Tag: NY-20

• WI-Sen: Know how you can tell that this hypocrisy-on-government-aid problem (see the last couple digests for backstory… Ron Johnson’s company Pacur has been repeatedly expanded with the help of government loans, y’know, the kind that of meddling in the free market that we have to get rid of) is putting a scare into the Johnson camp? Now he’s been rewriting history on Pacur’s website to adjust the founding date of his company, from 1977 to 1979. Johnson had previously claimed that the railroad spur built (with federal help, natch) to his company was in early ’79, before Pacur was founded. (Pacur’s predecessor company was founded in ’77; it changed names in ’79.)

• CO-Gov (pdf): Republican pollster Magellan is out with a new look at the Colorado gubernatorial race; they find the combined Dan Maes + Tom Tancredo vote still less than the John Hickenlooper vote. It’s Hickenlooper 46, Maes 27, Tancredo 17. (That’s a lot fewer undecideds than today’s Rasmussen poll; see below.)

• FL-Gov: Ah, the sweet smell of unity. Well, sort of… the state party finally got around to having its fete for newly-minted gubernatorial nominee Rick Scott, the one canceled last week for lack of, well, unity. Insiders like state House speaker Dean Cannon and next state Senate president Mike Haridopolos toasted Scott, despite the fact that up until last Tuesday they were working hard to defeat him. There was someone important missing, though, that kind of defeats that whole “unity” thing… it was Bill McCollum, who confirmed yet again today that he’s “staying out of” the governor’s race. Meanwhile, DGA head Nathan Daschle (here’s a guy who knows how the game is played) is out with a bit of concern trolling of his own, offering unsolicited advice to RGA head Haley Barbour and other interested Republicans that they probably don’t want to be seen campaigning next to Scott.

• NM-Gov: Biden alert! The Veep will be bringing his patented comedic stylings to the Land of Enchantment to host a fundraiser for Diane Denish, whose once slam-dunk gubernatorial bid has deteriorated into a jump-ball.

• NY-Gov: State GOP party chair Ed Cox is having a helping heaping of crow from breakfast, having to get behind Rick Lazio for the GOP gubernatorial nod… out of fear of the possibility of the even more objectionable Carl Paladino winding up with the nomination. (Remember, Cox recruiting Suffolk Co. Exec Steve Levy to not only get in the race but switch parties to do so, only to watch him crash and burn.) Cox issued a letter urging local party leaders to get behind Cox, filled with magnanimous praise, perhaps none more so than when he calls Lazio “credible.”

• AR-04: Rounding out their tour of the state, Talk Business Journal/Hendrix College take a look at the 4th, the only non-open seat in all of Arkansas. Despite the rough poll numbers that they found for the Dem candidates in the 1st and 2nd, they find Mike Ross in solid shape, probably thanks to an underwhelming opponent in the form of Beth Anne Rankin. Ross leads 49-31, with 4 going to Green candidate Joshua Drake.

• FL-08: In yet another example of Alan Grayson zigging when other Dems zag, he’s out with an internal poll, and it puts him in surprisingly strong shape against Daniel Webster, thanks in large part to a strong performance by “other” (presumably the Tea Party candidate). The PPP poll gives Grayson a 40-27 lead over Webster, with 23 for “Other” and 11 undecided. That’s all in the face of a new ad campaign from Americans for Prosperity, who are out with ads in the Orlando market attacking both Grayson and FL-24’s Suzanne Kosmas. (AFP, of course, is the front group for the right-wing billionaire Koch family, and the DCCC has recently filed IRS complaints against AFP for engaging in political advocacy despite its tax-exempt status.)

• FL-22: Allen West is out with a second TV ad focusing on economic issues, like that burdensome debt. (He’s talking about national debt, not his own debts.) Still, most of the buzz in this race right now seems to be about his latest round of unhinged remarks on his campaign website’s blog, in which he called opponent Ron Klein, calling him, among other things, a “cretin,” “little Lord Ron,” a “pathetic liberal,” “little Ronnie,” and “a mama’s boy” to Nancy Pelosi.

• IA-05: Rep. Steve King declined to debate opponent Matt Campbell in about the douchiest way possible: when Campbell showed up at a King town hall to ask King why he wasn’t willing to debate, King said that Campbell had “not earned it.”

• MI-01, MI-07: Well, it looks like the fake Tea Party is truly finished in Michigan. The Michigan Court of Appeals today upheld the Board of Canvassers’ decision them off the ballot because of irregularities in submitted signatures. There were Tea Party candidates ready to go in the 1st and the 7th, both competitive districts where Dems would be glad to have some right-wing votes siphoned off from the GOP candidates.

• MO-04: Rep. Ike Skelton is the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, and he wants you to know it. Instead of focusing on the endless jobs-jobs-jobs mantra like many Dems, he’s focusing on military issues and his commitment to veterans. His first two ads featured testimonials from a Marine mother and an Army veteran, and his third ad attacked GOP opponent Vicky Hartzler over her apparently insufficient support of the military.

• NC-11: Two Democratic House members out with internals? Let’s hope this is actually a trend. Buried in a CQ article about his new TV ad (with a buy in the “high five digits”), there are also some details about Heath Shuler’s most recent internal poll. The poll, taken by Anzalone-Liszt, gives Shuler a 51-34 lead over Jeff Miller. More ads are likely to follow, as Shuler leads Miller in the cash department, $1.4 million to $70K.

• NY-13: Rep. Mike McMahon’s getting some big name help on the stump. Bill Clinton will join McMahon for a Friday rally on Staten Island.

• NY-20: Scott Murphy’s dipping into his big war chest with another TV spot, this one focusing on his job-preserving efforts. Murphy opponent Chris Gibson, meantime, dropped a bombshell in his first debate against Murphy last week: that government intervention exacerbated the Great Depression rather than mitigated it (a theory advanced by Amity Schlaes and approximately, oh, zero other respected economists).

• PA-10: What’s up with former US Attorneys in Pennsylvania turning out to be thin-skinned, poor campaigners? There’s the Mary Beth Buchanan implosion, of course, but now video has turned up of Tom Marino’s recent encounter with protesters at a Williamsport appearance. Marino yells back to protestors “What do you do for a job?” and “What kind of welfare are you on?” (No word on whether these questions were punctuated with “You hippies!”)

• VA-05: Here’s a guy we haven’t thought about in a long time: Ross Perot. Yet, Tom Perriello is dusting off Perot and holding him up as a guy he liked, especially in terms of his deficit hawkishness. He did so in the context of meeting with the local Tea Partiers (where he also reiterated his support for canning the Geithner/Summers economic team), probably in an effort to find some common ground with them.

• State legislatures: The DLCC has a memorandum out that lays out where they’ll be focusing their efforts this year (and thus what they consider to be the most competitive state legislative chambers). The 10 chambers they’re emphasizing on defense are the Alabama Senate, Colorado Senate, Indiana House, Nevada Senate, New Hampshire Senate, New York Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Assembly, and Wisconsin House. They’re also going on the offense in the Michigan Senate, Kentucky Senate, Tennessee House, and Texas House..

• WA-Init: SurveyUSA has polls of a handful of initiatives that’ll be on the ballot in November. Most significantly, they find continued (although reduced, from their previous poll) support for I-1098, which would create a state income tax for high earners. It’s currently passing, 41-33. Meanwhile, Washingtonians quite literally want to have their cake and eat it too: they’re favoring I-1107, by a 42-34 margin, which would end sales taxes on candy and end temporary taxes on bottled water and soft drinks.

• Dave’s App: Just in time for the school year, here’s a new time-wasting opportunity: Dave’s Redistricting Application now has partisan data for Pennsylvania. (There’s also partisan data for CA, MD, NC, NM, NY, and TX.)

• Polltopia: PPP wants to know where you think they should poll next. Interesting options include Maine and West Virginia (where there’s the tantalizing prospect of House races being polled, too).

• Ads:

• MO-Sen: Anti-Roy Blunt ad from Robin Carnahan

• NH-Gov: Positive jobs-jobs-jobs spot from John Lynch

• FL-02: Allen Boyd hits Steve Southerland on Social Security privatization, 17th Amendment

• IN-09: Anti-Baron Hill from Todd Young

• IN-09: Anti-Todd Young ad from Baron Hill (Social Security privatization… sensing a theme here?)

• MN-06: Bio ad from Tarryl Clark

• MN-06: Michele Bachmann wants you to know that she hates taxes

• NJ-12: Emergency Committee for Israel ad against Rush Holt (“modest but real” buy)

• OH-15: Positive bio ad about Steve Stivers’ military service

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski’s first TV ad, hitting Lou Barletta over what a shithole Hazleton is

• SC-05: Bio ad from Mick Mulvaney (his first ad)

• WI-07: DCCC ad attacking Sean Duffy over Social Security privatization (their first independent expenditure ad anywhere)

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 36%, Dan Maes (R) 24%, Tom Tancredo (C) 14%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 39%, Rob Portman (R) 44%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%

AK-Sen: The Tea Party Express just threw down another $90K on behalf of Joe Miller (mostly on ad buys), bringing their total spent on the race to $367K. Still, as Lisa Murkowski’s fundraising reports show, they still have a pretty sizable gap to make up.

CT-Sen: Dick Blumenthal is taking the obvious tack of running against Washington, attacking both TARP (of course) and also the stimulus… but note that his critique of the stimulus is decidedly from the left. Said Blumenthal: “I believe that the stimulus was wrongly structured, because it failed to provide jobs and paychecks to ordinary Americans. It unfortunately was inadequately designed to invest in infrastructure, in roads and bridges and schools.”

LA-Sen: Chet Traylor, challenging David Vitter in the GOP primary, is apparently putting all of his meager campaign cash (some $50K) into a radio ad directly slamming the incumbent for his, uh, record when it comes to women. Traylor’s ad ain’t shy.

NH-Sen, NH-01: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is coming to New Hampshire on September 27th to do an event for Rep. Paul Hodes’s senate campaign and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter’s re-election campaign.

NV-Sen: Another day, another batshit Sharron Angle quote:

People have always said – those words, ‘too conservative,’ is fairly relative. I’m sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. And truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings, the things that made this country great, you might draw those conclusions: That they were conservative. They were fiscally conservative and socially conservative.

Wait, we’ve got some more. Back in 1993, Angle (then a member of the Independent American Party) sent a letter to Harry Reid regarding the Clinton budget. Have a look-see:

I and the majority of my fellow Nevadans are sickened by the passage of the recent huge tax increase bill. With YOUR help the quality of life in America has taken another step into the pit of economic collapse. Clinton’s mother-of-all tax packages is the world’s biggest tax increase ever. It increases government spending by $300 billion, increases the national debt by $1 trillion, it is retroactive to January 1, and probably the most offensive, it schedules 80 percent of the promised spending cuts to take place after the next Presidential election. What a joke, and not a very funny one at that! …

The answer to this mess is clear. STOP FUNDING THE WASTEFUL SOCIAL AND ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS. MAKE THE DIFFICULT CHOICES THAT WILL KEEP OUR COUNTRY STRONG. THAT’S WHAT YOU WERE ELECTED TO DO!

With her mastery of ALL CAPS, Angle’d make a great comment forum troll.

WI-Sen: Wealthy teabagger and presumptive GOP senate nominee Ron Johnson is sounding a bit like Chauncey Gardner, wouldn’t you say? In denying the anthropogenic nature of global warming, Johnson says: “It’s far more likely that it’s just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time.” There will be growth in the spring!

CO-Gov: Really excellent and funny first ad from Dem John Hickenlooper – just go check it out. NWOTSOTB, unfortunately. Meanwhile, on the other side(s) of the aisle, CO GOP chair Dick Wadhams put out a statement claiming that Tom Tancredo told him he’d drop out of the gube race if Dan Maes did as well (presumably allowing for them to combine into a better candidate, Voltron-style). Maes told Tancredo to go dangle.

OH-Gov: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is visiting a Chrysler plant in Toledo on Monday, and afterwards he’s going to help raise some bucks for Ted Strickland.

AZ-08: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has a new ad up attacking those who have called for a boycott of Arizona on account of SB 1070. You can see the ad here. Neighboring Rep. Raul Grijalva is taking the ad personally, since he was among those calling for “economic sanctions” against his own state. NWOTSOTB, though Grijalva claims the buy “potentially total[s] $350,000.” (No idea where he got that figure from.)

Meanwhile, in the GOP primary, presumed front-runner Jonathan Paton is airing an ad attacking rival Jesse Kelly for alleged stimulus hypocrisy.

FL-25: Wow. GOP candidate David Rivera is one crazy motherf*cker. Back in 2002, while seeking election to the state House of Representatives for the first time, he ran a truck off the road because it was carrying flyers printed for his opponent, in the hopes of preventing it from reaching the post office on time. Man.

GA-12: Regina Thomas, who took 42% in her primary challenge to Rep. John Barrow earlier this year, says she wants to run as a write-in this fall. However, it seems like state law would prohibit this, though she’s claiming the relevant statute wouldn’t apply to her.

IN-09: You can’t deny that the GOP has done a good job in general with recruitment this cycle. They have a systemic problem, though, which is that their party is fundamentally insane, and so their candidates believe – and say – a lot of fundamentally insane things. Case in point: Republican Todd Young caught on camera deriding Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.” Baron Hill uses Young’s words no fewer that four times in a new attack ad that, of course, questions Young’s commitment to protecting the program. NWOTSOTB.

LA-03: It’s not really a surprise that the mouthbreathers running in the Republican primary in Louisiana’s 3rd CD are trying to out-crazy each other. (“Repeal the 17th amendment!” “Repeal the 14th amendment!”) What is a little interesting is that former state House Speaker Hunt Downer skipped the teabagger-sponsored debate where rivals Jeff Landry and Kristian Magar dueled each other to see who could shred the Constitution the fastest. Both Landry and Downer have raised real money (Magar hasn’t) and are probably the main candidates.

MA-10: In a cycle where you have a guy like Rick Scott seeking office, it’s pretty damn hard to be a contender for Douchebag GOP Candidate of the Year – but Jeffrey Perry is not giving up. Perry is best known for his failings as a police sergeant (he allowed an officer under his supervision to strip-search teenage girls – twice), so it’s not a surprise to hear that he abused his powers in yet another way. In sworn deposition testimony, a supervisor said that Perry played “the old red light game,” in which Perry purposely tripped a red light to catch drivers going through it, “creating motor vehicle violations.” Bonus bit of petard-hoisting: The testimony was given in lawsuits brought against Perry by the very girls his subordinate mistreated.

NH-02: Dem Annie Kuster is out with her second ad of the campaign, a jobs-related spot. NWOTSOTB, but it’s airing “on WMUR-Channel 9 and cable stations across New Hampshire.” (WMUR is the one NH-based broadcast channel which covers the whole state.) Primary rival Katrina Swett also has a new ad of her own… and seriously, people, what is with the references to bodily functions in political advertising? First there was Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s pooping kid, now we have an entire ad devoted to bad puns based on Swett’s last name? Ick.

NY-20: Another upstate Republican challenger speaks out in defense of the Cordoba House… only to quickly backtrack. Much like Richard Hanna, GOPer Chris Gibson put out a statement on Facebook, saying that “churches, synagogues and mosques should be treated the same.” After a CNN piece pointed out Gibson’s comment, his campaign deleted the post, and then put out a statement saying he opposes the cultural center. God, this whole non-controversy is really sickening to me, and the political spinelessness it’s led to is just revolting.

NY-24: Rep. Mike Arcuri just filed 7,300 signatures for his new “NY Moderates” ballot line (he needed 3,500). As we noted when we first mentioned this story, Arcuri doesn’t have a second ballot line to run on (he was denied the endorsement of both the Working Families Party and the Independence Party), so this is his attempt to make up ground.

OH-16: So of course GOPer Jim Renacci has come out against the Cordoba House (which wags have amusingly dubbed the “Burlington Coat Factory Mosque”). Frosh Rep. John Boccieri had a great response:

[If Renacci] wants to run for the zoning commission in New York City, I’ll be more than happy to pay his filing fee.

AND I WILL FUCKING RUN AGAINST HIM! If only it were actually an elected position. (Eh, it’s probably a good thing that it isn’t.)

SC-02: It’s Miller Time – finally. Dem Rob Miller, who has a huge pile of cash on hand, is going up with his first ad of the election campaign. The spot (which you can view here) features Miller’s fellow Marines describing their commander’s leadership during the battle for control of Fallujah. NWOTSOTB. Rep. Joe Wilson also has an ad up, apparently only on cable.

TN-06: Lou Ann Zelenik, who trailed Diane Black by just a tiny margin in the GOP primary on election night, has more or less conceded. Interestingly, Black’s husband had filed a lawsuit against Zelenik over a TV ad late in the campaign, and Zelenik’s statement basically asks Black to drop the case. Though Zelenik says she “congratulates” Black on her victory, I wonder if she’s holding out a formal endorsement in exchange for a dismissal.

VA-05: Earlier in the digest, I was bemoaning the lack of political courage we’ve mostly seen in the Cordoba House “debate.” Well, I’m not sure if there’s a more courageous dude in the House these days than Tom Perriello, who, among other things, unflinchingly keeps attending town halls, no matter how hostile the attendees are. Facing yet another tough crowd, here’s how he rose to the occasion:

“Let me start by saying, I cannot imagine wanting the government to be able to tell me and my faith community where we can build a house of worship on private property,” Perriello said. “… I have opinions on whether it’s a good idea or not, but … compared to the importance of solving the economy right now… this is a distraction of what our biggest priorities should be.”

The crowd overwhelmingly applauded his answer.

A lot of Democrats could learn a lot from this man.

• DE-Sen: Looks like New York mayor Michael Bloomberg had to show some of that patented post-partisanship, having endorsed Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania yesterday. He offered a counterpoint in the form of an endorsement of Mike Castle in Delaware as well, and is doing a New York-based fundraiser for him tonight.

• IN-Sen: That grinding sound you hear is old-school Republican Dan Coats shifting gears, trying to fit into the Tea Party template. Having won the Republican Senate nomination in Indiana probably with big help from the split among teabagger votes between Marlin Stutzman and John Hostettler, he’s now working on outreach to that set, trying to keep the focus on financial issues.

• LA-Sen: Chet Traylor (who’s been seen polling in the single digits in polls we’ve seen so far of the Republican Senate primary) is out with an internal poll that purports to have him within striking distance of incumbent David Vitter. The poll by Verne Kennedy gives Vitter a 46-34 lead, keeping Vitter down in runoff territory. However, there’s a huge caveat: that number comes after voters were informed about Vitter’s use of prostitutes and employment of sociopathic aides, and there’s no word of what the non-informed toplines were. Meanwhile, Traylor seems to be gaining little momentum on the fundraising front: he’s filed a fundraising report showing he’s raised $42K since announcing his bid last month, and has $41K on hand.

• NH-Sen: Bill Binnie, with little time left to catch up to Kelly Ayotte in the GOP primary, is defying orders from state party boss John Sununu to keep everything positive, and is rolling out two negative ads against Ayotte. Both ads focus on her time as Attorney General and her failure to pick up on anything wrong at Financial Resources Mortgage, which engaged in large-scale fraud and then collapsed.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin hasn’t wasted any time on the fundraising front. He’s raised $410K already since declaring his candidacy last month, which may not initially seem like much but will go a long way in the cheap markets in West Virginia. Likely GOP opponent John Raese has raised only $30K, although he’s also poured $320K of his own money into the race.

• IA-Gov, IA-Sen: Local GOP blog The Iowa Republican commissioned some polls of Iowa through Voter/Consumer Research. In a non-surprise, the Republicans are leading. Terry Branstad leads Chet Culver 53-35 in the gubernatorial race and Chuck Grassley leads Roxanne Conlin 59-33 in the Senate race. (Down the ballot, though, things look OK for Dems in the AG, Treasurer, and Supreme Court races.)

• OH-Gov: This goes in the “nice work if you can get it” file. In further evidence of the high-dollar revolving door between politics and academia, there are more details out on John Kasich’s rich-guy sinecure at Ohio State University over the last decade. For instance, during 2008 he made $50K from OSU, but worked about four hours a month there, essentially making $4,000 for each visit to campus.

• PA-Gov: While the Dems got good news yesterday in the Senate race in Pennsylvania with the dropout of the Green Party candidate, they got bad news in the gubernatorial race today with the dropout of John Krupa. Krupa was running as the Tea Party candidate, but had to pull the plug after a GOP petition challenge left him with too few signatures.

• AZ-03: It looks like Ben Quayle’s week or two in the sun is pretty much over after a one-two punch of salacious website revelations and his own incompetent TV ad; conventional wisdom is treating him as having plunged out of front-runner status in the GOP primary in the open seat 3rd. Self-funding businessman Steve Moak seems to have that role now, followed by underfunded but better-known state Sen. Jim Waring. (The article alludes to polling, but irritatingly doesn’t offer any specifics.)

• FL-17: The Miami Herald offers interesting profiles of all nine Democrats competing in the primary to replace retiring Rep. Kendrick Meek. This dark-blue seat may be, of all the nation’s open seats, the one we’re most starved for information about, so it remains to be seen whether we can get an upgrade from Meek (who voted with an eye always toward his next promotion) in this seat.

• New York: Wow, there’s a serious race to the bottom going on among the New York House delegation, with regards to Cordoba House: Mike McMahon, Tim Bishop, and even non-endangered Steve Israel all offered statements saying they should look elsewhere to build. This is playing out most interestingly in NY-24, where Richard Hanna — one of the few conspicuously moderate Republicans on the front lines this year — offered support for the project last week. Then Dem Mike Arcuri came out in opposition… and Hanna, realized he was getting outflanked on the right, did a 180 and is now against it too. While it’s nice to see a GOPer getting caught in such a transparent and ad-worthy flip-flop, is this the kind of high-ground-ceding way we want to do it?

• NRCC: Everyone seems abuzz that the NRCC is out with its list of 40 targeted districts today and its plan to spend $22 million (more than their current $17 mil CoH). It’s worth noting, though, that unlike the DCCC’s $49 mil list of 60 districts from July, these aren’t even reservations (which require deposits – or a willingness to seriously piss off television stations if you try to cancel), only a telegraphing of their plans, so things may change. (They may also roll out more in two steps, as did the DCCC.) Most of the buzzing is about what got left out. (Where are the defenses in LA-02 and HI-01? There’s a grand total of one defensive buy: the open seat in IL-10.) National Journal also has an interesting analysis of the method behind the NRCC’s madness, noticing that they’re playing Moneyball, focusing on the cheaper media markets and letting some of the more expensive East Coast markets slide.

• Ads: Lots of ad miscellany today, starting with big buys from Karl Rove-linked GOP group American Crossroads, which is spending $425K on an anti-Michael Bennet piece in CO-Sen, and $500K on a pro-Rob Portman (doesn’t he have his own money?) spot in OH-Sen. Dina Titus and Betsy Markey, freshman Dems in tough defenses in NV-03 and CO-04, are both on the air with new spots with a similar strategy: go negative on TARP (they’re inoculated from it, not having been in Congress in the previous cycle). Finally, Scott Murphy is dipping into his huge cash stash with his first ad in NY-20, a feel-good piece featuring his enormous family that (like Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s ad) traffics in the metaphor that Washington sometimes eats too much (although luckily this ad doesn’t show anyone pooping).

• Rasmussen:

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 45%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 37%, Pat Toomey (R) 46%

Ayres, McHenry & Associates (R) for the American Action Fund (7/28-8/1, likely voters, MoE: ±4%):

CT-04:

Jim Himes (D-inc): 46

Dan Debicella (R): 42

CT-05:

Chris Murphy (D-inc): 49

Mark Greenberg (R): 39

One complication, though: Greenberg lost his primary to state Sen. Sam Caligiuri.

FL-24:

Suzanne Kosmas (D-inc): 41

Craig Miller (R): 44

NY-20:

Scott Murphy (D-inc): 45

Chris Gibson (R): 40

NY-23:

Bill Owens (D-inc): 41

Matt Doheny (R): 39

NY-25:

Dan Maffei (D-inc): 44

Ann Marie Buerkle (R): 41

PA-03:

Kathy Dahlkemper (D-inc): 38

Mike Kelly (R): 52

PA-10:

Chris Carney (D-inc): 37

Tom Marino (R): 52

PA-11:

Paul Kanjorski (D-inc): 41

Lou Barletta (R): 52

PA-12:

Mark Critz (D-inc): 40

Tim Burns (R): 44

VA-05:

Tom Perriello (D-inc): 43

Rob Hurt (R): 49

WV-03:

Nick Rahall (D-inc): 53

“Spike” Maynard (R): 37

WV-Sen: Gov. Joe Manchin is holding a press conference at 10am today to announce his intentions with regard to the special election for the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s now-vacant senate seat. Apparently, Manchin is paying for a live satellite feed, leading Mike Memoli to quip that this has to mean he’s running.

OH-Gov: Is this really the right way to be doing things? The Cleveland Plain-Dealer explains John Kasich’s strategy for dealing with the media:

Until now, Kasich has run a low-profile race with the exception of showing up on national Fox radio and television programs. His campaign advisors repeatedly dodge or refuse to answer questions from local media covering the race.

Kasich must know it. Even as one of his spokesmen tried to pull him away from the media on Monday, Kasich held his ground and with one parting shot vowed to be more accessible.

“There is this perception in some quarters that Kasich is not available. You think I am not available you call me,” he said. “Because I don’t think I’ve ever turned down any of your interviews, unless they are just stupid questions.”

Uh, no. It’s not the right way. And nor is Kasich’s first ad, which we discussed yesterday, where he basically repeats Ted Strickland’s (dead-on) accusations against him. I’ve learned from a source that Kasich’s ad buy is actually for real – about $200K over three weeks, in Cincy and Columbus – but I don’t know if I’d be too unhappy about that if I were the Strickland team. Kasich is proving to be his own worst enemy.

TX-Gov: File this under “TX-Gov, 2006”: Rick Perry just settled a lawsuit with Chris Bell, his Democratic opponent from the last time Perry sought re-election, for some $426,000. Bell had accused Perry of trying to mask the source of a $1 million donation from Bob Perry, the kind of Swift Boat pond scum, in the waning days of the 2006 race.

Meanwhile, Obama alert! The POTUS is coming to Texas on August 9th to do two fundraisers, one for the DNC and one for the DSCC. I’m filing this under TX-Gov, though, because Dem gubernatorial candidate Bill White says he has no plans to attend either event.

ID-01: It was a bridge too far, even for Walt Minnick. The Democratic frosh is rejecting the endorsement of the Tea Party Express, on account of their refusal to refudiate racist jerkwad Mark Williams. (Click the link if you really need the backstory.) Minnick is still touting his support from local teabaggers, though.

NC-02: Remember Renee Ellmers? I don’t, either, but fortunately Politico reminds us she’s the GOPer who was hoping to capitalize on Bob Etheridge’s seriously over-the-top response to those weirdo Republican kids who were trying to videotape him doing something embarrassing (boy did they ever). But as one brave anonymous consultant says, Ellmers is clearly “not ready for prime time”: she utterly failed to capitalize on the gift she was handed and has only $42,000 in the bank, while Etheridge has $1.2 million.

NY-01: Good news: Rep. Tim Bishop scored the Independence Party line in his bid for re-election. Bishop also has the Working Families Party line.

NY-14: If there’s one thing Reshma Saujani is good at, it’s protesting too much. She’s as touchy about her Wall Street connections as John Kasich, claiming that “only” 25% of her donors in 2Q work in the banking industry. Justin Elliott at Salon crunched the numbers and found that this actually amounted to a full 48% of Saujani’s cash haul – even worse than the one-third I calculated represented her share from financiers in the first quarter. Another Salon writer, Alex Pareene, also points out how whack-ass Saujani’s messaging has been, trying to downplay her own extreme reliance on Wall Street while attacking Maloney for raising money from from financial types. Moreover, as Liz Benjamin details, Saujani has had a high burn rate ($1.2 million raised, $770K spent, and no TV as yet), and only $272K of her $428K on hand is primary money. The rest is only good for a phantom general election.

NY-20: More good Independence Party news: Rep. Scott Murphy will have the IP line free and clear. Republican Chris Gibson had hoped to challenge Murphy for the line in a primary, but the party refused to give Gibson the necessary “certificate of authorization” (known to hardcore NY junkies as a “Wilson-Pakula”) that allows candidates to run on the line of a party they are not a member of.

PA-07: Biden AND Pelosi alert! The fearsome twosome did a fundraiser in Philly yesterday that raised $250,000. Half will go to Bryan Lentz’s campaign coffers and half will go to the D-Trip.

VA-02: Republican Scott Rigell, trailing Rep. Glenn Nye by about a million bucks in the cash department, is dumping another $500K of his own money into his campaign, according to a spokesman. That brings his total self-loans to a pretty hefty $1.4 million.

WI-07: An interesting catch from WisPolitics: Just a week before announcing his retirement, Rep. Dave Obey spent $30,000 on polling. That means he took some very thorough surveys before deciding to hang up his spurs. He also still has a million bucks on hand – which will hopefully be making its way to the DCCC before long.

NY-AG: Definitely down in the weeds, but this is SSP, after all: SurveyUSA has a poll of the New York Attorney General’s race, a seat that’s open this year because the sitting one-term AG, Andrew Cuomo, is running for governor. Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice is the clear frontrunner with 32%. Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and state Sen. Eric Schneiderman are both at 9, while wealthy trial lawyer Sean Coffey and former state Ins. Comm’r (not an elected job)/former Securities Bureau chief at the AG’s office Eric Dinallo are both at 7. Part of the reason I’m posting this, though, is because I genuinely have no idea who I want to support. So I’m asking the New Yorkers here: who are you backing in this race, and why?

• AK-Sen: It looks like that unexpected Sarah Palin endorsement may have put Joe Miller on the map, in his challenge from the right to Lisa Murkowksi in the GOP Senate primary. Now he’s gotten the backing of the Tea Party Express. Of course, it remains to be seen whether the libertarian-minded teabagger message has much resonance in Alaska; remember, at the end of the day, Alaska Republicans like their federal goodies a lot (hence the staying power of Ted Stevens and Don Young).

• IL-Sen: Could a factual dispute over Mark Kirk claims that he taught at a nursery school actually succeed in taking him down yet another peg? Kirk mentioned in a 2006 speech that he’d been a teacher, worrying about what kid might bring a gun to class. After questions arose as to whether Kirk had ever actually taught, his campaign clarified that it was a reference to his time working for one semester at a nursery school in Ithaca, New York. If even the preschool-age children of Cornell professors are taking guns to class, we’re in a lot more trouble than I’d thought. There’s also one other weird Illinois item out today: the 7th Circuit just ruled that there needs to be a special election to fill Barack Obama’s seat, after all. That’s about a year too late to be relevant, considering that Roland Burris’s tenure is almost over. But it may yet result in a special election coinciding with the November general election, which would presumably mean that Alexi Giannoulias or Kirk would get to serve in the lame-duck session and get a smidge more all-important seniority. [UDPATE: Actually, because there’s no “irreparable harm,” the 7th Circuit didn’t order a special election even though they said there probably should have been one; instead, they sent the case back down to the district court.]

• SC-Sen: Guess who’s back all of a sudden, now that there’s a gaping hole where a competent candidate should be in South Carolina? Supporters of Linda Ketner, who last year declined a re-run in SC-01 (where she’d run well in 2008), are floating her name for a Senate run. Since it doesn’t look like Alvin Greene is getting off the Democratic ballot line (after the state election commission today said they aren’t getting involved), the deep-pocketed Ketner would need to run as an independent instead. Ketner, herself, hasn’t said anything about a bid though.

• CA-Gov: Why walk back to the center after winning your primary, when you can make one frantic, implausible leap instead? After getting pulled to the right by Steve Poizner in the primary, now Meg Whitman is saying “No, no, I love immigrants,” in a Spanish-language TV ad that’ll debut during today’s Mexico/France World Cup game. She says she opposed Arizona’s new immigration law and opposed Califorina’s 1994 Prop 187, too.

• FL-Gov: Indie candidate Bud Chiles isn’t getting the warmest of welcomes in his newly-launched bid; news reports are surfacing of his involvement in a real estate development flop in a small Panhandle town. Chiles is a defendant in seven different lawsuits, either foreclosure suits or suits over leases of construction equipment. Whether or not that sticks, though, there’s also an institutional disparity showing up in how state Dems are viewing him, versus how they’re viewing Charlie Crist’s independent candidacy: Palm Beach Co. Commissioner Burt Aaronson has gone public in wanting Chiles to get out the gubernatorial race while being fine with Crist staying in the Senate race.

• ME-Gov: This morning we linked to an article musing that moderate Maine Republicans might defect to the independent candidacy of Eliot Cutler, rather support the hard-right Paul LePage. Unfortunately, visions of cat fud dancing in our heads were dashed by a unity rally today where all six losing GOP candidates, even the decidedly moderate state Sen. Peter Mills, endorsed LePage.

• MI-Gov: There’s one more poll of the gubernatorial primaries in Michigan, this time for Inside Michigan Politics. On the GOP side, they find Peter Hoekstra leading at 21, followed by Rick Snyder at 15, Mike Cox and Mike Bouchard with 10 each, and Tom George at 1. The Democratic primary has Andy Dillon at 14 and Virg Bernero at 10, with a whopping 76% undecided.

• MN-Gov: The AFL-CIO has decided to follow the lead of the SEIU, and not make an endorsement in the Democratic primary, where a variety of labor-friendly candidates are competing.

• NH-01: I wonder if this is just personal animosity at work, or if there’s a larger story here? Manchester mayor Ted Gatsas endorsed in the GOP primary in the 1st, and rather than endorse his immediate mayoral predecessor (and presumed frontrunner) Frank Guinta, he backed Sean Mahoney instead.

• NY-20: Here’s some good news for Rep. Scott Murphy, who between strong fundraising and third-tier opposition, is already having a pretty good electoral cycle: he’s been endorsed for the Independence Party’s ballot line this year. It’s sharp contrast to neighboring Rep. Mike Arcuri, whose all-cycle-long woes just got added-to by the IP endorsement going to GOP opponent Richard Hanna.

• OH-13: According to the Fix, Tom Ganley is out with an internal poll from POS that gives him a 3-point lead (44-41) over Rep. Betty Sutton. I’m wondering about the date on the poll, though (which they don’t discuss), as there were rumblings all the way back in mid-February, when Ganley switched over from the Senate race where he was flailing in the GOP primary to the 13th, that Ganley had an internal poll giving him a 3-point lead (although that was the only detail given). Or, maybe he’s just polling verrrrrry consistently.

• SC-04: Big-time tension down at Bob Jones University! The school’s arts and sciences dean endorsed GOP primary challenger Trey Gowdy several months ago, but now the school’s former chancellor (and grandson of its founder) Bob Jones III has come out in support of incumbent Bob Inglis instead.

• AL-Ag Comm.: He might have lost the primary, but he won the media war, becoming a minor celebrity along the way thanks to his bizarre ad going viral. And now he’s back: third-place finisher Dale Peterson is endorsing John McMillan, and appearing in an ad where he not only touts McMillan but tells “that dummy” (presumably Dorman Grace) to go back to his chicken farm, and, for good measure, fires a shotgun at a no-good political-sign rustler.

• Louisiana: After a few years of doing it more or less normally, Louisiana is going back to its unique system of jungle primary and runoff for its federal-level races, starting in 2012. Supporters of the switch back say it’ll save money by not requiring separate primaries. (H/t Johnny Longtorso.)

• Polltopia: Today’s must read, if you haven’t seen it already, is a lengthy profile of Scott Rasmussen in the Washington Post. While it has some backstory on Rasmussen’s pre-polling days, the real meat here is a good rundown of what polling experts think Rasmussen may be doing wrong, and some interesting speculation on the future direction of the polling business.

• CA-Sen: Russian law enforcement officers raided Hewlett-Packard’s Moscow offices today, as part of an investigation into whether HP paid millions in bribes to the Russian government to win a large contract. Why are we leading with this story today? Guess who was CEO of HP in 2003, when the contract was executed? That’s right… Carly Fiorina.

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck, the right-wing Weld County DA who’s become a fave of the teabagger set (to the extent that establishment GOPer Jane Norton isn’t even looking to compete at the activist-dominated state assembly), just received the endorsement of hard-right starmaker Jim DeMint. (Buck’s last quarter wasn’t that impressive, though: $219K raised, $417K CoH.)

• CT-Sen: Here’s an indication of the savvy investment skills that got Linda McMahon to the top. She revealed that she self-financed another $8 million this quarter, bringing her total self-funding all cycle to $14 million. (She also raised $37K from others.) What was the return on her gigantic investment? Now she’s down a mere 25-or-so points to a guy who speaks in 10-minute-long run-on sentences. Meanwhile, ex-Rep. Rob Simmons, who has to rely on the kindness of strangers instead, has seen his fundraising get drier in a post-Chris Dodd environment; he raised only $550K last quarter.

• IN-Sen: Here’s a big fat fundraising fail, although it may explain why he didn’t see any shame in missing the reporting deadline. Republican ex-Sen. Dan Coats’ comeback bid managed to pull in a whopping $379K last quarter. (He has $331K CoH.)

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt is doubling down on the stingy: he reiterated his desire to repeal HCR, even the part about making sure that people with preexisting conditions are able to get coverage. He also lost another skirmish in the perception battle today, as Robin Carnahan narrowly outraised him for the first quarter, $1.5 million to $1.3 million.

• NH-Sen, NH-01: In the New Hampshire Senate race, Kelly Ayotte and Paul Hodes are pretty closely matched fundraising-wise: she raised $671K in Q1 with $1.3 million CoH, while he raised $665K with $1.7 million CoH. Ayotte’s GOP primary opponent, William Binnie, raised $400K from donors even though he’s mostly focused on self-funding; he’s sitting on $1.7 million CoH, despite having been advertising constantly. In the 1st, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, never much of a fundraiser, had a so-so quarter; she raised $168K and sits on $485K.

• NV-Sen: Although she’s been dwindling in the polls, don’t quite count out former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle yet. The Tea Party Express endorsed the one-time Club for Growth favorite in the GOP Senate primary.

• PA-Sen: Arlen Specter continues to be the cash king in the Pennsylvania Senate race, now sitting on a $9 million warchest, but he was substantially outraised by Pat Toomey in the last quarter. Specter raised $1.1 million in the first quarter, half of Toomey’s haul.

• GA-Gov, GA-Sen: It’s strange we’ve been dropping the ball on mentioning this poll for almost a week now, as it’s good news for Democrats. Research 2000 polled the general election in the Georgia gubernatorial race, and found ex-Gov. Roy Barnes narrowly ahead in all three configurations. He leads expected GOP nominee Insurance Comm. John Oxendine, 45-42, ex-Rep. Nathan Deal 44-42, and ex-SoS Karen Handel 44-43. AG Thurbert Baker, if he somehow gets the Dem nod, loses 48-36 to Oxendine, 48-35 to Deal, and 49-35 to Handel. Over in the Senate race, GOP incumbent Johnny Isakson looks pretty safe: he beats Baker 50-34 and Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond 53-26 (not that either one is planning to run).

• ME-Gov: Good news for Dems turned into bad over the course of a few days; social conservative Michael Heath (former head of the Maine Family Policy Council) launched an independent bid earlier this week (which would only serve to hurt the GOP), then did an about face and pulled the plug on it today. There’s already one prominent indie candidate in the race, environmental lawyer Eliot Cutler, who seems poised to draw more from Dems than the GOP.

• OR-Gov: Here’s a camera-ready moment from last night’s debate between Democratic party candidates John Kitzhaber and Bill Bradbury at the University of Oregon. In response to calls of “is there a doctor in the house?” when an elderly audience member started having a seizure, Kitzhaber (a former emergency room doctor) hopped down from the podium, stabilized him, and once an ambulance had arrived, resumed debating.

• CA-03: Ami Bera continues to do well on the fundraising front; he raised $380K in the first quarter, and is sitting on $977K CoH as he prepares for a tough challenge to Republican Rep. Dan Lungren.

• DE-AL: We’re going to have a big-dollar race in the at-large seat in Delaware, which just had the entry of two different Republicans with the capacity to self-finance large sums. Democratic ex-LG John Carney is working hard to stay in the same ballpark; he raised $255K in the first quarter and sits on $675K.

• FL-08: Could we still see The Devil vs. Daniel Webster? Rep. Alan Grayson repelled the socially conservative former state Senator many months ago, forcing the NRCC to scramble to find a lesser replacement (businessman Bruce O’Donoghue seems to be their preferred pick, although state Rep. Kurt Kelly is also in the race). But now people close to Webster say he’s giving some consideration to getting back in the race (apparently undaunted by Grayson’s huge Q1 haul). Insiders seem to think that’s unlikely, though, given the late date.

• FL-19: Congratulations to our newest Democratic Congressperson, Rep. Ted Deutch. The winner of Tuesday’s special election was sworn in this afternoon.

• NY-01: The battle of the rich guys is on, in the GOP primary in the 1st. Facing well-connected Randy Altschuler, Chris Cox (son of state chair Ed Cox, and grandson of Richard Nixon) whipped out his own large balance sheet. He raised $735K for the quarter, and has $624K CoH. (Cox loaned himself $500K.)

• NY-20: Republican Chris Gibson seems to have finally locked down the GOP slot in the 20th, but he has a deep hole to dig his way out of, against Rep. Scott Murphy’s seven-digit warchest. Gibson raised $109K and has $92K CoH.

• OH-13: Wealthy car dealer Tom Ganley is moving even more of his own money into his uphill race against Rep. Betty Sutton. He loaned himself another $2 million (although apparently his cupboard was bare before he did so, as now his CoH is also $2 million). Sutton, seeming caught off-guard by Ganley’s entry, raised only $135K and is sitting on $281K.

• PA-06: Rep. Jim Gerlach raised $500K in his first quarter, after his belated decision to come back for his old job; he only has $335K CoH, though. Democratic opponent Doug Pike raised $225K but has $1.2 million CoH. (No word yet from his primary opponent, Manan Trivedi.)

• PA-07: Republican ex-US Attorney Pat Meehan continues to have a fundraising edge over Democratic state Rep. Bryan Lentz in the open seat in the 7th; Meehan raised $340K and has $855K CoH, while Lentz raised $235K and has $610K CoH.

• PA-08: Ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick put up showy numbers a few days ago in his quest to get his seat back, but Rep. Patrick Murphy surpassed Fitzpatrick’s $510K. Murphy raised $586K and has $1.3 million CoH.

• PA-11: Finally, in Pennsylvania, Rep. Paul Kanjorski had a decent quarter, raising $260K (less than Lou Barletta’s $300K, but Kanjo has a mammoth CoH advantage, sitting on $1.2 million. Kanjorski’s Democratic primary rival Corey O’Brien has quite the burn rate: he raised $115K this quarter, but has only $47K CoH.

• Teabaggers: The Tea Party Express also issued a full target list today (no gun sights on their districts, though), and as befits their role as the corporate arm of the teabaggers, their goals aren’t that much different from those of the NRSC and NRCC. Top targets are (with the odd toss-in exception of Barney Frank) just the usual names considered most likely to lose, making it easy for them to claim they claimed some scalps come November: Harry Reid, Blanche Lincoln, Betsy Markey, Tom Perriello, and so on. They also list some heroes, and in the interest of bipartisan cover, they actually included a Democrat. In what’s not a surprise, it was ID-01’s Walt Minnick. (Wouldn’t it be ironic if their endorsement actually helped Minnick, likely to face a very close race this year, squeak by?) Also, on the teabagger front, Some Dude over at Salon looks at Tea Partier demographics and the roots of their resentments.

• KY-Sen: AG Jack Conway has a new ad up in the Democratic primary, hitting Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo for $57K in luxury travel on the taxpayer dime. That might get some attention, but a potentially more interesting story is about decidedly non-luxurious accommodations: Mongiardo has been staying with his in-laws while he’s on the job in Frankfort. The problem with that? He’s still taking his $30K/yr. housing stipend despite not needing to spend it.

• AZ-Gov: Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio is getting kind of like the boy who cried wolf, in terms of his constant expressions of interest in running for Governor that never pan out (the 77-year-old Arpaio been doing so for more than a decade). He’s back in the news today saying he’s looking into the costs of a petition drive, just in case he decides he wants to run this year.

• IL-Gov: If your fellow Republican is publicly criticizing you for being too extreme, you’re probably doing it wrong. Moderate ex-Gov. Jim Edgar (the last Illinois governor to finish his term without the law hot on his heels, and a Kirk Dillard backer in this year’s primary) smacked down state Sen. Bill Brady, saying instead that raising taxes (as Pat Quinn plans to do) is the only way out of the state’s budget mess.

• MN-Gov: State House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher got a key union endorsement today, from hotel union UNITE HERE. She’s lining up the institutional pieces for the DFL endorsement, which will happen later this month.

• PA-Gov: Ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel got the endorsement of Planned Parenthood in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. (With Hoeffel and state Sen. Anthony Williams the only pro-choice candidates in the field, it probably wasn’t a very tough decision.)

• HI-01: The DCCC has been hitting Charles Djou for signing the Grover Norquist/Americans for Tax Reform no-tax pledge, although they’re doing so in a roundabout way: they’re saying Djou signed a pledge “that protects tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas” (as the pledge requires opposing the end of any deductions or credits). If the message gets some traction in this testing ground, expect to see more of it in November.

• MN-06: Aubrey Immelman is back. The college professor who ran against Michele Bachmann in the GOP primary in 2008 will try again in 2010, saying “I am a single-issue candidate. That is to defeat Michele Bachmann.” He hasn’t said whether he’ll run in the GOP primary again, though, or as an indie in the general (where he’d bump up against IP candidate Bob Anderson).

• ND-AL: In the wake of strong numbers from Republican opponent state Rep. Rick Berg, Earl Pomeroy released his own numbers today, and they’re good too. Pomeroy raised $407K (to Berg’s $483K), but Pomeroy’s big advantage is in cash on hand; he’s sitting on $1.6 million.

• NY-20: Scott Murphy also posted good fundraising numbers today, as he gears up to face Republican Chris Gibson, who’s only beginning his campaign. Murphy raised $475K last quarter, and has $1.1 million CoH.

• OR-05: Here’s a race where I didn’t even know cat fud was a-flyin’. But if his own poll is to believed, it looks like teabagger Fred Thompson (no, not the former presidential candidate) could steal the nomination from prized NRCC recruit state Rep. Scott Bruun (who’s from the moderate suburban wing of the GOP that used to actually be able to win elections in Oregon). Thompson has a poll from GOP pollster John Feliz showing him leading Bruun by 2% (although specific numbers don’t seem forthcoming). Either one would have an uphill fight against Rep. Kurt Schrader in the general.

• VA-09: One other fundraising highlight from today sees Rep. Rick Boucher girding for a likely battle against GOP state House majority leader Morgan Griffith. Boucher raised $317K for the quarter, not phenomenal although fine for a cheap media district and better than Griffith’s $104K (though Griffith’s fundraising was condensed into the last few weeks of the cycle, after his announcement). After years of facing nobodies or outright nobody, though, Boucher has built up a huge surplus, and is now sitting on just shy of $2 million CoH.

• Vermont: The Green Mountain State is moving up its primary date, in order to comply with national laws intended to make sure that military personnel have time to return their ballots. Gov. Jim Douglas says he won’t veto the new law, passed by the legislature, moving the primary from mid-September to August 24.

• Teabaggers: A Univ. of Washington study of teabaggers in battleground states has some interesting demographic information, and also some data about underlying attitudes that confirm what some of us have been suspecting: it’s largely about racial resentment. People who believe the government “has done too much to support blacks” are 36% more likely to back the teabaggers than those who don’t. And of those who approve of the Tea Party movement, only a minority said that they believe blacks to be “hardworking” (35%), “intelligent” (45%), or “trustworthy” (41%). Here’s the money quote from the study’s author:

“While it’s clear that the tea party in one sense is about limited government, it’s also clear from the data that people who want limited government don’t want certain services for certain kinds of people. Those services include health care,”Parker said.

• Polltopia: While some people (like Markos) have been feeling more optimistic as the enthusiasm gap between the parties narrows, PPP’s Tom Jensen sees the problem persisting even if it’s improving. PPP finds that if the electorate were composed the same as in 2008, they’d have found the Dems in the lead in their recent polls of OH-Sen, PA-Sen, IL-Sen, and WI-Gov. Instead, though, the LV samples pull in a disproportionate number of McCain voters than Obama voters.

AL-05: Wayne Parker, the GOP’s 2008 nominee, is endorsing Madison County Comm’r Mo Brooks as a “consistent conservative voice” – and pointedly not endorsing the party-switching Rep. Parker Griffith, to whom he lost. Parker also seems to be trying to consolidate support behind Brooks, who also has to contend with businessman Les Phillip in the primary.

AL-07: Radio journalist Patricia Evans Mokolo is dropping out of the Dem primary to succeed Rep. Artur Davis. This doesn’t really change the dynamics of the race much – the three main candidates are still Shelia Smoot, Terri Sewell, and Earl Hilliard, Jr.

MI-01: Cheboygan County Drain Commissioner (Drain Commissioner!!) Dennis Lennox, a 25-year-old Republican, won’t challenge Rep. Bart Stupak, instead endorsing surgeon Dan Benishek.

MN-01: Michele Bachmann’s toxic vapors are spilling over into the 1st CD: GOPer Jim Hagedorn, himself no stranger to inflammatory remarks, is attacking primary opponent Allen Quist for his supposed “allegiance” to Bachmann – and his propensity for outrageous statements. (Quist once said that men are “genetically predisposed” to be the head of the household.) This seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but it’s also a rare instance of one Republican trying to not out-crazy another.

ND-AL: Criticizing the state convention which backed state Rep. Rick Berg as “exclusive,” businessman (and, I’m guessing, Some Dude) J.D. Donaghe filed to run against Berg in the Republican primary. It doesn’t look like Donaghe has filed any FEC reports so far – but then again, neither has Berg.

NJ-12: Fair Haven Mayor Michael Halfacre is dropping out and instead supporting businessman Scott Sipprelle for the GOP nod to take on Rep. Rush Holt. Sipprelle, who has given his own campaign a quarter million bucks, still faces real-estate investor Dave Corsi in the primary.

NY-02: The Suffolk County GOP is backing former radio talk-show host John Gomez to run against Rep. Steve Israel. Can’t tell you much more than that, though, since the story is behind the Newsday paywall – and there are only 35 online subscribers!

NY-13: Rep. Anthony Weiner will fill in for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at a fundraiser for Rep. Mike McMahon. Quinn, you may recall, pulled out after McMahon voted against healthcare reform. Weiner was an outspoken proponent of the bill.

NY-20: Looks like the GOP got their huckleberry: Republican county committees have rallied around retired Army colonel Charles Chris Gibson to challenge Dem. Rep. Scott Murphy in the fall. In response, Gibson’s last remaining opponent, Patrick Ziegler, dropped out of the race, so it seems that there won’t be a primary here. Not sure if that’s a good thing, considering the poor success this same 10-county gang had in hand-picking all-time SSP fave Jim Tedisco last year.

NY-24: Epidemiologist Les Roberts is still weighing a primary run against Rep. Mike Arcuri, saying he’ll wait until at least April 9th to decide. That’s when the Working Families Party’s executive committee will meet to discuss the race. Roberts is also waiting to hear from county Democratic committees and local unions.

NY-29: Citing the state’s fiscal crisis and concerns about costs, a spokesperson for David Paterson is suggesting that the governor might not call a special election after all and will instead wait until the general election in the fall. This would also probably benefit Dems, who will (almost certainly) have Andrew Cuomo at the top of the ticket in November. (So, not surprisingly, GOP candidate Tom Reed is complaining loudly.) Here’s a question I have: If things unfold this way, then would the candidate selection process instead be replaced by a normal primary?

SC-02: Sigh. The story of Rob Miller’s campaign in one sentence: “The voice mailbox at his campaign office is full, and no one answered ITK’s repeated calls.”

VA-10: Navy vet and teabagger Jim Trautz has dropped his primary challenge to GOP Rep. Frank Wolf. I think we’re going to see the vast majority of teabaggers fizzle out in one way or another.

1994: Pollster Stan Greenberg seemed to freak everybody out by saying at a recent breakfast that if the election were held today, it’d be 1994 all over again. But then he proceeded to explain why he thinks things might be different in November.

Census: Nate Silver, looking at state-by-state numbers, thinks there’s no hard evidence that the black helicopter crowd is letting itself get undercounted by refusing to return census forms. I think the county-level response rates will be more interesting, though.

Polling: An interesting tidbit: Quinnipiac has been steadily adding cell phones to its call lists. This is something that only pollsters who use live interviewers can do, because federal law prohibits automated calls to cell phones. Also, some fun polling on the political preference of sports fans, broken down by sport.

• NC-Sen: The newest Elon University poll of North Carolina finds that, as with most pollsters, that Richard Burr is strangely anonymous for a Senator: he has a favorable of 34/17. His best-known Democratic competitor, SoS Elaine Marshall, is at 18/8. The poll doesn’t contain head-to-heads, and also, bear in mind that it only polls “residents,” not even registered voters, which would explain the super-low awareness.

• TX-Sen: 20 of Texas’s Republican House members wrote a letter to Kay Bailey Hutchison, asking her to reconsider and stay on as Senator. (Recall that she planned to resign once she was done “fighting health care.”) I wonder if the letter was signed by Joe Barton, who was pretty public about his desire to take over that seat back when a resignation seemed likelier.

• UT-Sen: Tonight’s the night we get our first hard impression of what degree of trouble Bob Bennett is in. Tonight are neighborhood caucuses, where delegates to the state convention are elected. A particularly ultra-conservative-skewing convention could pose some trouble to Bennett, although with so many GOP challengers, it seems likely no one will hit the 60% mark at the convention needed to avoid a primary.

• CT-Gov: You might recognize these numbers from last week; we’ve been waiting for Quinnipiac to release general election numbers in the Governor’s race but they just don’t seem to be forthcoming, so here are their primary numbers. On the Dem side, Ned Lamont is leading at 28, followed by former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy at 18, Mary Glassman at 4, Rudy Marconi at 2, and Juan Figueroa at 1. (Susan Bysiewicz has a big edge over George Jepsen, 54-10, in the AG primary, despite concerns about her eligibility for the job.) On the GOP side, Tom Foley is dominating at 30, followed by Lt. Gov Michael Fedele collapsing down to 4, Danbury mayor Mark Boughton at 4, ex-Rep. Larry DeNardis at 2, and Oz Griebel and Jeff Wright at 2.

• CA-Gov: Wondering how Meg Whitman pulled into a huge lead in the primary and a small lead in the general in California governor’s race? She’s spent a mind-boggling $27 million on her race so far this year (for a total of $46 million), compared with Steve Poizner’s $3 million and Jerry Brown’s $142K.

• OR-Gov: Former Portland Trail Blazer Chris Dudley is the first candidate to hit the TV airwaves in the Oregon governor’s race so far, touting his “outsider” credentials.

• PA-Gov: AG Tom Corbett, who oh just coincidentally happens to be running for Governor this year, finally got a conviction in the Bonusgate investigation, against former state Rep. Mike Veon and several of his staffers. The timing is certainly helpful to Corbett, for whom the investigation has been dragging out and the possibility of mistrials (or no convictions before November) was starting to loom. Trials against several other former Democratic House leaders, including GOPer John Perzel and Dem Bill DeWeese, are still in the pipeline.

• WY-Gov: The Democrats are about to land a gubernatorial candidate: attorney Paul Hickey, who plans an announcement later this week. If the name is familiar, he’s the son of former Governor J.J. Hickey. Democratic State Sen. Mike Massie hasn’t ruled out a run yet either, although he may run for one of the statewide offices.

• IL-11: Here’s one more district that hasn’t been high on people’s watch lists but will need to be monitored, at least if a new internal poll from Republican pollster POS is to be believed. They find their patron, Adam Kinzinger, leading freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson 44-38.

• MA-09: With primary challenges moving onto the radar against HCR “no” votes Jason Altmire and Mike Arcuri, another one may be taking shape: Needham Town Meeting member (and, well, college classmate of mine) Harmony Wu has pulled papers for the race and is gauging local sentiment for a primary run against Stephen Lynch.

• NY-01: Whoever faces off against Tim Bishop for the Republicans is going to have to fight through an arduous primary to get there. Any hopes of an easy coronation for Randy Altschuler seem to have vaporized, as now Chris Cox (Republican party insider and Nixon grandson) is setting his own Wall Street-powered fundraising operation in motion. And a 3rd option, former SEC prosecutor George Demos, has had his own fundraising success.

• NY-20: One more Republican, Queensbury town supervisor Dan Stec, bailed out of the field today, suggesting that the GOP is finally coalescing behind retired Col. Chris Gibson as a standard-bearer against freshman Dem Rep. Scott Murphy, in what’s one of their slowest races to take shape.

• OK-05: Finally, we have a Democrat on tap for the open seat race in Oklahoma’s dark-red 5th, where there’s already a half-dozen GOPers jousting. Tom Guild is secretary of the Oklahoma County Democratic Party, and was a poli sci professor at Univ. of Central Oklahoma for many years.

• PA-11: Things got easier for Lou Barletta in the race in the 11th, where his Republican primary challenger, Chris Paige dropped out, citing family concerns. Paige, an attorney, was underfunded but had delivered some surprisingly-hard hits to Barletta, especially on Barletta’s signature issue of immigration.

• SC-01: The Club for Growth weighed into another GOP primary in a reddish open seat, endorsing state Rep. Tim Scott. Scott faces off in the primary against several well-known last names: Carroll Campbell III and Paul Thurmond.

• HCR: The Republican pivot from health care reform to health care repeal has some implications in the gubernatorial races. Rep. Peter Hoekstra is going full-on repeal, stopping by Sunday’s teabagger rally to pledge to fight that battle. It’s also showing up in a number of races where the Republican AG is running for Governor and joined the multi-AG suit against HCR on easily-rebuttable 10th Amendment grounds (hint to teabaggers: read Scalia’s opinion in Raich) – many in dark-red states where it probably helps more than hurts (like Henry McMaster in South Carolina). There are a few blue state AGs involved, though, like Tom Corbett (although he probably feels like he has a safety cushion to do so, thanks to his Bonusgate-related popularity). Most puzzling, though, is Washington’s Rob McKenna, who got where he is only by acting moderate. Throwing off his well-maintained moderate mask and joining forces with the wackjob likes of Ken Cuccinelli seems like a weird gamble for his widely-expected 2012 run, where success is utterly dependent on making inroads among suburban moderates.