Tag: Charlie Rangel

• CT-Sen: Looks like the question marks that were raised a few weeks ago about all of the Linda McMahon campaign’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed in-kinds have trickled up to the FEC. They’re now requiring her to disclose the recipients of more than $567K worth of mysterious payments (for services including consulting and legal fees) made over the brief course of her campaign.

• FL-Sen: After a lot of speculation yesterday that he was fighting for his political life, today Jim Greer announced that he’s out as Florida’s state GOP chair. Greer said it was his decision (in order to “reunite” the party — although he launched a whole salvo of parting shots at the party’s right wing on the way out the door) and that Charlie Crist didn’t push him out. Still, it’s pretty clear that this is a big victory for the Rubio camp and assorted right-wing allies, for whom Greer, a moderate and key Crist ally, was one of the biggest scalps they’d hoped to claim. Greer is being replaced by state Sen. John Thrasher, a Jeb Bush ally who, while not an explicit Rubio endorser, recently attended a Rubio fundraiser.

Anybody remember that there’s still a Democratic primary going on in this race too? It’s a sleepy affair, and may be getting sleepier, based on the sputtering coming out of the camp of former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre. Campaign manager Todd Wilder has departed, although he cites family health concerns.

• SC-Sen: Lindsey Graham just keeps racking up the censure resolutions from county-level GOP organizations for being insufficiently crazy. He got dinged by the Lexington County GOP (one of the state’s largest counties, in Columbia’s suburbs), largely over his immigration and TARP positions.

• UT-Sen: Rounding out the trifecta of GOP Senatorial cat fud, the insufficiently crazy Bob Bennett pulled in his highest-profile primary challenger since AG Mark Shurtleff departed the race. As expected, attorney Mike Lee officially got into the race today, and will be running to Bennett’s right. Lee is the former counsel to ex-Gov. Jon Huntsman, and is the scion of a locally prominent family (his father is former U.S. Solicitor General and BYU president Rex Lee).

• WA-Sen: Add one more name to the list of never-before-elected retired jocks with a political itch to scratch. Former Washington Redskins end Clint Didier says that he’ll run against Patty Murray. Didier does at least have experience speaking at the local tea party rally in his native Tri-Cities (in eastern Washington), though. With her gigantic fundraising advantage, expect the five-foot-tall Murray to clothesline Didier.

• MI-Gov: With the governor’s race suddenly scrambled, Domino’s Pizza CEO Dave Brandon — an oft-rumored candidate for both Governor and Senate — said that he isn’t running for anything any time soon. He just committed to a five-year stint as the Univ. of Michigan’s athletic director.

• NY-Gov: It sounds like David Paterson will get a primary challenge even if Andrew Cuomo doesn’t step up: Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy is now publicly floating the idea of a challenge, and setting up an exploratory committee. The law-and-order, anti-immigrant Levy would be running to the right of Paterson (and probably to Cuomo’s right too, if he stuck around in a three-way scrum). Paterson still seems to be planning to stick around, and he’s getting some more verbal backing from Charlie Rangel, who’s saying that Cuomo “wouldn’t dare” run against Paterson, re-invoking the specter of Cuomo’s racially-fraught 2002 primary against Carl McCall. Meanwhile, the NYT explores the train wreck that is the campaign of GOP candidate Rick Lazio, finding him getting a lukewarm reception even from GOP audiences.

• TX-Gov: Kay Bailey Hutchison seems to be pinning her dwindling hopes in the fast-approaching GOP gubernatorial primary on a big ad blitz. She’s splurging for an ad buy during the college football championship game (which should have a big audience with the Longhorns in the game — for whom she was a cheerleader decades ago).

• AL-05, AL-Gov: In the wake of his botched public I-might-switch-races-no-I-won’t play, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ron Sparks has parted way with campaign manager Justin Saia. Not exactly the sign of a well-oiled machine, there. Meanwhile, turncoat Rep. Parker Griffith, still smarting from the resignations of almost his entire stafff, played the “excessive partisanship” card while ostensibly wishing them well yesterday.

• FL-08: Second-term state rep. Kurt Kelly made his campaign official, running against Rep. Alan Grayson in the 8th. That should come as no surprise given his previous announcements, but it’s interesting to note that now he comes at it with the endorsement of a number of the other state Reps. that the NRCC had been working on to get into the race, who seemed a little higher up their wish list: Stephen Precourt and Eric Eisnaugle. Also noteworthy: businessman Bruce O’Donoghue, who’d been sounding like the NRCC’s pick after they couldn’t find anyone else, still sounds like he hasn’t fully committed to the race; maybe he’s having cold feet with Kelly in.

• FL-10: I don’t think this is worth much weight, but the St. Petersburg Times found it newsworthy enough to mention, suggesting that there may be some conventional wisdom developing here. A local poli sci professor is convinced that long-time GOP Rep. Bill Young will announce his retirement in the next few weeks.

• FL-19: This seemed to elude almost everyone yesterday, but Rep. Robert Wexler’s resignation was official over this weekend; he heads to the helm of a Middle East peace-oriented non-profit. His resignation leaves Nancy Pelosi short one “yes” vote for the upcoming post-conference HCR vote, meaning one less seat in the lifeboat for whatever vulnerable Dem wants to take a pass.

• HI-01: Also on the resignation front, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (who’s leaving to focus on his gubernatorial run) has set an official last day in office: Feb. 28. As for a replacement, it sounds like new interim state election officer Scott Nago is looking at a special election date in May, probably an all-mail vote set for May 1. Nago said he was confident he’d find the money to hold the election (which had earlier been in doubt), although it might mean appealing asking the U.S. Election Assistance Commission for federal dollars. (I guess this means Kevin Cronin’s time in charge of Hawaii elections is over. He’ll still Keep On Loving You, though.)

• IA-03: One less retirement for the DCCC to worry about: aging Rep. Leonard Boswell confirmed that he’s sticking around and running for re-election.

• IL-10: I didn’t think that anyone other than me was making any sport out of GOP House candidate Bob Dold’s name similarities to a certain presidential candidate, and I can’t imagine anyone was actually confused. But Bob Dold actually came out with a jingle, complete with video, reminding voters that Bob Dold is different from Bob Dole.

• MN-06: Here’s a big boost for state Sen. Tarryl Clark, who’s been viewed as a strong contender against crazy Rep. Michele Bachmann but didn’t put up impressive numbers in a recent PPP poll of the 6th. She got the endorsement of EMILY’s List, giving her access to their nationwide pool of donors.

• NY-01: This is the first I’d heard of a contested GOP primary in the 1st (where the victor will take on potentially vulnerable Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop), but it suggests that the deep-pocketed Randy Altschuler is going to have to watch over his back for another well-funded rival. George Demos, a former SEC attorney who made his mark on the Bernie Madoff case, reports that he’s raised more than $300K since launching his campaign in October, from more than 400 donors.

• PA-17: After downplaying earlier reports of his interest, now it’s sounding like Republican state Sen. David Argall is going to go up against Democratic Rep. Tim Holden after all. Reportedly, he’ll be announcing his campaign next Monday. Argall (newly promoted to the Senate in a special election, after many years in the state House) gets a freebie as his seat isn’t up until 2012; he’s from Holden’s home turf of Schuylkill County in coal country, which may help limit Holden’s usually wide margins in that part of the district.

• SC-01: As things sort themselves out following the retirement announcement of endangered Republican Rep. Henry Brown, 2008 Democratic candidate Linda Ketner is sounding a little more interested than she did before his retirement. She’d previously been unenthusiastic about another race (she’d relied a lot on self-financing in her previous close race, but her finances had taken a hit in the intervening year), but now she tells the Atlantic she’ll “take the time to consider it.” Also, frequent Mark Sanford critic state Sen. Larry Grooms is one other name to add to the speculation pile on the Republican side.

• TX-18: A Democratic primary is the only way we’re ever going to see any turnover in the heavily Democratic, mostly African-American and Hispanic 18th — and we’ve actually got one on tap this year. Houston city councilor Jarvis Johnson sneaked under the finish line for Texas filings; he’ll take on long-time Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (who got into office herself with a successful 1994 primary challenge to Rep. Craig Washington).

• WA-03: State House minority leader Richard DeBolt had been on lots of watch lists as a possible GOP candidate in the open seat race in the 3rd, but today he declined to run. (He’s a rather nasty piece of work who, while having better name rec than the GOPers in the race so far, probably wouldn’t play too well outside his own dark-red slice of this swing district.) Here’s one other interesting detail: rather than endorse fellow state Rep. Jamie Herrera (whose lack of experience has left many people uneasy), he threw his endorsement behind David Castillo, a former low-level Bush administration official who’d been running long before Brian Baird’s retirement announcement.

• WV-01: I’d assumed that when state Sen. Clark Barnes got into the race for the GOP to go against entrenched Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan, the NRCC would be happy (although there’s little overlap between his turf and the 1st). But they kept looking, and now they’re loudly touting their newest recruit, businessman and former state Del. David McKinley. He can partly self-finance, which is probably what’s most attractive about him to them.

• Texas: As mentioned above, Texas had its filing deadline pass. All House members are running for re-election. In one small indication of a change in prevailing political winds, the Republicans managed to fill all the state’s House races, while Dems left 7 openings (Louie Gohmert, Ted Poe, Kevin Brady, Mac Thornberry, John Carter, and unhappily, Kenny Marchant, in a rapidly bluening suburban Dallas district, and John Culberson, who faced a strong challenge in 2008). One other filing worth note: Dems fielded a strong last-minute Land Commissioner candidate, in the form of former state Sen. Hector Uribe (not only is it good to round out a competitive slate, but the Land Commissioner is one of the members of the Legislative Redistricting Board, which will be a big issue in coming years).

• NY-St. Ass.: The blowback from the GOP civil war in NY-23 just keeps flying. A key Dede Scozzafava ally in the state Assembly, Janet Duprey, is facing a challenge from the right in this year’s GOP primary. She’s being challenged by Plattsburgh town party chair Dave Kimmel, who was a Doug Hoffman backer. Like Hoffman, if Kimmel doesn’t get the GOP nod, he’ll continue on with just the Conservative party line.

• DGA/RGA: The DGA and RGA both reported huge year-end cash hauls, as the moneyed interests are well-aware that the gubernatorial races (with redistricting fast approaching) is where the real drama will be this year. The DGA reports $23.1 million raised over 2009 and currently is sitting on $17.5 million. The RGA did even better, reporting $30 million raised in 2008, with $25 million still on hand.  

• NV-Sen: John Ensign’s once potent fundraising has gone decidedly flaccid in the wake of the Hampton affair, dwindling approval ratings, and a likelihood of not coming back in 2012. He raised less than $33K in the third quarter (and managed to spend more than that, on various legal fees and consultants).

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s fundraising for the third quarter was half of what Arlen Specter raised: $758K for Sestak (also less than half of his 2Q number), vs. $1.8 million for Specter. Take out the money that Obama raised for Specter at their fundraiser, though, and they’re close to parity on last quarter’s numbers. Meanwhile, the allegedly fiscally-disciplined Pat Toomey raised $1.6 million in 3Q, but has been burning through cash quickly, spending $861K and ending up with $1.8 million CoH.

• IL-Gov: This is good news for John McCain… ‘s former media guy. State GOP chair Andy McKenna made clear he’s going to, if nothing else, spend a lot of money on his gubernatorial campaign. He just hired ad guru Fred Davis, creator of the infamous “Celebrity” ad last summer. President McCain, of course, will confirm how well that one worked out for him.

• PA-Gov: Rasmussen polled the Democratic and Republican fields in the gubernatorial race, finding what most other pollsters have seen: AG Tom Corbett is mopping up on the GOP side, while nobody has a clue who the Democratic candidates are. Corbett leads Rep. Jim Gerlach 54-10 (with 6 for some other and 30 not sure). For the Dems, “not sure” is kicking ass at 37, followed by Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato at 19, state Auditor Jack Wagner at 14, ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel at 11, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty at 6, rich guy Tom Knox at 4, and “some other” at 10.

• VA-Gov: One last look at how the candidates are faring financially in the Virginia governor’s race. Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds raised about the same amount in September ($3.8 mil for McD, $3.5 mil for Deeds), but McDonnell enters the home stretch with a lot more cash on hand ($4.5 mil for McD, $2.8 mil for Deeds).

• FL-08: Among the contributors to liberal firebrand Rep. Alan Grayson’s one-day haul of $60K at the end of the fundraising quarter (and after his “die quickly” speech) were two prominent Blue Dogs: Reps. Bart Gordon and Collin Peterson.

• FL-19: State Sen. Ted Deutch wasted no time. The leading contender to take over FL-19 in the wake of Rob Wexler’s departure officially entered the race yesterday.

• IN-01: Nobody has really regarded long-time Democratic Rep. Pete Visclosky as vulnerable in his bluish district, but he’s laboring under an ethical cloud from his role in the PMA lobbying firm scandal, and now out $100,000 in legal fees resulting from subpoenas in the matter. He’s sitting on $916K CoH, down from $1.47 mil at this point in the 2007-08 cycle.

• NY-15: Rep. Charlie Rangel, facing some ethical problems of his own, may face another primary challenger with a famous family name: Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV (who previously ran against Rangel in 1994). With a former staffer already in the race, though, this could fracture the anti-Rangel vote and inadvertently let Rangel slip through again.

• NY-19: Looks like the free-spending Ophthalmologists’ PAC has one sure target for their largesse this cycle: Nan Hayworth, a Westchester County eye doctor, says that she’ll run for the GOP nomination. This is despite the presence of a high-profile (if somewhat questionable and controversial) recruit in the field already, Assemblyman Greg Ball. Hayworth starts with $318K CoH, half from her own wallet and half apparently from her eye doctors friends, giving her a sizable edge over Ball’s $213K CoH. The winner will face off against incumbent Dem Rep. John Hall.

• NY-20: Thursday was the official Last Day of Tedisco. Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, the loser of this year’s special election filed a notice of termination of his exploratory committee, seemingly ending any plans for a re-run in 2010.

• NY-23: Dinged by reports that the RNC wasn’t getting adequately involved in the 23rd (or involved, period), Michael Steele announced that the RNC will be making an unspecified “six-figure” contribution to the NRCC in support of efforts in the 23rd, as well as $85K to the state party. Also seeking to quell reports of civil war, Newt Gingrich — who passes for the GOP’s voice of sanity these days — went ahead and endorsed Dede Scozzafava, which may not move many votes on the ground but may move some Beltway dollars into her kitty.

• OH-16, 18: Biden alert (again)! The VP will be heading to Ohio to host a joint fundraiser for sorta-vulnerable Democratic Reps. John Boccieri and Zack Space in several weeks.

• SC-02: Rob Miller got a huge boost in his fundraising in the wake of “You lie!” and pulled in $1.7 million. Unfortunately, he seemed to peak early after an initial outpouring of support, with little follow-up with the netroots; contrast that with Rep. Joe Wilson, who continued to push his newfound celebrity with the GOP base and, despite being initially outraised, wound up the quarter with $2.7 million.

• NY-St. Sen: State Senator Hiram Monserrate was convicted yesterday of assault, but instead of the felony charge that was sought, he was only convicted of a misdemeanor — which means that he isn’t automatically out of the Senate. That means Dems are stuck with the coup-joining convict until next year’s primary… unless he resigns, something that fellow Sen. Liz Krueger is already pushing, or is expelled.

• Mayors: In not much of a surprise, Shelby County mayor A.C. Wharton won the special election to take over as Memphis mayor. His 60% share (against 24 other opponents) is pretty impressive, though. Wharton argues his margin is a mandate for his pet project, uniting Memphis and Shelby County governments into one entity.

• Polling: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has a fascinating polling memo titled “The Very Separate World of Conservative Republicans” out, based on focus groups of GOP base voters in Georgia that look at what’s driving the accelerating freakout among the hard right. The diagnosis seems to be acute paranoia with persecution complex: while few couched their viewpoint in an explicitly racist way (which may surprise some), there is a sense among them of being a “mocked minority” and a overarching sense of an Obama administration “secret agenda” to bankrupt the country and exert government control over all aspects of our lives. I don’t know if Ed Kilgore had advance knowledge of this study, but it dovetails exactly with his remarkable piece earlier this week focusing on how the roots of the screamers and teabaggers isn’t so much overtly racist as motivated by a growing out-of-control sense of loss of the ‘old ways’ (i.e. replacement of small-town, homogeneous, traditional America with a multiracial, globalized future).

• CO-Sen: Here’s an amateur-level mistake from the Bennet campaign: electioneering in the Denver public schools (where Michael Bennet used to be Supernintendo before being appointed Senator). The campaign sent mailings to a school asking for the principal’s support and fliers were given to principals at a district workshop.

• FL-Sen: The Kendrick Meek campaign is touting its own fishy poll that says that Meek leads Charlie Crist… among voters who know both of them. The lead is 45-43 for Meek among those 25% of the sample who know who the heck Meek is. In the larger sample, Crist is up 47-31.

• KS-Sen: Kansas Senate news three digests in a row? I’m as surprised as you are. Anyway, retired advertising executive and journalist Charles Schollenberger confirmed that he will run for the Senate. With seemingly no Dems higher up the totem pole interested in the race, Schollenberger may wind up carrying the flag.

• NC-Sen: It’s not quite confirmed, but the rumor mill is churning up stories that youthful former state Senator and Iraq vet Cal Cunningham is moving to formally jump into the North Carolina Senate race. SoS Elaine Marshall is already in the Democratic primary field.

• PA-Sen: There’s an unexpected fourth Democratic participant in the Senate primary all of a sudden: Doris Smith-Ribner, a recently retired Commonwealth Court (which apparently is one of two intermediate appellate courts in Pennsylvania; don’t ask me why there are two) judge for two decades. Her presence could prove nettlesome to Rep. Joe Sestak, by eating a bit into his share of liberal anti-Arlen Specter votes in what’s likely to be a close primary. (“Fourth,” you say? State Rep. Bill Kortz is running too, and has been for many months.)

• AZ-Gov: He was probably seeing the same terrible polls that everyone else was, and ex-Governor Fife Symington decided to put the kibbosh on a gubernatorial comeback. Instead, Symington endorsed not the current Governor, Jan Brewer, but one of her minor opponents, former state GOP chair John Munger.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman scored a victory of sorts with the publication of a story titled “Meg Whitman’s voting record not as bad as originally portrayed.” It turns out she was registered at several points in California in the 1980s and 1990s, but there’s still no indication that she actually voted during this period.

Meanwhile, Whitman’s primary rival ex-Rep. Tom Campbell may get a big leg up: rumors persist that he may get picked as California’s new Lt. Governor (once John Garamendi gets elected to CA-10). I’d initially thought that was a way of scraping him out of the gubernatorial primary and giving him a door prize, but it could give him a higher profile and bully pulpit to compensate for his vast financial disadvantage as he stays in the race. Campbell was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Finance Director for a while, and they operate in the same centrist space, so maybe Ahnold would do him the favor? (Of course, he’d still have to survive confirmation by the Dem-controlled legislature, who might be reluctant to promote Campbell, who they rightly see as the most dangerous general election opponent.)

• FL-Gov: It had seemed like state Sen. Paula Dockery, who threatened repeatedly during the spring to run in the GOP gubernatorial primary, had faded back into the woodwork. However, she’s front and center again today, saying that she’s “leaning toward” running and giving herself a three-week timeline (she put off the decision because of her husband’s surgery this summer). Another minor embarrassment for her primary opponent, AG Bill McCollum: the co-chair of his campaign, former state GOP chair Alex Cardenas, had to explain that, no, he didn’t actually host a fundraiser for Democratic rival Alex Sink. (It was hosted by Democratic partners in Cardenas’s lobbying firm.)

• NJ-Gov: Jon Corzine and Chris Christie have sufficiently reduced each other’s statures that the state’s largest newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger, took what may be an unprecedented step, and endorsed the independent candidate in the race: Chris Daggett. I still can’t see this giving Daggett the momentum to break 20%, but more Daggett votes are good, as they seem to come mostly out of the Christie column. Meanwhile, Chris Christie got an endorsement he may not especially want in the blue state of New Jersey — from the Family Research Council (who also just endorsed Conservative Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election). Also, Christie is living large after getting an endorsement that may carry more weight, from the New Jersey Restaurant Association.

• VA-Gov (pdf): There’s one new poll of VA-Gov to report today: Mason-Dixon, and they come in with a 48-40 edge for Bob McDonnell over Creigh Deeds, closely tracking today’s Pollster.com average of 51-43. The poll finds Deeds getting only 81% of the African-American vote (with 9% to McD), far too little, especially in combination with what PPP‘s Tom Jensen is seeing, as he teases that he’s projecting abysmal black turnout of 12% in the coming election. At any rate, Deeds is now touting his underdog status in fundraising e-mails, and is alluding to more possible visits from Barack Obama in the stretch run.

• FL-20: Here’s an understatement: Republican candidate Robert Lowry, hoping to defeat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in this D+13 district, conceded it was a “mistake” to shoot at a target labeled “DWS” while at a Southeast Republican Club gathering at a gun range.

• MN-06: As state Sen. Tarryl Clark seems to be building a fundraising and labor endorsement edge, her primary opponent for the Democratic nomination, Maureen Reed, says she won’t follow traditional decorum and abide by the DFL endorsement. Reed (a former member of the Independence Party) says she’ll keep open the option of taking the fight all the way to the primary, a reversal of her position from months earlier (although from before Clark got into the race and Elwyn Tinklenberg left). (UPDATE: The Reed campaign writes in to say that the Minnesota Public Radio story that underpins this story is incorrect and that Reed never stated whether or not she would abide by the DFL endorsement.)

• NC-11: One reddish southern district where the Republicans are still at square one on recruitment is the 11th. Businessman Jeff Miller said that he won’t challenge sophomore Dem Heath Shuler.

• NY-15: As ethics allegations take a toll against long-time Rep. Charlie Rangel, he’s getting a primary challenge… from his former campaign director. Vince Morgan, now a banker, says “it’s time for a change.”

• OH-17: Republicans may have found someone to run in the 17th against Rep. Tim Ryan: businessman and Air Force vet Bill Johnson, who’s now exploring the race and will decide in December. Ryan probably isn’t too worried, as he’s won most of his races with over 75%, in this D+12 district.

• PA-04: Pennsylvania Western District US Attorney Mary Buchanan is reportedly considering running as a Republican against Dem sophomore Jason Altmire. (Hopefully she isn’t violating the Hatch Act too much while she considers it.) Buchanan was one of the USAs who weren’t fired in the Bush-era purge (in fact, she allegedly helped consult on the list of those who were fired). State House minority whip Mike Turzai has been reputed to be the GOP’s desired recruit here, but Buchanan’s flack says that Turzai is focused on winning back GOP control of the state House in 2010 instead.

• PA-11: Attorney and hedge fund manager Chris Paige is the first Republican to take on Paul Kanjorski (or Corey O’Brien, if Kanjorski goes down in the Dem primary). Still no word on whether Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta is interested in yet another whack at the race.

• Supreme Courts (pdf): News from two different state supreme court races? Sure, why not. In Pennyslvania, there’s another Dane & Associates poll out, of a hotly contested 2010 race for a state supreme court seat; Democrat Jack Panella leads Republican Joan Orie Melvin 38-35. Also, in Texas, Democrat Bill Moody, who came close to winning a seat in 2006 (better than any other Dem statewide candidate that year), will try again in 2010, and he has an interesting new campaign gimmick: he’s going to tour the state in a big orange blimp.

• CA-Sen: Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has announced that she’s forming an exploratory committee to start raising funds for a possible run against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer next year. It’s still a bit amazing to me that someone like Fiorina, whose management practices were roundly criticized during her troubled leadership of HP, is being considered a serious Senate candidate… but I guess the ability to self-fund a Senate campaign in California buys all the cred you need with the NRSC these days.

• FL-Sen: Add another pair of names to the ever-growing list of possible interim Senators under consideration to be appointed by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Crist will interview state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, the sole African-American Republican in the Florida legislature, and University of North Florida President/ex-Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney today.

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Businessman Chris Kennedy, whose interest in running for office next year appeared to be on the wane in recent weeks, announced yesterday that he won’t run for the Democratic gubernatorial or Senate nomination next year. That leaves the Senate primary in the hands of state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and Chicago Urban League President/ex-Blagojevich aide Cherlye Jackson; the gubernatorial nomination is set to be an expensive fight between incumbent Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes.

• MD-01: GOP state Sen. E.J. Pipkin, who helped play spoiler in last year’s House primary that saw the defeat of incumbent Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, is staying coy about a possible run against Democratic frosh Rep. Frank Kratovil in 2010. Pipkin says that he’ll make a decision “relatively soon”, but reminds us that the definition of “relatively soon” is highly flexible. National Republicans are currently closing ranks around the man who screwed the pooch for Team Red last year, state Sen. Andy Harris.

• NC-08: NRCC recruitment chair Kevin McCarthy is continuing his magical mystery tour of the nation, and is currently scouring the great state of North Carolina in the hopes of wrangling a few challengers in Dem-held districts, including one to challenge class of ’08 member Larry Kissell. McCarthy says that he doesn’t think the party will fall back on ex-Rep. Robin Hayes, but Hayes himself still says his plans for 2010 are still “undetermined”.

• NV-03: The NRCC has finally found its huckleberry to challenge freshman Rep. Dina Titus in the Las Vegas suburbs. John Guedry, a former VP at Nevada’s City National Bank, filed his statement of candidacy this week to try his hand at this D+2 district. While DC Republicans seem content to run the neophyte Guedry, he may face a contested primary from former Clark County GOP chair Brian Scroggins.

• NY-15: State Sen. Bill Perkins is denying reports that he’s planning on challenging longtime Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel in a primary contest next year, saying that a run for Congress is “not on the agenda” right now. Roll Call rattles off a small band of local officeholders who might be interested, though, including NYC Councilwoman Inez Dickens, state Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, Councilman Robert Jackson, Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV and Assemblyman Keith Wright.

• SC-Gov: The crowded race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in South Carolina got slightly leaner this weekend when state House Minority Leader Harry Ott terminated his candidacy. Yesterday, he announced that he’s endorsing state Senator Vincent Sheheen for the nod.

• UT-Gov: Newly-installed Republican Gov. Gary Herbert faces a special election next year for the right to earn the remainder of Jon Huntsman, Jr.’s term, but the path to get there just got a little bit clearer. Kirk Jowers, a prominent Utah political scientist who had lined up the support of several powerful state legislators (as well as an estimated $6-8 million campaign budget), announced yesterday that he won’t challenge Herbert at next May’s GOP nominating convention. Herbert could still face a challenge from a number of candidates highlighted by CQ, including two state senators, John Valentine and Steve Urquhart, and state House Speaker David Clark.

• WI-03: Roll Call takes a look at the potential field that could emerge if Democratic Rep. Ron Kind bails from the House in order to run for Governor next year. While state Sen. Dan Kapanke is already in the race for the GOP, he could have company in the Republican primary from state Rep. Michael Huebsch and state Rep. Kitty Rhoades. For the Democrats, the early favorite for the nomination appears to be state Rep. Jennifer Shilling, a La Crosse-area pol with some significant fundraising prowess.