• AR-Sen: Maybe it was yesterday’s performance in front of Carl Levin by all those Goldman Sachs execs, but Blanche Lincoln saw the handwriting on the wall and reversed course on her Goldman contributions, which she’d previously said she was keeping. She’s giving all that money to the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance.
• LA-Sen: Having tried to hammer David Vitter on all sorts of approaches (most of which seem to relate back to formaldehyde somehow — FEMA trailers, the dry cleaners’ lobby, and so on) and not gotten much traction, the Louisiana Democratic Party is going back to the well, to focus on the really easy-to-understand, obvious stuff: his patronizing of prostitutes. They have a new site up called “Forgotten Crimes” that revisits that sordid business.
• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall is about to go on the TV airwaves starting Thursday, her first spot with less than a week to go before the primary. One of her advisors, Thomas Mills, also seems to have had a bit of a Homer Simpson moment of not saying the say-out-loud part and shouting the keep-it-in-your-head part; he said that opponent Cal Cunningham doesn’t have a chance in the general “because he’s a white male.”
• PA-Sen: An ill-timed Arlen Specter quote today is raising a few eyebrows; he told Allentown’s newspaper that “I might have helped the country more if I’d stayed a Republican.” Of course, all the selective quoting misses the meat of his statement, which is that he says he would have voted for HCR regardless, and was musing whether he would have been in a better position to bring aboard Republican moderates from within that camp. Meanwhile, it seems like people are only just now waking up to the fact that Pat Toomey isn’t unopposed on the GOP side; he still faces off against underfunded pro-life activist Peg Luksik. Luksik is finally getting in the news today, calling attention to Toomey’s pro-choice statements in the past.
• WI-Sen: When Tommy Thompson decided not to run for Senate, many eyes wandered over to conservative state Senator Ted Kanavas as a possible Republican candidate against Russ Feingold. Kanavas declined a bid today; the only potential candidate that the GOP seems to be waiting on is wealthy businessman Ron Johnson, who still seems to be making up his mind.
• MA-Gov: The RGA is taking a page from its successful race in New Jersey, where they spent a ton of money neutralizing independent candidate Chris Daggett. They’re facing an even bigger problem in Massachusetts in the form of Dem-turned-indie state Treasurer Tim Cahill, who’s not only spoiling the race for Charlie Baker, but in 2nd place ahead of Baker. With that in mind, the RGA is launching the first big ad buy of the race, and it’s an anti-Cahill, rather than anti-Deval Patrick, salvo.
• ME-Gov: The winner of the money chase in the Maine governor’s race is Republican businessman Les Otten; he says he’s raised $106K for his campaign, but also loaned himself $1.2 million. Republican Bruce Poliquin seems to have raised the most from others, among all the candidates; he’s raised $600K. The money issue may be less relevant in Maine than most states, though; the more-or-less frontrunners on each side of the aisle, Democratic state Sen. Libby Mitchell and Republican state Sen. Peter Mills, are both relying on public funding through the Maine Clean Election Act.
• WI-Gov: In the jostling to be Democrat Tom Barrett’s running mate in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, there was a lot of action yesterday. Milwaukee alderman Tony Zielinski got out of the race and at the same time, state Assembly majority leader Thomas Nelson got in. Nelson is from Kaukauna (near Appleton); there may have been a push by Barrett (the Milwaukee mayor) to get some geographic diversity on the ticket.
• IN-05: Republican Dan Burton is one of Big Pharma’s least favorite Republicans; no surprise, as he’s one of the leading voices in the House for autism/vaccination crackpottery. Money from health and drug executives and PACs has been flowing into the campaigns of his primary opponents (especially state Rep. Mike Murphy and former state GOP chair Luke Messer). Unfortunately for Big Pharma, the badly-fractured opposition means that Burton looks poised to survive the May 4 primary even with a small plurality (as Indiana doesn’t have runoffs).
• WV-01: Rep. Alan Mollohan, who tends to keep less money in his campaign warchest than most people keep in their checking accounts, has suddenly turned into a fundraising beast in recent weeks (now that he suddenly has some motivation to do so, facing both a tough primary and some credible GOP opposition). He’s raised $32K in just the last two days after holding a fundraiser. Meanwhile, there’s no clear front-runner as to who his GOP opponent will be, although former state Rep. David McKinley and former state Sen. Sarah Minear are trading punches over their legislative track records.
• CA-LG: Abel Maldonado was sworn in as California’s new Lt. Governor today, finally filling the long-vacant position. On the downside, the Republican can now run for re-election as an incumbent, but on the plus side, his Democratic-leaning Senate seat (not just in terms of registration, but a 59/39 vote for Obama), SD-15, is up for grabs. Der Governator just set the special election date for the summertime (6/22 primary, 8/17 general), though, rather than to coincide with the November election, which may work to Republicans’ advantage in terms of lower turnout.
• Illinois: Hoping to avoid a repeat of the short-lived Pat Quinn/Scott Lee Cohen ticket (and various terrible pairings from the past as well), Illinois Democrats are changing the system so that a Governor and Lt. Governor candidate run together as a ticket even in the primary, rather than getting a post-primary shotgun wedding. The state Senate passed the bill 56-0 (as Republicans seem none too enthused about their 27-year-old dilettante running mate either) and heads to Pat Quinn for his signature. (Gee, I wonder how he feels about the issue?)