Tag: Shane Broadway

• AK-Sen: All signs are now pointing toward a Lisa Murkowski write-in bid, although nothing is official yet. But she’s inviting supporters to a “campaign kickoff” tonight, which are certainly not the words of someone ready to go gently into that good night. She seems undeterred by the fact that the Tea Party Express already fired a shot across her bow yesterday, warning her to be a “good team member” and saying they’ll resume spending money against her if she does. Meanwhile, hilarious and slightly damning news on the Joe Miller front, as it turns out that he, like so many other teabagger candidates this year, was a recipient of $14K in farm subsidies over the decade for a thousand acres of land he owned near Fairbanks. Y’know, subsidies from the federal government that he hates so much, in order to pay for the otherwise-unprofitable way of life that he chose. (Can you even grow anything near Fairbanks? That may be the most surprising part of the story to me.)

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons faced off in their first appearance together, and O’Donnell seemed to be doing a lot of rhetorical distancing from the O’Donnell that had existed up until Tuesday. Meanwhile, O’Donnell is now facing the wrath of multiple ex-aides, all willing to dish to Politico on the trainwrecks that were previous O’Donnell campaigns.

• IL-Sen: Illinois-based Republican-linked robo-pollster We Ask America is out with their second poll of the IL-Sen race, giving Mark Kirk a 39-36 link over Alexi Giannoulias. That’s better than their previous offering, which gave Kirk a 6-point edge.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold’s “Cheddarbomb” sounds like it was very successful, bringing in at least $435K in one day’s worth of contributions.

• AR-Gov: With yesterday’s PPP NH-Gov poll, I think it’s now safe to say that Mike Beebe is officially the nation’s safest Democratic incumbent governor this year. The gubernatorial half of yesterday’s Mason-Dixon poll on behalf of Arkansas News Service is out, and Beebe leads Republican challenger Jim Keet by 21 points, 54-33. (One other very important detail: currently, Beebe has $2.5 million CoH, while Keet has $9,000.) Given the state’s turn to the red this cycle, Dems should be glad that they aren’t defending an open seat here, though, as in the open Lt. Governor race, Dem state Sen. Shane Broadway is barely leading Some Dude (Mark Darr) 36-34.

• CA-Gov: Well, my cynicism has been eased a bit, I guess: Bill Clinton will be giving Jerry Brown the full endorsee treatment and not just throwing him a bone, including stumping on his behalf (and Gavin Newsom’s behalf too) in mid-October.

• HI-Gov: It feels like the primary season wrapped up on Tuesday, but there’s one last race that needs to be previewed: the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Hawaii, which will be settled in their regularly scheduled election tomorrow. The race pits ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie against former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann in what’s literally a clash of titans (the 72-year-old Abercrombie can bench-press 272 lbs., while former basketball player Hannemann is 6’7″). Hannemann seems to running a bit to Abercrombie’s right, at least on social issues, and Abercrombie seems to have the late momentum based on polling and fundraising. The linked WaPo article points to some intriguing behind the scenes drama (with Dan Inouye behind Hannemann and Ed Case behind Abercrombie) and the racial resentments stirred by the race (Abercrombie is white, Hannemann is Samoan).

• NM-Gov: The DGA is keeping the pressure on in New Mexico, hitting Susana Martinez again on staff bonuses and sweetheart deals. Bill Clinton, who’s increasingly turning out to be the #1 Dem surrogate on the stump this cycle, is also now scheduled to stump on Diane Denish’s behalf on Oct. 14 in the heavily-Latino northern town of Espanola.

• NY-Gov: This may be the dumbest idea in the history of political advertising: send intentionally bad-smelling mailers to people’s houses. Carl Paladino is trying to make the point that “something smells” in Albany, but there has to be a smarter way to do it than invading people’s houses to intentionally physically sicken them.

• CO-04: Hot on the heels of the NRA backing John Salazar next door in the 3rd, now they’re also endorsing Democratic freshman Betsy Markey in the similarly rural, reddish 4th.

• MI-09: There’s a poll out in the 9th from a previously unknown (to us) pollster (The Rossman Group/Team Telcom) giving Rocky Raczkowski a small lead over Dem freshman Gary Peters, 45-41. Thanks to Paleo in the comments, we know that the Rossman Group is a PR firm associated with state-level GOP operative Audrey Perricone, so salt this one as you see fit.

• NY-23: All that hoping paid off, and now the cat is now officially in the dryer! A replay of the special election is on, as Doug Hoffman, who narrowly lost the GOP primary to Matt Doheny, is saying that he is going to stick with the Conservative Line no matter what. (More accurately, Conservative party chair Michael Long, who’s basically been Hoffman’s puppetmaster for the last year, is the one saying that.)

• TN-04: Sure, we’ve all been accused of harassment, intimidation, and physical abuse, but… oh, wait. We haven’t? Well, Republican candidate Scott DesJarlais was accused by his ex-wife of all of that, in divorce filings from a decade ago. It’s unclear how much this’ll affect the direction of the race, though; buried deep in the Roll Call article is word of a late August internal poll on Lincoln Davis’s behalf (released in response to a DesJarlais internal showing him within 4 of Davis), giving Davis a 51-40 lead. (No word on who Davis’s pollster is.)

• Mayors: Primary-defeated Dem incumbent Adrian Fenty somehow won the Republican mayoral primary. There wasn’t a candidate, and Fenty got more write-in votes than anyone else. It didn’t sound like Fenty was interested in turning coats and running again under the GOP aegis, and now the DC BoE is arguing that he couldn’t anyway, as he would have had to be a member of the Republican Party as of the election date.

• IE Tracker:

• MO-Sen: $124K from Commonsense Ten against Roy Blunt

• WV-01: $439K from American Future Fund against Mike Oliverio

• NC-02, VA-09: $341K from Americans for Job Security against Bob Etheridge, $431K against Rick Boucher

• AL-02: $414K from AFF against Bobby Bright

• SC-05: $191K from AFF against John Spratt

• NJ-03: $170K from AFF against John Adler

• MI-01: $304K from AFF against Gary McDowell

• GA-08: $346K from AFF against Jim Marshall

• MI-07: $501K from AFF against Mark Schauer

• SSP TV:

• PA-Sen: The DSCC rides to Joe Sestak’s rescue with an ad tying Pat Toomey to George Bush’s deficit-swelling tax policies, while the Club for Growth tries to walk a delicate balance, thanking Sestak for his military service before laying into his voting record

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard’s out with not one but three different ads using footage of Jan Brewer’s tongue-tied performance at last month’s debate, one of which focuses on her unproven allegations about headless bodies in the desert (and ending with the tagline “Is this the best Arizona can do?”)

• KS-Gov: The Kansas Moderate Majority PAC runs an anti-Sam Brownback ad hitting him on the flat tax, while Brownback is out with two ads of his own

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero’s on the air, hitting Rick Sndyer for outsourcing jobs while he was head of Gateway

• ID-01: Walt Minnick actually hits Raul Labrador for being too soft on illegal immigrants, saying it’s “good business” for Labrador’s immigration law practice

• MI-01: 2 ads from Gary McDowell, one about cleaning up the Great Lakes and one hitting Dan Benishek on Social Security privatization

• TX-17: Chet Edwards is doing the distancing-from-DC-Democrats game in his newest ad

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s first TV ad starts negative against Dave Reichert, hitting him on his financial reform vote and on earmarks, of all things

• Rasmussen:

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 34%, Dan Coats (R) 50%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 45%, Charlie Baker (R) 42%, Tim Cahill (I) 5%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 44%, Ron Johnson (R) 51%

Remember back when Marion Berry’s retirement in the R+8, trending-the-wrong-direction AR-01 was going to hand one more vulnerable southern seat to the Republicans? Turns out… eh, not so much:

Arkansas’ filing deadline passed Monday afternoon and while Republicans made a lot of noise about their chances in the 1st district in the days after Rep. Marion Berry (D) announced his retirement, all the sound and fury may have actually signified nothing….

In the end, the only Republican to join the contest after Berry announced his retirement was Princella Smith, a former congressional aide to freshman Louisiana Republican Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao.

Smith will face off against the equally unknown and untested Rick Crawford, an Army veteran, farm broadcaster and businessman who entered the race in May 2009.

Republicans had sought to get one of several state legislators into the race — state Sens. Davy Carter or Johnny Key. However, both said no, leaving the GOP without a backup plan. Meanwhile, top-tier Democrats piled into the race in this historically-Democratic district, including state Sen. Steve Bryles, former state Sen. Tim Wooldridge, state Rep. David Cook, and Berry’s former CoS, Chad Causey. Like PA-12, here’s a district where the Democratic tradition and the disparity between the two parties’ benches may just save our bacon despite an ominous trend at the presidential level.

Filing information about the rest of the Arkansas races is here. AR-02 is still a very vulnerable seat to Republican takeover, with former US Attorney Tim Griffin armed with lots of money and Beltway connections. Dems still have a top-tier recruit here, though, state House speaker Robbie Wills, so even here we’re in Tossup territory. Mike Ross in AR-04 seems to have emerged with only bottom-rung opposition, so hopefully he can contribute some time and money to shoring up the other races in the state. Democratic State Sen. Shane Broadway also seems poised to hold onto the Lt. Governor seat being vacated by Bill Halter; he faces off against only a pastor and a pizza restaurant owner.

RaceTracker Wiki: AR-01

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln is up with her first ad, as she runs for the Republican nomination for the Senate race. Wait… what? She’s running as a Democrat? Hmmm, that’s not what her ad says, as it’s a list of every which way she’s bucked the Democratic party line in the last year (and closing by saying “I don’t answer to my party, I answer to Arkansas”). That’d make sense if she were running in the general election, but there’s a little matter of her having to get out of the primary first… Meanwhile, the base continues to abandon Lincoln; today it was EMILY’s List, who say they won’t be lifting a finger to help Lincoln. She may still get a lifeline from Bill Clinton, though, who’s continuing to back her. And Bill Halter better be committed to seeing this Senate primary thing through, because state Sen. Shane Broadway just filed to run to keep the Lt. Governor spot in Democratic hands.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Republican polling firm Magellan (apparently not working on behalf of any candidates) issued more polls of the two Republican primaries in California. The polls are pretty much in line with what everyone else is seeing: on the Senate side, Tom Campbell leads at 33, followed by Carly Fiorina at 20 and Chuck DeVore at least cracking double-digits at 11. For the gubernatorial race, Meg Whitman is cruising, beating Steve Poizner 63-12.

• CT-Sen: When it comes to the Connecticut senate race, Dick Blumenthal is the Superfly TNT. Hell, he’s the Guns of the Navarone. In fact, he lays a massive mushroom cloud on Linda McMahon (60-31), Rob Simmons (58-32) and Peter Schiff (57-27) alike — and yes, this is according to Rasmussen. (D)

• IL-Sen: In an interview with the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board, Alexi Giannoulias said he believes his family’s bank is likely to get EATED (as Atrios would say) by the FDIC in the coming months. Perhaps worse, the Trib says that Giannoulias isn’t being forthcoming about what he knew about the bank’s loans to convicted bookmaker and pimp (i.e. mobster) Michael “Jaws” Giorango. Ugh. (D)

• KY-Sen: If the Dems are seeing a bit of an uptick in selected polls lately, they aren’t seeing it in Kentucky yet, at least not if Rasmussen has anything to say about it. Rand Paul leads Jack Conway 46-38 and Dan Mongiardo 49-35, while Trey Grayson leads Conway 45-35 and Mongiardo 44-37. Not much change in the trendlines, except for, oddly, Mongiardo’s standing vis-à-vis Grayson improves while Conway’s slips. Meanwhile, Conway is hitting the airwaves with a new TV spot, wisely taking Jim Bunning’s one-man crusade against unemployed people and hanging it around the necks of Paul and Grayson.

• NJ-Sen: Apparently the 2010 elections are just too boring. Farleigh Dickinson University tested Sen. Bob Menendez versus his 2006 opponent, Tom Kean, Jr., finding a tie (39-38 for Kean, with 17% undecided). Seriously, though, testing horserace numbers this far out just seems silly. Can you imagine what similar polls would have shown for the GOP in 2004? (D)

• NV-Sen: Jon Ralston sits down for a chat with erstwhile Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian, a.k.a. the only man who can inadvertently save Harry Reid. Ashjian, a wealthy contractor (whose company has more than its share of complaints and liens), plans to fund his own way, and discounts claims that he’s somehow being put up to it by the Reid camp as a vote-splitter.

• NY-Sen-B: Sigh, what could have been… Harold Ford Jr. met with Karl Rove in 2004 to discuss the possibility of running for Senate in Tennessee in 2006… as a Republican. Ford isn’t denying the meeting, but, in his, um, defense? says that it was Rove’s idea.

• UT-Sen: Bob Bennett keeps on being a punching bag for the GOP’s right wing, and today the Club for Growth weighed in with an anti-Bennett ad, airing on (where else?) the Fox News Channel in Utah. It’s targeted purely at state GOP insiders, urging them to send anti-Bennett delegates to the state nominating convention. The CfG hasn’t settled on one particular candidate they’re for; all they know is who they’re against.

• GA-Gov: PPP follows up its Georgia general election numbers from yesterday with a look at the Republican gubernatorial primary. (The Democratic primary seems to look like an adequately foregone conclusion to them.) No surprises: Insurance Comm. John Oxendine leads at 27, followed by Karen Handel at 19, Nathan Deal at 13, Austin Scott and Eric Johnson at 3, and Jeff Chapman and Ray McBerry at 2.

• MD-Gov: There’s been lots of focus on the leaked RNC strategy document today, mostly for its rather shameless descriptions of its fundraising plans. There are a few noteworthy strategic items here, though — maybe most interestingly, they’ve totally left Michael Steele’s home state of Maryland off the list of gubernatorial races they’re pushing. It remains to be seen whether it’s because Bob Ehrlich isn’t getting in after all, they don’t think he has a ghost of a chance, or just general RNC bungling. (Also interesting: on the Senate side, they’re even targeting Charles Schumer, but they’ve left off Patty Murray, which may suggest it isn’t getting any better for the GOP than Don Benton in Washington.)

• MI-Gov: Two endorsements in the pipeline in the Michigan gubernatorial race. Mike Huckabee weighed in on the GOP side, picking AG Mike Cox, calling him the “pro-life, pro-gun” candidate over the probably more right-wing Rep. Peter Hoekstra. (I’m not sure how much pull Huckabee has in Michigan. As for me, I’m waiting to see who Ted Nugent endorses.) On the Dem side, this is still purely rumor, but the word is that the United Auto Workers plan to endorse Lansing mayor Virg Bernero (who showed he had their backs with his passionate televised defenses of the auto bailout). The stamp of the state’s most powerful union would go a long way toward uniting union backing behind one Dem.

• NY-Gov: The clock seems to be ticking even louder for David Paterson, as today one of his top aides, spokesperson Peter Kauffmann, resigned and distanced himself. Kauffmann said that, in light of the ethics ruling about the World Series tickets, he could no longer “in good conscience continue.”

• OH-Gov, OH-01: VPOTUS Watch: Joey Joe Joe Biden Shabadoo will visit Cleveland on March 15 to do a fundraiser for Gov. Ted Strickland. He’ll also be doing a separate event for Rep. Steve Driehaus. (D)

• AR-01: The fields for both sides in the open seat left behind by Rep. Marion Berry are slow to take shape, but it looks like the Democrats found a decent-sounding candidate who can bring some of his own money with him. Terry Green, an orthopedic surgeon with his own practice, has filed, sounding some populist notes in his first comments to the press.

• IL-08: Ah, the party of fiscal responsibility. Joe Walsh, the GOP’s candidate in the 8th, stopped making mortgage payments on his Evanston condominium in May 2009 and lost it to foreclosure in October. Putting a positive spin on it, Walsh says “This experience helped me gain a better appreciation for the very real economic anxieties felt by 8th District families.”

• MI-03: Here’s a positive development: Democrats are actually lining up to contest the R+6 open seat in Grand Rapids left behind by retiring GOP Rep. Vern Ehlers. Former Kent Co. Commissioner Paul Mayhue is about to enter the Dem field, where he’ll join attorney Patrick Miles.

• MI-06: Ex-state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, who was badly beaten by Carl Levin in 2008’s Senate race, is now setting his sights on knocking off incumbent Rep. Fred Upton in the Republican primary. Hoogendyk, who has yet to make a decision on the race, sent out an email to supporters blasting Upton for his votes in favor of TARP, No Child Left Behind, and S-CHIP. Upton’s district has an even PVI, and went for Bush twice by seven-point margins before Obama won the district by a comfy 54-45 spread in ’08. (J)

• NH-01: A run in the 1st by RNC committee member Sean Mahoney is now looking much likelier, even though he’d scoped out the race and decided against it last year. Last year, it was looking like former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta had the nomination to himself, but Guinta’s bad fundraising and bad press have lured a few other contenders into the GOP field.

• NY-15: With Charlie Rangel’s position looking increasingly precarious, CQ takes a look at some possible names who might replace him, should he decide not to seek another term (including state Sen. Bill Perkins, Assemblymen Keith Wright and Adriano Espaillat, and city councilors Inez Dickens and Robert Jackson). He already has a few primary challengers – former aide Vincent Morgan and possibly Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV. Meanwhile, the chairmanship of Rangel’s Ways & Means Committee has hopscotched around in the last few days, to California’s Pete Stark and today to the less-controversial Michigan’s Sander Levin. The chair of this powerful committee (which oversees tax laws) tends to rake in tons of campaign contributions – and dole them out to fellow caucus members, so it’s worth keeping an eye on who actually replaces Rangel on a permanent basis. (This is also why so many peeps have returned money to Rangel – because he’s given out so much.) (D)

• New York: Could he really be eyeing a comeback? According to Time Magazine, Eliot Spitzer is “bored out of his mind” these days, but also says he doesn’t want to subject his family to the inevitable ugliness that would ensue if he ran for something again. Meanwhile, former Spitzer confidante Lloyd Constantine, the man Spitzer called right before the news of his involvement with prostitutes broke, has turned on his former mentee with a new tell-all book. The stars are definitely not aligned for Spitz, if they ever were. (D)

• Maps: You know you love them (otherwise you wouldn’t be at SSP). And jeffmd has a whole new bunch of ’em, looking at the results of the Texas Republican gubernatorial primary and how they might translate into the general.

• Healthcare: The Wall Street Journal has a chart laying out how members of the House might vote on the next iteration of the healthcare reform bill, listing public statements (if any) they’ve made since the last vote. This really should be in wiki form, though – for instance, they don’t have Mike Arcuri’s remarks (see Morning Digest). (D)

• Redistricting: The NYT takes a look at the people who applied for a spot on California’s state legislative redistricting commission. Fourteen spots have been set aside for ordinary citizens… and 31,000 people (including probably at least a few SSPers!) applied. Progress Illinois also has a detailed look today at the new proposals underway to make the redistricting process fairer (or at least less random).

• Blogosphere: Finally, we’re sad to see one of our favorite blogs apparently calling it quits. Over the last two years, Campaign Diaries became a must-read, both for insightful analysis and for making sure that no comings-and-goings in any races fell through the cracks. We wish Taniel well in his next endeavors.

• AZ-Sen: CQ has an interesting tidbit about Rodney Glassman, the young Tucson city councilor who’s the top Democrat in the Senate race right now. The general sense has been that it would be good to have someone with some self-funding capacity to be able to jump in and make a race of it in case the bombastic J.D. Hayworth somehow takes out John McCain in the GOP primary… and it turns out that Glassman has been that guy all along. He’s been capping contributions to his campaign at $20 for now, but the Dems’ state chair says Glassman can step in with his own money in case things heat up.

• IA-Sen: Rasmussen takes a pretty dim view of the odds for Roxanne Conlin (or any other Democrat) against Chuck Grassley in 2010. They see Conlin, a wealthy attorney last seen losing the 1982 gubernatorial race, losing to Grassley 59-31. The other less-known Dems, both veterans of the state legislature, fare only slightly worse: Bob Krause loses 59-26, and Tom Fiegen loses 61-25.

• IL-Sen: One last component from Rasmussen’s poll of the Illinois primary fields dribbled in late yesterday: a look at the Republican Senate field. Like other pollsters, they find Rep. Mark Kirk way ahead of his nearest competitor in the GOP primary, real estate developer Patrick Hughes. Unlike others, though, they at least see Hughes in the double-digits, losing 53-18 (with 12 for “some other candidate”).

• NC-Sen: Rasmussen also examines North Carolina, and while they find Republican incumbent Richard Burr with a significant lead, he’s not quite in the safety zone. Burr leads Democratic SoS Elaine Marshall 47-37, and he leads former state Sen. Cal Cunningham 50-34. Rasmussen also finds Burr’s knowns to be much, much higher than anyone else has found them: he has an approval of 56/32, with only 12% not sure (whereas most pollsters find his unknowns to be well into the 30s).

• NY-Sen-B: After rumors of his renewed interest in challenging Kirsten Gillibrand in a Democratic Senate primary, Rep. Steve Israel sounds like he’s backing off. His chief of staff says “definitively that he’s not running,” although there’s no comment from Israel himself. Israel, however, did commission another poll in recent weeks to take the race’s temperature, so it’s clear his interest was briefly re-piqued.

• AK-Gov: Former state House speaker John Harris had been a rumored candidate to oppose appointed Gov. Sean Parnell in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but has made clear that he won’t run and will run for re-election to the House instead. Another former speaker, Ralph Samuels, was also in the race, leaving Harris little room to grab whatever anti-Parnell vote might be out there. (A PPP poll finds the uncontroversial Parnell with a 58/19 approval, so it’d be an uphill run anyway.)

• FL-Gov: Rasmussen has new numbers out for the Governor’s race in Florida, and they’re very similar to what Quinnipiac released yesterday. Republican AG Bill McCollum leads Democratic CFO Alex Sink 46-35. (Presumably, this means they’ll have Senate numbers shortly.)

• MI-Gov: We’re getting strange signals out of the Virg Bernero camp. The Lansing mayor sent out an e-mail soliciting interns for his gubernatorial run (which would be a strange way of announcing your run, which he hasn’t done so far, although he does have an exploratory committee up). It was quickly followed up with word that Bernero hasn’t decided whether or not to run, and it should have said interns sought for his exploratory committee only.

• NY-Gov: Here’s a sign of how unenthused the state GOP is with the idea of ex-Rep. Rick Lazio as their standard-bearer for the Governor’s race: they’re actually sitting down with Suffolk Co. Exec Steven Levy, who has recently expressed some interest in the race, to discuss the possibility of him running as a Republican. Levy, of course, is a Democrat, although a rather conservative one (particularly on immigration issues) and one who received a Republican cross-endorsement during his barely-contested 2007 re-election. The crux of the matter may be that Levy has a $4 million warchest available, while Lazio is sitting on $637K. State party chair Ed Cox offered this stirring endorsement of Lazio on Wednesday: “At the moment, he is the candidate.”

• WI-Gov: One final Rasmussen poll to look at today: it’s the other half of their Wisconsin sample, the one that found 68-year-old ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson leading Russ Feingold in a hypothetical match. They find Republican ex-Rep. Mark Neumann leading Democratic Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett 42-38, while Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker leads Barrett 48-38 (again, a much more Republican-favorable view of the race than other pollsters have seen it).

• AR-01: Dems won’t be getting their most-desired candidate to succeed Marion Berry in the 1st: AG Dustin McDaniel already announced that he won’t run. Possible Dem candidates sniffing out the race, though, including state Rep. Keith Ingram, state Sen. Robert Thompson, and former state party chair Jason Willett. CQ also mentions former state Rep. Chris Thyer, former state Sen. Tim Woolridge, and Berry’s CoS, Chad Causey.

• AR-02: In the 2nd, Democratic state House speaker Robbie Wills seems to be getting into the race to succeed Vic Snyder. State Sen. Shane Broadway has also expressed interest, but says that he’ll head for the Lt. Governor race if LG Bill Halter gets into the field in the 2nd. State Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie is already putting campaign infrastructure into place, and a potential wild card people are eyeing is Little Rock’s mayor, Mark Stodola.

• CA-19: Smackdown in the Central Valley! Retiring Republican Rep. George Radanovich lashed out at CA-11 ex-Rep. Richard Pombo, seeking to replace him, saying that he should have “run in his own district.” Radanovich backs state Sen. Jeff Denham in the GOP primary, and was seeking to quash Pombo claims that Radanovich wouldn’t have endorsed Denham had he known Pombo was going to run. In other news, Rep. Tom McClintock at some point endorsed Pombo, finally making it clear that McClintock, used to running for something new every two years, wasn’t going to reflexively abandon his district and run in the 19th instead.

• GA-04: A primary is the only way to dislodge Rep. Hank Johnson in this safely blue district, and it looks like Johnson is poised to keep his seat even though he’s drawn several prominent opponents (at least some of whom would be coming at him from the right), former DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones and DeKalb Co. Commissioners Connie Stokes and Lee May. Johnson has an internal poll from Lake Associates out showing him with 47% of the vote, leading Jones at 19, Stokes at 12, and May at 5.

• KY-06: Just days after attorney Andy Barr was named to the bottom tier of the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program, another Republican has jumped into the fray to take on Rep. Ben Chandler in this Republican-leaning district. Mike Templeman retired last year as CEO of Energy Coal Resources, and is touting his business experience.

• NH-02: Ex-Rep. Charlie Bass is touting an internal poll that has him in commanding position, at least as far as the GOP primary is concerned. He leads the 2008 Republican candidate, talk radio host Jennifer Horn, by a 42-19 margin (with 4 for state Rep. Bob Giuda). No numbers for the general election in this Dem-leaning district, however.

• NY-01: Rep. Tim Bishop is pushing back against, well, everything: he said, as far as retirement rumors go, he’s “sure as hell” not going to back down from a fight now. He also announced strong fundraising (a $378K quarter) in the face of wealthy opposition, Randy Altschuler and George Demos. (There are also rumors that Chris Cox, the grandson of Richard Nixon and son of new state GOP chair Ed Cox, may get into the race.) Bishop’s camp also alluded to (although didn’t specifically release) an internal poll showing him over the 50% mark against his Republican opponents, in contrast to other recent polls.

• PA-03: I wouldn’t have expected freshman Kathy Dahlkemper’s 3rd to be only 4th or 5th among Pennsylvania Democratic seats in terms of vulnerability this year, but them’s the breaks. The GOP hasn’t found a top-tier recruit here yet, but another Republican got into the race: Mike Kelly, a car dealer from the suburban Pittsburgh part of the district. It sounds like he’ll be able to partly fund his own way, which will help him compete against fellow businessman Paul Huber.

• PA-10: Former US Attorney Tom Marino finally announced his long-rumored bid against Rep. Chris Carney this week. While Marino seems imposing on paper, there are a number of problems here for him: for starters, Carney quickly used the December efforts of GOPers to recruit him to party-switch to boost his own bipartisan bona fides. Marino also faces questions over his relationship with Louis DeNaples, a developer who was the target of probes over links to organized crime, and particularly a casino license granted to him (where Marino was a reference on DeNaples’ gaming application). And a number of state legislators – at least in the far western part of the district where Malcolm Derk is from – are lining up behind Derk instead of Marino in the GOP primary. With chiropractor David Madeira, who’s been reaching out to the teabaggers, also in the race, even the primary won’t be an easy ride for Marino.

• PA-15: One more internal poll, this one not looking so good for Democrats. Republican Rep. Charlie Dent, in his first competitive race, well, ever, against Bethlehem mayor John Callahan, has a big edge in his own poll conducted by the Tarrance Group. The poll gives Dent a 53-27 lead, with 8 going to teabagging independent Jack Towne. The moderate Dent pulls in one-quarter of all Democratic voters.

• TN-08: He’s in like Flinn. George Flinn, that is: the official entry of the Shelby Co. Commissioner, who’s also a radiologist and radio station owner in his spare time, expanded the Republican field in the 8th. With two money-bags candidates already in the picture, physician Ron Kirkland and most prominently farmer Stephen Fincher, Republicans look poised to bleed each other badly in an expensive primary while state Sen. Roy Herron looks to have the Democratic field mostly to himself in this open seat race.

• VA-05: Another primary that’s getting out of control for the GOP is the one in the 5th, where there’s a backlog of die-hards each claiming to be the “true conservative” as opposed to establishment fave state Sen. Robert Hurt. Real estate investor Lawrence Verga seems to have had the most success at gaining the attention of the teabaggers (although Verga‘s spotty voting record can’t help his image much), but now rival real estate developer Jim McKelvey just slammed down half a million dollars on the table to up the ante. Even more delicious in terms of cat fud: McKelvey is also making threats that he’ll run as an independent if things don’t go his way in the primary. With right-winger Bradley Rees already running as a Tea Party-powered indie, there could be enough fracturing on the right to let vulnerable Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello have a shot at survival.

• VA-09: Here’s a seat that would have been a bear to defend in the event of a retirement, but where we got the final word that the incumbent is staying put. Rep. Rick Boucher confirmed he’ll go for a 15th term in the Fightin’ 9th in southwestern Virginia. He’s still not out of the woods, as Republican state House majority leader Morgan Griffith may get in the race, although for now Boucher doesn’t have an opponent.

• WA-03: This caught me, and seemingly a lot of other people, by surprise: Gov. Chris Gregoire weighed into the Democratic primary in the 3rd with an endorsement, and she bypassed the two sitting state legislators in the field to go for ex-state Rep. Denny Heck, suggesting that rumors that he’s got a lot of behind-the-scenes establishment support are quite true. Heck, who subsequently founded a public affairs cable channel and did a lot of successful for-profit investing as well, can spend a lot of his own money on the race, which is probably why he’s getting the establishment backing despite having been out of office for decades.

• WV-01: After a rather protracted four-year investigation, the Justice Dept. ended its investigation of Rep. Alan Mollohan over earmark steering, removing the ethical cloud from over his head. Mollohan had been on retirement watch lists, in the face of several decent Republican challengers, but he recently filed for re-election and now his opponents have less ammo to use against him.

• OH-SoS: Progressives have been dismayed that socially conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison is the only Democratic option in the Secretary of State primary anymore, but that sounds like it’s about to change. Franklin Co. Clerk of Courts (and former Columbus city councilor) Maryellen O’Shaugnessy is rumored to be about to enter the race, and it also sounds like she’ll have the backing of the state party’s power brokers, starting at the top with Gov. Ted Strickland (who can’t afford to have progressives stay home in 2010, as he needs them to save his own bacon in what promises to be a tight gubernatorial race).

• Census: New York state Senate Democrats are proposing changes in the way that prison inmates are counted. They’d like for them to be considered residents of the district where their last known address was, not where they’re currently incarcerated. It’s actually a very important issue, considering that there are more than 58,000 state prisoners in New York, most of whom are from cities but are currently in rural Upstate, and it could tip the balance significantly in redistricting the state Senate. In other Census news, Robert Groves talked extensively to Pew about increasing participation, tracking turnout, and overcoming language barriers.

• Humor: Finally, here’s a cartoon that SSP fans are uniquely positioned to enjoy.