Tag: Janice Hahn

• HI-Sen: Both Rep. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa have confirmed to Roll Call that they are looking at the Dem primary to replace retiring Sen. Dan Akaka, and Hanabusa says she’s meeting with the DSCC, presumably soon. She also says that the DS “has made it known it wants to speak with anyone interested in running, but it is not actively recruiting any one candidate” (Roll Call’s phrasing).

• IN-Sen: So GOPer Richard Mourdock raised $157K, not much better than the $125K or so he predicted (in an obvious attempt to ensure he “exceeded analysts’ estimates,” as they might say after a Wall Street earnings call). But I flag this item because Roll Call says Mourdock plans to “raise money from a national donor base starting next year.” Does this mean he’s going the Sharron Angle/Michele Bachmann/Allen West BMW Direct-type direct mail scammery? (See related bullets below.) If so, then perhaps Dick Lugar is in better shape than he might have hoped.

• MO-Sen: This is news to me: Sophomore GOP Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer is apparently thinking about a Senate bid, and has reportedly even met with the NRSC about his intentions. Dave Catanese says that “uncertainty about redistricting” is spurring Luetkemeyer to consider other options, but I’m not sure I buy that, seeing as the new maps being considered by the Republican-held legislature offer him a very comfy seat. The real puzzler is why he’s doing this when six-term Rep. Todd Akin seems to be gearing up for a Senate run, since there’s almost no way the two would want to fight it out in a primary. Maybe Lute thinks he can be Plan B if Akin demurs.

Another reason cited by Catanese (which applies equally well to both congressmen) is ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman’s crappy fundraising. She pulled in just $186K in Q1, which would be unimpressive for a supposedly serious candidate in almost any state. If Akin gets in, I think there’s a non-zero chance that she’d drop out.

• MT-Sen: Nice: Sen. Jon Tester (D) raised $1.2 million in Q1 and has $1.5m on hand. His Republican opponent, Rep. Denny Rehberg, raised less than half that, $580K, but has $932K in the bank.

• NE-Sen: Sen. Ben Nelson raised $1 million in Q1 and has $2.3 mil on hand. His chief Republican rival, AG Jon Bruning, raised $1.5 million and has $1.2 in the bank, but Nelson pointed out that $600K was transferred from Bruning’s 2008 Senate account (when he briefly sought to primary Chuck Hagel; after Hagel announced his retirement, Bruning was squeezed out by former Gov. Mike Johanns).

• OH-Sen: Former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, whom we’d mentioned previously as a possible candidate, has filed paperwork for an exploratory committee, joining Treasurer Josh Mandel in this in-limbo category in the GOP primary.

• TN-Sen: I feel like there’s an alternate universe not too dissimilar from our own where a Republican dude named Bob Corker is also freshman in the U.S. Senate, and he’s also up for re-election, except Corker Prime is actually vulnerable. Here on Earth, though, it really seems like Corker is well out of reach for us. He raised an impressive $1.9 million in Q1 and has over $4 million in the bank – and there are no Democratic candidates on the horizon.

Gubernatorial:

• MO-Gov: Gov. Jay Nixon lapped his likely Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, on the fundraising circuit, pulling in over twice as much money over the last six months, $1.7 million to $770K. Nixon also has a big cash-on-hand edge, $2.1 mil to $900K.

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show? Well, pretty terrible, actually – Kinder’s had just an awful few weeks in the press. After the St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed his penchant for spending taxpayer money to stay in luxury hotels to attend baseball games and society balls, Kinder promised to reimburse the state $35K… but two weeks later, he still hasn’t. That nimbus definitely isn’t moving anywhere just yet, and it’s his own damn fault. Let’s hope he runs the rest of his campaign the same way.

• NC-Gov: This just doesn’t seem good. Gov. Bev Perdue, whose public image has already suffered enough damage, was out-of-state Saturday afternoon when a series of deadly tornadoes touched down in North Carolina. She was attending a horse race in Kentucky and didn’t make a public appearance back home until 11pm that night. I’m not going to predict what this will mean for Perdue, but it can’t be helpful.

• WV-Gov: SoS Natalie Tennant’s first ad is a hokey spot set on a farm, in which she decries politicians wasting money… and a cow can be heard to moo. (Or a bull. I don’t know. It has horns. But small ones. So maybe still a cow? Do bulls moo? I’m from the city – sue me.) Tennant is generally seen as the candidate with the greatest appeal to liberals (yes, there are some in West Virginia), so she’s clearly trying to play against type here.

House:

• AZ-08: Rep. Gabby Giffords raised $358K in Q1 and has $556K in the bank.

• CA-19: Freshman GOP Rep. Jeff Denham (I admit it – I had already forgotten who he was and had to Google him) is already making a name for himself. That name is “idiot.” He staged a mega-lavish DC fundraiser in January when he was sworn in which featured singer Leann Rimes and spent an amazing $212,250 on the event. Total raised? $212,900 – which means he netted exactly $650. That’s quite the feat. It’s even more amazing when you consider it was all supposed to benefit a joint fundraising committee for 11 GOP frosh. To rub it in, Michael Doyle of the Modesto Bee archly observes: “If the $650 netted from outside contributors were to be divvied up evenly, each of the 11 GOP lawmakers would receive $59.”

• CA-36: Janice Hahn outraised Debra Bowen in Q1, $273K to $195K, and has about double the cash-on-hand, $171K to $93K. Surprisingly, Marcy Winograd managed to raise $50K. (And if you care, Republican Craig Hughey lent his campaign $250K.)

Bowen also put out an internal from the Feldman Group. In a test of apparently all the candidates who have filed, she and Hahn tie for 20, with Republican Mike Gin the next-closest at 8 and Winograd at 6. The memo also says that in a two-way runoff, Bowen leads 40-36 with 16% undecided. The poll also claims that Hahn’s unfavorability rating is “double that of Bowen,” but a self-respecting pollster really shouldn’t include such tripe, because the refusal to release actual numbers means we’re talking about something like a 12-to-6 comparison (i.e., meaningless). As mi hermano G.O.B. Bluth would say, “COME ON!”

• FL-08: Hah! Does Daniel Webster want to lose? The GOP freshman raised just $30K in Q1, but the really funny part is that the guy he defeated, Alan Grayson, raised more! Grayson took in $38K, apparently from small donors who hope he’ll make a comeback bid.

• FL-22: Allen West raised a seemingly-impressive $434K in Q1, but as you know, he’s a major practitioner of the churn-and-burn style of shady direct-mail fundraising, and it really shows in his burn rate. He spent an amazing $266K last quarter, which both as a raw total and a percentage rate is exceedingly high… but see the MN-06 and NV-02 items below.

• IA-04: Interesting, though not surprising: Politico says that DCCC chair Steve Israel warned Christie Vilsack off of challenging Dave Loebsack in the new 2nd CD, assuring her that the D-Trip would back the incumbent. He also apparently promised to support her if she took on Rep. Steve King (as she supposedly might do), though who knows what kind of $ that might translate into.

• IL-03: Insurance exec John Atkinson, who is apparently challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski in the Democratic primary, raised $535K in Q1, including $312K from his own pockets. Lipinski raised just $138K but has $637K on hand.

• MN-08: Freshman GOPer Chip Cravaack raised just $121K in Q1 – so why are we having such a hard time finding a Dem willing to take this guy on?

• MN-06: Michele Bachmann raised a MIND-OBLITERATING $1.7 million in the first quarter… and yes, I’m being sarcastic, because she also managed to spent $756K. Of course, netting a million bucks ain’t bad (and she has $2.8 mil on hand), and if she truly pulls the trigger on a presidential run, I’ll bet the spigots will open even wider. But that’s still quite the burn rate.

• NV-02: Sharron Angle makes Allen West look as parsimonious as Scrooge by comparison. Everyone’s favorite nutter (okay, it’s a multi-way tie, but you know you love her) raised an amaaaaaaaaazing $700K in Q1, but spent an actually amazing $550K, mostly to BaseConnect, the scam artists formerly known as BMW Direct. She has only $176K in the bank.

• NY-26: Republican Jane Corwin is not fucking around: She raised just $102K in Q1, but gave her own campaign a whopping million dollars. Yow. Meanwhile, Crazy Jack Davis has raised zilch, but has loaned himself $1.5 mil and already spent $1.4 mil.

Other Races:

• Denver Mayor: SSP commenter Kretzy has a really good run-down on the May 3rd Denver mayor’s race, necessitated by John Hickenlooper’s ascension to the governor’s mansion. I won’t try to summarize it – you should just click through. Timely, too, because SUSA has a poll out on the race, showing James Mejia and Chris Romer tied at 22, with Michael Hancock next at 18. Again, read Kretzy’s summary if you want to know more about these people.

• Wisconsin Recall: Signatures were filed yesterday to force a recall election for a third Republican state senator, Luther Olsen, and Dems expect to file petitions for Sheila Harsdorf today. (Number of Dem state sens who’ve had petitions filed against them so far: 0.) Also, the state’s Government Accountability Board says it will try to consolidate the recalls into as few elections as possible.

Grab Bag:

• DSCC: In an item about Herb Kohl raising $0 last quarter (he can cut himself a fat check any time he pleases, so this isn’t meaningful), Dave Catanese says that DSCC chair Patty Murray said “she was confident all of the remaining incumbents were running for reelection.” Kohl is the most obvious candidate for retirement, and of course Murray could be wrong, but maybe this is it.

• Fundraising: The NYT has a list of fundraising by freshman Republicans, and also notes that IN-08 Rep. Larry Bucshon took in just $45K. Not really wise for a guy whose district is likely to be made at least a bit more competitive. The Fix also has a fundraising roundup.

• LCV: The League of Conservation Voters is launching a $250K radio ad campaign targeted at four members of the House who voted in favor of a bill that would bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The ads are hitting two Republicans running for Senate, Denny Rehberg and Dean Heller, as well as Energy Cmte Chair Fred Upton (R) and Jason Altmire (D). Here’s a sample ad (targeted at Heller), which I actually find kinda weird and confusing.

• Passings: Former Rep. Harold Volkmer, who represented mostly rural northeastern Missouri’s 9th CD for ten terms, passed away at the age of 80.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: Now this at least is a fight that makes sense: Republicans control the Colorado House, while Dems control the Senate – and tempers have already exploded with the release of proposed redistricting plans from both sides. (See yesterday’s digest for the maps.) Speaker of the House Frank McNulty flipped out, accusing Democrats of drawing districts that would benefit two legislators in particular: Senate President Brandon Shaffer and Sen. Morgan Carroll.

However, Carroll said she has no plans to run for Congress, while the Dem point-man on redistricting, Sen. Rollie Heath, pointed out that the new 4th CD (which McNulty thinks Shaffer wants to run in) has a 10 percent GOP registration edge… in other words, not the kind of seat you’d drawn for yourself if you were an ambitious Democrat. So either McNulty is just a garden-variety moran, or he’s just trying to cast fact-free aspersions against the other side. We’ve seen a lot of this kind of crap from Colorado Republicans already, so door number two is a definite possibility (but of course, it’s not mutually exclusive of door number 1).

• Missouri: Trying to unlock a stalemate that seems remarkably picayune to outsiders such as myself, Republican power brokers in Missouri met yesterday to talk things over. Among the participants were most of the Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation, the heads of the state House and Senate, and the chair of the MO GOP. No sort of deal has been announced as yet.

• Virginia: Hah – so much for lawmakers racing back to work to deal with Gov. Bob McDonnell’s veto of their redistricting plans. Legislators had planned to be off this week, so rank-and-file members declined leadership’s entreaties to show up.

Senate:

• CT-Sen: Connecticut’s open seat Senate race was always destined to be a high-dollar affair, and the money chase is well underway. Former SoS Susie Bysiewicz released a first quarter total of a respectable $500K, but Rep. Chris Murphy, her main rival in the Dem primary, just more than doubled up on that, with $1.1 million raised over the course of his first 10 weeks. (Of course, they’ve both picked their low hanging fruit on their first trip to the orchard, so the challenge will be to keep up that rate.)

• FL-Sen: PPP, who put out general election numbers on the Senate race last week, have the GOP primary numbers… and they find GOP voters saying “Uh, who?” (Y’know, like that guy who used to be the Senator… who somehow is known by only 26% of the sample?) Unfortunately, Connie Mack IV dropped out while the poll was in the field, so, better-known than the other options (perhaps courtesy of his dad, the former Sen. Connie Mack III, who the state’s older and more confused voters might think is back) he leads the way at 28, with the actual candidates, ex-Sen. George LeMieux and state Sen. majority leader Mike Haridopolos at 14 and 13, respectively. Additional likely candidate Adam Hasner is back at 5. Don’t look for any help on choosing from Marco Rubio: he’s just announced that he won’t endorse in the primary.

• HI-Sen: There still seem to be fans out there for losing ’06 IL-06 candidate and Obama admin member Tammy Duckworth, eager to get her into elected office somewhere someday, and the place du jour seems to be Hawaii, where a Draft Duckworth page has popped up for the open Senate seat.

• MA-Sen: Salem mayor Kim Driscoll has been the occasional subject of Senate speculation for the Dem primary, along with the mayor of pretty much every other mid-sized city in the state. Nevertheless, she pulled her name out of contention yesterday (all part of the Democratic master plan of not having a candidate to deceptively lull the GOP into complacency, I’m sure). Meanwhile, Republican incumbent Scott Brown (last seen praising the Paul Ryan Abolition of Medicare Plan, rolled out his first quarter fundraising numbers: he raised $1.7 million in Q1, leaving him with $8.1 million cash on hand. That’s, of course, huge, but the silver lining on that is that it doesn’t leave him on track to hit his previously-announced super-gigantic $25 mil fundraising goal for the cycle.

Gubernatorial:

• FL-Gov: With various newly-elected Republican governors in polling freefall, Rick Scott (who can’t even get along with his GOP legislature, let alone his constituents) really seems to be leading the way down. Quinnipiac finds his approvals deep in the hole, currently 35/48, down from 35/22 in February (meaning he picked up no new fans in that period, but managed to piss off an additional quarter of the state). Voters says by a 53-37 margin that his budget proposals are unfair to people like them. Voters are also opposed to the legislature’s proposal to stop collecting union dues from state workers’ paychecks.

• MO-Gov: After spending Monday dragging out his fight with those who buy ink by the barrel (aka the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who broke the story on his fancy-pants hotel habit), Missouri Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Kinder seemed to dial things down a notch yesterday: he says he’ll ‘voluntarily’ reimburse the state $30K for those expenditures, and while not exactly apologizing, says he seeks “to move this nimbus off the horizon.” Um, whatever that means.

House:

• AZ-06: After getting mentioned a lot when Jeff Flake announced his Senate run, opening up the Mesa-based 6th, state Senate president Russell Pearce is now sounding unlikely to run according to insiders. (Blowback over his links to the Fiesta Bowl controversy may be the last straw, though, rather than his status as xenophobia’s poster child.) A couple other GOP names have risen to the forefront: state House speaker Kirk Adams, who’s considering, and former state Sen. majority leader Chuck Gray, who is already in.

• CA-36: One more big union endorsement for Janice Hahn in the primary fight against Debra Bowen to succeed Jane Harman: this one comes from the SEIU.

• CT-05: The open seat vacated by Chris Murphy is likely to draw a crowd, and here’s a new Republican contender in this swingy, suburban district: Farmington town council chair and former FBI agent Mike Clark. Clark has a notable profile for helping to take down a fellow Republican while at the FBI: corrupt ex-Gov. John Rowland. He’ll face Justin Bernier in the GOP primary, who lost the primary in 2010.

• FL-20: In case Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s work load couldn’t get any heavier, she just got a new heap of responsibility dumped in her lap: she’ll become the new head of the DNC, to replace newly-minted Senate candidate Tim Kaine. She’ll, of course, keep her day job as Representative.

• MN-08: The Dem-leaning 8th is as good a place as any to pick up a seat in 2012, but there’s the wee problem of trying to find somebody to run there. The latest Dem possibility that drew everyone’s interest, Yvonne Prettner Solon, the former Duluth-area state Sen. and newly-elected Lt. Governor, won’t run here either.  

Other Races:

• NH-St. House: I realize that with 400 members you’re going to have a lot of bad apples, but still we’re up to 3 GOP frosh having resigned already from the New Hampshire state House. Hot on the heels of a 91-year-old member resigning after advocating (literally) sending ‘defectives’ to Siberia to starve, Gary Wheaton just resigned for driving with a suspended license after a previous DUI (and then publicly suspected the arresting officer for targeting him because of his vote against collective bargaining). And somewhat less dramatically, Robert Huxley eventually got around to resigning after not getting around to showing up for any votes so far in the session.

Remainders:

• EMILY’s List: EMILY’s List is out with its first five fundraising targets for the 2012 cycle. Some of them are to be expected, with high-profile GOP freshmen and already-announced female opponents: Allen West (who may face West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel in FL-22), Paul Gosar (who faces a rematch with ex-Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in AZ-01), and Charlie Bass (rematched with Ann McLane Kuster in NH-02). They also targeted Joe Heck in NV-03 and Chip Cravaack in MN-08, who don’t have opponents yet but conceivably could match up with Dina Titus and Tarryl Clark, respectively.

• WATN?: Thirtysomething Carte Goodwin seemed to make a good impression during his half-a-year as a fill-in in the Senate (in between Robert Byrd and Joe Manchin), moving him to prime position on the Dems’ West Virginia bench, but he says he’s not running for anything else anytime soon. Or more accurately, he says the only the only thing he’s running for “is the county line.” (Uh, with the revenuers in pursuit?)

Senate:

• HI-Sen: Charles Djou reiterated that he’d wait until fellow GOPer Linda Lingle decides whether to run, which he expects by this summer. (So does that mean until Sept. 21st?)

• MA-Sen: This is some… creative spin from the DSCC. Dems, both named and un-named, are saying that the failure of a Democratic challenger to emerge against Scott Brown is all part of a plan, one that involves attacking Brown (by various proxies, it would seem) while giving the Republicans no Dem to attack in response. This plan is so super-genious, it ought to continue right up until November 6th, 2012.

• NV-Sen: The Lahontan Valley News, covering a Jeff-Jack dinner up north that Rep. Shelley Berkley just attended, says that the congresswoman ” confirmed she wants to run” for Senate – but those are their words, not hers. Please hold the microphone closer to the horse’s mouth!

• VA-Sen: President Obama showered some praise on Tim Kaine at a couple of fundraisers in NYC on Tuesday night. Is this part of a lengthy marketing campaign, or an attempted kick in the pants?

Gubernatorial:

• CA-Gov: A lone unnamed source tells Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross of the SF Chronicle that newly-elected Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is planning to run for governor… in 2014. That would mean he either expects the Hon. Gov Jerry Brown, who will be 76 by then, to not run again, or he thinks it would be a good idea to challenge Brown in a primary. Given that it’s Newsom we’re talking about, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter.

• WV-Gov: Rick Thompson has another ad out. I’m told that several other Dems are on the air, but I checked all of their YouTube accounts and found no other ads.

House:

• CA-36: The League of Conservation Voters just came out for Debra Bowen, while Rep. Linda Sanchez threw her support behind Janice Hahn.

• NY-26: Dem Kathy Hochul is out with her first ad (NWOTSOTB), in which she touts her accomplishments as a politician… all of which seem to have to do with cars, in one way or another.

• WI-07: Sean Duffy is just a total asshole, but my heart really goes out to the guy who questioned him at a town hall. Said the questioner:

I’m a builder. I haven’t been building too many things in the last couple years with the economy down. My wife is a teacher. I’m fortunate enough to take a bus driving job. Love it. Just love it. But it’s not very much money of course. It’s working for us.

He drives a bus, and still considers himself lucky. Sean Duffy earns $174,000 a year as a member of Congress and complains that “I struggle to meet my bills.” He also declared that the benefits the builder/bus driver’s wife gets as a state employee are “gold-plated” and are better than those he gets as a federal employee. As Steve archly notes: “What, they don’t have an Office of the Attending Physician in Marinette or Eau Claire?”

Other Races:

• Suffolk Co. Lege: It’s some good news… for John McCain! It may also be further down into the weeds than we’ve ever gone at SSP. A Democrat, Sarah Anker, appears to have won a special election in a deeply Republican seat in the Suffolk County Legislature. Republicans are trying to claim that County Exec. Steve Levy’s very high-profile troubles with the law (see SSP Amazing Digest #325) weighed them down in this race… but Levy’s only been a Republican for less than a year!

Remainders:

• Farm Subsidies: An organization called the Environmental Working Group has a fascinating look at the 23 members of Congress (17 Republicans, 6 Democrats) who have received farm subsidies since 1995. Over the last fifteen years, this group of Republicans has pulled in over ten times as much ($5.3 million vs. $500K) than the Dems. Farm subsidies have been a campaign trail issue – they enrage teabaggers, who savaged the #1 recipient, TN-08 Rep. and agribusiness kingpin Stephen Fincher, in the GOP primary last year over the $3.4 million in federal largesse he’s received over the years. The piece also notes that Dems tried to protect rural members by preserving the status quo back in 2008, but that of course has completely failed. With most of those big-age pols now washed out to the hog lagoon, maybe, just maybe, official Democratic policy toward these awful subsidies will change.

• Voter Suppression: The AP has a good roundup on the stepped-up Republican efforts to pass voter ID laws – despite the expense caused by these laws, and by the fact that pretty much no one nowhere has ever proven a single one of these overblown charges of “VOTER FRAUD!!!!!!!!111111111”. States on the list include Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Fortunately, in Democratic-controlled Arkansas, the idea died in the Senate after it passed the House.

• Fundraising: Today is the first day of the rest of your life. It’s also the last day of the first fundraising quarter of the year, so time to start thinking about donations to your favorite Democrats.

Redistricting Roundup:

• DC: The District of Columbia doesn’t often appear in the digest, but this fits our style: The site Greater Greater Washington has a Google Maps-based game of sorts where you can redistrict the city’s wards.

• Florida: Republican legislative leaders have forwarded on Florida’s redistricting ballot measures (passed last year) to the Dept. of Justice for pre-clearance – an application weirdo Gov. Rick Scott withdrew earlier this year. But Mike Haridopolos (oh, you know him) and Dean Cannon, his counterpart in the state House, drafted their request to the DoJ in a way deliberately designed to undermine the amendments. They claimed they would hurt minority voting rights, but I don’t really see how that’s possible, since the VRA would trump any state laws. Hopefully the DoJ will see through this charade and clear these amendments promptly.

• Iowa: Start hitting refresh! Iowa’s first-draft federal map will come out this morning.

• Louisiana: The state House voted to accept a new map on Tuesday, by a 70-28 margin. Most of the votes against were from black Democrats and also from Republicans from Jefferson Parish, which apparently loses a seat to Orleans Parish under this plan.

• Maine: Maine state law says that redistricting must be done in 2013 – which of course would be after the next round of Congressional elections. Two Mainers have filed a lawsuit challenging this practice on “one person, one vote” grounds, pointing out that every other state (except Montana, where federal redistricting isn’t an issue) redraws their maps as soon as they get new Census data in.

• New York: Republican state Sen. Majority Leader Dean Skelos declared last night that redistricting reform is dead. He said the Senate would not take up legislation that would create an independent commission.

• Pennsylvania: Everyone seems to expect that Dems Jason Altmire and Mark Critz will get thrown into a single district by Republicans. Politico examines what the contours of such a mashup might look like.

• Texas: The Texas Tribune did a National Review-style poll of “insiders,” asking them what the state’s four new congressional districts will look like. 54% said they’ll be 3-1 Republican, while 37% said 2-2 Dem.

• IN-Sen: An unnamed “Democratic strategist” quoted by The Hill suggests that ex-Rep. Tim Roemer (whose name hadn’t really come up before this year) is unlikely to run for Senate. Honestly, I’m not sure if the wankerish Roemer would really excite anyone… but we don’t seem to have a long list of possible names for this race.

• OH-Sen: PPP has another “everyone and the kitchen sink” primary polls, this time of the Republican senatorial primary in Ohio. In this case, the kitchen sink is named “Kenneth Blackwell,” and he comes in first in an eleventy-billion-way test, with all of 17%. I don’t think I’ve even heard Blackwell (last seen losing the 2006 gubernatorial race to Ted Strickland very badly) as a possible contender. Click the link for the other numbers.

• VA-Sen: I’ve got a new name you can root for: Tim Donner, a wealthy television production executive who is considering whether to challenge George Allen in the Republican primary. A spokesman tells Dave Catanese he’s a “couple weeks away” from making a decision. It’s not 100% clear whether he’s a teabagger, but I suspect he is, given that his mouthpiece attacked bona fide teabagger (and hopeless Some Dude) Jamie Radtke for “working in government since she graduated from college,” and because Donner thinks none of the candidates currently running “believe in the concept of a citizen legislature.” That sounds like something a teabagger trying to channel Patrick Henry might say, no? At the very least, we should be hoping he’ll rough Macaca up with a million or few.

• WV-Gov: This was expected, but it’s still an important get: State House Speaker Rick Thompson (D) scored the backing of the AFL-CIO, a key endorsement in what will likely be a low-turnout special primary. (As we noted last week, Thompson also picked up the support of a couple of teachers unions.) The election is May 14th.

• CA-36: Marta Evry at Calitics takes a look at the ActBlue fundraising numbers so far for the key Democrats in the race. The numbers are a moving target, but as of Friday, Janice Hahn had taken in $49K from 200 donors, while Debra Bowen had pulled in $41K but from a much larger 474 donors. Oh, and Marcy Winograd has now achieved joke status, with $1K raised. Also, some teabagger also joined the race, making him the fourth Republican to get in.

• Wisconsin Recall: Some very good sleuthing by Madison TV station WKOW27: The alleged mistress of GOP state Sen. Randy Hopper (the name you can’t forget) recently scored a government job, and Hopper said: “I want to keep my involvement of anything as a private matter. So, I’m going to maintain that.” He didn’t maintain that for very long, calling the station back and denying his involvement with the hiring. I’m not sure Jack McCoy ever got a witness to change his story so quickly – and incredibly. Even better, discovers WKOW, the woman in question got a 35% pay boost over the person who previously held the job. Scott Walker’s government austerity in action.

In other news, Greg Sargent says that GOP polling firm Public Opinion Strategies is in the field with a survey testing anti-union messages on recall target Alberta Darling’s behalf.

• DCCC: Biden alert! The VPOTUS was in Philadelphia on Friday, raising a cool $400K for the D-Triple-C. A long list of PA pols was in attendance, including ex-Rep. Patrick Murphy and a couple of unsuccessful 2010 candidates, Bryan Lentz and John Callahan. Also nice to see present: Arlen Specter, a guy whose age, brief tenure as an elected Dem, and inglorious exit from office would give him more than enough reason to stay away from this sort of thing forever. Too bad he didn’t have the sense to join our team decades ago!

• Redistricting Roundup:

With the bulk of census data out, redistricting stories are coming fast and furious now.

• Arkansas: Talk Business has copies of a few different congressional maps proposed by various lawmakers, as well as descriptions of some others. Click the link to have a look.

• California: Ugh, gross: One of two finalist consulting firms to help California’s new redistricting commission has hardcore Republican leanings, while two of four finalist law firms are similarly oriented. Of course, this is exactly what you risk when you leave things to a supposedly independent panel (that features a ridiculous level of Republican over-representation).

• Florida: One Democratic consultant thinks that Florida’s population growth suggests that new districts (the state is getting two) could be anchored to regions that would favor two Republicans in particular: ex-LG Jeff Kottkamp and state Sen. Paula Dockery. Kottkamp lost the GOP primary for AG last year, while Dockery dropped out of the gubernatorial primary.

• Iowa: The Hawkeye State’s independent redistricting commission will release its first proposes congressional and state maps on March 31st. (Remember, IA loses a House seat.) As the Des Moines Register points out, “Either chamber of the Iowa Legislature or Republican Gov. Terry Branstad can reject proposals twice. If they don’t like the third, the Iowa Supreme Court decides the boundaries.”

• Louisiana: A bunch more proposed maps have been released by the state lege. Republican state House Speaker Jim Tucker’s plans can be found here, while Democratic state Senate President Joel Chaisson’s are toward the end of this document.

• Missouri: Show Me State lawmakers are starting their work on redistricting, but if they don’t have a congressional plan by May 13th, then it’ll get kicked over to the courts. State legislative maps aren’t due until September.

• Mississippi: I’m not really sure I’m getting this: The NAACP is suing the state of Mississippi over its redistricting plans, but the legislature hasn’t even passed anything yet. It seems like this case would fail from the get-go on ripeness grounds (i.e., a court would say that the dispute isn’t ready to be heard because the plaintiff doesn’t have actual maps to complain about), so I’m not really sure what the NAACP’s angle is here.

• Pennsylvania: PoliticsPA talked to some insiders who are crediting Dave Wasserman’s sources and saying that his most recent map is apparently pretty close to the plan that the state’s Republicans are supposedly reaching consensus on. (Maybe both share the same sources, though – who knows?) Click through for all the details. The most salient feature is something a lot of people here have also proposed: a matchup between Jason Altmire and Mark Critz, the two most junior Democrats in the delegation, in order to deal with PA’s loss of a seat.

• Virginia: Lawmakers are potentially looking to release state legislative maps as early as the end of the month – which makes sense, since VA holds its House and Senate elections this November.

• FL-Sen: A group of Holocaust survivors – now very elderly, of course – plan to protest Sen. Bill Nelson’s fundraiser with Barack Obama this week. The survivors say that Nelson promised to push legislation which would allow them to directly sue insurance companies who have withheld payments on life insurance policies sold before World War II. Nelson claims he only promised to hold a hearing on such a bill (which has been introduced in the House in the past).

• MA-Sen: I really have to believe Deval Patrick just shot his mouth off in that National Journal interview, and has probably earned himself a few glares from would-be Democratic challengers to Sen. Scott Brown the next time they see him. Now Alan Khazei, whom Patrick said was “for sure” in the race, is – like Newton Mayor Setti Warren – saying that he’s merely “looking at it carefully” but hasn’t made a decision yet. Meanwhile, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll tells the Boston Phoenix that she is at least several weeks away from a decision, and that a Warren entry wouldn’t impact her.

And speaking of another Warren, some top Republicans have been saying kinder things about Elizabeth Warren’s chances of becoming the permanent director of the Consumer Financial Protection Board. Of course, House Financial Services chair Spencer Bachus doesn’t get a vote, but he thinks that “the Senate may approve” a Warren nomination (if one were to be made). If this came to pass, it would almost certainly remove Warren from any possibility of running for the senate.

• ND-Sen, ND-AL:  Freshman Rep. Rick Berg hasn’t ruled out a run for Kent Conrad’s now-open senate seat, and Eric Cantor seems to think he might make the leap. The House’s no. 2 Republican said of Berg: ” “I’m trying to convince him to make sure he stays in the House right now.”

• NM-Sen: From the horse’s mouth – which is where I prefer to get my news: Dem state Auditor Hector Balderas confirmed reports that he is looking at Jeff Bingaman’s open senate seat, saying he’s been talking to the DSCC and is “strongly considering entering” the race.

• VA-Sen: Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart (god that is a mouthful) sounds like he’s dialing himself out of any possible senate run. He says he’s going to seek re-election to his current post this fall, and will “possibly” make a decision on whether to seek Jim Webb’s open seat “early next year.” He’s seriously going to enter a competitive primary against Felix Allen no earlier than January of 2012? Shah.

• NC-Gov: Tom Jensen tells me something I always love to hear: an establishment Republican might have tea-related problems. In particular, PPP’s latest poll has 43% of GOPers saying they’d prefer someone more conservative than former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, while 29% firmly support him. Of course, I think probably 20% of Republicans would say they want someone more conservative than Republican Jesus. But McCrory does have something of a libruhl track record (like I’ve said, it’s hard to be a super-conservative mayor), including support for socialist, freedom-destroying light rail for his hometown. Tom points out that McCrory won his 2008 primary with less than 50% of the vote “against a weak field” – but this time around, no one’s really emerged from the woodwork to challenge him. Yet.

• WI-Gov: Tom also has the rest of the goods on PPP’s WI-Gov poll, which consistently shows small pro-labor margins on a variety of unions vs. Walker questions (and larger margins on questions of general collective bargaining rights). On the question of recall, it’s an exact 48-48 split.

• AZ-06: We missed the news a couple of weeks ago that former GOP state senate majority leader Chuck Gray said he was entering the race to succeed Jeff Flake (who of course is running to succeed Jon Kyl). One other Republican name considering the race is the current Speaker of the state House, Kirk Adams.

• CA-36: AFSCME’s California political arm, called “California PEOPLE,” is endorsing Janice Hahn, making them the latest in a string of labor unions to do so. Meanwhile, Debra Bowen tweeted that she could fit into her daughter’s jeans.

• IL-01: Roll Call takes a detailed look at the personal finances of Rep. Bobby Rush, who has been the defendant in nearly two dozen mostly debt-related lawsuits since the 1980s – and who has somewhat questionably left off all of these cases and debts from the financial disclosure forms he’s obligated to file as a member of Congress. While this isn’t the first time the media has examined Rush’s finances, this strikes me as the sort of thing that could make the incumbent vulnerable to a primary challenge, especially since his district will have to take on a bunch of new territory to compensate for population loss.

• NY-10: The New York Observer offers an interesting profile of Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who hasn’t ruled out a primary challenge to Rep. Ed Towns (D), and who apparently has been ramping up his political activity of late.

• OR-01: Steny Hoyer (still the no. 2 Dem in the House) says it’s “premature” to talk about a David Wu resignation. But surely he wants this problem to go away, right? Also of note, The Hill observes that Wu only had $7,500 in campaign cash at the start of the year, versus $61K in debt. Can’t imagine he’s finding a lot of willing donors these days.

• PA-04: PA state Dem chair Jim Burn says he thinks Rep. Jason Altmire could face a primary challenge from the left next year, but admits he hasn’t heard of any actual, you know, names being circulated. Anyhow, who even knows what this district will look like.

• Las Vegas Mayor: Jon Ralston has obtained a poll taken for a group of realtors showing Carolyn Goodman (I) at 30%, Larry Brown (D) at 17%, and Chris Giuchigliani (D) at 11%, with other candidates in the single digits. Note that this poll asked a TON of issue-y questions before finally getting to the horserace in Q15. Also, as Ralston pointed out on the Tweeter, this poll was taken a few weeks ago, before the TV air wars were joined.

Census: Couple of cool census-related mapping widgets. The Journal Star of Nebraska lets you drill down to see population change by county for each state where data’s been released so far. The Chicago Tribune offers a Google Maps-based interface which lets you drill down to see individual census blocks across the entire state of Illinois.

• Crossroads: Announcing fundraising goals is easy, which is why I usually don’t remark on them. But when Crossroads GPS/American Crossroads, the satanic spawn of Karl Rove, says it plans to raise $120 million to destroy America, I pay attention – and I worry, because they probably really, really mean it.

Votes: There’ve been a couple of interesting votes with Republican outliers in the House recently. One was the stopgap spending bill that cut $4 billion in spending over the next two weeks; six Republicans defected on that one, including freshman teabagger Justin Amash, Michele Bachmann, and a few other true believers. (Walter Jones was probably the exception there.) On the flipside, seven GOPers voted against denying funding for Planned Parenthood – click the link for the list.

On the same topic, Politico has an interesting-looking vote study out on the GOP freshman, seeing how often they vote together as a group. Unfortunately, as per usual with the likes of Politico and similar organizations, I can’t see that they’ve posted the full list anywhere – they just offer a few tidbits. (Why go to all that trouble if you don’t even want to share all your numbers?) Anyhow, the aforementioned Justin Amash, who I guess really wants to take teabagging to new heights, has voted against his class more often than anyone else, 30% of the time. But the next three guys on the list are all semi-moderate New Yorkers – Chris Gibson, Mike Grimm, and Richard Hanna.

• WATN?: Sometimes I just need to channel my inner Holden Caulfield and declare: what a phony. After flatly saying the one thing he wouldn’t be doing after retiring from the senate was lobbying, ex-Sen. Chris Dodd just took a job as… a lobbyist, for everyone’s second-favorite intellectual property goliath, the MPAA. (I’m gonna assume the RIAA is still first.) Anyhow, check out the amusing Twitter hashtag #ChrisDoddMovies for some lulz.

• Polltopia: Go tell PPP where to poll. Don’t let the Paultards win!

• Redistricting: A Columbia Law School class is trying to create “an internet depository for nonpartisan congressional maps for the entire country.” I thought the SSP diaries section already was one! Anyhow, click the link if you are interested in submitting your work.

• NJ-12: I have seen the last, best hope of mankind, and his name is Rush Holt. In a major blow against Skynet Watson, the rocket scientist-turned-congressman defeated the Jeopardy-playing robot by a score of $8,600 to $6,200. The losing contestant, Rep. Jim Himes, was seen being turned into fuel to power the Matrix.

• FL-Sen: Mike Haridopolos is starting to look like one of those guys who just seems to track muck wherever he goes – or has been. How do you like this for both ridiculous and corrupt? He received an astounding (a) $152K (b) in taxpayer money to (c) write a book that (d) no one would ever read – and that (e) never got published because (f) the manuscript was too shitty to print. Getting that much (a) to do (c) is remarkable in any environment, but particularly when (a) is in the form of (b), and (d) ensures that the whole venture will be a major money-loser. (E) and (f) are really just the punch line – which makes Haridopolos the joke (and Florida taxpayers the serious losers here).

• MA-Sen: I get the sense that Deval Patrick’s decision to blab to the National Journal about the candidates he’s talked to who might run for senate must either have been deliberately planned or really unappreciated. Patrick said that 2010 special election candidate Alan Khazei and Newton Mayor Setti Warren told him they are “in, for sure” – leading Warren to tell Wicked Local Newton that he’s merely considering the race and has no timetable for an announcement. Was Patrick fluffing Warren in a helpful way, or was he just cracking out of turn?

• MT-Sen, MT-Gov: Was this even a thing? Dave Catanese asked Gov. Brian Schweitzer if he and Sen. Jon Tester might trade places – the term-limited Schweitzer running for senate and the flat-topped Tester running for governor. Schweitzer said nuh-uh.

• TN-Sen: I won’t call it a “must-read,” but a strong “should-read” piece in the Tennesean gives some good background on Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, who may be one of the strongest (only?) Dem options to take on Sen. Bob Corker in 2012. Dean has a Phil Bredesen-like “moderate” background, has been largely successful as mayor, and also has a very wealthy wife. But the article notes that Dean first has to win re-election as mayor this August (though he’s the favorite) – and more importantly, he hasn’t express any particular interest in running for senate. Maybe a run against freshman Gov. Bill Haslam in 2014 might be a better choice.

• VT-Sen: Republican state Auditor Tom Salmon says he’ll decide on whether to challenge Sen. Bernie Sanders this week. He has a conference planned for noon Thursday.

• IN-Gov: Mike Pence, a very likely gubernatorial candidate, offered quite a bit less than a full-throttled defense of Gov. Scott Walker’s attempts at union busting, perhaps in an effort to avoid a rift with the man he’s hoping to replace, Gov. Mitch Daniels. But given that Daniels’ decision not to follow Walker’s lead engendered a ton of teabagger vitriol, I’m wondering if Pence’s move to go soft here might cause him trouble in a potential GOP primary.

• ME-Gov: Speaking of Scott Walker, Gov. Paul LePage, elected with 38% of the vote, says that he, too, will pursue his lifelong dream of destroying collective bargaining rights. LePage may run into static from the GOP legislature, though, before he has the chance to fully transform himself into Kochbot 2.0.

• MS-Gov: It’s always a little tricky when someone is referred to as a businessman of some sort, but I’m going to guess that newly-announced Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Williams, “owner of Pascagoula-based Hazmat Services Inc.,” is a lot closer to the Some Dude end of the spectrum than the zillionaire kapitalist side.

• WI-Gov: Speaking of Scott Walker yet again, the RGA has a new ad coming out in support of said governor, but of course, NWOTSOTB. Meanwhile, a fellow who says he did “micro-targeting” for Obama in 2008, Ken Strasma of Strategic Telemetry, has a poll out which he says supports the idea that Walker could be vulnerable to a recall. And through the use of un-revealed “micro-targeting models,” Strasma also thinks that there would be more than enough people willing to sign a petition in each of the eight Republican state senate districts where senators are currently exposed to the legal possibility of a recall.

• WA-Gov: Show of hands – does anyone here think Gov. Christine Gregoire will actually seek a third term? Hey, maybe we’re all wrong, but the very fact that she’s even been entertaining the idea has already been a big enough surprise. Anyhow, Gregoire says she’ll decide by “early summer.”

Meanwhile, Democratic King County Executive Dow Constantine, whose name proverbially “came up” last December (see SSP Amazing Daily Digest, Issue #44) as Rep. Jay Inslee was seen to be holding his fire, sounds largely like a “no.” Constantine said he might “at some point be interested in an opportunity,” but “I have on my plate a few matters in King County government and I’m going to remain focused on that this year.” Of course, with Gregoire now fogging in the control tower, everyone else is probably going to be put in a holding pattern.

• CA-36: This may not be a huge surprise, but Janice Hahn said that now ex-Rep. Jane Harman was querying her about her future political plans when she was a guest of Harman’s at the State of the Union address in January (going so far as to ask Hahn whether she’d be interested in running for CA-36), then tipped Hahn about her resignation announcement hours before she made it. This helps explain Hahn’s particularly energetic burst out of the gates, but it doesn’t explain – or excuse – Debra Bowen’s anemic start. Two weeks after announcing, Bowen’s website is still nothing more than a splash page with a big “Contribute” button, and I haven’t seen a single announcement of any high-profile endorsements. Does a sitting Secretary of State really have that few friends in high places?

• FL-25: When you’ve lost Eric Cantor… the no. 2 Republican in the House was in Miami for a fundraiser, but already-doomed Rep. David Rivera was pointedly asked to stay away. Worse, Cantor said he has “concerns” about Rivera, and worse still, he was seen meeting with former state Rep. Renier Diaz de la Portilla, a possible replacement for Rivera. (Diaz de la Portilla, who served just one term in the state House a decade ago, is the brother of former state Sen. Alex, who was touted as a possible FL-25 candidate last cycle, and current state Sen. Miguel.)

• NY-13: Rep. Mike Grimm is obviously doing the sensible thing here, working with Democrats (and somewhat less-insane-than-usual Republicans) to secure funding for government programs that actually matter to New Yorkers. Money for cops = popular! Of course, “the sensible thing” has pissed off local teabaggers, which could prove a problem for Grimm as he seeks re-election.

• NY-25: The namejacking anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List is running an ad thanking Ann Marie Buerkle for her vote to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Kudos to Dave Catanese, who says the size of the buy (which includes online ads) is $75,000, and that the ad itself is expected to run 182 times. It sounds like SBA is also planning to spend another $125K running radio ads in a number of other GOP-held districts: IL-08, IL-14, NH-01, PA-07, and PA-08.

• OR-01: Another GOP name has surfaced as a possible challenger to David Wu: State Sen. Bruce Starr says he’s considering a run. I think it would be more interesting to get a sense of which Dems are likely to succeed Wu, though, since odds seem slim that a Republican will hold this seat. But of course, most Democrats aren’t saying much, and that includes DCCC chair Steve Israel. When your own party’s re-election chief says “no comment” about your future, you’re long past the point where you should be stepping aside.

• Census: The good folks at the Census Bureau will have redistricting data this week for DE, KS, NE, NC, and WY. In other census news, be very glad that Robert Groves is the director of the bureau and the guy he replaced is long-gone. Steve Murdock told the Houston Chronicle that “it’s basically over for Anglos” in Texas and that it’s a “terrible situation.” Wow.

• Crossroads GPS: Karl Rove’s dark money front organization says it’s already spent a million bucks on House race ads this year, which the DCCC “has been unable to come close to matching,” according to The Hill. The article makes reference to the David Brock-Kathleen Kennedy Towsend (oy) group that’s supposed to be the Dem answer to Crossroads, but has anyone heard a peep from “American Bridge” yet?

• Dave’s Redistricting App: Dave’s got some new census data for all you mappin’ fools to play with.

• Las Vegas Mayor: Diarist atdleft has a good roundup of ads currently in rotation in the Las Vegas mayoral race. If you haven’t been following this one, current mayor Oscar Goodman is term-limited out, and a field including two Dems (Larry Brown and Chris Giunchigliani), one Republican (Victor Chaltiel), and one independent (Goodman’s wife Carol) is vying to replace him. There’s a top-two primary on April 5th and a run-off (if no one gets 50%) on June 7th.

• Teabaggers: Even though 84 Republican freshman joined the House this January, just 11 have joined Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party Caucus – and the caucus is now actually smaller than it was when it first started. Anyhow, at least a few of these (click the link for the article) are probably sitting in blue enough territory that this decision will cause heartburn for them on the campaign trail. (But see the classic rock-and-hard-place conundrum faced by Mike Grimm in the NY-13 bullet above.)

• Twitter: The Fix compiled a list of their favorite Twitterers in all fifty states. I haven’t checked it out yet, though, so I don’t even have an opinion. But enjoy!

• FL-Sen: Here’s one way the rich & powerful are different from you and me: You can, if you’re GOP state Sen. Mike Haridopolos, manage to leave clients worth $100,000 of income and a house valued at $400,000 off of your financial disclosure forms and have it be judged “inadvertent.” Here’s another way: you get to have the people doing the judging be your friends. Indeed, the chair of the committee responsible for punishing Haridopolos, former FL GOP chair & state Sen. John Thrasher, had endorsed his senate bid just last month. When asked if he should have recused himself, Thrasher said, “Hell, no. I think that’s a total political bunch of crap from the Democratic Party of Florida. They’re used to losing, obviously.” And what’s half a million bucks between friends?

• MT-Sen, MT-Gov, MT-AL: A firm called NSON Opinion Strategy took a poll of all three Montana races for the a conservative radio host, Aaron Flint of the Northern News Network, and a conservative consulting firm, 47 North Communications. Note that despite our very early point in the cycle, they tested likely voters. Anyhow, they found Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) narrowly leading Sen. Jon Tester, 47-44, in the senate race. In the open house race, they have Republican Steve Daines on top of Dem Frankie Wilmer, 31-22 (and obviously a ton of undecideds). Incidentally, Rehberg just endorsed Daines, the only announced Republican candidate so far.

NSON also checked on the gubernatorial primaries for both parties, but there’s no suggestion of an oversample, and I’m not in the habit of reporting polls where the n is in the vicinity of 200, so you’ll have to click through if you want the numbers.

• NV-Sen: I, like you, had been wondering why in the hell Harry Reid would randomly start talking about outlawing prostitution in Nevada. But when I saw that John Ensign felt compelled to weigh in in response – he’s fer it! – I wondered if Reid might be playing a very clever deep game. Goading Ensign into running his mouth off about whoring is a pretty good trick, if you ask me.

• WA-Gov: This seems like a pretty unlikely move, what with AG Rob McKenna ready to pounce (and even Rep. Dave Reichert supposedly weighing a run), but another Republican might get into the mix. Businessman and Seattle Port Commission President Bill Bryant won’t even go so far as to say he’s “considering” the race; rather, he’s “listening” to people who have “urged” him to look at the race.

• CA-23: A great catch by Aaron Blake: Republican former LG Abel Maldonado filed paperwork with the FEC to run in Dem Rep. Lois Capps’ district. While it would be a hell of a feat for a Republican to win here – Obama won 65% of the vote here – the proverbial “source close to” Maldonado says the candidate is “pretty confident that redistricting will change that district enough” to make it competitive. We’ll see.

• CA-26: It looks like we’re finally getting the upgrade we need to successfully challenge Rep. David Dreier, and we have term limits to thank. Democratic Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, who is termed out in 2012, will kick off his campaign next week. As per the above, it’s pretty ballsy to start running when you can’t even know where you’ll be running, but unlike Maldonado, Portantino is getting off to a real start, complete with fundraiser.

• CA-36: Has anyone of any stature endorsed Debra Bowen yet? I have no idea, because her website is still just a freakin’ splash page. And I ask because two more members of Congress just endorsed Janice Hahn: Loretta Sanchez and Laura Richardson. Endorsements don’t typically mean a lot, but in this case, Hahn has really piled together an impressive roster in a very short time, which indicates her level of influence is quite strong. Meanwhile, I’m not even sure what Bowen is up to – search for her name on Google News (be sure to sort by date) and you won’t find much about her, but you’ll see plenty of stories about Hahn.

• FL-22: Hmm. So much for keeping his recruiting plans on the DL. Steve Israel’s in South Florida this week, talking with potential candidates about taking on Lunatic-in-Chief Allen West next year. It sounds like Israel’s met with ex-Rep. Ron Klein, whom West beat in November, as well as Palm Beach County Tax Collector Anne Gannon, and a guy named Patrick Murphy (no, not that Patrick Murphy), a construction executive. Israel also said he wants to talk to West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel, who is term-limited.

• NY-26: You can try to dump your gnarly tins of leftover Scozzafava-brand cat fud into a landfill, but the stench will forever linger on. The Albany Project has this awesome catch: Republican nominee Jane Corwin made the terrible, terrible error of donating $1,000 to Dede Scozzafava during her most ill-fated of congressional runs. Oh, the agony!

• OR-01: Two newspapers have already called for Rep. David Wu’s resignation: The Daily Astorian and the Eugene Register Guard, which is actually the second-largest paper in the state. Can the Oregonian be far behind? So far, though, while the chair of the Oregon GOP seems to be calling for Wu to step down, fellow Dem politicians have been very circumspect, and Wu himself said he has no interest in leaving.

• TX-15: This might help explain why Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D) has missed so many votes (40% so far): Earlier this month, he declared bankruptcy, on account of loan guarantees he made to his family’s meat company. The company itself declared bankruptcy in 2008, and though he was paid as a consultant from 2002 to 2007, Hinojosa has said he does not have managerial control over the firm.

• UT-02: Jim Matheson is on a bit of a sticky wicket. If the GOP cracks Democratic Salt Lake City when they draw their new maps, he could potentially survive – after all, he’s represented a brutal district for a decade now. But he could be given a super-red district which also includes a lot of new territory, setting him back to square one-and-a-half. Alternately, the Republicans could pack Dem voters into a single district that would actually be fairly blue – in which case the conservative Matheson might find himself vulnerable to a more liberal challenger, particularly thanks to Utah’s convention nomination process. (Recall that Matheson only pulled 55% at last year’s convention against Some Dude Claudia Wright.) One such challenger might be former SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson, who told Aaron Blake he wouldn’t rule out such a run, if the district were suitable.

• National Journal: It looks like the NJ’s senate ratings are out (though I’m not sure the complete list is publicly available yet). And guess who is tied for most conservative senator? The circle is now complete. When John McCain left us, he was but the maverick. Now he is the hackster.

• Tea Party Express: Open Secrets has an interesting analysis in which they show that no fewer than twenty different federal PACs sprang into being last cycle, but that fully 96% of all money raised was hauled in by just a single entity, the Tea Party Express. But even more fascinating to me are TPX’s final numbers. They donated $37K directly to candidates and spent $2.7 million on independent expenditures, but raised an amazing $7.6. That means that almost five million dollars went… where exactly?

• WI St. Assembly: Mark your calendars: Widely-beloved Gov. Scott Walker has set May 3rd as the date for special elections for three now-vacant Republican-held Assembly seats. (All three dudes just took jobs in the Walker administration.) The open seats are the 60th, 83rd and 94th. That last one could be interesting. Obama won only 38% & 35% of the vote in the first two districts respectively, but he took 55% in the 94th. The GOP has a 57-38 edge in the Assembly, though, so we have a long way to claw back.

• AZ-Sen: Former GOP Rep. Matt Salmon says he’s considering getting into the senate race. Salmon held current candidate Jeff Flake’s seat in the House before losing the 2002 gubernatorial race against now-DHS chief Janet Napolitano. Speaking of Flake, he was one of only three House Republicans to vote against the GOP-backed spending bill which contained $60 billion in cuts. Teabagger eyebrows were raised, but Flake claims he voted against it from the right, saying it didn’t go far enough.

• MA-Sen: Speaking of teabaggers, Scott Brown, when directly asked if he was one (okay, he was asked if he was a “tea partier”), said “No, I’m a Republican from Massachusetts”(and I drive a truck!). I maintain that a tea-fueled primary challenge to Brown is still possible.

• MO-Sen, MO-02: GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson says she won’t try to challenge Sen. Claire McCaskill. Dave Catanese thinks that Emerson’s “moderate profile” would have made it hard for her to win a primary. Also, former MO GOP chair Ann Wagner says she’s still considering the race – but, interestingly, says she also might primary Rep. Todd Akin in MO-02.

• NV-Sen, NV-02: Major bummer, sports fans: Sharron Angle says she is NOT running for president, repeat NOT running for president! Hopefully, though, this means she’ll go for the senate again, or possibly the 2nd CD.

• RI-Sen: Cranston Mayor Allan Fung says he won’t seek the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, citing the huge fundraising hurdles he’d face.

• VA-Sen: Attorney David McCormick becomes the latest Some Dude to enter the GOP nomination battle for Virginia’s open senate seat.

• WI-Gov: By now you may have already gotten wind of the AFL-CIO poll conducted by GQR on the battle in Wisconsin. It was actually two separate polls taken a few days apart, combined into one. The topline numbers for Gov. Scott Walker don’t look good – 51% job disapproval, and underwater unfavorables to the tune of a 39-49 spread.

• CA-36: The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) released a poll on the Dem primary in the race to succeed soon-to-resign Rep. Jane Harman. The numbers, from PPP, show SoS Debra Bowen leading LA city councilor Janice Hahn 33-29, and just 21-20 without leaners. Obviously there are still tons of undecideds.

Hahn also released a poll of her own, taken by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates. She refused to release toplines, claiming only that she has a “five-point lead.” Misleadingly, her poll memo says that “Hahn’s lead is larger than the survey’s margin of error.” The MoE is ±4.9%, so technically, yes, her lead is literally “larger” than the MoE, but it’s not “outside the MoE,” which is the metric people are usually concerned with. The press release accompanying the memo also repeats an amusingly idiotic line of attack on PPP, saying the PCCC survey “is not reliable given the fact that it was conducted by a robo call, rather than by an actual researcher.”

One other detail: Hahn also just picked up the endorsement of new state Sen. Ted Lieu, who won a special election last week. Lieu’s name had briefly surfaced as a possibility for the CA-36 race, too.

• CA-41: GOP Rep. Jerry Lewis, seventy-six years old and skipped over for key leadership roles after the GOP takeover of the House, won’t say yet whether he’ll seek an 18th term. Redistricting may play a big role here, as Lewis won’t benefit from another incumbent protection plan, thanks to the new independent redistricting commission CA voters approved last fall.

• NY-14: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is in New York City today, doing a fundraiser to benefit both Rep. Carolyn Maloney and the DNC. A little surprised to see Maloney benefitting from this largesse, since Reshma Saujani said she won’t try to primary Maloney again this cycle. (Then again, Reshma’s already flip-flopped on that, so maybe she’ll change her mind yet again.) I suppose it’s possible that this district’s lines will change enough to offer the possibility of a different primary challenger emerging, so this could be a defensive maneuver. Or it could just be a reward to a loyal backer.

• NY-24: Did Rep. Richard Hanna plagiarize a Cato Institute paper for an op-ed of his own in the Syracuse Post-Standard? Check it out and decide for yourself.

• NY-26: Carl Paladino, already on record as backing Jane Corwin’s candidacy before she was tapped as the nominee, officially (re-)endorsed her. Some teabagger, Lenny Roberto, also endorsed Corwin, but there’s always People’s Front of Judean/Judean Popular Front splits between these guys.

Case in point: Iraq vet (and teabagger) David Bellavia’s been calling local Conservative Party chair Ralph Lorigo, trying to scarf up the Cons’ nomination. Crazy Jack Davis has been doing the same, but Lorigo didn’t speak highly of him. Lorigo is responsible for Erie County, which carries the most weight in the 26th district. His Monroe County counterpart, Tom Cook, is the second biggest cheese, and says he’s also gotten calls from Bellavia, Corwin, and, believe it or not, nominal Dem frontrunner Kathy Hochul. Cook didn’t have kind words about Bellavia, but he noted the obvious truth: state party chair Michael Long is going to make all the decisions, and he appears to be leaning hard toward Corwin.

• OR-01: Rep. David Wu apologized for his behavior and said he’s getting treatment (including medication) for whatever ails him… but that he has no plans to step down. Meanwhile, 2010 GOP challenger Rob Cornilles (who lost by 13 points last year) is being talked up for another run but hasn’t decided yet.

• UT-02: The NRCC has an ad up (yes, already) attacking Jim Matheson over spending, but NWOTSOTB, so I’m guessing this is what Nathan Gonzales would call a “video press release.”

• Philly Mayor: Wealthy businessman Tom Knox says he won’t challenge Mayor Michael Nutter – and in fact, went ahead and endorse Nutter. It looks like the incumbent is probably set to cruise in the Democratic primary.

• Crossroads GPS: The Karl Rove dark money front group is launching a $450K radio ad buy, attacking a dozen Dems on spending and supporting ten Republicans. Full list at the link.

• AZ-Sen: After some rumors yesterday that she wasn’t getting much traction with her phoning around, DHS Sec./ex-Gov. Janet Napolitano confirmed today that she wasn’t going to run for the open Senate seat in Arizona, preferring to remain in the Obama administration. (Roll Call has a list of some of the weedier Dem possibilities, beyond the top tier of Rep. Gabby Giffords and Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon: Rep. Ed Pastor, Board of Regents vice chair Fred DuVal, former state party chair Don Bivens, 2010 AG candidate Felicia Rotellini, and current state party chair/2010 Treasurer candidate Andrei Cherny.) On the GOP side, Rep. Jeff Flake seems already positioning himself for the general while opening himself up for a challenge from the nutty right, telling the birthers to “accept reality.” Flake also just picked up an endorsement from a similar budget-focused, social-issues-downplaying prominent House member, Paul Ryan.

• IN-Sen: State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who plans to soon announce his GOP primary challenge to Richard Lugar (with next Tuesday the more-or-less official launch date), leaked a few poll numbers from an internal. He says that “just over half” of GOP primary voters are inclined to re-elect Lugar, while Lugar pulls in only 27% support among self-described tea-partiers. The poll didn’t “include” a head-to-head between Mourdock and Lugar, which I’ll assume means they aren’t reporting results that were pretty heavily in Lugar’s favor, rather than that they just accidentally forgot to poll that particular question. Here’s new one piece of ammo that tea partiers can use against Lugar to make their point that he’s gone Washington, though: a revelation that Lugar stays in a hotel when he visits Indiana (Lugar owns a farm in-state, but conditions there are “rustic”).

• PA-Sen: Quinnipiac is out with another Pennsylvania poll, one that finds Bob Casey Jr. in better shape than their previous poll, where he was in decent shape too. He beats a Generic R 45-35 (up from 43-35 in December), and his approvals are up to 44/24 (from 39/29). Voters approve of Barack Obama (51/44) and Pat Toomey (41/21) as well, in another indication of ebbing anger.

• VA-Sen: Tell the ground crew to break out the tarps, because we’ve got a Kaine delay. Ex-Gov. Tim Kaine, at the top of the Dem establishment’s wish list for the open Senate seat, is announcing that he won’t have anything to announce when he addresses tomorrow’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. He still sounds genuinely conflicted; expect an announcement “later in the month or early next month.”

• VT-Sen: He stopped well short of actually announcing anything, but Dem-turned-Republican state Auditor Tom Salmon seems to be moving apace toward an uphill challenge against Bernie Sanders, saying he’ll announce his decision on March 4 or 5. He’s looking more committed in that he’s leaving his day job: he also just announced he won’t run for another term as Auditor.

• WV-Gov: The overcrowded (and likely low-turnout) Democratic primary in West Virginia may be decided by a few thousand votes, so any possible advantage counts here. And here’s one for SoS Natalie Tenannt, the only Dem woman running: she just got the endorsement of EMILY’s List.

• CA-36: The Republicans have managed to scrape up at least one credible candidate for the special election in the dark-blue 36th, where the main battle in the top 2 primary will be fought between Democrats Janice Hahn and Debra Bowen but conceivably he could sneak into the final round if he consolidates all the district’s GOP votes. Mike Webb is City Attorney for Redondo Beach (popu. 63K).

• MN-06, MN-08: This is an interesting possibility for ex-state Sen. Tarryl Clark, who lost last year to Michele Bachmann in the GOP-leaning 6th… although it’s entirely dependent on the redistricting pen. There’s the possibility that her town of St. Cloud (to the west of the Twin Cities) may get appended to the 8th, which starts in the metro area’s northern exurbs and heads up to Duluth. A run against vulnerable GOP frosh Chip Cravaack in a Dem-leaning district in a presidential year would be a much better bet for her. The question would be, though, whether Clark would have much luck in the DFL primary if she has to run against someone from the Iron Range, which tends to be insular-minded and would still be the bulk of the district’s population.

• SD-AL, FL-02: I don’t know how many of you were pining for a 2012 rematch from Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (about which there were some rumors this week), and I really can’t imagine that any of you were hoping for a return engagement from ur-Blue Dog Allen Boyd, but it’s looking like neither one is on track to happen. Both are rumored to be about to take on K Street lobbying jobs instead, which is, of course, not the usual comeback path.  

AZ-Sen: As Dems cast about for a candidate in this newly open race, the last guy who ran for this seat is saying he won’t seek it a second time. Former state party chair (and rich guy) Jim Pederson is doing the upstanding thing by flatly declaring he’s out: “I don’t want to play a cat-and-mouse game with this U.S. Senate race.” In an age where would-be candidates drag out the “exploratory” phase with leaks of rumors of hints of tea leafs for months, Pederson’s stance is refreshing, even if it does mean a potentially strong contender won’t run. (Of lesser note, Rep. Raul Grijalva also says he’s not interested.)

Meanwhile, the Club for Growth says it’s already raised $100K for the only dude in the race so far, Rep. Jeff Flake, who just announced a few days ago.

CT-Sen: In a move that will surely disappoint Beltway hacks endlessly thirsting to write more stories about Camelot, Ted Kennedy, Jr. says he won’t seek Joe Lieberman’s open senate seat. He did note that he might consider politics in the future (he’s 50).

FL-Sen: Not really a surprise, but Rep. Connie Mack (R) is amping up his fundraising, hiring a veteran NRSC fundraiser who has also worked for Bill McCollum and Mel Martinez, Anne Ekern. Mack is also having a “major” event this Friday, which will supposedly feature  “cigars.” I assume it will also feature top hats and lighting said stogies with $50 bills.

MA-Sen: By now you’ve probably caught wind of the Daily Kos effort to draft Elizabeth Warren, the interim director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Note also that David Kravitz of Blue Mass Group, the top progressive blog in the Bay State, recently said he also supports a Warren run.

VA-Sen: It seems that everyone is trying hard to get DNC chair Tim Kaine to run for the senate seat being vacated by Jim Webb, including Barack Obama himself, who apparently talked on the phone with Kaine yesterday. (But don’t these guys talk regularly, anyhow?) Webb also said he wants Kaine to replace him. Meanwhile, ex-Rep. Tom Perriello told the Washington Post he’d consider getting in, but only if Kaine – whom Perriello said he wants to see run – doesn’t make the race.

LA-Gov: Opulence – I has it. So says Bobby Jindal, who is sitting on a $9.2 million stack of doubloons, after hauling in $3.4 million in 2010. Seeing this, Dem state Sen. President Joel Chaisson is too smart to kiss the mini-giraffe. Though he pulled in a decent-ish $180K and checked the “statewide” box on his campaign finance disclosures, Chaisson says he’s just hedging his bets in case Jindal decides to run for president instead.

OH-Gov: The douche is strong in this one: John Kasich was easily one of the schmuckiest candidates of the 2010 cycle, and one of the most obnoxious Republicans alive – which is saying a hell of a lot. Of course, he hasn’t changed one bit since his inauguration. Just check out this video of him calling a police officer who had the temerity to ticket him “an idiot” three times in sixty seconds. Listen in particular to his tone of voice at 1:07. What an asshole.

AZ-06: Here’s another Republican name in the mix to succeed the running-for-senate Jeff Flake: First-term Mesa Mayor Scott Smith.

CA-36: The endorsements just keep rolling in for Janice Hahn, who has now secured the backing of local Dem Reps. Karen Bass, Lucille Roybal-Allard, and Xavier Becerra, the last of whom is a big cheese in House leadership. So far I haven’t seen word of any big names coming out for Debra Bowen (but correct me if I’m wrong). Relatedly, for a good look at which sides the various power players might line up on, check out this piece by LA Weekly’s Gene Maddaus.

By the way, Jane Harman has now said she’ll delay her resignation until Feb. 28th at the request of Gov. Jerry Brown. That gives Brown a better chance to consolidate the CA-36 race with a budget-related special election that’s likely to be held in June – but even that date is still up in the air. In any event, if round one goes forward in June, then round two (if needed) would take place in August.

MI-05: The exact words of 81-year-old Rep. Dale Kildee (D), when asked if he’s quitting: “They’ll have to carry me out of here.” Despite having just $12K in the bank, the veteran lawmaker says he’s definitely going for another term, and that you can ignore his warchest: “I usually don’t start raising money until March, so that doesn’t mean anything.”

NY-26: Erie County Republican Chair Nick Langworthy says that he and his fellow party leaders for the seven counties which comprise the 26th CD are interviewing candidates this weekend to fill ex-Rep. Chris Lee’s seat. Since this is the fourth special election in New York in less than two years, you probably recall that nominees are selected by local party chairs, rather than in a primary. Anyhow, the GOP shortlist:

Amherst Town Supervisor Barry Weinstein; Jack Davis, a Democrat turned Republican who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Tom Reynolds for the same seat; Chris Jacobs, member of the Buffalo school board; the front-runner, Assemblywoman Jane Corwin; Dan Humiston, a businessman and owner of Tanning Bed; and Erie County lawmaker Ed Rath.

You better believe emphasis added! Oh please oh please pick Jack Davis! Anyhow, on the Dem side, it definitely looks like one speculative candidate is out: departing White House deputy press sec’y Bill Burton is starting a consulting firm, according to Politico, which you’d think would rule out a run.

SD-AL: South Dakota’s single at-large CD is one seat where we definitely won’t have to worry about redistricting, so it makes sense that Steve Israel’s reached out ex-Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin about a potential rematch against GOPer Kristi Noem. Herseth Sandlin says they’ve “traded some emails” and that she’s considering the idea – but obviously she hasn’t taken the plunge yet, since that would probably have been front-page news here.

At the same press briefing, Israel also made a good point: Dems are holding off on announcing House recruits not just because they don’t necessarily know where the lines will be drawn, but because they don’t want to give Republicans a chance to redistrict strong candidates into oblivion. RCP does report, though, that “Democratic congressmen on the recruitment team have visited 15 states on recruitment trips and made recruitment calls to candidates in another 15 states.”

State Leges: We had a few special elections the other night. In the Los Angeles area, GOPer Sharron Runner took over her husband’s seat in SD-17 in a landslide. In SD-28, Dem Ted Lieu avoided a runoff as well. Both were holds. Over in Minnesota’s Iron Range, 25-year-old Carly Melin also held a seat for Team Blue. But in a special election primary in South Carolina’s HD-64, Alvin Greene (yes, that Alvin Greene) pull just 37 votes out of 3,960 cast. Wonder if he remembered to vote for himself.

And finally, talk about overtime: The last uncalled race of 2010 was decided in court yesterday, with an appeals panel declaring Republican Thomas Kirwan the victor in New York’s 100th Assembly District. Interestingly, Kirwan is framing this as a boon to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, pointing out that Republicans now have enough votes to prevent Speaker Shelly Silver from over-riding any Cuomo vetoes.

WATN?: Ah, Tom Emmer, man of principle. Two years ago, the former GOP gubernatorial candidate was vigorously fighting Minnesota’s ban on expensive satellite radiation clinics, demanding that “market forces” be allowed to work. Now he’s a registered lobbyist with only one client… and that client has instructed him to advocated in favor of extending the very same ban. Market forces at work, indeed.

In better news, it’s always nice to see one of our guys land on her feet. Dem ex-Rep. Betsy Markey (CO-04) has landed a job with the Dept. of Homeland Security. She’ll be the “assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs.”