Tag: Ed Pastor

• AZ-Sen: Arizona Dems could see a big name get into the senate race: 4th CD Rep. Ed Pastor says he’s considering the race, but wants to see how Rep. Gabby Giffords’s recovery goes before making any decisions. (He also says he hasn’t spoken to the DSCC yet.)

• CT-Sen: Chris Murphy just scored a trio of big fat endorsements: state Attorney General George Jepsen, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, and Comptroller Kevin Lembo all just gave their backing to the 5th CD rep. Notably, Merrill succeeded Murphy’s primary opponent, Susan Bysiewicz, as SoS this year.

• NM-Sen: Couple of developments in the open-seat New Mexico race. First, Dave Catanese says that Heather Wilson is starting to staff up for a potential run. Second, Steve Pearce says that he’s spoken to Republican Lt. Gov. John Sanchez and says that Sanchez is “thinking about” running. Pearce, who earlier was urging NM Republicans to reach a consensus pick, is sounding more and more like he’s interesting in playing the role of fixer rather than running himself – not too surprising, given that he’s 63 and just ran tough campaigns two cycles in a row.

• OH-Sen: Actual retail value of a Drew Carey senate run? $0, apparently. The Price Is Right host’s publicist says that Carey “does not plan to run for office,” despite a movement trying to draft him to run against Sen. Sherrod Brown. Does this remind anyone else of talk about recruiting Jerry Springer on our behalf in the 2005 timeframe? God that was sad.

• VA-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rick Boucher tells the National Journal that while he isn’t ruling out a senate run, he isn’t “giving any active thought” to one, either. Based on the linked NJ item, it sure sounds like Boucher is heading for a second career as a lobbyist. Anyhow, Boucher also says that Tim Kaine is the “obvious Democratic candidate.”

• WI-Gov: So now the RNC, like the RGA, is putting up an ad in support of Darth Walker. No Word On The Size Of The Buy (in case you aren’t familiar with that phrase, it means “NWOTSOTB”), or whether it’s cable or broadcast, but The Hill does say it will run “in Milwaukee and Madison through the end of this week.”

• NY-26: Though he met with teabagger David Bellavia for over an hour, Conservative Party chair Mike Long says he “made it very clear” that Republican nominee Jane Corwin has “a leg up on” Bellavia in terms of getting the Con endorsement. Long said his party’s executive committee may meet later this week or early next week to make a final decision. With any luck, Bellavia will pursue his plan to petition on to the ballot if he gets passed over.

• Tampa Mayor: The city of Tampa, FL had a mayoral election the other night, and Republican Rose Ferlita (26%) and Dem Bob Buckhorn (24%) will proceed to a run-off. All of the other candidates in the first round were Dems, though former Mayor Dick Greco (who was trying to return to office) was definitely more of a DINO.

• MS-Gov: Four Democrats filed for the gubernatorial race: Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree, attorney Bill Luckett (who seems to have some money), and  Some Dudes Guy Shaw and William Compton, who also ran in 2007 and took just 12% in the Dem primary. But the rest of the picture is pretty brutal. Not a single Dem will be on the ballot for the positions of lieutenant governor, secretary of state, or auditor. As for the Republicans, five candidates qualified for the gubernatorial race: Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, businessman Dave Dennis, Pearl River County Supervisor Hudson Holiday, Some Dude Ron Williams, and teabagger James Broadwater.

• Special Elections: Unsurprisingly, in Florida’s SD-33, Dem Oscar Braynon routed his Republican opposition in his bid to succeed Frederica Wilson (who replaced Kendrick Meek in the House). Dems also lost a very Republican state house district in Maine, HD-11, where the GOP candidate got all of 697 votes to the Democrat’s 557.

• WI-St. Sen.: The Wisconsin Democratic Party is launching an effort to recall the eight Republican state senators who are legally subject to the recall process. (As you probably know, WI elects half its senators every two years, so only those who won in 2008 can be recalled right now.) The SEIU has also announced that they are backing the effort.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Governor Charlie Crist first entered the Florida Senate race he was the definite favorite to win the Senate race. However over the next several months Republicans turned against him because we wasn’t conservative enough. Now conservative challenger Rubio is beating Crist badly in the polls, and it looks impossible for him to win the nomination.

The same thing can happen to McCain. Sure, he’s beating Hayworth in the primary polls right now. But do you really think he will still be ahead on primary election day? I think the chance of Hayworth beating McCain in the primary is 50%.

Now here’s the worst case scenario that we want to avoid: Hayworth beats McCain in the primary and then wins the general because the Dems didn’t put forward a strong candidate.

The strongest Senate candidates are usually sitting Congressmen. Arizona has 5 Democratic Congressmen. I nominate Ed Pastor. The 06-08 Democrats: Giffords, Mitchell and Kilpatrick, need to hold down their marginal House seats, and with bright careers ahead they might not want to take the risk. That leaves Pastor and Grijalva. From what I have read, Pastor is more well-liked and highly-regarded by the public. Also being from Pheonix instead of outstate should help him, in a state where the largest city is more conservative than the other parts. Also, it’s not fair, but Ed Pastor’s name sounds anglo enough to not be threatening to most white voters.

Ed Pastor, is 7 years younger than John McCain. He’s been a Congressman for 20 years. He can beat Hayworth. He just needs to run a few commercials that go something like “J.D. Hayworth is a crazy extremist who supports {insert wacky policy}. I proudly represented Arizona in Congress for 20 years and now if you elect me as your Senator I promise to fight for {something popular in Arizona and somewhat liberal}”. Then we get a reliably liberal vote from Arizona for the next 6 years. (Thanks teabaggers!)

Does he want to take the risk? If you were in this situation would you take the risk? If you take the bet then there’s a 50% chace McCain wins the primary and you are forced to retire at 67, after a 20 year career in the House. Your successor will be a reliable liberal vote. You might even be able to run for one of the new House seats after redistricting in 2012. And there’s a 50% chance Hayworth wins the primary and you become a Senator. Now your liberal vote will be in the Senate, where it’s really needed.

But maybe he doesn’t want to commute to Washington until he’s 73.

He would have to make a decision pretty soon. Allow enough time to see if Hayworth gains momentum in the Republican primary (he already is), but enter early enough to clear the Democratic field. The filing deadline is May 26.

A strong Democrat can beat a teabagger or club-for-growther who beats an incumbent Republican in the primary, even in a right-leaning state or district. Just ask Bill Owens and Frank Kratovil. Think of how sweet it will be if teabaggers make Kendrick Meek a Senator from Florida, and Ed Pastor a Senator from Arizona.

PS. If there is a poll out there that I don’t know about showing JD. Hayworth beating Ed Pastor in a hypothetical matchup, don’t take it seriously, because at this point it would only reflect name recognition. It would be similar to a generic D vs generic R poll, and on Election Day Hayworth will do much worse than a generic R.