Tag: Tim Wooldridge

AR-Sen, AR-01: Bill Clinton is heading back home to Arkansas to do events for Blanche Lincoln (probably not a good use of resources) and Chad Causey (better use of resources). Incidentally, Politico notes that Causey’s primary opponent, Tim Wooldridge, still has yet to endorse him. Jeez.

DE-Sen: It’s official: The Tea Party Express has spooked Mike Castle into going up on the air before the primary, to a six-figure tune. In fact, the Hotline’s Jeremy Jacobs has an unusual level of detail on the nature of the buy, noting that “Castle has purchased $113K worth of airtime for Aug. 31 to Sept. 6 in the Salisbury, MD, media market,” as well as “$26K worth of time on cable in New Castle County and $42K on radio.”

NH-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is throwing down for a big buy against Paul Hodes. As the Hotline notes, the Chamber’s FEC filing says they’re spending $1 million, but apparently the buy is for less – a spokesbot will only say that it’s “sizable.” You can see their ad at the link.

AK-Gov: Republican Bill Walker, who held Gov. Sean Parnell to just 50% in the GOP primary while taking 33% himself, is talking to the Alaska Independence Party about filling their ballot line, since the AIP’s nominee, Don Wright, has withdrawn from the race. Remember that in 1994, Dem Tony Knowles very narrowly won the gubernatorial race because an AIP candidate split the right-wing vote, taking 13%.

FL-Gov: I’m not sure whether these are new names or not, but Alex Sink is trying to stick it to Rick Scott by putting out a list of ten Republican elected officials in central and south Florida who have endorsed her campaign. Speaking of Scott, he’s reportedly going to tap state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, an African American legislator from the Jacksonville area, to be his running mate.

NM-Gov: Local blog New Mexico FBIHOP has two new ads, one each from Republican Susana Martinez and Dem Diane Denish. NWOTSOTB in either case.

AZ-03: Dem Jon Hulburd is hitting noted d-bag Ben Quayle where it hurts: on Christian radio. Politico has the audio of the ad, which of course references TheDirty.com, but NWOTSOTB.

CA-47: Ya know, usually when we do an Obama Alert! or a Biden Alert! we’re at least a little bit excited at the prospect that the (V)POTUS is doing an event for some Dem or other. But once in a while, it just makes me nervous. This is one of those occasions. Joe Biden is headlining a fundraiser for Rep. Loretta Sanchez in DC on Sept. 15th. I’m thinking a rating change might be in order here soon.

MD-01: Dem Frank Kratovil is up with his first ad of the season. NWOTSOTB.

NJ-12: The so-called “Emergency Committee for Israel,” led by jerkass extraordinaire Michael Goldfarb and backed by lunatics like Bill Kristol and Gary Bauer, is now targeting Rep. Rush Holt with their latest bullshit. Holt, for his part, is fighting back, calling the ads “blatant lies” and trying to convince cable companies to pull them.

ND-AL: A break for Rep. Earl Pomeroy: The House’s Office of Congressional Ethics said earlier this week that they were dropping an investigation into Pomeroy’s fundraising practices.

NY-01: If anything saves Tim Bishop’s bacon, it might be the fact that the Republican primary has been a festering pit of raw sewage, with outraged attacks traded among Bishop’s GOP rivals daily – or more often. In fact, the three-way nature of the race seems to have tripled the likelihood of open warfare at any given moment – and it also makes things damn confusing at times. Anyhow, it looks like Chris Cox is hitting Randy Altschuler for failing to show up to a debate… but then the third dude, George Demos, also had a staffer show up at Altschuler’s offices and catch him on camera, right when the debate was supposed to start. Meanwhile, Cox also won a court ruling allowing him to fight Altschuler for the Conservative Party nomination, but he’ll have to run as a write-in.

NY-13: Another nasty New York primary also continues to get nastier. Local establishment fave Michael Allegretti keeps piling on attacks against Mike Grimm, the golden boy of national GOP figures like Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Among other things, Allegretti is pointing out that Grimm has never voted in a single Republican primary in the 13th CD.

OH-17: Jim Traficant got beamed back on to the ballot yesterday, running as an independent. He’ll face Dem Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican Jim Graham, who has raised bupkes.

PA-15: PA2010 is reporting that Dem John Callahan is going up on the air with his first ad, perhaps as early as today. NWOTSOTB, and we also don’t have a link to the ad yet, but we’ll try to bring it to you once it’s public.

TX-23: Republican Quico Canseco is refusing to meet with the editorial board of the San Antonio Express-News, claiming they have an “inherent bias” in favor of Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. Only problem: The paper endorsed the last two Republicans who ran against Ciro.

WI-07: Republican Sean Duffy is finally scrambling on to the air with a positive bio spot. Dem Julie Lassa was up with her first ad last week, and the DCCC made its first independent expenditure (anywhere in the nation) here earlier this week. NWOTSOTB, though CQ notes the ad will air “in the Wausau-Rhinelander, Duluth-Superior, Minneapolis-St. Paul and LaCrosse-Eau Claire markets”.

WV-03: Republican Spike Maynard is out with a new ad (watch it here) in which he says he wants to “stop the Obama-Rahall-Pelosi war on coal.” That a serious mouthful, dude. (James Hell sez: “He should add Rand Paul to the list!”) Anyhow, props to the Charleston Daily Mail for these details: “The ad is the first of two ads that will be released by Maynard’s campaign as part of a $100,000 ad buy in the Beckley-Bluefield and Charleston-Huntington TV markets.”

For Nick Rahall’s part, he’s apparently going to go on the radio with biographical spots to “familiarize folks with the congressman and his record.” Uh, the guy has been in office since before I was born. The paper also reports that Rahall “is expected to run TV ads starting in late September.” Can’t say I love that pace.

Cat Fud: Think Progress has carefully stacked up an entire pallet’s worth of cat fud tins in one of those lovely supermarket displays. They’ve assembled a long list of Republican primary losers who have refused to endorse the winners. I can think of two more off the top of my head: Pamela Gorman, who didn’t want to catch Ben Quayle’s cooties in AZ-03, and of course Lisa Murkowski, who maybe kinda sorta doesn’t feel all that warmly about the guy who just called her a whore (or a john, take your pick) before the ballot counting was even over. Recall any others?

DSCC/DCCC: This is actually the same link that I got all emo about in that CA-47 item up above, but anyhow, uh, Obama Alert! The POTUS will be in NYC on September 22nd to do a joint event for the two congressional party committees.

TN-Gov: Today, we are all Basil Marceaux Dot Com.

AK-AL: After three years of anticipation and $1.2 million in legal defense fees, GOP Rep. Don Young’s office is now claiming that the Department of Justice will not prosecute the crusty incumbent for his involvement in a wide-spanning Alaskan bribery scandal.

AR-01: Three aides to scuzzbucket former state Sen. Tim Wooldridge, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary to Chad Causey, have decided to endorse Republican Rick Crawford. Wooldridge is still staying mum on who, or when, he’ll endorse, but this doesn’t seem like a good sign for Democratic unity.

AZ-08: National Research for the Conservatives for Congress Committee (7/26-27, likely voters):

Jesse Kelly (R): 36

Jonathan Paton (R): 17

Brian Miller (R): 5

Undecided: 32

(MoE: ±5.7%)

CFC’s dog in the race against Democrat Gabby Giffords is clearly the tea-stained Kelly, as opposed to the NRCC-hyped state Sen. Jonathan Paton. Who knows if this poll is credible, but let’s hope that it is!

NY-01: Hah, this is a pretty good catch by the George Demos campaign. They’re hitting Randy Altschuler for sending out campaign emails cribbed from the notepad of NY-23 loser Doug Hoffman. Sure, it’s not at the same level as Scott McInnis, but the more cat fud consumed in this race, the merrier for all.

NY-29: A hearing officer of the New York Board of Elections has invalidated enough signatures to knock Some Dude Janice Volk off the GOP primary ballot for the vacant seat left behind by Eric Massa. The NYBoE will issue its ruling on the matter today, but it doesn’t look like the beleaguered Volk campaign has the resources — or spirit — to appeal the decision in court. Volk’s exit will ensure a fight between Republican Tom Reed and Democrat Matthew Zeller this fall.

PA-06: Jim Gerlach is attacking his Democratic challenger, physician and Iraq War veteran Manan Trivedi, for not having lived in the 6th District in recent years. But of course, Trivedi was otherwise occupied with a little thing called military service during that time. Douche chill!

WY-AL: Mason-Dixon for the Casper Star-Tribune (7/26-28, likely voters):

David Wendt (D): 29

Cynthia Lummis (R-inc): 59

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±4%)

RNC: The Republican National Committee has taken out a $10 million line of credit in preparation for funneling major resources to the party’s efforts at winning Dem-held House and Senate seats this fall. There’s no word, yet, if Democratic committees plan to follow suit — you may recall that in the last cycle, both the DCCC and the DSCC took out substantial loans to help take advantage of the national climate.

AR-Sen: John Boozman says that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will be coming to Little Rock to stump for him next month.

CO-Sen: Ex-Lt. Gov. Jane Norton is attempting to rebut some ugly public polling with an internal of her own from Public Opinion Strategies. Norton’s survey has her up 39-33 in the GOP primary against Weld County DA Ken Buck, but a SurveyUSA poll taken last week showed her getting killed, 53-37.

FL-Sen: Rep. Kendrick Meek and zillionaire asshole Jeff Greene had a seriously feisty debate the other night. I cannot do it justice by summarizing, so I encourage you read the Palm Beach Post’s account. Also of note, Greene is taking a page from the John Kasich playbook and refusing to make his tax returns public. In a display of leadership, he said disclosure was his wife’s call – who said “hell no” when asked by reporters if she would do so.

LA-Sen: As Crisitunity noted, Rep. Charlie Melancon has a real crisitunity to deal with vis-a-vis the gulf oil spill, and it’s been interesting watching the issue play out on the campaign trail. Melancon may have gotten a gift with a federal district court judge’s ruling against the offshore drilling moratorium (something Melancon opposes), but contrary to his wishes, the Obama administration will indeed appeal.

NV-Sen: Jon Ralston, one of Nevada’s top political analysts, points out that Sharron Angle has been touting an endorsement on her website from a bunch of lunatics called the “Declaration Alliance.” They’re a birther outfit, and Ralston has been trying to get Angle on the record as to whether she shares their views – but, says Ralston, “She no longer answers her voicemail, and her press secretary’s voicemail is full.” I’m sure Ralston’ll ask her all about this next week, when he interviews her on his TV show. Here are a couple of other things he ought to bring up: Angle’s statements that unemployed folks have been “spoiled” by government “entitlement” – and that bringing jobs to Nevada wouldn’t be, well, her job as senator. This should be a fun interview!

OH-Gov: As Dave Catanese says, on the campaign trail, “a candidate’s humble upbringing is almost always safe from attack.” So you really have to wonder why in the fuck John Kasich thought it would be a good idea to mock Ted Strickland’s background, braying about his opponent: “Having grown up in a chicken shack on Duck Run, he has all but ignored our cities’ economies and their workers.” Not that you needed it, but even more evidence that Kasich is a grade-A schmuck with a tin ear: He told Alan Colmes he would not be “singing in any chorus for LeBron James” to help keep the NBA uber-star Ohio’ #1 Citizen in Cleveland. Christ, what an asshole!

NV-Gov: Anjeanette Damon of the Las Vegas Sun says that Rory Reid may be going up on the air with TV ads as soon as today – but that’s it. No further details on the nature of the ad, where it might run, or, of course, the size of the buy.

AR-01: Tim Wooldridge is doing everything in his power to convince 1st CD Democrats that they were right to select Chad Causey as their nominee instead of him. He’s still refusing to endorse Causey, and in an interview with Politico, he had kind words for Rick Crawford, the GOP nominee, calling him a “fine fella.” With Dems like these….

FL-06: Will Joe Barton be the next Joe Wilson? Or will he become… well, I just can’t think of a single Republican in recent memory who has been exorcised by the party for saying something outrageous. Which suggests to me that, in fact, GOP rank-and-file are probably cheering Barton for having the “guts” to say the quiet part loud. Indeed, Dave Weigel points to several Republicans who have been aping Barton’s “shakedown” language.) Anyhow, Barton’s doing a fundraiser for Cliff Stearns next week, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of draw Smokey Joe will be. Stearns doesn’t face any meaningful opposition in this 56% McCain district and has $2.5 million on hand, so I wonder why Barton is doing him the favor in the first place.

KY-03: Todd Lally, the GOP nominee in the 3rd CD, said that fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell told him to go twist when he asked for fundraising help. But not to worry – Rand Paul to the rescue! The libertarian freakazoid will apparently do two events with Lally this summer, something I’m sure will play well back in Louisville.

MI-03: Retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers endorsed businessman and former Kent County Commissioner Steve Heacock to succeed him, but pledged to support whomever wins the August 3rd GOP primary. Also in the race are state Sen. Bill Hardiman, state Rep. Justin Amash, attorney Louise Johnson, and Air Force vet Bob Overbeek. Amash recently dinged Heacock for copying and pasting position statements from other Republicans (like Paul Ryan and fellow Michigander Dave Camp) and posting them on his website without attribution. (Heacock has since taken them down.)

MI-07: After a local Republican club announced that Rudy Giuliani would be doing a fundraiser for ex-Rep. Tim Walberg, Brian Rooney (Walberg’s primary opponent) pounced, citing Giuliani’s squishiness on abortion. Rooney’s camp must have been pleased to make the hit, since Walberg had previously zinged Rooney for failing to show up at an anti-abortion group event a few months ago. In any case, Walberg is now saying no, no, no – there was never going to be a Rudy fundraiser in the first place (though his campaign manager said they’d like to do something in the future).

MO-07: Missouri Right to Life endorsed self-funding businessman Billy Long, citing unhappiness with the voting record of state Sens. Gary Nodler and Jack Goodman, the other two major candidates in the race to succeed Roy Blunt. This is a 63% McCain district, though, and we have no real candidate, so any cat fud here is for entertainment purposes only.

WATN: Former Rep. Don Cazayoux was unanimously confirmed as the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana by the Senate yesterday. Here’s wishing Cazayoux – who is only 46 – a successful tenure and, hopefully, a return to electoral politics some day.

CT-Sen: Despite having no shortage of cash, the Journal-Inquirer of north-central Connecticut says Paulist freakazoid Peter Schiff might be having trouble petitioning his way on to the ballot. What an ignominious end! Anyhow, we’ll know for sure by the end of this week. (Also, see our CT-04 bullet for another Nutmeg state petitioning debacle, only worse.) Meanwhile, Aaron Blake lays out some possible circumstances under which Rob Simmons’ zombie campaign might come back to life (though ultimately he thinks reanimation of this particular corpse is unlikely).

WI-Sen: I like what Russ Feingold is doing here: He’s putting his opponent, richie rich Ron Johnson, on the defensive by linking Johnson to Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, and charging that he hasn’t said whether he supports Social Security, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act. Interestingly (at least according to Politico), Johnson’s spokesbot shot back with some pablum – and didn’t bother to say whether he does support any of these three pillars of modern society.

ME-Gov: An op-ed by George Smith in the Kennebec Journal suggests that environmental lawyer Eliot Cutler, running as an independent, could win Maine’s gubernatorial race. Cutler apparently has personal wealth, and Smith suggests he could split the GOP vote, earning the support of some of its more moderate members while the teabaggers stick with the very conservative Paul LePage. (And remember, Maine’s last governor before Dem John Baldacci was also an independent, Angus King.)

SC-Gov: So Politico has a piece claiming that the South Carolina GOP establishment, including the SC Chamber of Commerce, is going all-out to try to stop Nikki Haley from winning the run-off. But CNN notes that former First Lady Jenny Sanford is stumping for Haley, and of course third-place finisher and state AG Henry McMaster endorsed her as well.

AR-01: Dem Chad Causey is “in talks” about an endorsement with Tim Wooldridge, whom Causey beat 51-49 in the runoff.

AZ-08: Remember Randy Graf? If you don’t, all you need to know is that he craaazy. He also ran for this seat in 2006 and, after the NRCC abandoned him, got beat badly by now-Rep. Gabby Giffords. Anyhow, he endorsed veteran Jesse Kelly in the GOP primary, who was once touted but then got outshined by the later entrance of state Sen. Jonathan Paton.

CO-04: Man, I bet Cory Gardner really wishes Rep. Steve King would shut up. The other day, Gardner cancelled a fundraiser in Colorado with King after King declared that President Obama “favors the black person.” Now King is lambasting Gardner for spurning him – and claiming that Gardner agrees with what he said! Gardner of course disputes King’s claims. I don’t know if you can properly call this cat fud, but it sure smells like it.

CT-04: This sack is so very, very sad. Republican Tom Herrmann flushed his campaign down the toilet today like your kid’s dead goldfish, only there won’t be any trips to the pet store to buy a replacement. Turns out Herrmann’s campaign engaged in a little bit o’ ye olde petition fraud (something we mentioned the other day), meaning he won’t have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. I admit that I was initially skeptical of this story, but it turned out that where there was smoke, there was indeed fire.

DE-AL: Republican Kevin Wade dropped out of the race, leaving Michele Rollins and Glen Urquhart to compete in the September primary. Wade endorsed neither, but touted Some Dude Rose Izzo.

LA-02: In a story about state Rep. Cedric Richmond formally kicking off his campaign, there’s a throwaway line suggesting that state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson is still considering a run. Carter Peterson (then known only as Karen Carter) lost badly to ex-Rep. Bill Jefferson in a 2006 run-off. She also infamously supported Republican Jim Tucker to be Speaker of the Louisiana House in 2007, over (of all people) Dem Don Cazayoux.

NC-08 (PDF): Damn, I hope PPP is wrong about this. They have Harold Johnson leading beautiful maniac Tim D’Annunzio 49-39 in the runoff (which takes place next week). Surely the Ark of the Covenant can help turn the tide for Timmy D, no?

ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy’s team did some nice work in getting a bullshit third-party ad yanked off the air. The spot accused Pomeroy of supporting healthcare taxes which led to lost jobs. The only problem(s): No new healthcare taxes have gone into effect yet, and the jobs in question related to reform of the student loan system, not healthcare. Yeah, whoops is right.

NY-13: Does the name Kieran Lalor ring a bell? He ran against Rep. John Hall in NY-19 in 2008 and got pasted. He’s resurfaced of late, but this time, he’s attacking a fellow Republican, Michael Allegretti. Lalor claims to represent a group of Iraq veterans, and he’s miffed that Allegretti has pictures of himself with members of the military on his website. Lalor’s hands are not exactly clean here, as his group’s own website has a picture of Allegretti’s opponent, Michael Grimm – whom Lalor says his organization will likely endorse.

NY-14: SEIU 32BJ, an important, 70,000-strong building workers union, endorsed Rep. Carolyn Maloney, citing her work in securing $4 billion in federal money for major east side transit projects.

PA-07: What a huge – and unforced – blunder. GOPer Pat Meehan tried to accuse Bryan Lentz of having been involved in the big “bonusgate” scandal (where Dem campaign workers were paid with state money). First problem: He had no such evidence, and the press (to their credit) had no trouble realizing this. Second mistake: He held his press conference in the state capitol – where the state legislature (of which Lentz is a member) is still in session. This meant that Lentz got to watch Meehan’s presser in person – and then when Meehan was done and the cameras were still rolling, Lentz strode up to the same podium and delivered a biting rebuttal to Meehan’s bullshit. Lentz’s impressive political skillz are matched only by Meehan’s lack thereof.

VA-05: Is there a word in English which expresses the idea that a debacle for one side is actually a boon for the other? No, it’s not schadenfreude, and it’s not crisitunity, either. But in any case, this is what seems to be brewing in VA-05, where the second-place finisher in the GO primary, Jim McKelvey, finally announced that he ain’t endorsing no one – at least, not yet. We can only hope he’ll give his backing to independent teabagger Jeffrey Clark rather than state Sen. Robert Hurt.

NRCC: The NRCC is setting a $20 million goal for its “Battleground” fundraising effort from members of its caucus. In 2008, their goal was $12 million, though it’s not clear whether they actually met it. In 2006, they started at $17.5 mil but later bumped it up to $22.5 mil.

FL-Sen: Not unexpectedly, Charlie Crist vetoed a bill (passed by Flordia’s Republican state lege and supported by anti-choice groups) which would have required women seeking an abortion to first get an ultrasound. Marco Rubio and Kendrick Meek both fired off press releases attacking Crist – the former for abandoning conservative principles, and the latter for trying to “run away” from his “anti-choice past.”

KY-Sen: We’ve mentioned this before, but now the Louisville Courier-Journal has a lengthy piece looking at Rand Paul’s renegade ophthalmology certification organization, called the National Board of Opthalmology. It turns out that the American Board of Medical Specialties – the meta-group which certifies this country’s certifying organizations – doesn’t recognize Paul’s concoction. Rather, they recognize the American Board of Ophthalmology, from whom Paul used to have a certification, but which he let lapse some years ago.

SC-Sen: So now even the White House is weighing in on the mysterious primary victory of Alvin Greene, with senior advisor David Axelrod saying he thinks Green’s win “doesn’t appear” legitimate. This widespread establishment skepticism may enoucrage loser Vic Rawl to file a formal protest with the state Democratic Party, something he has until noon today to do. The party could void the result if it found serious flaws, but state chair Carol Fowler says something like that is “pretty rare.” And Nathan Gonzales also makes a good point: Greene may have spent $0 on this race, but Rawl didn’t spent a whole lot more – just $45K.

UT-Sen (pdf): Wilson Research Strategies for Mike Lee (6/10, likely voters):

Mike Lee (R): 39

Tim Bridgewater (R): 30

Undecided: 31

(MoE: ±5.7%)

AL-Gov: This seems a little odd: lame duck AG Troy King (who just lost the GOP primary) issued an advisory opinion saying that the July 13th Republican gubernatorial runoff ballot should feature the names of Bradley Byrne and Robert Bentley – even if third-place finisher Tim James displaces Bentley in a planned recount. King advises that another runoff take place if James’s recount is successful.

MI-Gov: Fifth CD Rep. Dale Kildee endorsed Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero in the Democratic primary, the first member of the House from Michigan to weigh in in the gubernatorial race. His nephew Dan Kildee, who considered running himself, also got behind Bernero.

NH-Gov: Democratic Gov. John Lynch formally filed for re-election last Friday. He’s seeking a fourth consecutive two-year term, something no one has won before in New Hampshire history. A piece in the Laconia Citizen looks at the challenges Lynch faces in achieving this goal.

OH-Gov: Gov. Ted Strickland reported raising $1.3 million between April 23rd and June 10th, giving him $7.7 million cash-on-hand and $11.5 million raised for the entire campaign (which his camp says is a record). Politico also says that Strickland has raised more than any other Dem governor seeking re-election, but note that only seven fall into this category. Meanwhile, Republican John Kasich raised the same amount but has $5.7 million on hand.

UT-Gov: Ah, timing is everything in politics. Just four days after Gov. Gary Hebert called for more oil drilling in Utah, a Chevron pipeline burst a leak, spilling 500 barrels oil into Salt Lake City’s Red Butte Creek, forcing the closure of the city’s biggest park. (Click the link for a pic. More here.)

AR-01: The link is behind a paywall, so we don’t have much to go on, but apparently Tim Wooldridge is “hedging” on an endorsement of Chad Causey, the man who beat him in the runoff last week. Let’s hope this changes soon.

AR-02: Also behind a paywall (at the Hotline) is this tidbit that state Sen. Joyce Elliott (D) said she “doesn’t know” whether she’d support Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Elliott, who has a liberal reputation, probably has some re-positioning to do to remain competitive in this race, but is acting Pelosi-agnostic really plausible? Even Mike Oliverio eventually backed down from this perch – and he’s infinitely more conservative than Elliott.

CT-04: A supporter of Dan Debicella says her name fraudulently appeared on a nominating petition for rival Tom Herrmann, who is also seeking the GOP nod to take on Rep. Jim Himes in the fall. Stories like this don’t tend to have much legs, though, unless there turns out to be widespread fraud.

GA-09: Representative-elect Tom Graves (R) will be sworn in to the House later today. Note that the two other remaining vacancies in the House – NY-29 and IN-03, both the product of resignations due to scandal – will not be filled until November. Also, Graves is not out of the woods yet, as he still faces a regular July 20th primary for the fall general election.

MD-01: Looks like Andy Harris has gone, at least, birther-curious. During a recent radio appearance, Harris refused to dismiss a caller’s accusation that Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship is “false”, saying that he doesn’t know why all the details on Obama’s birth certificate are “being hidden”. (J)

MS-01: Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya. There seem to be no hurt feelings in this GOP primary, after all. After initially refusing to endorse primary winner Alan Nunnelee, former Fox News commentator Angela McGlowan has endorsed his campaign in an email to her supporters. Second-place finisher Henry Ross also threw his endorsement to Nunnelee, making the circle complete and activating the powers of Captain Planet. (J)

NC-08: Mountain of Crazy Tim D’Annunzio has upped his personal investment in his bid for the GOP nomination against Larry Kissell to $1.3 million. Harold Johnson, the guy whom the NRCC desperately wants to see win the primary, is getting out-gunned; he only raised $49K in the pre-runoff period, and is getting outspent by a greater than 2-1 margin. (J)

NY-24: The Oneida County District Attorney’s office is investigating quid pro quo allegations surrounging a 2008 donation that Republican candidate Richard Hanna made to the Oneida County Independence Party. (J)

SC-01: Politico’s Alex Isenstadt tweets that House GOP leaders are “launching [a] full scale effort for Tim Scott”, the African-American state Rep. who’s locked in a runoff with legacy candidate Paul Thurmond. Karl Rove himself is even cutting a check for Scott. (J)

UT-02: Dem Rep. Jim Matheson certainly doesn’t appear to be taking any chances in his first-ever primary against retired teacher/activist Claudia Wright. Matheson’s pre-primary FEC filing shows that his campaign has brought in $142K and spent nearly $467K since Wright shocked Matheson by forcing a primary at the May Democratic convention, leaving the incumbent with just over a million in the bank. Wright, for her part, only raised $15K during that time, and spent $17K. (J)

WA-02: Moose alert! Sarah Palin gave her latest Twitter endorsement to Snohomish County councilman John Koster, who’s seeking a rematch against Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen. Koster faces absolute nutball John Carmack in the Republican primary. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of Carmack’s website. (J)

• AR-Sen: The Bill Halter campaign is looking for last minute phonebanking help to seal the deal. And you can do it from the comfort of your own home.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (pdf): The Senate GOP primary portion of the Field Poll came out over the weekend, and it’s right in line with the various other pollsters finding a last-minute Carly Fiorina surge into a double-digit lead. She leads Tom Campbell and Chuck DeVore 37-22-19. (Campbell led 28-22-9 in the previous Field poll in March.) Also, it looks like Campbell’s last-minute ad pitch, centered around his electability, may fall on deaf ears: 42% of primary voters think that Fiorina has the best chance of beating Barbara Boxer, while 22% think that Campbell does (and 12% think that Chuck DeVore does — which is also about the same percentage of Californians who believe there is a 1,000 foot high pyramid in Greenland). There are also primary polls out from Republican pollster Magellan (who don’t have a horse in this race), who find things even worse for Campbell: they have Fiorina leading Campbell and DeVore 54-19-16. They also give a big edge to fellow rich person Meg Whitman in the gubernatorial race; she leads Steve Poizner 64-22. The unfortunate moral of the story here: have a lot of money.

• DE-Sen: New Castle Co. Exec Chris Coons is pre-emptively getting ahead of Republican charges that he raised taxes, by, instead of hiding under the bed like conventional wisdom dictates, saying ‘guilty as charged’ and explaining how it helped. The county wound up with a AAA bond rating and a eight-digit surplus. Coons also previewed one of his lines of attack against Mike Castle: Castle’s role in deregulating the banking sector.

• FL-Sen: As Charlie Crist rebuilds his team from scratch, he’s rolling out a new media team that’s heavy on the Democratic ties. Most prominently, Chuck Schumer’s former chief of staff, Josh Isay, will be Crist’s lead media person. Isay’s firm SKD Knickerbocker may be best-known for helping out other moderate independents, like Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg. One of the fires that Isay will have to put out as soon as he gets in the building, though, is what to do about the Jim Greer situation. Greer’s lawyer is saying that Crist gave the initial OK on Greer’s fundraising workaround which avoided usual party channels (which Greer allegedly turned into a scheme for filling his own pockets).

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk’s very, very bad week last week just seems to be spilling over into this week. There are allegations popping up that he fibbed on getting shot at in Afghanistan too, and also evidence that he made a lot of stuff up while talking off the cuff about the Somalia situation last year. Taking a page from Richard Blumenthal, late last week he finally dropped the playing offense against the charges and instead went to the Chicago Tribune’s e-board to say “I’m sorry” — but that apology comes after letting the story fester all week.

• NH-Sen: After a year and a half of having the Democratic primary to himself, there are hints that Rep. Paul Hodes might get some late-in-the-game company. Mark Connolly, the former head of the state’s Securities Division who resigned to become a whistleblower in the wake of the Financial Resources Mortgage coverup (the same one that’ll have Kelly Ayotte testifying before the state legislature soon), expressed some interest and said “he’s angry enough to do it.” (Looks like a common theme this year.) Speaking of Ayotte, it sounds like she doesn’t know how to read a poll: she says she won’t take drilling for oil off New Hampshire’s tiny coastline “off the table.”

• WA-Sen: You might remember from last week that the Univ. of Washington engaged in some methodologically weird stuff by adding an extra week’s worth of samples on the end of their already-released poll and re-releasing the numbers (which were nevertheless unchanged, at Patty Murray 44, Dino Rossi 40). Well, now they’re re-releasing the poll yet again with even more samples, with changed toplines and with specific numbers for that tiny extra sample for the days May 24-28 (following Rossi’s official announcement). The number that’s getting all the press is that Rossi led Murray 42-39 in that batch, although that’s only based on 221 likely voters with a margin of error of 6.6%, so its usefulness is, well, questionable. Their full numbers are now 42-40 for Murray for the entire RV sample and 46-40 for Murray for the entire LV sample (i.e. those who voted in 2006), and she leads Generic R 44-39 among RVs (and 46-41 in the May 24-28 sample), but this poll has gotten so methodologically convoluted I’m not really sure it’s worth much of anything at this point.

Murray got some good news today in the form of an endorsement, and it’s not from a human but a corporation: Boeing. While she’s received plenty of Boeing money in the past, I’m not aware of Boeing ever having explicitly endorsed her or anyone else before (although anyone with a pulse knows that Murray has taken over for Scoop Jackson as the “Senator from Boeing”). Frankly, in the state of Washington, this is a bigger endorsement than any human politician’s endorsement would be, considering the way Boeing’s tendrils reach so much of the state. Finally, the field of miscellaneous Republicans kept shrinking today, as chiropractor Sean Salazar (probably the first guy to try to grab the teabagger mantle here, although he got shoved over by Clint Didier) bailed out of the race and backed Rossi.

• WI-Sen: Here’s a strange vulnerability for Ron Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race: his fixation on opposing bipartisan Wisconsin state legislation making it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers. That’ll require some explanation, and I assume it’ll be something other than his current explanation, that such legislation would only lead to more victims of sexual abuse by making organizations likelier to sweep it under the carpet.

• IA-Gov: After endorsing a variety of misspelled odds-and-ends last week (“Cecil Bledsoe,” “Angela McGowen,” and Joe Miller), Sarah Palin went with a big gun this weekend, and it was one who doesn’t match her carefully cultivated teabagging/religious right image at all: establishment retread Terry Branstad in Iowa. Is she counting on getting repaid by Branstad in the 2012 caucuses, if she decides to give up the grifting lifestyle and take the huge pay cut associated with running for President? (Branstad also has the backing of Mitt Romney, who seems more of a kindred spirit for him.)

• MI-Gov: The Schwarz is not with us after all. Joe Schwarz, the moderate ex-Rep. who got bounced from MI-07 in 2006 in the GOP primary by Tim Walberg, has decided against pursuing the independent bid in the Governor’s race that he’d been threatening. On the surface, the loss of a center-right indie looks like bad news for the Dems, but depending on which two candidates match up in November, Schwarz could just have easily pulled more left-of-center votes… and in all likelihood, he wasn’t going to rack up more than a few percent anyway.

• NY-Gov: In their standoff with Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo, the Working Families Party seems to have blinked first. They went ahead and nominated placeholders in the Governor, Lt. Gov, and AG slots, presumably to allow coordination with the Dem choices later. Cuomo had been leaning hard on the WFP to do so. The person most affected by this is state Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a Cuomo foe who had been considered the most likely WFP candidate for AG; instead, the WFP may wind up going with Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice, who’s Cuomo’s preferred AG for his informal “ticket.”

• TX-Gov: The Greens are actually going to be on the ballot in Texas this year, for the gubernatorial race? I’m as surprised as you are, but it’s less surprising when you find out who’s behind it: Arizona Republican consultant Tim Mooney, who set up the petition drive to get them on the ballot (and who’s also a veteran of the 2004 efforts to get Ralph Nader on as many states’ ballots as possible). GOP incumbent Rick Perry faces a tough race from Dem former Houston mayor Bill White, and he can have a little breathing room if the Greens siphon off a few lefties.

• AR-01: Chad Causey has an interesting argument for Democratic runoff voters in the 1st not to vote for ex-state Sen. Tim Wooldridge: he’s likely to bolt for the Republican Party at his earliest convenience. Causey’s evidence for the flight risk posed by Wooldridge includes his very conservative voting record in the state legislature, starting with his pro-public hanging legislation. Wooldridge, for his part, said he’d never switch. The Wooldridge camp is also offering up an internal poll (no word on the pollster) claiming a 48-24 lead over Causey in the runoff.

• CA-19: SurveyUSA has one last poll of the race in the 19th’s GOP primary, which they’ve polled exhaustively (and found almost exactly the same thing each time). However, this time it’s a little more interesting: there seems to be some late movement to former Fresno mayor Jim Patterson, who now leads state Sen. Jeff Denham 34-30. Ex-Rep. Richard Pombo is back at 17, with Larry Westerlund at 8. On the Dem side, it’s a 26-26 tie between Loraine Goodwin and Les Marsden.

• MN-06: What started out as a thorny three-way primary (when Elwyn Tinklenberg was in the race) has turned into a walk for Democratic state Sen. Tarryl Clark. Maureen Reed, a physician and former Independence Party Lt. Gov. candidate, ended her bid and endorsed Clark against Rep. Michele Bachmann. Reed had done surprisingly well at fundraising, but didn’t have the institutional advantages that Clark did, especially once Clark got the DFL endorsement. Clark still has an uphill fight against Bachmann, who’s insulated against likely future foot-in-mouth incidents by the district’s reddish lean as well as a huge war chest.

• TN-08: A Hill piece on the possibility of another NRCC-touted candidate (in the form of Stephen Fincher) going down in flames actually has some nice dirt on all three Republicans contesting the primary in the 8th. Fincher, of course, is widely noted for his hypocrisy on attacking the federal government while receiving millions in farm subsidies, but it’s also been revealed that he has voted in three Democratic primaries in the last eight years, “used virtually the same TV ad as a candidate for Alabama Agriculture Commisioner” (I have to assume it was an ad from one of the “thugs,” since if he’d riiiiiiipped off Dale Peterson’s ad, the whole blogosphere would already know about it by now), and perhaps most pathetically, misspelled “Tennessee” in a mailer. His challengers, Ron Kirkland and George Flinn, have their own troubles; Kirkland contributed to outgoing Democratic Rep. John Tanner in 2000 and 2004, while Flinn tried to cover up a lawsuit by a contractor who wasn’t paid for remodeling work.

• AK-Sen: Sarah Palin, fresh off her triumphant endorsements of Vaughn Ward and “Angela McGowen,” is now weighing in with an endorsement in her home state: she’s backing Joe Miller, the Christian-right GOP primary challenger to incumbent Lisa Murkowski. What’s surprising is that people are surprised today — there’s long-term bad blood between Palin and the Murkowskis (Palin, of course, beat incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski in the 2006 GOP primary, and was briefly considering a 2010 run against Lisa Murkowski in the primary), and Todd Palin (who presumably doesn’t do anything without running it by the Palin family head office) had already endorsed Miller and headlined fundraisers for him.

• AR-Sen: The League of Conservation Voters is taking advantage of the oil spill in the Gulf being top-of-mind for most people today, to run a pre-runoff TV spot hitting Blanche Lincoln for her support for offshore drilling and her big campaign contributions from Big Oil.

• CA-Sen: Darkness descends over Team Campbell, with the primary one week away. Short on money and financially outgunned by Carly Fiorina, Tom Campbell has pulled the plug on TV advertising (at least for now; they say they’re evaluating day-to-day what to spend on) and is relying on robocalls to drive turnout for the GOP primary. On the other hand, quixotic Democratic primary candidate Mickey Kaus is actually hitting the airwaves, and he’s running an ad that very closely mirrors a now-famous 1990 ad from Paul Wellstone… which is pretty much the only thing that Kaus has in common with Wellstone (well, that and a weird hairline).

• FL-Sen: Jim Greer, the former state party chair of the aptly-acronymed RPOF, was just arrested on six felony charges: money laundering, grand theft, fraud… you know, the basic day-to-day aspects of running a political party. It’ll be interesting to watch, as this case plays out, if there’s any blowback to either Senate candidate: Charlie Crist, who helped put former key ally Greer into place as state party chair, or Marco Rubio, who had a taste for charging things to the state party’s credit cards.

• IL-Sen: All of a sudden it seems like every time Mark Kirk plugs a leak concerning misrepresentations of his military record, another two spring up. Today, Kirk had to admit to the WaPo’s Greg Sargent that his website incorrectly identifies him as “the only member of Congress to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Kirk actually served stateside as a Naval Reservist during the Iraq War, and he says that he’s corrected the website, as what he really meant was “to serve during Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Kirk also failed to correct Joe Scarborough when he said in 2003 that Kirk had “served Americans overseas in Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Hmmm, that whole scenario sounds vaguely familiar… I wonder where the front page NYT story about this is?

• NV-Sen: There’s that old saying about when your opponent pulls out a knife, you pull out a gun… I guess the same thing’s happening in Nevada, where when Sharron Angle pulls out allegations of wrongdoing involving a campaign bus, Sue Lowden pulls out allegations of wrongdoing involving a campaign plane. Angle hitched a ride to the “Showdown in Searchlight” rally on a supporter’s private plane, and while she did reimburse the owner $67 for her share of the fuel, it turns out she needs to pay more like $7,000, for the going charter rate. Meanwhile, Lowden seems to be doing some hasty but serious-sounding damage control over the issue of the “veterans tax;” this is still in the sketchy stages, but we’ll follow it as it develops.

• PA-Sen: The Clinton job offer scandal continues to roil the Joe Sestak campaign, threatening to torpedo the Democratic candidate as he struggles to gain momentum after winning an upset in the primary!!! Oh, wait a second, I was confused… for a moment there, I thought I was actually a Beltway pundit. In reality, nobody gives a shit, and Sestak continues to consolidate post-primary support, as seen in a new DSCC-sponsored poll by Garin Hart Yang, which gives Sestak a 47-40 lead over GOPer Pat Toomey. Both candidates are similarly liked yet ill-defined: Sestak’s favorables are 34/18, while Toomey is at 30/19.

• WA-Sen: The University of Washington pollsters who released the poll several weeks ago giving Patty Murray a 44-40 edge over Dino Rossi did something unusual. They started asking Washington residents about their feelings about the Tea Party (worth a read, on its own), but they also kept asking them about Murray/Rossi and adding those voters to the previous poll’s pool. I’m not sure if that’s methodologically sound or not; on the one hand, it pushes the MoE down to a very robust 2.3%, but also pads out the sample period to a terribly long 25 days. At any rate, it doesn’t affect the toplines one bit: Murray still leads 44-40.

• AZ-Gov: Is there just a weird outbreak of Lying-itis breaking out among our nation’s politicians (or did everyone always do this, and now thanks to the Internet you can’t get away with it anymore)? Now, it’s Jan Brewer’s turn: during the fight over Arizona’s immigration law, she somehow tried to weave in her father’s death “fighting the Nazi regime in Germany” in discussing the personal attacks against her. There’s one small problem: her father was a civilian supervisor of a munitions depot during the war, and died of lung disease in 1955. Meanwhile, back in reality, one of Brewer’s GOP primary rivals, former state party chair John Munger, has decided to drop out after getting little traction in the primary. He cited fundraising issues in his decision.

• FL-Gov: Did Rick Scott think that people were just not going to notice that whole Medicare fraud thing? Having gotten stung by outside advertising hitting him on the Columbia/HCA fraud and the $1.7 billion in fines associated with it, he’s launching a defensive TV spot and website dedicated to telling his side of the story. Meanwhile, Dems might be sailing into a clusterf@ck of their very own: Bud Chiles (the son of popular Democratic ex-Gov. Lawton Chiles) is still looking into a gubernatorial run… and now seemingly considering doing it as an independent. An independent who soaks up mostly Democratic votes would pretty much be curtains for Alex Sink’s chances at winning.

• GA-Gov: Ex-Gov. Roy Barnes got a couple endorsements that should help him with the African-American vote, as he faces African-American AG Thurbert Baker in the Dem primary. Two prominent former Atlanta mayors, Andrew Young and Shirley Franklin, backed Barnes.

• ME-Gov: The most overlooked gubernatorial race in the country has its primaries next week, and it seems like even Mainers have no idea what’s going on. Pan Atlantic SMS polled the primary, but found 62% of Dems and 47% of GOPers undecided. On the Dem side, state Sen. president Libby Mitchell is at 13, with ex-AG Steve Rowe at 12, Rosa Scarcelli at 7, and Patrick McGowan at 6. On the Republican side, Les Otten is at 17, Paul LePage at 10, Peter Mills at 8, Steve Abbott at 8, Bill Beardsley at 4, Bruce Poliquin at 3, and Matt Jacobson at 2. Given the poll’s MoE of 5.7%, all we know is that pretty much any of these candidates could be the nominees. Otten just got an endorsement from one of the few Republicans who isn’t running: from state Sen. majority leader Kevin Raye.

• AR-01: In northeast Arkansas, I don’t think endorsements come any bigger than this. Bill Clinton weighed in on Chad Causey’s behalf, in the Democratic primary runoff against the more conservative Tim Wooldridge.

• CA-42: How about I just start reporting on the politicians who haven’t fudged their war records? Now it’s the turn for Rep. Gary Miller (who faces a potentially competitive teabagger primary next week). A number of bios, including his California Assembly bio, have said he served in the Army in 1967 and 1968. A news story linked from Miller’s current official website said that he “served his country during the Vietnam War.” Turns out he spent seven weeks in boot camp in 1967, at which point he was discharged for medical reasons.

• MS-01: Newly crowned GOP nominee in the 1st Alan Nunnelee gets today’s hyperbole-in-action award. On Saturday, he told a local Rotary Club gathering that what’s going on in Washington is worse than 9/11, because “What I see in Washington over the last 16 months is a more dangerous attack because it’s an attack on our freedom that’s coming from the inside.”

• NC-08: Another day, another freakout from Tim d’Annunzio. His latest antics involve dropping out of a scheduled debate against GOP runoff opponent Harold Johnson, because of, as per d’Annunzio’s usual modus operandi, “the collaboration between the Harold Johnson campaign and the news media to use partial truth, innuendo and accusations to unfairly smear me.”

• PA-10: Best wishes for a quick recovery to the GOP candidate in the 10th, Tom Marino. He’s in stable condition after being involved in a late-night head-on collision while driving back from a county GOP meeting last night.

• NY-St. Sen.: One state legislature where it’s going to be tough for the GOP to make up much ground is the New York Senate, where they’re now having to defend their fourth open seat (out of 30 total) this cycle. George Winner, who’s been in the Senate since 2004 (making him a veritable youngster by NYS Senate GOP standards), is calling it quits. His Southern Tier district centered on Elmira has a 74K to 60K GOP registration advantage, but Obama won SD-53 by a 51-47 margin.

AR-Sen: The Big Dog is coming back home to stump for Blanche Lincoln, the first time he’s done so this race. Meanwhile, the SEIU just tossed in another $100K for phonebanking and another $100K for field on behalf of Bill Halter. (There’s also an amusing negative $100K entry for “reverse phonebanking.”)

CA-Sen: Chuck DeVore is as insane as this ad. A true must-see. In news of the normal, President Obama kept to his promise to return to CA for two more Barbara Boxer fundraisers. The events raised $1.75 million, $600K of which will go to Boxer and the balance to the DSCC.

KY-Sen: Heh, that was quick. Rand Paul is already planning the dreaded “staff shakeup.” The only problem is that he can’t fire himself. Barring that, Mitch McConnell is telling his least-favorite fellow Kentuckian to shut the fuck up and hide under a rock – “for the time being.”

PA-Sen: I agree – this is a magnanimous move. Arlen Specter introduced Joe Sestak to his Senate colleagues at their weekly lunch yesterday. Very gracious.

AL-06, AL-07: Unsurprisingly, corporate lawyer Terri Sewell is the only Democrat airing TV ads in the primary to succeed Rep. Artur Davis, spending about $200K so far. With $783K, she’s far outraised her chief competitors, Earl Hilliard, Jr. ($328K) and Shelia Smoot ($100K). Sewell can also count among her contributors Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

Crazily, though, ten-term GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus is also airing ads in advance of his primary in AL-06, some $70K worth. Bachus has spent an amazing $680K on his campaign so far, even though his challenger, teabagger Stan Cooke, has raised just $29K total. This is the reddest district in the nation according to Cook PVI (R+29), which may explain Bachus’s anxiety, since he is the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee and voted in favor of the bailout.

AR-01: A similar situation in AR-01 as in AR-02 below, where first-rounder David Cook endorsed the somewhat less-conservative Chad Causey over the extremely conservative Tim Wooldridge in (you might be a little surprised to hear me say this if you don’t already know the names) the Democratic runoff.

AR-02: Some runoff endorsements on both sides from the also-rans. Patrick Kennedy and John Adams (great names, huh?) both endorsed Robbie Wills in the Democratic race, while David Boling endorsed Joyce Elliott. I suspect national Dems would prefer Wills over the more-liberal Elliott, but this race is probably too touchy to get involved in.

DE-AL: Joe Biden returned home to do a fundraiser in Wilmington for John Carney. No word on whether he’ll also do one for Senate candidate Chris Coons, but it’s not like it’s a big schlep.

FL-25: The statewide Florida AFL-CIO, following the lead of its South Fla. branch, endorsed little-known longshoreman Luis Meurice in the Democratic primary, rather than Joe Garcia. The union, Florida’s biggest, backed Garcia in 2008.

IN-05: This is exactly the kind of weird that Dave Weigel specializes in. Tim Crawford, the teabagging “Democrat” who snuck to victory in the Democratic primary here, abruptly dropped out of the race after an unpleasant meeting with, you know, actual Democrats… and then wrote a long, rambly email saying he was un-dropping-out. Ah well.

IN-09: Speaking of Joe Biden, he’ll also be doing a fundraiser in late June for Rep. Baron Hill in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

NC-08: I would really freakin’ love to see Tim D’Annunzio pull this one off. The entire NC House GOP delegation just collectively endorsed former TV sportscaster Harold Johnson, terrified as they are of the spastic-fantastic Tim-diana Jones. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here stat.

RI-01: Scott Brown is coming to Rhode Island for a fundraiser with state Rep. John Loughlin, the GOP’s candidate in this open seat. To date, Loughlin’s raised about $344K, which might not seem too bad, but in fact he’s been running for a long time, since well before Rep. Patrick Kennedy announced his retirement.

VA-11: Businessman Keith Fimian has a new poll from McLaughlin & Associates showing him with a 36-23 lead over Fairfax Co. Supervisor Pat Herrity in the GOP primary. A March poll had Fimian up 29-17. Herrity had his own poll out last month, though, showing him with a 42-21 lead – and pointed out that Fimian claimed his internals had him just three points behind Gerry Connolly before election day 2008, but lost by twelve.

DSCC: Uh, good, I guess. The DSCC has cancelled plans to have EPA chief Lisa Jackson headline an NYC fundraiser next week – but what a retarded idea in the first place. It seems pretty inappropriate to me to have cabinet members doing hackwork like this (can you imagine Hillary Clinton or Eric Holder shilling for dollars?), but it’s even worse when you’re talking about the head of the EPA in the midst of the oil spill crisis in the Gulf. I also find it unctuous that the original invitation promised that the event would be “intimate, so each of you will have a real opportunity to get to know and to speak to Lisa about issues of concern to you and our nation.” Pretty gross when it’s our team selling access to the ultra-wealthy. Barf.

Ideology: Alan Abramowitz has a great piece up at the Democratic Strategist, looking at the correlation between ideology (as measured by DW-NOMINATE) and election performance by Republican senators. Using a modified eight-point DW-N scale, Abramowitz finds: “For every additional one point increase in conservatism, Republican incumbents lost an additional three percentage points in support relative to their party’s presidential candidate.” But shhh… don’t tell the Republicans!

• AR-Sen: Labor seems quite keen to finish the job against Blanche Lincoln in the runoff; the AFSCME just anted up $1.4 million for the coming weeks. This includes not just an IE blitz on the state’s inexpensive airwaves, but also 30 staffers on the ground, with a particular emphasis on driving up African-American turnout. Meanwhile, Mark Blumenthal took an in-depth look at the AR-Sen poll released yesterday by DFA giving Bill Halter the lead; he had some of the same issues with question order that we did.

• KS-Sen: Rep. Jerry Moran is out with an internal poll from POS that gives him a dominant lead over fellow Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the GOP primary for the open Senate seat. Moran leads 53-27, including a similar 51-33 among those who are “favorable” to the Tea Party movement (despite Moran being somewhat more moderate than the social conservative Tiahrt… Moran’s appeal to them may be that Tiahrt is one of those pork-hugging Appropriators).

• KY-Sen: Quickest post-primary implosion ever? Rand Paul, after getting bogged down by questions yesterday over his feelings about the Civil Rights Act, dug his hole even deeper on the Rachel Maddow show last night. He tried to walk that back today on safer turf on Laura Ingraham’s show, saying that he would have voted for it in 1964 and wouldn’t support repeal of anti-discrimination laws today, although he also said that it was a political mistake to go on a liberal talk show in the first place. Democrats like John Yarmuth and Jim Clyburn are still going on the offensive, while Republican leaders like Jim DeMint and John Cornyn are busy mumbling “no comment.” Even Jeff Sessions is backpedaling. Nate Silver is circumspect about how much damage this may have actually caused Paul in Kentucky, but casts some very suspicious eyes in the direction of Rasmussen’s new poll of the race today.

• NV-Sen: Busgate seems to be the second half of Sue Lowden’s quick one-two punch to her own nose. Having been called out that her name is on the donated campaign bus’s title (despite previous contentions that it was leased), she’s now admitting that she “misspoke” about her bus. The FEC is starting to take up the matter.

• PA-Sen: Biden alert! Looks like the White House is eager to move past that whole Arlen Specter endorsement, as the Vice-President (and Scranton favorite son) is gearing up to campaign on behalf of Joe Sestak.

• WA-Sen: I’m just getting more and more confused about the state of the Republican field, as Sarah Palin, out of pretty much nowhere, gave an endorsey-supporty-type thing in favor of Clint Didier today. Is this a shot across Dino Rossi’s bow to keep him from jumping in (which is locally rumored to be imminent), an endorsement after finding out that Rossi isn’t getting in (which competing local rumors also assert), or just Palin marching to the beat of her own off-kilter drum? Didier, in case you’ve forgotten, is a long-ago NFL player turned rancher who, of the various GOP detritus in the race right now, has been the one most loudly reaching out to the teabaggers. The Rossi-friendly Seattle Times must see him as at least something of a threat, as they recently tried to smack him down with a piece on the hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal farm subsidies Didier has enjoyed.

• AL-Gov: A little more information is surfacing on that shadowy birther group, the New Sons of Liberty, that’s been promising to dump seven figures in advertising into the Republican gubernatorial field. The group has a website up now, and it lists a real-world address that’s the same as Concerned Women for America, a group who’ve been supportive of Roy Moore in the past.

• GA-Gov: Insider Advantage has another look at the Republican gubernatorial primary in Georgia. They don’t see much of note, other than a bit of a Deal uptick: Insurance Comm. John Oxendine is at 23, followed by ex-Rep. Nathan Deal at 15, ex-Sos Karen Handel at 14, Eric Johnson at 5, Jeff Chapman at 2, and Ray McBerry at 2. (April’s poll had Oxendine at 26, Handel at 18, and Deal at 9.)

• MA-Gov: Grace Ross, the other Dem in the primary (and the 2006 Green Party candidate), has had to pull the plug on her candidacy, lacking the signatures to qualify. Incumbent Deval Patrick, whose political fortunes seem to keep improving, has the Dem field to himself now.

• NY-Gov: Suddenly, there’s a fourth candidate in the GOP gubernatorial race. In a year with no Mumpowers or Terbolizards, this guy may be the winner for this cycle’s best name: M. Myers Mermel. He’s a Westchester County businessman who had been running for Lt. Governor and reportedly had locked down many county chairs’ support in that race but inexplicably decided to go for the upgrade. This comes on top of word that state GOP chair Ed Cox, worried that the Steve Levy thing may have blown up in his face, has been trying to lure yet another guy into the race: recently-confirmed state Dept. of Economic Development head Dennis Mullen. Frontruner ex-Rep. Rick Lazio is undeterred, naming his running mate today: Greg Edwards, the county executive in tiny (by NY standards) upstate Chautauqua County.

• AL-07: Terri Sewell, the one candidate in the race with money, is out with an internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt showing a three-way dead heat. Sewell is tied with Jefferson Co. Commissioner Shelia Smoot at 22 apiece, with state Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. at 20. Attorney Martha Bozeman is at 7. By contrast, a Smoot poll from April had Smoot in the lead, at 33, to Hilliard’s 28 and Sewell’s 9. The intervening event? Sewell hit the TV airwaves; she’s likely to be the only candidate able to do so.

• AR-01: This is charming: when a state Rep., Tim Wooldridge (one of the two contestants in the Democratic runoff in the 1st) proposed a bill changing the method of execution in Arkansas to public hanging. Now, granted, several other states do allow hanging as alternate method (both blue states, oddly enough), but public hanging?

• LA-03: Hunt Downer, the former state House speaker, has been acting candidate-like for a while, but is finally making it official, filing the paperwork to run in the Republican primary in this Dem-held open seat. Downer seems like the favorite (in the primary and general) thanks to name rec, although he’ll need to get by attorney Jeff Landry in the primary, who has a financial advantage and claims an internal poll from April giving him a 13-point lead over Downer.

• NY-15: There’s one more Dem looking to take out long-long-time Rep. Charlie Rangel, who’s looking vulnerable in a primary thanks to ethics woes. Craig Schley, a former Rangel intern, announced he’s running (he also ran against Rangel in 2008). With the field already split by Vince Morgan and Jonathan Tasini (UPDATE: and Adam Clayton Powell IV), though, that may just wind up getting Rangel elected again.

• PA-12: PPP has more interesting crosstab information from PA-12, showing the difference candidate quality, and appropriateness for the district, can make. Tim Burns had 27/52 favorability among self-declared “moderates,” while Mark Critz had 67/27 favorables. (Guess who won?) Compare that with Scott Brown in Massachusetts, who had 62/31 favorability among moderates. And here’s an interesting tidbit: the NRCC spent fully one-tenth of its cash on hand on PA-12. (In order to get spanked.)

• VA-02: A lot of Republicans who’ve lent support to Scott Rigell in the primary in the 2nd may be wondering what they’re getting themselves into, as more detail on his contributions record comes out. Not only did he give money to Barack Obama in 2008 (as has been known for a while), but he also contributed to Mark Warner and in 2002 gave $10,000 to a referendum campaign that would have raised sales taxes in the Hampton Roads area. If he hadn’t already kissed Tea Party support goodbye, it’s gone now.

• Turnout: The WaPo has interesting turnout data in Arkansas and Pennsylvania. Arkansas turnout, juiced by the competitive Senate campaigns, was actually higher than the 2008 presidential primary.

• House GOP: That highly-touted ban on earmarks imposed on its members by the House GOP leadership? Yeah, turns out that’s just kind of more of a “moratorium” now. One that’s set to expire in January, so they can resume appropriating away once the election’s over.

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