Tag: Melissa Bean

Senate:

• AZ-Sen: So what the heck happened with Trent Franks? The Arizona Guardian is reporting that the Republican Congressman had been promising people jobs on his pending Senate campaign, and that his people had even gone so far as to ensure proper media risers were available at the hotel where Franks was supposed to make his big announcement. Yet it all vanished in a heartbeat when Franks unexpectedly pulled the plug. Says the Guardian: “The good thing is, there’s still another year-and-a-half to get the full story before the 2012 elections.” Also, in case you haven’t seen it yet, Dave Catanese penned a piece explaining the backstory on how he got burned by Franks’ consultant. It just adds to all the weirdness.

• FL-Sen: Tucked inside that Quinnipiac poll which showed tough numbers for Obama was this nugget:

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who like Obama is on the 2012 ballot, is in better shape, with a 47-26 percent approval rating, a 43-39 percent lead over an unidentified Republican and voters saying 43-35 percent that he deserves another term in the Senate.

• MI-Sen (PDF): A week or so ago, Republican-affiliated pollster Market Research Group offered some better-than-everyone-else approval ratings for Gov. Rick Snyder. Apparently, they also polled the Senate race at the same time, pitting Dem Debbie Stabenow against Some Dude Randy Hekman. Amusingly, the polling memo says the Senator has a “slim” 11-point lead over Hekman, 45-34. But the real problem is the sample, which is 26 R, 26 D, 43 I – in other words, nothing like reality.

MRG also polled a hypothetical state Supreme Court matchup between incumbent Supreme Court Justice Brian Zahra and former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, which had Zahra up 38-33. (Moving from the statehouse to the high court is not unheard of in Michigan.) Speaking of Granholm, she was supposedly under consideration to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Board but says she withdrew her name (and likes Elizabeth Warren for the job). It sounds like Granholm is keeping pretty busy, and the article notes she’s teaching at UC Berkeley, so perhaps she’s enjoying the weather out in Cali a bit more than back home. But Granholm is a former state AG and was even supposedly a possible Supreme Court pick, so perhaps a judicial run is plausible.

• PA-Sen: Sam Rohrer, the teabaggy ex-state Rep. who got pounded by Tom Corbett in the PA-Gov GOP primary last year, says he’s “50-50” on running against Bob Casey this cycle. Rohrer has the perfect pedigree: He runs the Pennsylvania chapter of the malevolent David Koch front group Americans for Prosperity.

• VA-Sen: Passed along without comment:

NBC 4’s reporter-anchor Craig Melvin is a tall African-American. Which apparently led to this exchange with former Sen. George Allen, according to Melvin’s Twitter account Tuesday night:

“For the 2nd time in 5 months, fmr. gov. and sen candidate George Allen asks me,”what position did you play?” I did not a play a sport.”

Actually, I changed my mind. If you still don’t think George Allen is a racist fuck, read this coda from ThinkProgress writer Lee Feng. And no, Allen didn’t apologize – he offered a classic bullshit “I’m sorry if I offended you” response. That’s bullshit.

Anyhow, Roanoke College released a poll of the race, showing Allen leading Tim Kaine by 45-32 – a rather different picture than what we saw from PPP. However, the WaPo ran an above-the-item update warning readers to be “cautious” about this survey because “[r]esults were adjusted only for gender, and the resulting sample is not representative of Virginia’s racial composition, its age structure or regional population densities.” It also looks like the horserace question was asked after about a bajillion issue-related questions (PDF), some of them kind of weird.

Finally, in Some Dude news… some other Some Dude (an African-American minister named Earl Jackson) decided to get into the GOP primary, a race with a lot of Some Dudes already in it.

Gubernatorial:

• GA-Gov: PPP did a re-do poll in Georgia, too, and found Dem ex-Gov. Roy Barnes would edge actual Gov. Nathan Deal by a single point today, 46-45. Tom says that this isn’t a case of voter disgust with Deal (he has pretty meh ratings, not downright radioactive ones like Scott Walker), but rather a clear sign of last year’s enthusiasm gap that will forever haunt us. There’s also a smorgasbord of other Peach State odds-and-ends at the link.

• KY-Gov: Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is out with his first radio ads of the campaign, touting his small-town roots, a week after his likely Republican opponent, David Williams, also went up on radio. Unlike Beshear, Williams faces a primary on May 17th, so he’s also going up on cable TV with a new ad you can watch here. NWOTSOTB for any of these.

• MS-Gov: Turns out PPP did in fact test the Republican gubernatorial primary in Mississippi. Click through if you really, really care. (Hint: You won’t.)

• UT-Gov: State Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, a teabagger fave to challenge immigration apostate Gary Herbert for the governor’s mansion, says on Facebook that he has “no plans or intentions to run.” (Yes, it would be more awesome if his name were Stephen Sandstorm.)

• WV-Gov: In case you weren’t sure where all the players in the Democratic primary field stand on the ideology spectrum (something we’ll be rectifying with a more in-depth post shortly), this is a helpful guidepost: Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin was endorsed by the WV Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber also endorsed the only two legit Republicans running, Betty Ireland and Bill Maloney.

House:

• CA-26, CA-06: Assemblyman Anthony Portantino is getting some high-profile fundraising help: Steve Israel is coming out to Pacific Palisades this weekend for a breakfast event. The same piece also notes that Assemblyman Jared Huffman raised $120K for a federal account in Q1; Huffman is interested in 73-year-old Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s seat, if she retires. Woolsey apparently will decide whether to seek another term by June.

• FL-25: Idiot.

• IL-08: I’m not exactly broken up by this news: Ex-Rep. Melissa Bean, whose race was the closest in the nation last year (she lost by 290 votes to a real piece of work), says she won’t run again. She’s now CEO of something called the Executives Club of Chicago, which doesn’t really give off a man-of-the-people vibe, now does it?

• MI-09: If there’s one guy repeatedly written off as a redistricting victim who I’d really love to see find a way to survive, it’s Rep. Gary Peters. Despite what must have been an exhausting last several years raising money, the Michigan Dem wasted no time getting right back into the game, pulling in over $400K in Q1. He has half a mil on hand.

• NM-01: This Roll Call piece (also linked below in a redistricting item) mentions a few Dem names we hadn’t discussed here before: state Rep. Al Park, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, and Bernalillo County Commissioner Michelle Lujan Grisham, who lost the 2008 primary for this seat.

• NY-13: Ex-Rep. Mike McMahon will join the “government relations” (i.e., lobbying) group at a mid-sized NYC law firm. He’s apparently being brought on as “counsel” status, rather than as a partner, so this could just be a way-station to allow him to pay the bills as he weighs a re-match… but of course, he risks getting hit with the lobbyist taint.

• PA-17: Activist Sheila Dow-Ford confirms the rumors that she’s considering another run against Rep. Tim Holden, against whom she took 35% in the Democratic primary last year. Holden could get a bluer district when all is said and done, so a challenge from the left is a real possibility – but as Dow-Ford herself notes, others are interested, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some bigger-name candidates got in if the seat became markedly more Dem.

• UT-02: Huh – I can’t exactly accuse the Salt Lake Tribune of burying the lede, since they put this in the second graf, but Rep. Jim Matheson says he’s waiting to see what the new district lines look like before deciding whether to run again, or instead if he’ll seek statewide office. A statewide run doesn’t seem like a particularly appealing escape hatch, but both Gov. Gary Herbert (see item above) and Sen. Orrin Hatch could wind up damaged by teabaggers, so you never know. A couple of other statewide offices Matheson could see (Treasurer, Auditor) are up as well.

Also, Some Dude Chuck Williams, an Air Force vet who lost a couple of GOP primaries for Congress… in California… says he plans to challenge Matheson for his House seat, and that he’ll run regardless of where the lines get drawn.

• VA-11: Via FEC Kenobi, Some Dude Christopher Perkins just filed as a Republican to challenge Gerry Connolly. That’s a pretty un-Google-able name, so I can’t tell you much about him… though I do know his home is worth $743,130!

• WV-01: Freshman Rep. David McKinley (R), who won a close race last year, says he’s raised over half a mil in the first quarter. Note, though, that he still has $670K in campaign debt from last cycle.

Other Races:

• Allegheny Co. Exec.: PoliticsPA, via Municipoll, has a race out on the Allegheny, PA County Executive’s race. I’m gonna admit straight off the bat that I don’t know the players here, but click through for details.

• IN-SoS: So a judge allowed a Dem challenge to SoS Charlie White’s eligibility to serve in office to proceed, but really, you just need to read Bob Bobson’s summary of where things stand – and where things will head now. (Bob’s been doing an awesome job of staying on top of this oftentimes-complicated story, so pay attention to him.)

• Champaign, IL Mayor: Here’s a nice little election result that we otherwise missed: The avowedly teabagging mayor of Champaign, Illinois was narrowly defeated by a political newcomer on Tuesday night, the first time, in fact, that he’d ever been opposed in 12 years in office. I’m a little surprised that the university town of Champaign would have elected such a wingnut in the first place, but this is still good news.

• Specials: Johnny Longtorso:

Democrat Kevin Johnson won a 5-point victory over Republican Sonny Sanders in South Carolina’s HD-64.

[On whether this seat was supposedly a Dem stronghold:]

I took another look at it; it’s almost all of a county that Obama got around 56% in along with one or two precincts of an adjacent county, and it’s about 50/50 white/black, so black turnout may have been low. So he just did a few points worse than Obama’s numbers in 2008.

• Wisconsin Recall: Dems filed over 22,000 signatures to recall state Sen. Randy Hopper yesterday. Republicans claim they are close to filing petitions for Sen. Robert Wirch, one of the more endangered Dems on the list.

Remainders:

• WATN?: Ethan Hastert, son of ex-Speaker Denny the Hutt and victim of a genuinely impressive teabagger-fueled anybody-but-Ethan movement to deny him the GOP nomination in IL-14 last year, has managed to win elective office this year. He earned a council seat in the village of Elburn, IL, which has a population that is actually a few thousand smaller than my census tract. Don’t call it a comeback!

Redistricting Roundup:

• Arkansas: Total impasse: The state House rejected the state Senate’s congressional redistricting plan, complementing the Senate’s recent rejection of the House plan. Some procedural maneuvers may be used to try to get things moving forward again, which lawmakers are probably eager to do, since the legislative session was scheduled to end over a week ago.

• California: Look, it’s basically impossible to find a law firm that knows anything about redistricting which has never had any prior political involvement. So I don’t understand why it’s coming as a surprise that Gibson Dunn, the firm hired by the redistricting commission, has a political fund and has used it to make donations. Oh wait, I think I do – it’s because most (but by no means all) of those donations were made to Democrats, so the GOP is continuing its plan to do everything it can to “discredit” the entire process. It’s especially silly, because the firm specifically tasked one Dem attorney and one Republican attorney to lead the effort… but then again, the GOP is especially silly.

• Louisiana: Nathan Gonzales has a good piece untangling the wreck that is Louisiana redistricting, and offering some insight into the behind-the-scenes process. I strongly encourage you to click through the link for the full flavor. (As an inducement, there’s a bowl full of cat food inside.) Apparently, a compromise plan is in the works, but Nathan says that if an agreement isn’t reached by next week, the lege will have to wait until next year to finish its work. (They can’t call a special session?) Anyhow, like I say, read the whole thing.

• New Mexico: Though legislators won’t hold a special session on redistricting until the fall, apparently a plan is brewing among Democrats to excise GOP-leaning Torrance County from the 1st CD. The problem, though, is that while Dems control the lege, Gov. Susana Martinez is, of course, a Republican – a very similar situation to the last round of map-drawing in 2001, which eventually ended up in court.

• Texas: You can play with various Texas map proposals at the link.

• Virginia: Two Virginia items. First, the House of Delegates approved the Republican gerrymander for that body, though most Democrats were actually stupid enough to vote in favor of the plan. (Hasn’t anyone ever heard of a symbolic protest vote to at least signal to your supporters that you know you’re getting the shaft, even if it’s for the greater good?) Second, a (the?) congressional plan was released, and it’s potentially not as bad as it could be. Have a look-see.

The counting is finally over:

By a miniscule margin of 292 votes, GOP challenger Joe Walsh emerged Tuesday as the apparent winner over U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean in their nail-biting 8th District congressional race.

Walsh, a Tea Party-backed conservative, led the three-term Democrat by 347 votes at the beginning of the day, but absentee and provisional ballots tallied Tuesday by election officials narrowed that margin even further.

There’s no word on whether Bean will seek a recount, but she has a press conference scheduled for tomorrow. Walsh, whose campaign was most noted before election day for its dramatic implosion, looks primed to be a one-term wonder before he meets the buzz-saw of the Democratic-controlled redistricting machine in Illinois.

UPDATE: Via the comments, Bean has conceded.

Recounts: The Hill reports that the DCCC has sent staffers to assist with recount efforts in California, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina and Washington state. One state is notably not on the list, and I think that says a lot: Texas. Check out our TX-27 item below for more.

AK-Sen: Here’s the schedule: Absentee ballots (30,500) will start getting counted today. Tomorrow, write-ins (83K) will be talled. And provisional ballots (12,000) will be opened on Friday. Joe Miller needs to find a way to disqualify over 13,000 write-ins to have a shot (as things stand now) – or pray that people wrote in someone other than Lisa Murkowski. Interestingly, the NRSC is still backing Miller’s play, with Big John Cornyn and Jim “Crème” DeMenthe both sending fundraising emails on his behalf to help with recount efforts. Meanwhile, for her part, Murkowski has brought in notorious GOP hatchet man Ben Ginsburg. You may remember Ginsburg from such recounts as “Florida 2000: The Brooks Brothers Riot” and “Dickface Norm Coleman’s Dickfaced Adventure: The Whinening.” A little late-breaking cat fud!

MN-Gov: Though he trails Dem Mark Dayton by more than 8,700 votes, Tom Emmer (through his lawyer) says he won’t forego a recount. Cynical (i.e., sensible) observers imagine that Emmer will pursue even a hopeless recount just to give GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty some more time in office. With the state lege having just flipped to the Republicans, this would give the right-wing wrecking crew some unfettered time at the controls. The incoming state House Speaker, Kurt Zellers, says that even if this scenario came to pass, the Republicans would not “rush to ram something right through.” Of course, you trust him, right?

CA-11: Dem Rep. Jerry McNerney’s lead over David Harmer has now climbed to 804 votes. A judge also rejected GOP demands that the elections chief for Contra Costa County allow observers to “compare signatures on vote-by-mail ballots with voter affidavit signatures on file in the office.” (The Contra Costa portion of the 10th CD went for Obama 56-43.)

CA-20: Republican Andy Vidak has seen his lead shrivel to just 145 votes… but it’s Dem Rep. Jim Costa who is in the driver’s seat. Huge numbers of ballots remain to be counted in Fresno County (perhaps 50 to 70K), and the Fresno part of this district went for Obama by a two-to-one ratio. Hard to see how Vidak hangs on.

IL-08: Though she picked up 188 votes last week, Rep. Melissa Bean (D) still trails Jim Walsh by 350. According to the AP, “hundreds of provisional and absentee ballots are still being counted in Cook, McHenry and Lake counties,” but the count won’t be finalized any sooner than Nov. 16th, the deadline for absentees to arrive. Provisional ballots will get counted after that date. In related barf-inducing news, unnamed sources (aka “buzz,” according to Politico) are supposedly floating Bean’s name to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Board if she doesn’t pull this one out. Gack!

KY-06: Andy Barr is down 649 votes to Rep. Ben Chandler (D), but he won’t concede until after a recanvass (scheduled for Nov. 12th) is complete. Barr vaguely sounded like he might be interested in a rematch, saying “”the cause will continue… and you can count on me whether I’m in Congress, a citizen, or a candidate for Congress.”

NC-02: A lot of roundups keep forgetting this race, but Dem Rep. Bob Etheridge has not conceded to Renee Ellmers – and in fact, he’s already filed a request for a recount. As long as the margin stays under 1% (as it is now), Etheridge is automatically entitled to have the votes tallied a second time. Even so, the gap right now is quite wide – 1,646 votes – but it seems like Dems are pinning their hopes on more errors like the one on election night, where Samson County failed to report votes from three of four early voting sites. Once these were added to the tally, Etheridge gained 453 votes. Still, he’s got a long way to go.

NY-01: Dem Rep. Tim Bishop’s lawyers are apparently headed to court today, seeking a full hand recount of all the ballots cast in this race. (And he’s raising money for the cause, too.) As you will recall, Bishop had a 3,400-vote lead on election night, but somehow that has since swung all the way to a 383-vote advantange for Randy Altschuler. New York finally moved to a modern, scantron-type ballot system this year; problems with the transition are being blamed for all kinds of issues. As for absentees, Hotline says: “There are approximately 10,000 absentee ballots still to be counted; 4,200 from voters of parties that endorsed Altschuler and 3,900 from voters of parties that endorsed Bishop.”

NY-25: Dem Rep. Dan Maffei trails Ann Marie Buerkle by 659 votes, but the AP says that “more than 7,000 absentee and other ballots remain outstanding and most won’t be counted until Nov. 15.” Also note that military and overseas ballots have until Nov. 24th to come in, which could be a factor if the race tightens. However, an analysis in AuburnPub.com suggests that if the absentees follow the same pattern as votes cast on election day, Buerkle’s lead will actually increase a bit.

TX-27: Dem Rep. Solomon Ortiz is gearing up to request a recount, but this one looks pretty hopeless. There are fewer votes remaining to be counted (and this includes provisionals, which are subject to getting tossed) than separate Ortiz from Blake Farenthold. Oritz is alleging irregularities at the polls, but local officials haven’t heard any such reports.

VA-11: As we mentioned yesterday, Republican Keith Fimian is conceding the race to Rep. Gerry Connolly.

WA-02: As we mentioned yesterday, the AP has called the race for Dem Rep. Rick Larsen over John Koster.

AK-Sen: Right now, write-ins account for 41% of the vote in Alaska, while Joe Miller has 34% and Scott McAdams 24%. State election officials have bumped up the start of the write-in count to Nov. 10th (from Nov. 18th). Murkowski is one of 160 declared write-in candidates, but obviously quite a few write-ins ballots would have to be spoiled, or for other candidates, for her to lose.

WA-Sen: Patty Murray’s lead widened to 1.6% as votes were counted in the populous Democratic stronghold of King County. The trends look poor for Dino Rossi, who took 40% here in 2004 (when he almost tied Christine Gregoire in the gubernatorial race), but is now at 37% this year.

CT-Gov: Yikes – the AP withdrew its call for Dem Dan Malloy. This one could get seriously topsy-turvy. Whatever the hell is going on here might also impact Jim Himes (vs. Dan Debicella) in CT-04. Not good.

MN-Gov: With 100% of precincts reporting, Dem Mark Dayton holds an 8,854-vote lead over Republican Tom Emmer, within the half-percent margin which would prompt an automatic recount. No recount can start until after Nov. 23rd, when the vote is certified. Note that Norm Coleman’s election-day lead was just 725 votes in 2008. So even though GOP lawyers are already laying in a supply of amphetamines, it’s possible the Republicans will abandon what looks like a futile effort.

IL-Gov: Man, did anyone dig a mangier rabbit out of a shabbier hat than Pat Quinn? After a day of counting more votes in Cook County (Chicago), Quinn’s lead has expanded to 19,000 votes, and Republicans are getting ready to throw in the towel on behalf of Bill Brady. Pretty amazing, for a guy who seemed DOA just a couple of months ago.

OR-Gov: As we noted yesterday, various media sources have called the race for Dem John Kitzhaber over Chris Dudley.

AZ-07: As we noted yesterday, Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva has declared victory over Ruth McClung, with a 3% lead. A Grijalva spokesman said that the remaining ballots are in Pima County, which favors Dems.

AZ-08: Dem Rep. Gabby Giffords leads by 2,349 votes over Jesse Kelly, but again, Pima – they have some 47,000 votes still outstanding. Pima was one of only four counties to go for Kerry – and for Obama, too.

CA-11: With an unclear number of votes left to be counted, Dem Rep. Jerry McNerney has inched into a 121-vote lead over David Harmer. It’ll take four weeks for the vote to get certified, at which point the loser can seek a recount (at his own expense).

CA-20: Dem Rep. Jim Costa trails Andy Vidak by almost 2,000 votes, but there may be something like 30,000 uncounted ballots from Fresno County, which Costa won on e-night by a 2-to-1 margin. So maybe we’ll get lucky here.

IL-08: With 100% of the vote in, Dem Rep. Melissa Bean is trailing in a shocker to Jim Walsh by 553 votes. She isn’t conceding yet, though.

KY-06: With 100% of votes counted, Dem Rep. Ben Chandler has a 619 vote lead over Andy Barr. Barr has until next Tuesday to request a “recanvass,” which would be completed by Nov. 12th. Barr could then ask for a formal recount, but he’d have to foot the bill.

NY-25: Really barfy: As we noted yesterday, Republican Ann Marie Buerkle has moved into the lead, after late results from Wayne County came in. She’s now up by 659 votes. Some 8,300 absentee ballots have been returned so far (out of 11,600 requested), though more are trickling in. Maffei would have to pull in something like 54% or so out of the absentees to pull this one out.

TX-27: It’s looking pretty bad for Dem Rep. Solomon Oritz, who trails Blake Farenthold by 799 votes with 100% in. Farenthold has declared victory, but Ortiz claims his legal team is conducting a review and that he may seek a recount – which he would have to pay for (unless it changes the final results). And check out how far the apple has fallen from the tree:

Farenthold is grandson of Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, a Democrat who served two terms in the state House and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1972. That same year, she finished second in balloting to become George McGovern’s vice presidential candidate at the Democratic convention.

VA-11: With 100% of precincts reporting, Dem Rep. Gerry Connolly leads Keith Fimian 111,621 to 110,696. The vote will get certified on Nov. 22nd, at which time Fimian can seek a recount if the margin remains less than half a percent (recounts are not automatic).

WA-02, WA-09: As we noted yesterday, a number of media outlets have called the 9th CD race for Dem Rep. Adam Smith over Dick Muri. Meanwhile, Rick Larsen has taken his first lead over John Koster, albeit a narrow one (30% of votes remain to be counted).

• CA-Sen (pdf): The apparently nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California has put out another statewide poll, and the numbers look very similar to those in the Field Poll last week. Barbara Boxer is in a dead heat with Tom Campbell, down 44-43, and not faring much better against Carly Fiorina, where Boxer leads 44-43. (She led Campbell by 4 and Fiorina by 8 two months ago.) Boxer’s doing better against Chuck DeVore, with a 46-40 edge. The big change from the Field Poll is that PPIC finds Fiorina actually in the lead in the GOP primary, the first pollster to see that in a while; she’s up 24-23-8, an improvement from January’s 27-16-8 Campbell edge. Are reluctant social conservatives getting off the fence and behind Fiorina, sensing DeVore isn’t gaining traction? Or did the Demon Sheep ad actually sway some ovinophobic voters?

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway’s on the air with a TV spot in the wake of the health care vote, trying to get some mileage out of Democratic primary opponent Dan Mongiardo’s stated opposition to the bill that passed.

• NY-Sen-B: Wall Street exec David Malpass, fresh off his smashing success as chief economist of Bear Stearns, looks like he’s doubling down on trying to be the GOP nominee to go against Kirsten Gillibrand. He’s promising $1 million of his own money to kick-start his campaign, where he first needs to get out of a primary against Bruce Blakeman and Joe DioGuardi.

• UT-Sen: It’s all still anecdotal, but the preliminary reports for how caucus night went for Bob Bennett sound pretty bad. Observers report strong anti-Bennett sentiment in general, although what might save him is that there was no coalescing behind any of his particular challengers. Turnout was maybe twice that of caucuses two years ago, suggesting a highly-motivated anti-Bennett base.

• CA-Gov (pdf): PPIC also has California gubernatorial numbers, again similar to the last Field poll. Meg Whitman’s outspending of Jerry Brown by a 200:1 margin or so is definitely paying temporary dividends, as she’s leading the gubernatorial race 44-39 (up from a 41-36 Brown lead two months ago). Brown leads Steve Poizner 46-31, basically unchanged from two months ago, suggesting this change is pretty Whitman-specific and not an across-the-boards phenomenon; Whitman leads Poizner 61-11.

• GA-Gov: Republican Governor Sonny Perdue is engaging in a remarkable end-run around Democratic AG Thurbert Baker, appointing a “special attorney general” to join in the suit against the health care reform brought by Republican AGs after Baker refused to do so and called it “political gamesmanship.” If nothing else, the fireworks between Perdue and Baker ought to raise Baker’s profile (who’s currently lagging in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, but might be poised to make an impact if he switched to the mostly-vacant Senate race).

• MA-Gov: Here’s some trouble for independent gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill: the SEC has charged that John Kendrick, an executive with Southwest Securities, won $14 billion in bond deals after co-sponsoring a fundraiser for Cahill. That’s a violation of federal rules against contributions to officials who oversee bond sales. The SEC says that the Cahill campaign (which is returning the contributions) didn’t break any laws by accepting the money, though.

• OH-Gov, TX-Sen: Two more GOPers who still seem to be charging full speed ahead on “repeal” are Ohio’s John Kasich and, more interestingly, John Cornyn, who’d been cited in Ezra Klein‘s piece yesterday, on the GOP’s rapidly dialed-down rhetoric, as supporting only piecemeal tinkering but now seems to be reversing course again.

• WY-Gov: Whoops, that was a short-lived candidacy-to-be. Wyoming Democrats looking for a gubernatorial candidate are back to square one after attorney (and gubernatorial progeny) Paul Hickey reversed course and said “no” to a run.

• CO-07: Tom Tancredo weighed in with an endorsement in the Republican primary field in the 7th and, guess what… he endorsed the white guy. He gave the nod to former John McCain campaign official Lang Sias, despite Tancredo’s general antipathy toward all things McCain.

• HI-01: State Sen. Colleen Hanabusa is finally making some moves in the special election to replace resigned Rep. Neil Abercrombie. She’s out with her first TV ads, for the all-mail-in election with a May 22 deadline.

• NY-13: More blowback for Rep. Mike McMahon for his “no” vote on HCR, which could cost him the Working Families ballot line and/or get him a primary opponent. NYC council speaker Christine Quinn has backed out of a previously planned fundraiser for McMahon, citing his vote.

• SC-05: The NRCC seems to be feeling confident about state Sen. Mick Mulvaney, their challenger to Rep. John Spratt in the reddish 5th. They’ve promoted him to the 2nd level (“Contender”) in their 3-tiered fundraising pyramid scheme for challengers.

• Illinois: We Ask America seems to be taking great pains to confirm that, yes, they really are a legitimate pollster. I don’t know if they’re helping their case by releasing results with two significant digits, but they have a lot of Illinois House race data; we’ll leave it to you to decide how much salt you want to apply. Perhaps weirdest, they have teabagging businessman Joe Walsh leading Melissa Bean in IL-08 by 38.33%-37.61%. They also have leads for GOPers in the 11th (Adam Kinzinger leads Debbie Halvorson 42-30, way worse than Kinzinger’s own recent internal) and the 14th (Randy Hultgren leads Bill Foster 38-36), while Dems lead in the 10th (Dan Seals beats Bob Dold 40-37) and the not-on-the-radar 17th (Phil Hare leads pizza parlor owner Bobby Schilling 39-32).

• CA-Init: It’s been confirmed that the initiative to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana in California has qualified for the ballot in November. A 2009 Field Poll shows such an initiative could actually pass, with 56% of Californians supporting such an initiative. Of course, it’s unclear how such a change in state law would mesh with federal law, but if nothing else, it may help motivate a lot of bong-toting slackers to get off their couches to vote in November who otherwise might not vote (and cast votes for Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer while they’re at it).

• DCCC: Freshman Rep. Jared Polis has been a strong fundraiser (and has his own fortune, too), and he’s looking to spread the wealth. His joint fundraising committee, the Jared Polis Majority Fund, has already distributed $400K this spring to the DCCC, to vulnerable incumbents (Frank Kratovil, Betsy Markey, Scott Murphy, Bill Owens, Tom Perriello, Harry Teague, Dina Titus), and to four up-and-comers (Ami Bera, Steve Pougnet, John Carney, and David Cicilline).

• DNC: I guess the DNC is feeling its oats these days, or just figuring that the best defense is a good offense: they’ve doubled the number of GOPers on the receiving end of pro-HCR attack ads for their “no” votes. They’ve added Pat Tiberi, Lee Terry, Dan Lungren, Mary Bono Mack, and Charlie Dent.

• Census: Remember the Census? It’s back! In Pog form!

• VA-Gov: It’s grown exceedingly hard to see a path to victory for Creigh Deeds in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. The polls aren’t closing (if anything, the gap may be widening), and there’s less than two weeks until election day. What’s more, the highest echelons of the Democratic Party are now distancing themselves from Deeds, saying he rejected Barack Obama & Tim Kaine’s “road map to victory.” The Swing State Project is therefore changing its rating on this race from Lean R to Likely R. (D)

Also, while the second-guessing has begun, PPP suggests that it’s just a bad year for Dems and/or a strong opponent in Bob McDonnell: they found that if Tim Kaine had been able to run for re-election, he’d be losing too, 51-43. Nevertheless, 57% think that governors should be able to run for re-election in Virginia (which is the only state left that doesn’t allow gubernatorial re-elections), with 35% opposed. Still, Kaine probably wouldn’t be running anti-cap-and-trade ads as Deeds is doing in the state’s southwest; with the public option already with the Deeds’ bus treads all over it, it’s one more reason for the Democratic base to lose interest in him.

• CA-Sen: The war between movement conservative candidate Chuck DeVore and the NRSC just keeps building. DeVore is calling attention to a seemingly loose-lips quote from Carly Fiorina that “the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee has encouraged me to enter the race, reaffirming my belief that Chuck DeVore cannot beat Barbara Boxer,” which he says contradicts the NRSC’s claim they haven’t endorsed in the race. Of course, that’s not really an endorsement per se, but his camp also claims that the NRSC has rebuffed his attempts to dialogue with them.

• IA-Sen: Wealthy attorney and one-time Democratic gubernatorial candidate Roxanne Conlin seems to be moving closer to a matchup with Chuck Grassley. She’s says she’s “more likely than not” to step up. While Grassley would start out with the edge, it would push one more competitive race onto the map for 2010.

• MA-Sen: Rep. Michael Capuano pulled down the endorsement of the state’s biggest union in his Democratic primary bid in the special Senate election: the 107,000-member Massachusetts Teachers Association. Capuano has a 96% rating from the MTA’s national affiliate, the National Education Association.

• NV-Sen: Former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle has made it official: she’s getting into the Nevada Senate race. She had sounded hesitant earlier, but she’s emboldened either by her fundraising or by the general climate for conservative candidates right now to jump in. This sets up a confusing and potentially bloody 5-way primary in the Nevada GOP primary (although there’s likely to be some field winnowing before then), and potentially, Angle could sneak through with, say, 33%, if she consolidates the hard-right/Club for Growth/teabagger vote (remember that she was the CfG’s candidate in the open seat primary in NV-02 in 2006, where she barely lost to Dean Heller). With the opposition consisting of an establishment-backed but empty-suitish candidate in Sue Lowden, a random rich guy (John Chachas), a random name-recognition guy (Danny Tarkanian), and Mark Amodei as seemingly what passes for a moderate in the race, she seems likeliest to become the standard-bearer on the movement conservative right, especially if she somehow gets a CfG endorsement again. And the hard-right Angle would be a rather less imposing general election candidate for Harry Reid than, say, Lowden.

• NY-Sen-B: Former Governor George Pataki seems to be taking note of polls showing him competitive with Kirsten Gillibrand in the Senate race, although he doesn’t sound enthusiastic about it. His spokesperson tells the Daily News that he’ll make a decision about the race in the coming weeks, but “friends” say that he’s leaning toward “no.”

• UT-Sen: The name of Tim Bridgewater (the former Utah County GOP chair who’s lost several primary elections) surfaced earlier in the year in connection with a GOP primary challenge to Bob Bennett in the Senate race, but faded away as AG Mark Shurtleff seemed to gobble up all the oxygen to Bennett’s right. Suddenly, Bridgewater’s back, saying he’ll join the primary field.

• GA-Gov: Rasmussen has another poll of the gubernatorial primaries in Georgia; the only news is that Thurbert Baker seems to be gaining on ex-gov Roy Barnes. Barnes still has a big lead on the Dem side at 43 (42 in August), followed by Baker at 19 (up from 9 in August), David Poythress at 4, Dubose Porter at 4, and Carl Camon at 3. On the GOP side, Insurance Comm. John Oxendine is in command at 27, with Karen Handel at 12, Nathan Deal at 9, and Eric Johnson, Ray McBerry, and Austin Scott all at 3.

• IL-Gov: Rasmussen also looked at the Illinois governor’s race, apparently as part of their IL-Sen sample from last week; since nobody seems to know who any of the Republicans are, they just ran a Generic D/Generic R ballot, which Generic D won, 43-36. Incumbent Dem Governor Pat Quinn clocks in with approvals that are much lower than any other pollster has seen, at 45/53.

• ME-Gov (pdf): PPP polled the Maine governor’s race as part of its poll on Question 1, and finds what R2K found a few weeks ago, which is that nobody has any idea what’s going on. As with R2K, they found “not sure” dominating the head-to-heads and even the favorability questions. Unlike R2K, though, they found that moderate GOP state Sen. Peter Mills matches up well against the Dems, beating state Sen. President Libby Mitchell 34-31 and ex-AG Steve Rowe 33-25. Mitchell beats rich guy Les Otten 34-26, but Otten beats Rowe 28-26. Meanwhile, one more sorta-prominent Republican now says he’s seriously considering the race: Steve Abbott, who’s currently Susan Collins’ chief of staff.

• NJ-Gov: Two more polls split the difference between Jon Corzine and Chris Christie in New Jersey. Democracy Corps, who’ve usually been Corzine’s most favorable pollster, finds a 3-point race, with Corzine at 42, Christie at 39, and Chris Daggett at 13. SurveyUSA, on the hand, has tended to lean toward Christie and continue to do so, giving him a 2-point lead, with Christie at 41, Corzine at 39, and Daggett at 19. Christie, for his part, is turning for help to the one Republican in New Jersey that most people still like: ex-Governor Tom Kean, who just cut a TV ad on Christie’s behalf.

• RI-Gov: Businessman Rory Smith has announced his candidacy on the Republican side for Rhode Island governor. Insiders are comparing him to current GOP Gov. Don Carcieri, who was also a little-known businessman before winning in 2002; unlike Carcieri, though, Smith is socially liberal. He may have the field to himself; little-known state Rep. Joe Trillo, who was viewed as the default frontrunner after former Senate candidate Stephen Laffey declined, recently said that he too is leaning against the race.

• AK-AL: Trouble just keeps following Republican Rep. Don Young around, and there’s more of it today. A retired oil industry exec from VECO, Bill Allen, told the Justice Department that his company gave paid for fundraising events for Young to the tune of $130K to $195K, and also gave gifts to Young which didn’t get disclosed. This provides the first hard evidence linking Young to the same VECO scandal that took down Ted Stevens last year. Young has not been charged in the matter, although suspicion was cast his way in previous VECO-related testimony. Young, who narrowly won in 2008, faces another competitive race in 2010 (assuming he’s still in office at that point) from Democratic state Rep. Harry Crawford.

• IL-08: On the “some dude” front, businessman (and apparently, not the former Eagles guitarist) Joe Walsh (who ran unsuccessfully against Sidney Yates in the 9th back in the 90s) announced that he’ll run against Melissa Bean in the 8th.

• NY-23: Now that all the cool kids are endorsing Doug Hoffman, the floodgates are starting to open among the cognoscenti of the conservative movement: Rick Santorum endorsed, and so too did former presidential candidate Michael Steve Forbes. Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who seems like he’s still trying to decide whether to be establishment or movement in 2012, has his finger in the air but said he’ll probably endorsed and gave a clue by saying he had issues with the way Scozzafava got the nomination.

• VA-05: Also on the “some dude” front, businessman and first-time candidate Ron Ferrin got into the overstuffed Republican field to go against freshman Rep. Tom Perriello. State Sen. Robert Hurt seems to have the inside track, though.

• VA-St. House: One other worry for Democrats in Virginia is that Creigh Deeds’ seeming negative coattails could cost them some seats in the state House of Delegates (where the GOP has a 53-43 edge, with 2 R-caucusing indies and 2 vacancies). Not Larry Sabato gives a preview of the hot races there, helpfully breaking it down into Tossup, Lean, and Likely for us. They see 2 GOP seats and 3 Dem seats as leaning toward takeovers, with 5 true tossups, but a strong McDonnell performance could push things more in the GOP direction.

• Campaign Finance: Here’s an interesting development on the campaign finance arena, although experts are still trying to sort out just what it means. The FEC won’t appeal an appellate court decision that would allow outside groups to spend significantly more money on elections. The case was brought by EMILY’s List; the decision allows them and other 527s to use soft money (in addition to hard money) to pay for ads and GOTV. The Obama administration’s Solicitor General, Elena Kagen, however, can still appeal the case without the FEC’s involvement.

• 2010: It sounds like some of the more timid members of the House Democrats were in need of a pep talk, so Chris Van Hollen of the DCCC sent around a memo with a nice list of bullet points on why 2010 won’t be 1994.

• FL-Sen: Is ex-Rep. Mike Bilirakis, under official consideration from Gov. Charlie Crist to serve as an interim placeholder in the Senate, taking the appointment process seriously? The St. Petersberg times digs up Bilirakis’ submitted questionnaire (.pdf) and says that the hand-scribbled document looks “like he filled it out while driving”. He also left some key questions, like “Have you ever been party to a lawsuit?”, blank.

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias may claim to be Barack Obama’s BFF, but look who just signed up Obama ’08 guru David Axelrod’s consulting firm to work for his campaign: newly-announced candidate David Hoffman, who yesterday resigned as Chicago’s Inspector General.

• LA-Sen: Now that Charlie Melancon has made his Senate bid official, state Sen. Eric LaFleur, who was previously courted as a potential Democratic candidate for the race, says that he’ll be supporting Melancon for the race.

• GA-Gov: Strategic Vision has dipped its barometer back into the Georgia gubernatorial primaries, and finds little meaningful change since last month’s poll. For the Republicans, Oxendine leads with 39%, followed by 13% for Nathan Deal and 12% for Karen Handel. In the Democratic primary, ex-Gov. Roy Barnes leads the pack with 45%, followed by AG Thurbert Baker with 29%. Poythress and Porter are still mired in the low-single digits.

• NJ-Gov: Chris Christie’s once-vaunted rep as a Corruption Fighter™ has taken a pounding this month. Yesterday came another roundhouse kick to the jaw: Back in 2005, Christie was pulled over for speeding and (it turns out) driving an uninsured and unregistered sail barge automobile. Despite the officer writing “NO DEAL” on the ticket, Christie was allowed to drive home and later got some of the charges dropped – it seems he may have scuzzily tried to pull rank as US Attorney. And guess who was with him at the time? None other than former aide Michele Brown, who resigned two days ago. (D)

• NM-Gov: Bill Richardson is breathing a sigh of relief with the news that the investigation into allegations of pay-to-play politics under his watch at the governor’s office is now officially over with no indictments. Meanwhile, actor Val Kilmer’s flirtation with the open seat gubernatorial race is now officially over.

• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds is out with a new radio ad in which one of the narrators anoints him as “that underdog guy”, while the Republican Governors Association’s Common Sense Virginia PAC is launching TV and radio ads hitting Deeds on wasteful spending. Of course, as Steve Singiser points out, the RGA only a month ago attacked Deeds and the DGA when they formed a similar PAC, calling it a “shadow organization”.

• CA-02: GOP Rep. Wally Herger, at a recent town hall meeting, praised an attendee who called himself a “proud right-wing terrorist”. “There is a great American,” Herger said of the man, named Bert Stead. Now Herger is doubling-down, refusing to apologize for praising the man and taking the opportunity to trash liberals for calling their political opponents “political terrorists”. The only problem, though, is that HuffPo has the video of Stead identifying himself as a proud terrorist!

• CA-45: Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson resigned over the weekend due to health reasons, and last night passed away. After Wilson’s resignation but before his passing, Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet, running as a Dem against GOP Rep. Mary Bono Back, recommitted his focus to the congressional bid, saying that a run for the supervisor seat is “not at all” being considered.

• IL-08: The NRCC is hoping to wrangle Maria Rodriguez, the Village President of Long Grove (pop. 6,735), into a run against now-established Dem Rep. Melissa Bean. Rodriguez says that “it’s an interesting proposition” that she’s taking under consideration, but Bean is still riding high off a 60-40 win over briefly-touted GOP businessman Steve Greenberg in 2008.

• IL-10: The NRCC may be happy to have moderate state Rep. Beth Coulson in the race to replace Mark Kirk, but she’ll have company in the GOP primary. Businessman Dick Green, the CEO of Briefing.com, made his candidacy official today, and took the opportunity to lash out at “career politicians”.

• KS-02: Frosh Rep. Lynn Jenkins, to fellow travelers at a town hall event: “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope.” Jenkins’ spokesbot shoved foot in mouth even further with this “apology”: “There may be some misunderstanding there when she talked about the great white hope. What she meant by it is they have a bright future. They’re bright lights within the party.” Good luck with that. (D)

• MT-AL: Here’s something that somehow slipped our notice. Research 2000, dipping its toes into Montana for Daily Kos, tested GOP Rep. Denny Rehberg’s approvals and re-elects. Rehberg’s sitting on a 46-45 approval rating — lower than either of the state’s Democratic Senators — and has a 39% re-elect rating (27% say they will definitely vote to replace him, and another 34% say they will consider voting for another candidate). Those aren’t particularly formidable numbers.