Tag: Bill Halter

• Election results: A lot happened last night, most prominently Martha Coakley’s victory in the MA-Sen Democratic primary, with 47% of the vote to Michael Capuano’s 28, Alan Khazei’s 13, and Stephen Paglicua’s 12. Coakley is poised to become the Bay State’s first female Senator; the big question for the Jan. 19 general is whether Republican state Sen. Scott Brown (who won the GOP nod 88-12 over Jack E. Robinson) can break 40%. In Kentucky, the Dems’ run of pickups in the state Senate came to a screeching halt, as Jodie Haydon lost to GOP state Rep. Jimmy Higdon 56-44 in a previously GOP-held open seat in SD-14, so the Senate’s composition stays at 20 (plus 1 GOP-leaning indie) to 17 in favor of the GOP. The GOP also picked up a previously Dem-held seat in the state House, HD-96. Republicans also retained SD-4 in Arkansas‘s dark-red northwest. In Birmingham, Alabama’s mayoral race advances to a runoff between attorney (and 2007 loser) Patrick Cooper and Jefferson County Commissioner William Bell. And in Los Angeles, Assemblyman Paul Krekorian won a vacant City Council seat despite being widely outspent by Christine Essel — which sets up an Assembly special election and temporarily leaves Dems there shy one seat.

• AR-Sen: With some encouragement from labor and the netroots, it looks like Lt. Gov. Bill Halter may actually be moving forward on plans to mount a Democratic primary challenge to Blanche Lincoln from the left. He’s in Washington DC meeting with labor officials and blogosphere leaders.

• FL-Sen: In more evidence of Charlie Crist’s willingness to take money from anyone, a mailer from a big fundraiser hosted for Crist by Broward County developer Ron Bergeron headlined one particular large contributor: Joseph Cobo, the Broward County Health Commissioner who’s currently under criminal investigation for corruption. Cobo was quickly removed from the host committee and Crist’s camp said the mailer was a “draft” mistakenly sent.

• OH-Sen: David Plouffe, one of the architects of Barack Obama’s campaign, has weighed into the Democratic Senate primary (despite not having any obvious connections to Ohio). Plouffe endorsed Lee Fisher over Jennifer Brunner in a fundraising e-mail, perhaps suggesting subtle White House moves to consolidate things behind Fisher and start gearing up for the general.

• AK-Gov: It was clear that newly-appointed Gov. Sean Parnell was going to face a primary fight with a member of the state’s political establishment, but the surprise today seems to be which one. Former state House speaker Ralph Samuels announced he’s running for Governor today. In summer, another former speaker, John Harris, had said he was going to run against Parnell, but today’s ADN article makes no mention of Harris; it does list Bill Walker and Gerald Heikes as other GOP candidates. The flashpoint in the Parnell/Samuels race appears to be oil industry taxes imposed by that known tax-and-spend liberal, Sarah Palin; Parnell supports continuation of them while Samuels wants an end.

• IL-Gov, IL-Sen: In the Democratic gubernatorial primary, incumbent Pat Quinn picked up some Chicago-area endorsements, from Rep. Danny Davis and an array of aldermen; he also recently got the Sierra Club’s nod. His opponent, Comptroller Dan Hynes, however, got an endorsement from a major union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and a victory of sorts by getting the AFL-CIO to not endorse. The AFL-CIO did, however, just endorse Alexi Giannoulias in the Senate race.

• NH-Gov: As expected, social conservative activist Karen Testerman launched her bid for Governor in New Hampshire. She brings some name recognition to the race based on her radio show and a long track record of religious right rabble-rousing, but isn’t expected to pose much of a challenge for Democratic incumbent John Lynch as he seeks a barely-precedented fourth term.

• FL-02: Faced with the realization that state Sen. Al Lawson is staying in the Democratic primary race no matter what, Rep. Allen Boyd is taking advantage of his big cash edge to run a TV spot already. Despite his vote against health care reform last month, he’s running an ad that’s basically pro-HCR (although with the GOP-sounding hedges thrown in there).

• IL-14: It didn’t take long for the last remaining minor player to bail out of the GOP field in the 14th, the third in a week. Jeff Danklefsen will apparently be taking his name of the ballot, and endorsing state sen. Randy Hultgren. Hultgren’s camp is also keeping an eye on Mark Vargas, who dropped out but endorsed Ethan Hastert; they want to make sure Vargas actually pulls his name off the ballot instead of remaining on there and splitting the anti-Hastert vote.

• KS-02: Because even when you vote the conservative position 95% of the time, that’s just not conservative enough… freshman Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins, already facing a credible Democratic challenge in the form of state Sen. Laura Kelly, may now face a primary challenge from state Sen. Dennis Pyle, who filed candidacy papers last week. (Former state Treasurer Jenkins was from the “moderate” wing of the party in Kansas, and beat religious right ex-Rep. Jim Ryun in the 2008 primary.)

• MD-01: Something seems amiss at the Andy Harris camp, as he prepares for a rematch against Dem freshman Rep. Frank Kratovil; his campaign manager, Mike Spellings hit the road. Other insiders say it was just a personality clash.

• NJ-02: I don’t know if anyone was counting on Democratic state Sen. Jeff Van Drew making his long-awaited run against Rep. Frank LoBiondo next year, but the question was asked. Van Drew says “the likelihood is not there,” but didn’t completely rule it out.

• PA-07: Here’s what the GOP establishment had been hoping to avoid: the possibility of a contested primary in the open 7th, where the field was painstakingly cleared for former US Attorney Pat Meehan. Dawn Stensland, the former news anchor for the Philly Fox affiliate, says she’s considering a run for the Republican nomination. Unfortunately for her, she comes with her own built-in attention-grabbing scandal relating to her husband, another local news anchor, having an affair with yet another competing local news anchor.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (11/30-12/02, likely voters, 9/8-10 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 42 (44)

Gilbert Baker (R): 41 (37)

Undecided: 17 (19)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 44 (45)

Curtis Coleman (R): 39 (37)

Undecided: 17 (18)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 45 (46)

Tom Cox (R): 31 (29)

Undecided: 24 (25)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 46 (47)

Kim Hendren (R): 30 (28)

Undecided: 24 (25)

(MoE: ±4%)

Rasmussen (12/1, likely voters, 9/28 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 39 (39)

Gilbert Baker (R): 46 (47)

Undecided: 9 (8)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (41)

Curtis Coleman (R): 44 (43)

Undecided: 9 (11)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (40)

Tom Cox (R): 43 (43)

Undecided: 10 (11)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 39 (41)

Kim Hendren (R): 46 (44)

Undecided: 9 (10)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

These are Moe Szyslak numbers – plug-fugly. In fact, Tom Jensen says things are actually worse than they appear: In PPP’s recent poll of AR-02, undecided voters in that district gave Lincoln wretched 11-58 favorables (yeah, you read that right). It’s starting to make me wonder how Lincoln can survive, especially if Baker winds up being the GOP nominee – and it makes these other numbers from R2K all the more interesting:

Bill Halter (D): 34

Gilbert Baker (R): 42

Undecided: 24

Bill Halter (D): 35

Curtis Coleman (R): 40

Undecided: 25

Bill Halter (D): 36

Tom Cox (R): 32

Undecided: 32

Bill Halter (D): 36

Kim Hendren (R): 31

Undecided: 33

(MoE: ±4%)

Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is mooting a primary challenge to Lincoln, and as you can see, all of the Republican candidates fare identically against him as they do against the incumbent. The big difference, though, is that Lincoln’s overall favorables are underwater at 41-50, while Halter is in positive territory at 36-25 – and two-fifths of the state doesn’t even know him yet. On account of that, I have to believe Halter would do better than Lincoln once he’s better-known. But the first question is, can he win a primary?

Blance Lincoln (D-inc): 42

Bill Halter (D): 26

Undecided: 32

(MoE: ±5%)

Forty-two percent is not where an incumbent wants to be in a potential primary matchup, especially against a guy who’s unknown to a third of Democrats. Lincoln’s numbers among members of her own party are fairly decent, 62-32. But among Dems, Halter clocks in at a nifty 55-11, and he clearly has room to grow

I’d also like to point out that Halter is hardly some unelectable left-wing gadfly. To the contrary: He won statewide office in 2006 with a higher share of the vote than even super-popular Gov. Mike Beebe. And while I certainly wouldn’t expect Halter to be a progressive standard-bearer, there’s little question he’d be better on healthcare than Lincoln, given that’s how he’s hoping to get traction against her.

In the end, I don’t see how we wouldn’t be better off with Halter, whose negatives almost surely wouldn’t wind up as awful as Lincoln’s, and who can’t be tied to DC in quite the same way. It wouldn’t be an easy fight – waging war against an incumbent seldom is. But I’d like to see him try.

(Note: According to the SSP calendar, Arkansas’s filing deadline is March 8th and the primary is May 18th.)

RaceTracker Wiki: AR-Sen

• House: Congratulations to Rep. John Garamendi, who was sworn in yesterday, and Rep. Bill Owens, who was sworn in today. Garamendi and Owens are joining the Democratic caucus as quickly as possible so that they can be eligible to vote on healthcare reform this weekend. (D)

• AR-Sen: Remember how yesterday NRSC chair John Cornyn caved to the party’s right flank, and said that he wouldn’t spend money in primaries or endorse in the future? Well, that lasted about a day: turns out that state Sen. Gilbert Baker, the GOP’s best shot in Arkansas, will be having a fundraiser in Washington DC on the 19th… at the NRSC. (The NRSC did announce that it still didn’t amount to endorsement, and that other Arkansas candidates were still welcome to have fundraisers at the NRSC. Uh, call me when there’s actually a fundraiser for head teabagger Tom Cox at the NRSC building.) More generally, CQ has a nice overview of the tightrope Cornyn is walking as he tries to make some inroads in swing states in 2010.

• CA-Sen: Perhaps in an attempt to give some cover to Cornyn (whose hand-picked candidate, Carly Fiorina, is raising the ire of the Chuck DeVore-supporting right wing), eight GOP Senators all endorsed Fiorina yesterday: a couple from leadership (McConnell, Kyl), the moderate women (Snowe, Collins, and Murkowski), some chit-cashing from last year (McCain and Graham), and one from total right field (Coburn). Tom Coburn’s endorsement is especially surprising in view of fellow wackadoodle Jim DeMint’s endorsement of DeVore. DeMint, for his part, is still attacking John Cornyn’s recruitment efforts today, perfectly encapsulating the right-wing mentality while saying “He’s trying to find candidates who can win. I’m trying to find people who can help me change the Senate.”

• FL-Sen: After Charlie Crist’s bizarre denials that he ever supported the Obama stimulus package, the White House left Crist out to dry yesterday, saying that, yes, in fact, he did support the stimulus.

• KS-Sen: This may fall under the “endorsement you don’t want to tout too loudly” category, although with most of the big-name endorsements so far going to Rep. Jerry Moran in the Kansas Senate race, Rep. Todd Tiahrt will probaly take what he can get. Former AG and Senator John Ashcroft endorsed Tiahrt.

• MT-Sen: Here’s what has the potential to be one of 2012’s hottest Senate races, already shaping up. Rep. Denny Rehberg, the state’s lone at-large Congressperson, met with the NRSC concerning a possible run at Jon Tester.

• CA-Gov: With ex-Gov. Jerry Brown suddenly finding himself with the gubernatorial primary field to himself for now, a familiar face has popped up yet again. Dianne Feinstein, who all year has alternately expressed interest and dismissed rumors of her interest, is now back to saying that she still hasn’t ruled out a gubernatorial run. She’ll wait to see what proposals for fixing the badly-broken state the various candidates put out before deciding whether or not to get in herself.

• IL-Gov: Somehow this got lost in all the shuffle surrounding Election Day, but it’s kind of important: after a short period of being the subject of speculation, Jim Ryan made it official that he’s running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Illinois. He probably becomes the frontrunner in the GOP field, by virtue of name rec: he was the state’s Attorney General from 1994-2002, and lost the 2002 governor’s race to Rod Blagojevich. The rest of the GOP field is a hodge-podge of state Senators and county-level officials, with state GOP chair Andy McKenna maybe the best known of the rest. Ryan’s biggest problem may be hoping people don’t confuse him with imprisoned ex-Gov. George Ryan or weird-sex-fan and 2004 Senate candidate Jack Ryan.

• MN-Gov: Another gubernatorial entry that seemed to fly below the radar this week is also a big one: Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak filed to run for governor yesterday. The well-liked Rybak seems like one of the likeliest candidates to prevail in the very crowded Democratic field.

• NJ-Gov: There are going to be a lot of coulda-shoulda-wouldas in the next few weeks in New Jersey, and here’s a big one already. State Senate leader (and former acting Governor) Richard Codey says that the White House contacted him repeatedly over the summer about taking over for Corzine on the ticket, and that Corzine and Codey even discussed it. Codey deferred to Corzine’s decision to stay in — although Corzine nearly decided to pack it in. Reportedly, internal polls over the summer showed Codey beating Chris Christie by double digits.

• NY-Gov: David Paterson is going on the air with two different TV spots (including one where he admits to “lots of mistakes”), apparently trying to bring up his approvals before deciding whether or not to run again in 2010. Paterson is still looking to move forward on the contentious issue of gay marriage, though, planning to put it on the agenda for next week’s special session. It may not have the votes to clear the Senate, but it hasn’t really been put to the test yet. (The worry is that moderate Republicans in the Senate who might have been on board earlier may be leerier now, afraid of getting Scozzafavaed by the right.)

• NY-23: A rare bit of history was made on Tuesday, in that a seat flipping to the president’s party in a House special election (as opposed to a tough retention, as in NY-20) is highly unusual. The most recent case was in VA-04 in 2001, when Republican Randy Forbes picked up a swing district left open by the death of Dem Norman Sisisky. (Subsequent gerrymandering turned the 4th into a safe GOP seat.) The previous instances before that were in 1989, 1988, and 1983.

• TX-32: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 3? One more article piles on the “loser” meme regarding Sessions’ series of NY-23 screwups — and it comes from his hometown paper in Dallas. Meanwhile at home, Sessions is now facing a primary challenge from the right, from financial analyst David Smith. Smith is upset about the Scozzafava thing, but mostly focusing on Sessions’ TARP vote. Still, a primary challenge from the right against one of the House’s most conservative members? Seems like that’d be like going after Tammy Baldwin from the left.

• WI-02: Oh, wait. But that’s exactly what some guy is doing. And he’s not just a rube who fell off the biodiesel-fueled organic turnip truck while reaching for his bong: it’s an actual member of the Board of Supervisors of Dane County (where Madison is). David de Felice is upset that Baldwin hasn’t pushed harder for single-payer health care.

• WI-08: Two different new entries in the Green Bay-based 8th. Physician and Air Force vet Marc Trager got into the Republican field to go against Democratic sophomore Rep. Steve Kagen, where businessman Reid Ribble seems to have the inside track based on fundraising and NRCC-touting so far. And yet another random right-winger is imagining his own head superimposed on Doug Hoffman’s body: former Niagara mayor Joe Stern will run as a grassroots conservative independent in 2010.

• NY Comptroller: A piece on New York 1 speculates that NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson, fresh off a much narrower-than-expected loss to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, could challenge New York State Comptroller Bill DiNapoli in the Democratic primary next year. DiNapoli, you may recall, was appointed to the seat after Alan Hevesi resigned. Thompson said he’s not currently looking at the race, but says that nothing is off the table. (D)

• WA-Init: Referendum 71 was finally called by the press (for the side of equality). Although more votes remain to be counted in the currently 52-48 race, it would require a bizarre turnaround in King County (where it’s currently at 70% approval) to change the result. Meanwhile, Seattle‘s mayoral race is still up in the air; Mike McGinn leads by a 515-vote margin (out of 130,000 counted so far).

• Census: As expected, the Vitter amendment requiring the Census to include a question on citizenship was blocked by Democrats. Conservatives don’t want undocumented immigrants to count for apportionment, and there’s an added incentive for David Vitter, as Louisiana might be able to salvage its 7th seat if such legislation were passed.

• Primaries: MoveOn and DFA are allocating millions of dollars to potential primary challenges against any Democrats who join a Republican filibuster on health care. (The only one who’s on the fence about that and actually up in 2010 is Blanche Lincoln, and nobody of consequence has stepped up to primary her from the left yet, although Lt. Gov. Bill Halter has alluded to the idea.)

• Polling: Mark Blumenthal has a good wrapup of how the various pollsters did on Tuesday. As others have pointed out, IVR polls outperformed live pollsters, at least in the two gubernatorial races (even though they still got weird results in the crosstabs, especially on race). Blumenthal also analyzes what went wrong in NY-23 polling. Also on the polling front, it looks like Nate Silver may have succeeded in scaring off Strategic Vision LLC. As he reports today, not only did they never get around to suing him, but they haven’t released any polls since the imbroglio began, despite that this week’s election would be the prime time to do so.

• WATN?: Finally, we have sad news to report: the Mumpower has finally been contained. Republican Carl Mumpower, the out-of-the-box thinker who lost spectacularly to Rep. Heath Shuler in 2008, got bounced out of his position as Asheville City Councilor on Tuesday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In politics, you’re never going to get too good of results looking way down the road.  But hey, that never stops us from trying, and my home state, Arkansas, is one of those fun little rural states where everyone knows everyone else and what folks are up to, which makes prognosticating easier.  Already there are signs of what’s to come in the governor’s race for 2014, once Beebe is done and moving on.  And since I’ve been doing some writing on one of the potential candidates on my own blog as of late I thought I’d do a quick write up.

The three candidates constantly mentioned for the 2014 race are Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, Lt. Governor Bill Halter, and Congressman Mike Ross.

McDaniel is a former state representative from Jonesboro, where I now live. He’s a lawyer and a former cop, and he has a huge base here in northeast Arkansas.  He’s generally considered fairly liberal by Arkansas standards, and he touted his prochoice position in order to win the AG primary in ’06.  But he has some faults-his ethics bill he proposed has a huge flaw in it in that it doubled the amount of money legislators could draw as a salary from campaign funds, and he’s gotten some criticism over using the state police helicopter improperly.

Halter worked in Bill Clinton’s administration before running for Governor in ’06, then dropping down to the Lt. Gov race.  He pissed a lot of people off in that campaign, coming in with a lot of out of state money, making no effort to woo the state machine, and there was some significant opposition to his signature issue, the state lottery.  However, while he certainly doesn’t carry himself with the humility and down home mannerisms that Arkansans expect of their politicians, there is something to be said for Halter being a different kind of politician.  He doesn’t think like the rest of the establishment, he’s definately more liberal for one, and his move on the lottery was largely opposed by the entire state establishment who were all quick to take credit for its passage.

Then there’s Mike Ross, the Congressman from southern Arkansas.  Ross is probably the most conservative of the three, and his votes on hate crimes and cap-and-trade the lately have made that much clear.  He thought about running in ’06 but yeilded to his old mentor Beebe, stating he couldn’t take the pay cut.  He could make the electability argument I guess, though the other two guys won statewide elections fairly easily and look to do so again next year, so I’m not sure it works.

So those are our three potential candidates.  I’m hoping someone else jumps in personally as none of these three appeal to me.  But we’ve got a long way to go until then, so we’ll see what happens.