided against attending, probably out of fears that he might get jostled by some ruffian and spill some of his gin and tonic on his white Bermuda shorts.

• MN-Gov: Two blasts from the past in the Minnesota gubernatorial race. Walter Mondale weighed in in favor of Democratic state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, while a guy I’ve never heard of named Al Quie, who claims to have been governor from 1979 to 1983, endorsed Republican Marty Seifert.

• NE-Gov: Via press release, the campaign for Democratic candidate Mark Lakers let us know that he took in $314K, impressive considering his late entry to the campaign.

• AL-07: State Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. got an endorsement from the United Steelworkers, a union that seems to still have a lot of clout in Birmingham, once a major steel town.

• AZ-03: Now here’s some news I didn’t expect: the fundraising champ in the 3rd isn’t one of the many state legislators running here, but rather attorney (and vice-presidential progeny) Ben Quayle. He pulled in $550K in the first quarter, thanks no doubt to family connections. There are a couple other self-funders in the race too, but the elected officials seem to be lagging: case in point, well-known ex-state Sen. Pamela Gorman, who raised only $37K and ends with $23K CoH.

• FL-24: Rep. Suzanne Kosmas announced a haul of $260K for the first quarter. That’s less than the $340K reported by her likely GOP opponent, steakhouse mogul Craig Miller (although a slab of his money was apparently carved out of his own personal funds); Kosmas has a big CoH advantage, though, sitting on more than $1 million.

• GA-07: Retiring Republican Rep. John Linder didn’t look far to endorse a replacement for him: he gave his nod to his former chief of staff, Rob Woodall.

• HI-01: Sen. Dan Inouye just transferred $100K of his money to the DCCC, despite appearances that they’re actively backing Ed Case, rather than Colleen Hanabusa, who has the support of Inouye (and pretty much everyone else in the local Democratic establishment). Inouye has apparently been working behind the scenes, including reaching out to Nancy Pelosi, to get the DCCC to dial back their Case support, so maybe the cash infusion will give him a little more leverage. (Inouye is sitting on $3.2 million and faces little if any opposition this year.)

• IN-03: Nice fundraising numbers from Democrat Tom Hayhurst, who ran a surprisingly close race against Rep. Mark Souder in 2006 and is back for another try. Hayhurst has racked up $234K CoH, more than Souder ($99K in the first quarter).

• IN-05: Politico has a look at Rep. Dan Burton’s difficult primary in the 5th, in Indianapolis’s dark-red suburbs. While Burton may actually be safer this year compared with 2008 (since he has four opponents instead of just one), the article traces the roots of the local GOP’s discontent with him, and also shows the magnitude of his collapse in support: only 2 of the 11 local party organizations are supporting Burton this time.

• MO-08: Another Dem in a dark-red seat who keeps impressing everybody with his tenacity is Tommy Sowers. The veteran and college instructor, who’s challenging Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, raised $295K in the first quarter and is now sitting on $675K CoH.

• NM-02: Ex-Rep. Steve Pearce can write himself his own checks if he needs to, but he may not need to at this rate. Pearce raised $277K in the first quarter, and now sits on $708K. Democratic Rep. Harry Teague hasn’t reported yet, but in the duel of wealthy oil guys, he can self-fund too if need be.

• NY-14: With Democratic primary challenger Reshma Saujani having some success on the financial front, Rep. Carolyn Maloney got some top-tier help from Barack Obama, who endorsed her and sent out a fundraising appeal on her behalf.

• PA-11: If this doesn’t wake up Rep. Paul Kanjorski from his nap, I don’t know what will. Three-time Republican opponent Lou Barletta raised $300K in the first quarter. An important caveat: there was no mention of cash on hand, which is telling because Barletta was still saddled with a lot of debt from his 2008 campaign when he decided to run again. (UPDATE: Barletta’s CoH is now $205K.)

• PA-17: Republican state Sen. David Argall raised a tolerable but not-too-impressive $125K in the first quarter. He’ll need more than that to battle Rep. Tim Holden, who, if nothing else, has great survival skills (he had the worst district of any freshman who survived 1994, and then survived a 2002 gerrymander designed to rub him out). In fact, he’ll need more than that just for his primary; heretofore unknown GOP opponent ex-Marine Frank Ryan raised $70K in the first quarter.

• Redistricting: Maryland beat out New York to be the first state in the nation to enact legislation that will, in terms of redistricting, treat prisoners as residents of their last known address, rather than where they’re incarcerated (and thus move the center of gravity back toward the cities from the countryside). Also, on the redistricting front, if there’s one group of people who are the target audience for a whole movie about redistricting (Gerrymandering), it’s the crowd at SSP. The film’s director has a diary up, touting its release in two weeks at the Tribeca Film Festival.

• Special elections/Runoffs: Believe it or not, it’s a busy election night tonight. Top of the list is the special election in FL-19, where the successor to Robert Wexler will be chosen. In this D+15 district in the more middle-class parts of the Gold Coast, the Democrat, state Sen. Ted Deutch, is heavily favored. The parties haven’t gotten involved, and Republican Ed Lynch (who lost a lopsided decision to Wexler in 2008) is hamstrung by the presence of independent right-wing candidate Jim McCormick.

It’s runoff day in Texas, with almost all the action on the GOP side. TX-17, between self-funder Bill Flores and 2008 candidate Rob Curnock, and TX-23, between self-funder Quico Canseco and ex-CIA agent William Hurd, are the marquee races as far as the U.S. House goes. There are also some GOP runoffs in some state House races, an interesting mixed bag of open seat succession races, teabaggish challenges to GOP incumbents, and challenges to vulnerable Dems. Finally, there’s a culture war clash between just-very conservative and super-duper conservative in two statewide contests: one for the Supreme Court (with Rick Green, the former state Rep. known for punching the guy who beat him in 2002, representing Team Crazy), and one for the Board of Education (between Marsha Farney and Brian Russell, with Russell the movement conservative here).

Finally, there’s some state legislature action in Massachusetts, California, and Florida. Primaries for two state Senate seats are in Massachusetts, the ones held by now-Sen. Scott Brown and now-disgraced Anthony Gallucio. This is the de facto election in Gallucio’s dark-blue seat, seeing as how no Republicans are running, but the winner between state Rep. Lida Harkins and doctor Peter Smulowitz in the Dem primary will face off against GOP state Rep. Richard Ross on May 11 to succeed Brown. In California, there are two legislative specials; using the California system, each one will likely head to a runoff (unless someone in the cluttered fields breaks 50%). Both seats will likely turn out to be holds: SD-37 is in Republican exurban Riverside County, while AD-43 is in Democratic Glendale in LA County. And in the Florida Panhandle, dark-red HD-04 should be an easy Republican hold.

• AR-Sen: Looks like Blanche Lincoln picked the wrong week to stop acting like a Democrat. She got seriously outraised by Bill Halter in the first quarter, earning $1.3 million (Halter got $2 mil). She also spent more than she earned, running a blitz of TV ads, probably to the tune of $2 million, as her cash on hand dropped $700K –although it’s still a high $4.7 million. Still no word yet from the race’s key Republicans.

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina filled in the last blank in the California Senate race; her fundraising total for the first quarter was $1.7 million, edging out Tom Campbell (who pulled in $1.6 million). Both GOPers lagged Barbara Boxer’s $2.4 million.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is still trying to find something that’ll stick to Marco Rubio, and he’s trying again to link ex-state House speaker Rubio to some of the other less savory elements among legislative leadership. He’s up with a new ad trying Rubio to another former speaker, Ray Sansom, who’s currently under indictment for charges of falsifying state budget items.

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias is lagging Mark Kirk on the cash front; he raised $1.2 million last quarter, compared with Kirk’s $2.2 million. Giannoulias didn’t release cash on hand figures, which may not be too impressive either considering that he had to fight through a competitive primary.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP looked at the primaries only in the North Carolina Senate race (they’re on May 4). On the Dem side, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham is still within striking distance of SoS Elaine Marshall; she leads Cunningham 23-17, with Kenneth Lewis at 9 and 5% for assorted minor candidates. (Last month, Marshall led Cunningham and Lewis 20-16-11.) On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 67%, with his closest competition, Brad Jones, at 7.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Quinnipiac finds a lot of same-ol’-same-ol’ in the Empire State: Andrew Cuomo crushing, and Kirsten Gillibrand crushing anyone non-Pataki. Gillibrand trails non-candidate George Pataki 45-40 but leads actual candidate Bruce Blakeman 47-25 (none of the other third-tier GOPers get polled); she’s also sporting her highest-ever approvals, at 47/25. (Pataki beats Blakeman in a GOP primary, 64-15.) On the Governor’s side, Rick Lazio is still poised to be GOP nominee; he leads Steve Levy and Carl Paladino 34-11-11 (note that the poll was in the field prior to the whole bestiality thing). Andrew Cuomo dispatches Lazio 55-26, Levy 57-24, and Paladino 60-24.

• OH-Sen: I’d assumed Lee Fisher had been on the air before, but he’s just now launching his first TV spots of his campaign with the primary only weeks away (apparently marshaling his resources for the general). Fisher also pulled down the endorsement of Cleveland mayor Frank Johnson, although he didn’t gain the backing of his own home town’s Democratic party (in Shaker Heights), which instead declined to endorse.

• PA-Sen: Here’s a bit of a surprise: Joe Sestak succeeded in his ballot challenge, getting last-minute conservadem entrant Joe Vod Varka kicked out of the Democratic primary, setting up a two-man fight against Arlen Specter. If Sestak’s going to have any hope of knocking off Specter, he’ll need to consolidate every anti-Specter vote (and also not have the Slovak-American vote — a big segment in western Pennsylvania — split).

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold had a successful fundraising quarter, considering right now he’s only running against the specter of Tommy Thompson. Feingold earned $1.34 million, leaving him with $4.26 million CoH.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott has decided, rather belatedly, to throw his hat in the ring in the Republican field in the Governor’s race. If the name’s familiar, he’s a former hospital-industry businessman who funded much of the initial anti-HCR astroturfing efforts via his organization Conservatives for Patient Rights. He’s sound teabaggish themes about establishment candidate AG Bill McCollum (despite McCollum taking the lead on the GOP AGs’ anti-HCR lawsuit). Considering that state Sen. Paula Dockery is already trying to run against McCollum from the right and getting no traction, it’s hard to see Scott going anywhere with this, though.

• NM-Gov: Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, the lone Dem in the race, is dominating the fundraising front; she raised $1.1 million in the six-month reporting period and has $2.6 million CoH. Among the GOPers, former state party chair Allen Weh leads both in money raised ($691K, although $500K was a personal loan) and CoH ($544K). Dona Ana County DA Susana Martinez raised $428K and sits on $364K CoH.

• PA-Gov: Here’s a blow to, well, everybody in the Democratic field; after not being able to find two-thirds support for anybody, the AFL-CIO won’t be endorsing any particular candidate in the Dem primary. Former Philadephia city controller Jonathan Saidel got their Lt. Gov. endorsement.

• AL-05: Party-switching Rep. Parker Griffith (most recently in the news for forgetting his party-switch and billing the DCCC for expenditures) surprised his GOP primary opponents at a debate by asking them sign a unity pledge that the losers of the primary would campaign for the winner in November. No thanks, said both Mo Brooks and Les Philip.

• DE-AL: Looks like wealthy self-funder Michelle Rollins, the NRCC’s preferred recruit in the race, has some competition on the big bucks front in the GOP primary. Real estate developer Glen Urquhart just announced that he has $512K in his account (of course, $500K of that came from his own pocket).

• FL-08: Alan Grayson had another big fundraising quarter, thanks in large part to netroots moneybombing (especially his March event which brought in $500K). He raised $803K in the last three months, bringing his CoH total to $1.5 million (along with the possibility of writing checks to himself).

• HI-01: CQ has an interesting piece on HI-01 that focuses primarily on just how difficult it is (especially for “mainland” pollsters) to poll in Hawaii. With only two polls of this race having seen light of day so far, the main takeaway may be that anyone’s guess is as good as mine where the race stands.

• MI-01: One of the top Republicans on everyone’s candidate list for the newly-opened seat in MI-01 has said that he won’t run. State House minority leader Kevin Elsenheimer said he won’t run, even though he’s termed out of the House and needs something else to do. (Elsenheimer, from the Traverse City area, is disadvantaged by not coming from the Upper Peninsula portion of the district.)

• MS-04: Here’s one other eye-catching fundraising note: a Dem incumbent who got outraised by Republican opposition previously considered inconsequential. Rep. Gene Taylor raised $41K and has $221K CoH, while GOP state Rep. Steven Palazzo raised $125K and has at least $100K CoH. Let’s hope Taylor doesn’t hit the “snooze” button for another quarter. National Journal’s latest fundraising outline also has noteworthy numbers from Charlie Dent (PA-15), Dan Debicella (CT-04), and Rick Crawford (AR-01).

• Redistricting: With the Fair Districts redistricting initiative seeming destined to make the ballot in Florida, now the Republican-controlled legislature is trying to get its own redistricting initiative on the ballot, in an apparent effort to clarify (or gut) the Fair Districts proposals. The Senate’s proposal deals with the thorny questions of VRA-mandated districts and communities of interest, which aren’t addressed in satisfactory manner by the original initiatives, which forbid designing districts in a manner that is favorable to one party or the other.

• Demographics: Josh Goodman has an interesting look at population change in Texas, similar to some work we’ve done at SSP over the last few years; he finds that while Texas’s largest counties are becoming swingier, its fastest-growing counties are still pretty solidly Republican (although the growth in these counties is in demographics that aren’t likely Republican). Of course, the parts of the state that are becoming less and less of the state, percentage-wise — the rural parts — have become even more conservative than the fast-growing exurbs, so in a way that’s progress too.

• FL-Sen: Remember the good ol’ days of 2009, when Charlie Crist’s huge cash advantage would make him inevitable even if insurgent Marco Rubio somehow caught on with the teabagger set? Yeah, I’m having trouble remembering too. Rubio just brought in $3.6 million this quarter, the best of any candidate reporting so far. (Crist has yet to report, and even if he loses the quarter may yet lead in total cash.) Rubio may be getting himself into some trouble, though, with the all-important senior demographic in Florida, though, as his recent comments about changing Social Security (by, among others, raising the eligibility age) may not sit well with the state’s 3.5 million beneficiaries.

• IL-Sen: Looks like the biggest fundraising news today is coming from the GOP side of the aisle: Mark Kirk had a strong quarter, too, as he pulled in $2.2 million, leaving him with $3 million in the bank.

• NY-Sen: With all the state’s second-tier Republican talent interested in taking on Kirsten Gillibrand, where they might at least have some hope of an upset, no one’s signing up for the truly quixotic task of taking on Chuck Schumer in the other Senate race. That may change, as political consultant Jay Townsend is talking about stepping out from behind the curtain and trying his hand as a candidate. Townsend is currently working for Nan Hayworth’s campaign in NY-19.

• WI-Sen: A new Republican is stepping forward to run in the primary for the right to take on Russ Feingold… and, no, it’s not Tommy Thompson. Dick Leinenkugel, a former state Commerce secretary (an appointed position), plans to enter the race soon regardless of whether or not Thompson gets in. (Cillizza says, as far as Thompson goes, he’ll decide by early May and “most informed speculation seems to suggest he will take a pass.”) If Leinenkugel’s name is somehow evocative of hungover collegiate Sunday mornings, he’s from the family that owns the similarly-named brewery.

• GA-Gov: A sudden late entrant to the already-crowded Republican field in the Georgia governor’s race is bringing a lot of his own money with him. Ray Boyd is a wealthy real estate executive, and he kicked off his campaign by writing himself a $2 million check. He promises to reach out to the state’s teabaggers for support. The newest Insider Advantage poll of the GOP primary field doesn’t include Boyd; it finds Insurance Comm. John Oxendine with a solid lead at 26. Ex-Sos Karen Handel is at 18, ex-Rep. Nathan Deal is at 9, state Sen. Eric Johnson is at 5, and “Other” racks up 11, with 31% still undecided.

• MD-Gov: Ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich officially kicked off his campaign to get back his old job from Martin O’Malley in November. The DNC, however, is trying to tie Ehrlich today to his former #2 man, who’s gone on to rather overshadow Ehrlich for the last few news cycles: ex-LG and current RNC boss Michael Steele.

• MI-Gov: There’s another EPIC-MRA poll of the Michigan governor’s race, suggesting they’re going to be polling pretty frequently. This time, they find the likeliest matchup, Democratic state House speaker Andy Dillon vs. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, goes to Hoekstra, 40-33 (one month ago Hoekstra led 41-37). Mike Cox beats Dillon 43-34 and Rick Snyder beats Dillon 42-30, while Lansing mayor Virg Bernero loses to Hoekstra 42-29, to Cox 44-30, and to Snyder 42-26. Dillon leads the Dem primary 22-15 (with 11 for Alma Wheeler Smith), while Hoekstra leads the GOP primary at 27, with Cox at 21, Snyder at 15, Mike Bouchard at 13, and Tom George at 3.

• NV-Gov: Here’s some strategic thinking from the camp of Reid the Younger. The Committee to Protect Nevada Jobs (headed by Rory Reid’s consultant Dan Hart) is running ads bolstering incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons and attacking GOP primary rival Brian Sandoval (who’ll provide a much more difficult opponent for Reid than the thoroughly-trashed Gibbons).

• RI-Gov: The Association of Democratic City and Town Chairpersons — the umbrella group for the Dem party chairs of each of the state’s 39 municipalities — issued endorsements for a number of key races. Maybe there’s some tension between them and the state party, as they endorsed Treasurer Frank Caprio for the Governor’s race (instead of AG Patrick Lynch) and in RI-01, Providence mayor David Cicilline (instead of former state party chair William Lynch, brother of Patrick). They also endorsed Jim Langevin in RI-02, where he faces a primary challenge from a state Rep.

• WY-Gov: Democrats in Wyoming seem to have moved somewhere back behind square one in their search for a gubernatorial candidate. Their seeming best bet in the wake of Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s decision not to go for re-election, state Sen. Mike Massie, has decided to run for state superintendent of public instruction instead, where he’ll face incumbent GOPer Jim McBride.

• DE-AL: The NRCC has to be happy to get something of an upgrade in the open seat race in Delaware, shaping up to be their likeliest loss in the House. Michelle Rollins, a wealthy philanthropist, has confirmed that she’ll run. She hasn’t run for office before, but the DCCC already started attacking her several weeks ago, indicating they take her (or at least her wallet) more seriously than the Some Dudes already running. Former Lt. Gov. John Carney is the Democratic candidate, and has had a long head-start on the race.

• MA-09: Progressives looking for a primary challenge to Stephen Lynch (in the wake of his “no” vote on HCR) will have to look somewhere other than Needham town meeting member Harmony Wu; she announced via Facebook that she won’t be running.

• MI-01: Seems like Rep. Bart Stupak got his feelings hurt after taking a serious pounding from the left, from the right, and from pretty much all points in between during his last-minute obstruction of the health care reform passage. He’s saying that, although he has the signatures prepared for another run, he’s not ruling out retirement this year. Assuming he runs again, he faces a primary from the pro-choice left as well as a general election challenge from angry teabaggers on his right. If he does retire, Menhen is already on top of it in the diaries, listing some potential replacement candidates.

• NY-23: Paul Maroun, a Franklin County Legislator who got passed over by local GOP heads in favor of Dede Scozzafava in the special election in the 23rd, had been planning to run in the primary this year, but just decided against it. That leaves only two remaining contenders, Doug Hoffman (who ran on the Conservative Party line last year and is still doing his part to cheese off the local GOP), and self-funding investor Matt Doheny.

• PA-15: Bethlehem mayor John Callahan keeps on being one of the Dems’ few bright lights among its challengers this cycle, pulling in $320K this quarter, with $825K CoH. For more numbers, Reid Wilson’s out with today’s fundraising wrapup at the Hotline, with other numbers worth checking out including everybody in PA-Gov and FL-Gov.

• DNC: Michael Steele rolled out the RNC’s gaudy committee fundraising numbers early as a means of distracting the media from, well, everything else that’s happening at the RNC. Unfortunately, that kind of backfired, as the DNC put out numbers that topped the RNC’s already-high numbers. The DNC pulled in more than $13 million in March (compared to $11 million for the RNC), showing (via the HCR victory) that nothing succeeds like success.

• RNC: Speaking of the RNC’s numbers, here’s an interesting accounting trick that’s just come to light: the RNC had a deal going with the Michigan GOP to give money back and forth to each other, in order to inflate the RNC’s fundraising numbers. Not really the day that Michael Steele would have chosen for this news to come out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The daily digest is so hunormous today that we had to CHOP IT IN HALF!

AR-Sen: Chris Cillizza’s incredibly annoying Mr. Rogers wallpaper tweets that Bill Halter raised $2 million in his first month on the trail.

AZ-Sen: This Roll Call piece has some interesting tidbits about the nascent Democratic (yes, Democratic) primary in the Arizona senate race. Tucson city councilman Rodney Glassman is all but running, and he has some personal wealth due to his family’s farming business. He also has the backing of Rep. Raul Grijalva (Glassman was once a Grijalva aide). Some other Dems, however, are talking up the potential candidacy of Nan Stockholm Walden, who is also wealthy and is a well-connected Democratic donor. The knock on Glassman is that he’s young and inexperienced; the knock on Walden is that she was a registered lobbyist for several years. Glassman says he’ll run no matter what Walden decides, and I think a primary here could actually be helpful if it stays clean.

On the GOP side of things, John McCain says he raised $2.2 million in the first quarter and has $4.5m on hand. Primary opponent J.D. Hayworth, meanwhile, seems like he hasn’t been doing quite so hot on the money front.

CA-Sen: A whiff of extra-special dumb: Carly Fiorina sent around an email to supporters describing Passover as a time to “break bread.” Of course, the one thing that Jews don’t eat on Passover is… bread. Trying to wiggle their way out of this one, a staffer tells TWI: “We meant all bread, leavened and unleavened, and matzo is just unleavened bread so that’s what we meant by that.” That still doesn’t work.

CT-Sen: GOP hopeful Linda McMahon is taking heat from opponent and ex-Rep. Rob Simmons for her $10,000 donation to the DCCC in 2006. Not only should this make McMahon suspect to Republicans, argues Simmons, but he seems to be tying that donation to the fact that he himself lost in 2006, perhaps nudged out the door by McMahon’s very own cash. (Considering Simmons came up just 83 votes short, he may have a point.)

FL-Sen: The joke is that when the New York Times finally gets to writing about a hitherto underground phenomenon (steampunk, miracle fruit, etc.), that’s the moment it becomes mainstream and therefore loses its cool. Marco Rubio’s “NYT moment” happened months ago, so anyone endorsing him at this late stage is about as cool as your mom using Facebook. Welcome to the club, Sen. Tom Coburn. Meanwhile, Charlie Crist’s old buddy, former FL GOP chair Jim Greer, is under criminal investigation for some sort of self-dealing.

KY-Sen: I think this is where Paulists probably part ways from teabaggers: Rand Paul thinks the government “shouldn’t be involved” in requiring people to wear seat belts. Not really sure ultra-libertarian whackness like this plays too well in most quarters. Please, please let this guy win the GOP primary. Incidentally, Paul says he’s raised $600K in the last quarter (lower than I would have thought), but also says he’s spent almost all of it. Apparently, though, he’s pre-paid for “the next six weeks of activity” (until the primary), perhaps locking in lower rates on things like TV ads.

MO-Sen: One last odd-n-end from PPP’s MO-Sen poll: Roy Blunt is under 50% against his unknown GOP primary challenger, Chuck Purgason – he leads 48-18. Purgason’s favorables are just 7-9 (not a typo), so obviously there’s a chunk of Republicans out there who just hate Blunt.

NC-Sen: Former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt will endorse attorney Ken Lewis, who is seeking the Dem senate nomination. Gantt himself ran for the Senate twice, losing two close races to the unthinkably odious Jesse Helms. Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Richard Burr says he’s raised $1.4 million in the first quarter and is sitting on a $5.3 mil warchest. No word yet on any of the Dems.

TX-Sen: It looks we will have Kay Bailey Hutchison to kick around some more – for at least the next two years. She announced yesterday that she’ll serve out the remainder of her term, which ends in 2012. I wouldn’t be surprised if she subsequently changed her mind (at least, after this November), but for now, that means TX-Sen comes off our “Races to Watch” list.

WI-Sen: Richie rich Terrence Wall says he’ll stay in the GOP primary even if ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson gets in. Wall had kind words for Thompson, and also thanked him for drawing Democratic fire, but it sounds like Wall wants to present himself as the “true conservative” option.

CA-Gov: Meg Whitman is the latest moron-American to jump onto the “healthcare reform is unconstitutional” bandwagon, agreeing wholeheartedly with a supporter who asked at a campaign event if she would “force your attorney general to file suit” against the legislation. (Of course, CA’s governor can do no such thing.) I really can’t wait until these idiots get punked out of court.

PA-Gov: Some fundraising numbers from some of the big players in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race – click the link for details. One of them, Dan Onorato, is up on the air with his first TV ads. No exact word on the size of the buy, but supposedly the ads are in “heavy rotation around the state,” which could cost $1 million.

Tommy, can you hear me?

Research 2000 for the Daily Kos (3/22-24, likely voters):

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 48

Tommy Thompson (R): 44

Undecided: 8

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 52

Terrence Wall (R): 37

Undecided: 11

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 54

Dave Westlake (R): 36

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4%)

These results line up very well with the latest offering from PPP giving Feingold a 3-point edge on Thompson, pushing back a bit further against the recent WPRI and Rasmussen polls that have given T-Squared a slight lead.

Interestingly, in terms of their favorability ratings, R2K is kinder to both Feingold and Thompson; both men have nearly identical favorable scores (53-41 for Feingold and 53-42 for Thompson), whereas PPP had Thompson starting off this hypothetical race struggling to keep his head above water at 40-44 to Feingold’s 45-41.

RaceTracker Wiki: WI-Sen

1. While Tommy may have highrollers on speed dial, his Wisconsin contacts are still on a Rolladex.

As Governor, he put in long hours appearing in every corner of the State, and was very accessible. One to one, if you were having a problem with the State bureaucracy, and the request was reasonable, he’d try and help out.

His problem, now, many of those folks he helped out are now deceased, or moved to Florida.

He managed the long hours for a few weeks in Iowa for his abortive Presidential run, but it was wearing him out. I don’t think he can sustain it all the way to November, and Russ doesn’t give much to work with on a strictly negative ad-driven campaign. Unlike his opponents in the Governor races, they won’t beable to paint Feingold as a gungrabbing nannystater. (Feingold voted against renewal of the assault weapons ban, a position that synchs well with his battle against the PATRIOT ACT.)

2. I don’t think Tommy’s heart will be in it. He’s been enjoying time with his grandkids, and hated living in Washington, hence the long delay in making up his mind. In agreeing to go through the motions, I suspect it’s just to neutralize, as best he can, Russ’ coattails in the races for the Legislature.

3. The first debate.

4. The Tea Party crowd. if he goes into full pander mode, he blows off those who consider him legitimately a “compassionate Conservative.” if he doesn’t pander, they’ve time to field an Indy/3d party guy. it’s telling that Tommy skipped the statewide Tea Party Convention in the Dells a couple weeks ago, where he might well have been booed over his pre-flip position on Healthcare reform.

AR-Sen: The chair of the Arkansas branch of the NAACP is taking issue with his organization’s “A” rating for Blanche Lincoln. Rightly pointing out a methodological flaw that all such interest group “scorecards” share, Dale Charles doesn’t like that Lincoln gets credit for voting “yes” on healthcare reform despite her endless footdragging and her successful effort to block the public option.

KY-Sen: No surprise: Kentucky AG Jack Conway, a healthcare reform supporter, is refusing to join the coalition of Grandstanding Attorneys General United in Stupidity (GAG-US) – see Florida bullet below for more on what I’m talking about. Conway specifically decried the waste of taxpayer dollars and knocked Treasurer SoS Trey Grayson for playing “tea party politics.”

MA-Sen: Oy. It looks like the chair of the MA Dem Party sent a tweet to Rachel Maddow, feeling her out about a run against Scott Brown in 2012. Thing is, it looks like John Walsh meant to send a private “direct message” but instead sent a public tweet (his note included his cell phone number). Brown’s campaign jumped all over this and sent out a fundraising email trying to scare supporters with the possibility of a Maddow run. No word if she’s actually interested.

NV-Sen: Harry Reid is hitting Sue Lowden hard and early – and since she’s just one of 13 (!) Republicans vying to take him on, you have to wonder why. The Las Vegas Sun thinks it’s because Reid figures Lowden has the best chance to emerge as the GOP nominee and wants to soften her up early. He might also perversely be increasing her chances to win her party’s nod, since Reid is so hated among Republicans that his attacks might boost her cred. The Sun also notes that labor has it in for Lowden, so Reid may be playing to them as well.

OH-Sen: Another Republican comes out in favor of repealing healthcare reform, former Bush budget director Rob Portman. But at the same time, NRSC chair John Cornyn is already walking back the “repeal it!” mantra, even though he, like Portman, previously called for Total Repeal. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this entire line of attack fade over the next several months.

WI-Sen/OH-16: Russ Feingold should send a thank-you card to Rep. John Boccieri, who landed a nice blow on Crypt Keeper Tommy Thompson the other day during the debate on the healthcare bill. Thompson has been attacking healthcare reform for constituting “government-controlled healthcare” (eyeroll), but Boccieri pointed out on the House floor that his Republican colleagues voted to send Thompson to Iraq “with a billion dollar checks in hand to make sure that every man, woman and child in Iraq had universal health care coverage.”

FL-Gov: Hah, just perfect. Bill McCollum is leading the crusade of delusional state attorneys general who are trying to get healthcare reform declared unconstitutional. (Good luck with that.) The best part is that McCollum evidently thinks his own employees aren’t up to the task, since he’s hired an old crony who he used to work with in a private DC law firm. Alex Sink is blasting Billy Mac for wasting taxpayer money on a frivolous lawsuit, and of course for tossing some coin his former partner’s way.

DE-AL: A good hit from the DCCC press shop: In 2007, potential Republican House candidate Michelle Rollins was elected to the board of a bank which received a $330 million in bailout funds. This bank, Wilmington Trust, has not repaid the bailout money, but it did find a way to reward its executives with $31.5 million in bonuses – including the aforementioned Rollins, whose 2009 compensation more than quadrupled over previous years.

FL-25: Right-wing radio host Paul Crespo says he’s going to seek the Republican nod in this open seat. (Recall that Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart is trying to switch districts, running for the 21st CD, which his brother Lincoln is leaving vacant.) A fascinating tidbit from that article: “Also in the running for the seat are three Miami-Dade County residents, Democrat Luis A. Rivera, Whig party candidate Craig Porter and nonpartisan candidate Marili Cancio.” Emphasis definitely fucking added!

MI-01: Some Dude challenging Bart Stupak as a Republican says he’s raked in $50K in the wake of Stupak’s alleged “betrayal” of anti-choicers with his healthcare reform vote.

NJ-03: Teabagger Justin Murphy says he’s going to take on former NFL tackle John Runyan in the GOP primary, despite (or perhaps because of) Runyan sewing up the endorsement of all the county Republican organizations. Apparently, there’s an actual Tea Party out in Jersey (or at least in Burlington County), and they’ve given Murphy their nod.

NY-13: Attorney Stephen Harrison is considering a rematch against Rep. Mike McMahon in the Democratic primary, citing McMahon’s vote against healthcare reform. Harrison ran for this seat in 2006 without any establishment backing, taking 43% against Vito Fossella – the best any Dem had done under the district’s current lines. Harrison ran a second time in 2008, but when Fossella announced his retirement in disgrace, Dems cast about for a stronger candidate and settled on then-councilman Mike McMahon. Harrison was nonplussed and stayed in the race, getting crushed 75-25 in the primary. Labor is also pissed at McMahon, and the WFP has said he won’t get their line, but they haven’t said whether they’ll support a primary challenge against him. Harrison said he has no timeframe for making a decision.

PA-15: After months of staying mum on the subject (and suffering quite a few blows as a result), Dem John Callahan finally came out in favor of the healthcare reform bill which the president signed into law yesterday. Really, though, waffling is the worst thing you can do. Either come out loud-and-proud, or run against it.

TX-19: Pretty pathetic, really: GOP Rep. Randy Neugebauer, who yelled “Baby killer!” at Bart Stupak on the House floor before Sunday’s healthcare vote, is now trying to use his outburst to raise campaign cash. Neugebauer’s Democratic opponent, Andy Wilson, calls him out for the cheap stunt and rightly says he’s just trying to ape the disgusting behavior of Joe “You lie!” Wilson.

UT-02: Rep. Jim Matheson scores some pretty good job approval ratings in a new Deseret News poll conducted by Dan Jones & Associates. Among 2nd CD constituents, he sports a 57-39 approval.

VA-05: Apparently, Virgil Goode’s fundraiser this Thursday for state Sen. Rob Hurt isn’t an endorsement. In fact, Goode’s done events for three other Republicans in the race and has still another planned for next week. What a guy!

WV-01: State Sen. Mike Oliverio, challenging Rep. Alan Mollohan in the Dem primary, is playing dumb as to whether he, like Mollohan, would have voted in favor of healthcare reform. Oliverio claims he has “not had a chance to read the bill, as it is still fresh in its printing.” Of course, the bill the House passed on Sunday night was the same bill that the Senate passed in… December, and the electrons at thomas.loc.gov dried some time ago. Anyhow, this posturing confirms rumors we’ve heard that Oliverio is going to run to Mollohan’s right. If that’s the case, here’s hoping he tanks miserably.

Census: CNET has an awesome photographic roundup of equipment used to tabulate the census, dating back to 1890, the first time the Census Bureau started using mechanical equipment. Great punch-card generation eye candy.

DNC: The DNC claims it’s raised a million bucks since healthcare reform was signed, “without even asking.”

NRCC: Two vile tastes that taste vile together: Sean Hannity and the National Republican Congressional Committee. His Hannityness just did a DC fundraiser last night for the NRCC which took in $7 million, topping the $6 million haul for last year’s event.