Tag: Jon Bruning

• HI-Sen: Both Rep. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa have confirmed to Roll Call that they are looking at the Dem primary to replace retiring Sen. Dan Akaka, and Hanabusa says she’s meeting with the DSCC, presumably soon. She also says that the DS “has made it known it wants to speak with anyone interested in running, but it is not actively recruiting any one candidate” (Roll Call’s phrasing).

• IN-Sen: So GOPer Richard Mourdock raised $157K, not much better than the $125K or so he predicted (in an obvious attempt to ensure he “exceeded analysts’ estimates,” as they might say after a Wall Street earnings call). But I flag this item because Roll Call says Mourdock plans to “raise money from a national donor base starting next year.” Does this mean he’s going the Sharron Angle/Michele Bachmann/Allen West BMW Direct-type direct mail scammery? (See related bullets below.) If so, then perhaps Dick Lugar is in better shape than he might have hoped.

• MO-Sen: This is news to me: Sophomore GOP Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer is apparently thinking about a Senate bid, and has reportedly even met with the NRSC about his intentions. Dave Catanese says that “uncertainty about redistricting” is spurring Luetkemeyer to consider other options, but I’m not sure I buy that, seeing as the new maps being considered by the Republican-held legislature offer him a very comfy seat. The real puzzler is why he’s doing this when six-term Rep. Todd Akin seems to be gearing up for a Senate run, since there’s almost no way the two would want to fight it out in a primary. Maybe Lute thinks he can be Plan B if Akin demurs.

Another reason cited by Catanese (which applies equally well to both congressmen) is ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman’s crappy fundraising. She pulled in just $186K in Q1, which would be unimpressive for a supposedly serious candidate in almost any state. If Akin gets in, I think there’s a non-zero chance that she’d drop out.

• MT-Sen: Nice: Sen. Jon Tester (D) raised $1.2 million in Q1 and has $1.5m on hand. His Republican opponent, Rep. Denny Rehberg, raised less than half that, $580K, but has $932K in the bank.

• NE-Sen: Sen. Ben Nelson raised $1 million in Q1 and has $2.3 mil on hand. His chief Republican rival, AG Jon Bruning, raised $1.5 million and has $1.2 in the bank, but Nelson pointed out that $600K was transferred from Bruning’s 2008 Senate account (when he briefly sought to primary Chuck Hagel; after Hagel announced his retirement, Bruning was squeezed out by former Gov. Mike Johanns).

• OH-Sen: Former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, whom we’d mentioned previously as a possible candidate, has filed paperwork for an exploratory committee, joining Treasurer Josh Mandel in this in-limbo category in the GOP primary.

• TN-Sen: I feel like there’s an alternate universe not too dissimilar from our own where a Republican dude named Bob Corker is also freshman in the U.S. Senate, and he’s also up for re-election, except Corker Prime is actually vulnerable. Here on Earth, though, it really seems like Corker is well out of reach for us. He raised an impressive $1.9 million in Q1 and has over $4 million in the bank – and there are no Democratic candidates on the horizon.

Gubernatorial:

• MO-Gov: Gov. Jay Nixon lapped his likely Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, on the fundraising circuit, pulling in over twice as much money over the last six months, $1.7 million to $770K. Nixon also has a big cash-on-hand edge, $2.1 mil to $900K.

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show? Well, pretty terrible, actually – Kinder’s had just an awful few weeks in the press. After the St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed his penchant for spending taxpayer money to stay in luxury hotels to attend baseball games and society balls, Kinder promised to reimburse the state $35K… but two weeks later, he still hasn’t. That nimbus definitely isn’t moving anywhere just yet, and it’s his own damn fault. Let’s hope he runs the rest of his campaign the same way.

• NC-Gov: This just doesn’t seem good. Gov. Bev Perdue, whose public image has already suffered enough damage, was out-of-state Saturday afternoon when a series of deadly tornadoes touched down in North Carolina. She was attending a horse race in Kentucky and didn’t make a public appearance back home until 11pm that night. I’m not going to predict what this will mean for Perdue, but it can’t be helpful.

• WV-Gov: SoS Natalie Tennant’s first ad is a hokey spot set on a farm, in which she decries politicians wasting money… and a cow can be heard to moo. (Or a bull. I don’t know. It has horns. But small ones. So maybe still a cow? Do bulls moo? I’m from the city – sue me.) Tennant is generally seen as the candidate with the greatest appeal to liberals (yes, there are some in West Virginia), so she’s clearly trying to play against type here.

House:

• AZ-08: Rep. Gabby Giffords raised $358K in Q1 and has $556K in the bank.

• CA-19: Freshman GOP Rep. Jeff Denham (I admit it – I had already forgotten who he was and had to Google him) is already making a name for himself. That name is “idiot.” He staged a mega-lavish DC fundraiser in January when he was sworn in which featured singer Leann Rimes and spent an amazing $212,250 on the event. Total raised? $212,900 – which means he netted exactly $650. That’s quite the feat. It’s even more amazing when you consider it was all supposed to benefit a joint fundraising committee for 11 GOP frosh. To rub it in, Michael Doyle of the Modesto Bee archly observes: “If the $650 netted from outside contributors were to be divvied up evenly, each of the 11 GOP lawmakers would receive $59.”

• CA-36: Janice Hahn outraised Debra Bowen in Q1, $273K to $195K, and has about double the cash-on-hand, $171K to $93K. Surprisingly, Marcy Winograd managed to raise $50K. (And if you care, Republican Craig Hughey lent his campaign $250K.)

Bowen also put out an internal from the Feldman Group. In a test of apparently all the candidates who have filed, she and Hahn tie for 20, with Republican Mike Gin the next-closest at 8 and Winograd at 6. The memo also says that in a two-way runoff, Bowen leads 40-36 with 16% undecided. The poll also claims that Hahn’s unfavorability rating is “double that of Bowen,” but a self-respecting pollster really shouldn’t include such tripe, because the refusal to release actual numbers means we’re talking about something like a 12-to-6 comparison (i.e., meaningless). As mi hermano G.O.B. Bluth would say, “COME ON!”

• FL-08: Hah! Does Daniel Webster want to lose? The GOP freshman raised just $30K in Q1, but the really funny part is that the guy he defeated, Alan Grayson, raised more! Grayson took in $38K, apparently from small donors who hope he’ll make a comeback bid.

• FL-22: Allen West raised a seemingly-impressive $434K in Q1, but as you know, he’s a major practitioner of the churn-and-burn style of shady direct-mail fundraising, and it really shows in his burn rate. He spent an amazing $266K last quarter, which both as a raw total and a percentage rate is exceedingly high… but see the MN-06 and NV-02 items below.

• IA-04: Interesting, though not surprising: Politico says that DCCC chair Steve Israel warned Christie Vilsack off of challenging Dave Loebsack in the new 2nd CD, assuring her that the D-Trip would back the incumbent. He also apparently promised to support her if she took on Rep. Steve King (as she supposedly might do), though who knows what kind of $ that might translate into.

• IL-03: Insurance exec John Atkinson, who is apparently challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski in the Democratic primary, raised $535K in Q1, including $312K from his own pockets. Lipinski raised just $138K but has $637K on hand.

• MN-08: Freshman GOPer Chip Cravaack raised just $121K in Q1 – so why are we having such a hard time finding a Dem willing to take this guy on?

• MN-06: Michele Bachmann raised a MIND-OBLITERATING $1.7 million in the first quarter… and yes, I’m being sarcastic, because she also managed to spent $756K. Of course, netting a million bucks ain’t bad (and she has $2.8 mil on hand), and if she truly pulls the trigger on a presidential run, I’ll bet the spigots will open even wider. But that’s still quite the burn rate.

• NV-02: Sharron Angle makes Allen West look as parsimonious as Scrooge by comparison. Everyone’s favorite nutter (okay, it’s a multi-way tie, but you know you love her) raised an amaaaaaaaaazing $700K in Q1, but spent an actually amazing $550K, mostly to BaseConnect, the scam artists formerly known as BMW Direct. She has only $176K in the bank.

• NY-26: Republican Jane Corwin is not fucking around: She raised just $102K in Q1, but gave her own campaign a whopping million dollars. Yow. Meanwhile, Crazy Jack Davis has raised zilch, but has loaned himself $1.5 mil and already spent $1.4 mil.

Other Races:

• Denver Mayor: SSP commenter Kretzy has a really good run-down on the May 3rd Denver mayor’s race, necessitated by John Hickenlooper’s ascension to the governor’s mansion. I won’t try to summarize it – you should just click through. Timely, too, because SUSA has a poll out on the race, showing James Mejia and Chris Romer tied at 22, with Michael Hancock next at 18. Again, read Kretzy’s summary if you want to know more about these people.

• Wisconsin Recall: Signatures were filed yesterday to force a recall election for a third Republican state senator, Luther Olsen, and Dems expect to file petitions for Sheila Harsdorf today. (Number of Dem state sens who’ve had petitions filed against them so far: 0.) Also, the state’s Government Accountability Board says it will try to consolidate the recalls into as few elections as possible.

Grab Bag:

• DSCC: In an item about Herb Kohl raising $0 last quarter (he can cut himself a fat check any time he pleases, so this isn’t meaningful), Dave Catanese says that DSCC chair Patty Murray said “she was confident all of the remaining incumbents were running for reelection.” Kohl is the most obvious candidate for retirement, and of course Murray could be wrong, but maybe this is it.

• Fundraising: The NYT has a list of fundraising by freshman Republicans, and also notes that IN-08 Rep. Larry Bucshon took in just $45K. Not really wise for a guy whose district is likely to be made at least a bit more competitive. The Fix also has a fundraising roundup.

• LCV: The League of Conservation Voters is launching a $250K radio ad campaign targeted at four members of the House who voted in favor of a bill that would bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The ads are hitting two Republicans running for Senate, Denny Rehberg and Dean Heller, as well as Energy Cmte Chair Fred Upton (R) and Jason Altmire (D). Here’s a sample ad (targeted at Heller), which I actually find kinda weird and confusing.

• Passings: Former Rep. Harold Volkmer, who represented mostly rural northeastern Missouri’s 9th CD for ten terms, passed away at the age of 80.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: Now this at least is a fight that makes sense: Republicans control the Colorado House, while Dems control the Senate – and tempers have already exploded with the release of proposed redistricting plans from both sides. (See yesterday’s digest for the maps.) Speaker of the House Frank McNulty flipped out, accusing Democrats of drawing districts that would benefit two legislators in particular: Senate President Brandon Shaffer and Sen. Morgan Carroll.

However, Carroll said she has no plans to run for Congress, while the Dem point-man on redistricting, Sen. Rollie Heath, pointed out that the new 4th CD (which McNulty thinks Shaffer wants to run in) has a 10 percent GOP registration edge… in other words, not the kind of seat you’d drawn for yourself if you were an ambitious Democrat. So either McNulty is just a garden-variety moran, or he’s just trying to cast fact-free aspersions against the other side. We’ve seen a lot of this kind of crap from Colorado Republicans already, so door number two is a definite possibility (but of course, it’s not mutually exclusive of door number 1).

• Missouri: Trying to unlock a stalemate that seems remarkably picayune to outsiders such as myself, Republican power brokers in Missouri met yesterday to talk things over. Among the participants were most of the Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation, the heads of the state House and Senate, and the chair of the MO GOP. No sort of deal has been announced as yet.

• Virginia: Hah – so much for lawmakers racing back to work to deal with Gov. Bob McDonnell’s veto of their redistricting plans. Legislators had planned to be off this week, so rank-and-file members declined leadership’s entreaties to show up.

• AZ-Sen: A GOP polling firm, Summit Consulting, is out with a poll that gives Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio the lead in the nascent Republican field to replace the retiring Jon Kyl. Arpaio is at 21, with Rep. Jeff Flake and ex-Rep J.D. Hayworth both at 17, ex-Rep. John Shadegg at 12, and Rep. Ben Quayle at 6. An Arpaio-free version found Flake at 22, Hayworth at 20, and Shadegg (who has made clear that he’s not running) at 17. Although this poll wasn’t announced as being on anyone’s behalf, there’s an important caveat: Summit is raising money for Arpaio’s re-election campaign as Sheriff. This seems a consistent pattern for Arpaio over the years: float his name for higher office, rake in contributions, apply those toward his next Sheriff campaign, rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, although previous reports had had him unlikely to run for Senate, Rep. Trent Franks from current AZ-02 is now on the record as “exploring that option.”

• ME-Sen: Here’s an amusing tidbit about Andrew Ian Dodge, now running a tea party challenge of sorts to Olympia Snowe: he’s the subject of some suspicion in certain right-wing circles on account of his British background (which may explain why he cheekily showed up with his birth certificate at his campaign launch). Prime evidence for this strange line of attack is a comment he posted to a blog several years ago where he copped to being a Lord of the Manor in Gorleston, Suffolk. (Politico’s Dave Catanese titled his article on this “Snowe challenger is a British Lord…” which isn’t quite right. “Lord of the Manor” isn’t part of the peerage system (which just plain old “Lord” would be), but just a weird holdover from the feudal system of property rights, an indicator that someone in his family owned property there long ago). (One other thing I noted, though, thanks to the magic of Wikipedia: Gorleston is actually in Norfolk, not Suffolk. WHAT ELSE IS ANDREW IAN DODGE LYING ABOUT!!!!11!!!?!)

• NE-Sen: We’ve mentioned state Sen. Deb Fischer before as a potential dark-horse candidate on the Republican side in Nebraska, and now she seems to be stepping things up, at least to the extent of contacting Roll Call and letting them know that she’s interested. She represents the empty north-central part of the state, and could stand out as an interesting third-wheel in a Jon Bruning/Don Stenberg rumble by being the only rural and female candidate.

• NM-Sen: PPP finally released the GOP primary portion of last week’s New Mexico Senate poll, and… common theme in a lot of their polls… find the most electable candidate for the general losing the GOP primary because of various apostasies. Libertarian-flavored ex-Gov. Gary Johnson trails ex-Rep. Heather Wilson in a hypothetical 3-way, 35-27, with Rep. Steve Pearce at 17, Matt Chandler and Dianna Duran both at 6, and John Sanchez at 4. (Not that it matters, since Johnson has confirmed he’s sticking with his long-shot presidential bid. In fact, unless Jeff Bingaman unexpectedly retires, I’d be surprised if any of these GOPers bothers to get in.)

• NV-Sen: Rep. Dean Heller is out with an internal poll that has him way ahead of John Ensign in the GOP primary, and, accordingly, he seems to be accelerating his plans to run. The poll gives Heller a 53-38 lead in a head-to-head, and also sees him winning a 5-car pileup: it’s Heller 39, Ensign 23, Danny Tarkanian 17, Sharron Angle 14, and John Chachas 3. Faced with the possibility of a much harder race against Heller than Ensign, possible Dem candidate Rep. Shelley Berkley is saying that it wouldn’t dissuade her if Heller were the nominee, but she’s continuing to “seriously look at” the race but is also in “no rush” to decide. You know who is in a rush, though? The DSCC. Jon Ralston says they’re already talking to Democratic SoS Ross Miller too, in case they need a Plan B.

• TX-Sen: Hmm, here’s an interesting place for a Senate scoop to come from: the student newspaper at Claremont McKenna College in California. CMC alum Rep. David Dreier is the linchpin in this game of telephone: he told them that a fellow alum is indeed running for the Senate, and by process of elimination, that would point to former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, considered a likely candidate on the GOP side. Leppert, however, wouldn’t confirm to the student paper that he was running.

• UT-Sen: Another Dan Jones poll in Utah takes a look at the Senate race, and this one isn’t as weird as the last one (which included Jon Huntsman, who seems, to my eyes, to be running for Vice-President instead): it’s a straightforward poll of Orrin Hatch vs. Jason Chaffetz (although it’s still a poll of all Utah residents). At any rate, Hatch leads Chaffetz 44-34; among self-identified Republicans, Hatch actually does better, 51-35 (although trailing among “very conservative” voters). Of course, there are various ways this primary might still not happen; Chaffetz could break 60% at the state GOP convention, or Hatch could (a la Bob Bennett) finish third at the convention behind Chaffetz and a teabagger to be named later. Asked for comment, Chaffetz only said he’s a “definite maybe” about the race, and may choose to stay in the House.

• VA-Sen: We might have an answer pretty soon on whether Tim Kaine plans to run for the Senate, now that Jim Webb is out. He reportedly will consult with Barack Obama on the matter in the next couple days (gee, I wonder what Obama will suggest?), and Kaine also has announced plans to speak at the state’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner this weekend, which seems like a place to make a ‘yes’ announcement (as it would be kind of a buzzkill to go there and tell everyone ‘no’). There are also rumors… poorly sourced ones at that, so don’t get your hopes too high… out there of a GOP-sponsored poll showing not just Kaine but also Tom Perriello leading George Allen, so keep your ears to the ground for more on that.

• MT-Gov: Add one more state Senator to the mix in the Montana gubernatorial race, this time on the Dem side. Larry Jent says he’d like to run statewide, and it’ll probably be for governor. (He’d join other current or former state Sens. Dave Wanzenried on the Dem side, and Corey Stapleton and Ken Miller for the GOP.)

• LA-03, LA-07: Two Louisiana papers have had articles in the last few days on Louisiana redistricting and its likeliest casualty, new Rep. Jeff Landry, who was elected with tea party rather than establishment backing and, accordingly, doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when the establishment draws the maps in the coming months. It’s looking likelier that a map more favorable to the more senior (and tighter with leadership) Rep. Charles Boustany will be the result. The state’s redistricting special session of the legislature will be held Mar. 20.

• NY-15: While there’s still plenty of time left for him to reverse course and announce his retirement (hint, hint), Charles Rangel yesterday announced that he’s filing for re-election in 2012 to a 22nd term.

• NY-26: While they’ve been downplaying their chances for success in the R+6 26th, local Dems are hard at work looking for a candidate. It’s hard to tell who’s on the short list right now, though: one list featured Erie Co. Comptroller Mark Poloncarz, Erie Co. Clerk Kathy Hochul, and Amherst town board member Mark Manna (the only one who actually lives in the district), but doesn’t seem to feature oft-mentioned Kathy Konst. Another insider mentions two possible Dems Republican candidates from the private sector: Dan Humiston and Chris Jacobs. There’s one familiar face you can scratch off the Dem list, though: 2008 candidate Jon Powers says he’s not looking to be considered.

• WA-02: Snohomish Co. Councilor and narrow 2010 loser John Koster is “weighing” another run against Rick Larsen, although he’s waiting to see what the 2nd looks like after redistricting. The 2nd (currently D+3) needs to lose population, but it could become swingier if the losses come around Everett, or become bluer if the losses come in eastern Snohomish County.

• Chicago mayor: One more new poll to report in Chicago, another one from We Ask America (on behalf of the Chicago Retail Merchants Association). It has the highest Rahm Emanuel number yet, at 58. Gery Chico is 2nd at 24, Miguel del Valle at 10, and Carol Moseley Braun at 6. The poll was in the field on Sunday, the same day that Moseley Braun, apparently by way of referring to The Producers, compared Emanuel to Hitler, so the impact of her latest gaffe may not even have impacted on this sample. (Given the current trajectory of her poll numbers, she may actually receive a negative number of votes at the actual election on Feb. 22.)

• Special elections: There are not one but two special elections for vacant state Senate seats in California tonight, although neither one should offer much drama thanks to their strong partisan leans. The one you’re probably already aware of is SD-28 in the LA’s South Bay suburbs (overlapping much of CA-36), where Democratic ex-Assemblyman Ted Lieu is likely to fill the seat left by the death of Jenny Oropeza. He faces seven other candidates, so he might not break 50%, requiring a runoff then. The other race is in SD-17, centered on Lancaster in the high desert north of LA, where Republican Sharon Runner is expected to beat the only other candidate, Democrat Darren Parker. (Runner is trying to take over the seat from her husband George Runner, who vacated to join the state Board of Equalization.)

• Nebraska: Believe it or not, there are multiple interesting things afoot in Nebraska. Most significantly, the proposal to switch Nebraska to a winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes (instead of allotting some by CD, which allowed Barack Obama to sneak away with 1 Omaha-area EV) is entering committee; it’s expected to be easily approved by the ostensibly nonpartisan but Republican-controlled unicameral legislature. There are also competing bills in the legislature on changing the size of said legislature, one to reduce it from 49 to 45, the other to expand it to 50 (neither one is expected to go anywhere, though). Also, Nebraska just picked its nine members for its redistricting commission; there will be five Republicans and four Dems on the (again, ostensibly nonpartisan) body.

• WATN?: Ex-Rep. Mike Arcuri, who lost in NY-24 in November, is now working in the private sector at a major law firm in Syracuse. It may be a tea leaf that he might be interested in another run that he’s staying in the area instead of heading for the more lucrative world of K St., or it might be nothing. At any rate, he’s doing better for himself than Republican 2006 CA-47 loser Tan Nguyen, who just got sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for obstruction of justice related to charges of voter fraud, for sending out flyers intended to suppress the district’s Latino vote.

• Polltopia: If you think that polling was way screwier than usual over the 2010 cycle, or that it was better than ever, you’re both wrong. It was pretty much the same as always, according to Mark Blumenthal. According to a study by National Council on Public Polls, the average candidate error in 2010 was 2.1%, very comparable to other midterm elections. (The accuracy seems to improve in presidential years, perhaps thanks to more frequent polling.) Interestingly, though, even though the error rate didn’t change much, there were many more polls (25% this cycle, compared with 11% in 2006) conducted in the last week before the election with results that fell outside the margin of error (cough Rasmussen cough). They found that live interview polls (2.4%) did slightly better than autodialed polls (2.6%), but, surprisingly, polls conducted over the internet (mostly just YouGov) did the best with a 1.7% error rate.

• HI-Sen: I don’t know whether this means that Linda Lingle isn’t interested in a Senate bid and attention is turning elsewhere, or if the now-unemployed ex-Rep. Charles Djou is just looking to parlay his accidental half-a-year in the House into something else to do. At any rate, Djou is getting back in the public eye with a new anti-Dem op-ed, and his name is correspondingly getting floated as a possible opponent to Dan Akaka. (Recall that Djou swore off electoral politics a few months ago though, in what seemed like pretty conclusive fashion at the time.)

• IN-Sen: Richard Lugar just keeps sticking it to the tea partiers, telling them one more time to “Get real” (this time in connection with their opposition to START… because nothing says “fiscal discipline” like buying a lot of nuclear missiles). Roll Call’s Tricia Miller also takes a look today at the increased efforts by the tea partiers to not split their votes against Lugar in the primary, which may actually lead to an informal statewide caucus in September to pick their prize pig. The latter article also mentions Rep. Joe Donnelly and ex-Rep. Brad Ellsworth (who officially says he “wouldn’t rule it out”) as potential challengers, suggesting that Dems are sensing this might turn into a winnable race if the primary teabagging is successful.

• MO-Sen: Ed Martin, who originally reported that he outraised both Claire McCaskill and fellow GOP primary candidate Sarah Steelman in December (with $229K raised and $176K CoH), has had to issue a little amended FEC report, seeing as how that number was… how do you say… completely wrong. He instead said he has $25K CoH, and blamed it on a “computer problem.” (A “computer problem” that gets it off by a factor of seven? What is he using, a Commodore 64?)

• MT-Sen: Hmmm, a little too soon after the murder of a federal judge to be making that kind of remark? Rep. Denny Rehberg (who seems to be running a full-throated teabagger campaign despite not having any primary opposition anymore), while appearing before the state legislature yesterday, remarked that he’d like to “put some of these judicial activists on the Endangered Species List.” That comes only a few days after his joint appearance with Michele Bachmann where he said “President Bachmann… that sounds pretty good” (although an adviser later appeared with mop and bucket to say that shouldn’t be construed as an actual endorsement).

• NE-Sen: You may have already seen this yesterday, but the bombshell revelation is that AG Jon Bruning, the apparent frontrunner for the GOP nomination to face Ben Nelson (and, let’s face it, frontrunner in the general too) was a librul!!1!! back when he was in college and law school. Some of his writings from that era surfaced, no doubt to the delight of potential primary opponents like Don Stenberg.

• VT-Sen: Fresh off his financial success in the wake of the publicity over Filibernie, Bernie Sanders actually seems to have taken to this whole fundraising thing with gusto. (It probably also helps that in 2012 he may face a challenger who’s credible, at least on paper, in the form of state Auditor Tom Salmon.) He’s holding a fundraiser in Boston this weekend.

• CA-36: Los Angeles city councilor Janice Hahn wasted no time in lining up some big name support for her House bid, from mayor (and the man who defeated her brother) Antonio Villaraigosa. (She also rolled out Joe Trippi as her media consultant.) We also have some additional names that we didn’t get yesterday: James Lau, former director of the California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and narrow loser of an Assembly race last year, is interested. However, former Assemblyman Ted Lieu (currently running for a vacant state Senate seat in a special election to be held later this month) and Assemblyman Warren Furutani have ruled it out. On the GOP side, ’10’s sacrificial lamb, Mattie Fein, says she may run again; higher up the food chain, former NFL player Damon Dunn is mentioned as a possibility (which could set up a strange rematch of last year’s SoS election). Speaking of which, Debra Bowen seems to be in the race, at least privately; she’s reportedly the only candidate who has told the state Dem party that she is running, and she has an ActBlue page already set up.

The Fix also has a few other possible names: on the Dem side, state Controller John Chiang, and on the GOP side, county commissioner Don Knabe, or Nathan Mintz, a tea party fave who lost an Assembly race last year. The Sacramento Bee also mentions Craig Huey as a possible GOP candidate; he runs JudgeVoterGuide.org to help evangelical conservatives pick judicial candidates.

• NC-07: Republican Ilario Pantano, who came fairly close to beating Rep. Mike McIntyre last year despite some, um, glaring problems on his resume (y’know, like that murder charge and that working for Goldman Sachs), confirms he’s back for another try. The real question here is what happens to the district in the redistricting process? I’m wondering if he could wind up running in NC-08 if the GOP legislature decides to target Larry Kissell instead of McIntyre (it’d be very hard to do both while trying to protect Renee Ellmers in NC-02).

• NH-02, WI-01: Want to see your netroots dollars at work? Americans United for Change and Daily Kos are running 60-second radio spots targeting Charlie Bass in NH-02 and Paul Ryan in WI-01, in their first foray into issue advertising hitting them on their support for HCR repeal. (I’m especially pleased to see R+2 WI-01 treated as a target.) Blue America PAC is also running similar ads in FL-24 and NJ-07.

• Mayors: As if he needed any more momentum behind his candidacy, Rahm Emanuel got the endorsement of the one figure in Chicago politics who actually seems mostly beloved instead of just feared: SoS Jesse White. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, incumbent mayor Michael Nutter is looking like he may have a similarly easy race this year. Perhaps his biggest-possible-name opponent, state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, has decided not to run; Nutter also picked up the endorsement of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia (I’m not sure whether the Williams dropout or the Clergy endorsement came first, but I’d bet they’re related.)

• Colorado GOP: Wow, you know the Republican Party has gone off a cliff when Dick Wadhams (Karl Rove protégé and svengali to George Allen) is suddenly the voice of reason in the room. Faced with a tea party challenge to his leadership, the Colorado state party chair just reversed course and said he won’t seek another term leading the state GOP. On his way out, he leveled some blasts at the very rank-and-filers that he helped whip up into a frenzy and lost control of:

“…frankly, I just got tired of the people who see a conspiracy behind everything we do, people who don’t have any clue what the role of the state party really is.”

• We Love the 90s: If you’re feeling the ground shaking, it’s because there’s a whole lot of dancing throughout the liberal blogosphere on the grave of the Democratic Leadership Council, which is shutting down. While I will gladly join in the Nelson Muntz-style ha-haing and agree that the primary factor in their demise was the fundamental crappiness of their product, it’s worth noting that their sudden rise in irrelevance seemed to go hand in hand with the sudden lack of celebrity power behind them, with the seeming end of the Clinton dynasty (and the failure of Harold Ford Jr. to pick up that flag for the next generation), and also just with the rise in polarization over the last few years, meaning less audience for their little portion of the political spectrum. I’d also point out that they provided a launching pad for some guys who are doing really good work these days, like Simon Rosenberg and Ed Kilgore.

• CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons has previously sounded unlikely to run (and rather sulky about it), but now he’s saying he’s “considering” the race and will make a decision by March. He’s also seeking to replace state GOP party chair Chris Healy, who he thinks favored Linda McMahon during the nomination process. Simmons also had some kind words for state Sen. Scott Frantz as an option in case he himself doesn’t run.

• FL-Sen: Already having the backing of the man he replaced as state Senate president (John Thrasher), now Mike Haridopolos got the endorsement of the Republican leader of the other chamber, state House speaker Dean Cannon. (Not that those kinds of endorsements move a lot of actual votes, but this could be harmful in the behind-the-scenes game to former state House majority leader Adam Hasner if he runs, as he’d probably have expected Cannon’s help.)

• MA-Sen, MA-06: Rep. John Tierney didn’t sound much like a candidate in the Senate race when asked about it at an appearance with area high schoolers, saying he’s focused on his current job and plans to run again. That, on top of Barney Frank’s announcement yesterday that he’s running again (and the months-ago announcement from John Olver that he’s running again) point to an increasing likelihood that two of the state’s 10 Dem Congresspeople will have to face off in a primary (unless either Mike Capuano or Stephen Lynch roll the dice on a Senate bid). One other total wild card here that came into sharper relief today: John Kerry seems to be amping up his lobbying to become Secretary of State. While there’s no indication that Hillary Clinton is in any hurry to leave, that does raise the specter of another special election if there’s a changing of the guard at SoS after the 2012 election. That possibility, and the chance at an open seat run instead of going up against Scott Brown’s millions, might induce Capuano and Lynch to keep their House jobs for now.

• NE-Sen: PPP gives AG Jon Bruning a substantial lead in the GOP Senate primary, for the right to take on Ben Nelson. He leads state Treasurer Don Stenberg 47-19, with throw-ins Pat Flynn and Deb Fischer at 7 and 6 apiece. Bruning’s faves among Republicans are 57/12.

• VA-Sen: Jamie Radtke, the principal tea party opponent to George Allen in the GOP Senate primary so far, has shown she can compete, at least on the financial front. She raised $100K in the fourth quarter; Allen didn’t report anything since his candidacy didn’t launch until the new year.

• WA-Gov, WA-AG: Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee is launching some rhetorical salvos in Republican AG Rob McKenna’s direction over health care reform in what’s very likely the beginnings of the 2012 gubernatorial general election; McKenna is one of the few blue-state AGs who signed on to the multi-state suit against HCR implementation, a possible foot-shooting move that seems more oriented toward fending off primary opposition from the right than enhancing his electability in November. By the way, if you’re wondering about who’s planning to replace McKenna in the AG slot, there’s word that ambitious King County Councilor Bob Ferguson is about to announce his candidacy next week. His likeliest GOP opponent is fellow King County Councilor (and progeny of WA-08’s Jennifer Dunn) Reagan Dunn.

• WV-Gov: It looks like we finally have some consensus on when that pesky special election for Governor is going to be. The state House and Senate ironed out a compromise that will hold the primary on May 14 and the general election on Oct. 4. Acting Gov. (and candidate) Earl Ray Tomblin has agreed to sign off on the deal, even though it contains a different primary date than he wanted.

• IA-03: Here’s some more evidence that 77-year-old Leonard Boswell is seriously gearing up for a 2012 battle to stay in the House, despite possibly facing two major opponents (first Christine Vilsack in a Dem primary, then Tom Latham in a redistricting-forced general). He named his former campaign manager Julie Stauch as his new chief of staff. (His fundraising may say otherwise, though; see below.)

• LA-03, LA-AG: Jeff Landry, who’s been in the House all of one month, is the likeliest Rep. to get squeezed in a 6-district map of Louisiana, by virtue of his lack of seniority and depopulation in his district (and the need to keep next-door LA-02 a VRA district). So, it seems sensible that he’s already contemplating some alternate plans. Rumors are flying now that the reason that AG Buddy Caldwell is planning switch over to the Republican party is because Landry is looking at challenging Caldwell in this year’s AG race (although Caldwell’s switch would just move that challenge to the primary, if it goes through). David Rivera might not even have the shortest stay among this year’s freshman class, if Landry wins the AG race and leaves the House after one year.

• Fundraising: This Politico piece on fundraising among House members has some interesting red flags from Q4 that may portend retirement. On the GOP side, CA-41’s Jerry Lewis raised $1,700, while MD-06’s Roscoe Bartlett raised all of $0. For the Dems, NY-05’s Gary Ackerman raised $924, NY-28’s Louise Slaughter raised $320, and MI-05’s Dale Kildee raised the strangely specific sum of $1.42. They also point to how fundraising may have dried up for several likely casualties of redistricting, including MI-09’s Gary Peters (down to $88K CoH), IA-03’s Leonard Boswell ($66K CoH), PA-12’s Mark Critz (net negative-$36K), and LA-03’s Jeff Landry (net negative-$24K).

• Redistricting: As expected, the battle over Florida’s Fair Districts initiative is moving into the courts, starting with a new suit filed by the amendments’ backers (including the League of Women Voters and NAACP) demanding that Rick Scott re-engage the process of seeking VRA preclearance for the chances to Florida’s system. (Scott has apparently been dragging his feet on preclearance in hopes that the initiative’s requirements won’t be in place by the time of 2012 redistricting, which could let the GOP legislature gerrymander to their hearts’ content.) Meanwhile, the GOP legislature in Georgia is already consolidating their power to take advantage of their control of the trifecta there: they removed primary responsibility for map-drawing from the nonpartisan Carl Vinson Institute at UGA, and instead are creating a new Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Office more directly under their control.

• Census: If you tried to open the ftp version of the new Census data yesterday and found yourself looking at incomprehensible txt files (that, if you scroll through them quickly enough, look like you’re able to see through The Matrix), fear not. They’re available via American FactFinder now, and even through interactive widget form.

• FEC: I’m not sure how many max-out donors we have among our readership, but the FEC has raised contribution limits for this cycle, meaning you can give a little more to your favorite candidate or committee before hitting the ceiling. You can now give up to $2,500 per candidate and $30,800 per committee.

• Trivia: I had absolutely no idea this number was so low: there have been only four open seat Senate races in Texas since the 1920s. (Not only do Senators there tend to have long tenures, but vacancies tend to manifest themselves in special elections.) The races were in 1948, 1952, 1984, and 2002.

Public Policy Polling (1/26-27, Nebraska voters, no trendlines):

Ben Nelson (D-inc): 39

Jon Bruning (R): 50

Undecided: 11

Ben Nelson (D-inc): 42

Deb Fischer (R): 35

Undecided: 22

Ben Nelson (D-inc): 42

Pat Flynn (R): 33

Undecided: 24

Ben Nelson (D-inc): 41

Don Stenberg (R): 45

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±3.1%)

In case you were wondering maybe PPP would find significantly better results for Ben Nelson than the couple of Republican pollsters who’ve looked at the race did — maybe there was an inkling of hope there based on Barack Obama’s better-than-expected performance there in the presidential portion of their poll — guess again. PPP finds pretty similar numbers as Magellan did in December (Magellan gave GOP AG Jon Bruning a 14-pt lead and state Treasurer Don Stenberg a 6-point lead). Nelson does beat some weaker opponents, teabagging businessman Pat Flynn (the only announced candidate besides Bruning) and state Sen. Deb Fischer, but that seems mostly name rec-driven, with Nelson still in the low 40s.

Nelson’s down to a 39/50 approval (which compares to Bruning’s 42/26 favorables), which is parsed out to 26/64 among Republicans, 47/43 among indies, and even a not-so-good 58/33 among Dems, for many of whom he’s probably too conservative. Given the Republican registration advantage in Nebraska, it looks like Nelson just isn’t getting the crossover votes he got the last few times he ran that helped him win; exit polls in 2006 gave him 42% of the Republican vote then (although it’s worth noting that was against weak opposition in the form of Pete Ricketts) but he’s getting 16-17% support now. Increased polarization over the last few years (and his role at the very core of the polarizing health care reform debate, with the unsatisfying-to-anybody-except-himself “Cornhusker Kickback”) is making Nelson look pretty anachronistic, at this point.

• CT-Sen: Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy is sounding very likely to challenge Joe Lieberman in 2012, at least if this WSJ piece primarily on Lieberman’s re-election chances is any indication. It quotes Murphy as “definitely considering” the race and says his decision may be only weeks away, given the nature of permanent campaigning these days. Meanwhile, Paulist economist Peter Schiff (whose rather quixotic bid wound up with him deep in third place in the GOP primary in 2010) is saying he’d like to run for office again, but 2012 won’t be the year, citing the likelihood of a Linda McMahon run and his inability to compete against her money. Finally, Lieberman himself has his mind on his money and his money on his mind, too… he’s hungry enough for money that he’s reaching out to his new friends from the No Labels movement and asking them to consider donating to politicians they don’t necessarily agree with. Interesting argument (especially considering that the No Labels people are probably the likeliest people out there to agree with Lieberman).

• MA-Sen: Long-time Boston mayor Tom Menino has occasionally gotten some coverage as a possible opponent to Scott Brown in the 2012 Senate race, but he’s taking his name out of consideration, saying he’ll never run for anything but even more terms as mayor. Menino also offered some warnings to potential Dem candidates about the race, saying “There’s nobody that can beat him.” (Recall that Menino caught some flak for not really deploying the Boston Dem machine full-force on Martha Coakley’s behalf during the special election, so it’s unclear whether he’s truly fearful of Brown or just engaging in a little concern trolling on Brown’s behalf.)

• MI-Sen: Here’s another indicator (after last month’s PPP poll that had her mired in the 40s) that Debbie Stabenow could have a tough race in 2012, given the right GOP opponent. A Glengariff Group poll for the Detroit News doesn’t include any head-to-heads, but gives her 37/39 approvals, and a 23% definite re-elect (vs. 43% someone new). Of course, the GOP will need to cough up someone more imposing than Tim Leuliette, the only publicly interested candidate so far.

• MN-Sen: I hadn’t heard Rep. John Kline (the GOP Rep. in MN-02, who labors in right-wing anonymity thanks to a lot of cover from noisy neighbor Michele Bachmann) get associated with the 2012 Senate race before, and after today, he probably won’t again. He told a talk radio interview over the weekend that his “plate was full.”

• MT-Sen: There’s been an uptick in speculation that Denny Rehberg may not run for Senate after all, given that he just landed a slot as not just one of the Appropriations cardinals (regarded by Beltway insiders as the uppermost tier in the House pantheon) but the subcommittee chair in charge of HHS, letting him carry the banner on any HCR repeal efforts. However, he’s still being coy about his 2012 plans (and in fact getting a little meta about the endless Beltway media parsing of political career planning), saying a decision is “down the road… which is similar to around the corner.”

• NE-Sen: This has been pretty clearly telegraphed for a while now, but Republican state treasurer Don Stenberg is saying he’s “quite likely” to get into the Senate race. That, of course, would set up a high-profile primary with another statewide GOPer already a formal candidate, AG Jon Bruning. Meanwhile, GOP state party chair Mark Fahnelson removed an image from his personal blog of Ben Nelson inside a red bullseye. In good Republican fashion, he reaffirmed that he himself, in fact, was the victim in all this.

• NV-Sen: Hoping for Sue Lowden to be the 2012 Senate nominee for the GOP? Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, because she’s saying she won’t consider running if Dean Heller is going to run (she would do it only if both John Ensign and Heller didn’t run). Rather candidly, she admitted that she had no shot of beating Heller in a GOP primary. Meanwhile, Sharron Angle has decided that, having had a shot at the big time, another run for the state Senate would just be chicken feed at this point. She says that she won’t seek the seat being vacated by resigning former GOP floor leader Bill Raggio (to whom she lost in a 2008 primary), although without saying anything more about another NV-Sen run or a NV-02 run if Heller runs for Senate.

• TX-Sen: Here’s another poll showing a Senator who may have a rough go of it in 2012, although in Kay Bailey Hutchison’s case, the real hurdle is likely to be the GOP primary. A Blum & Weprin poll for various Texas newspapers found Hutchison with a 46% approval among all registered voters, and only 56% among Republicans. Hutchison, of course, has not given any indication whether she’s running for another term or not.

• LA-Gov: That gubernatorial election is only 10 months away, and Louisiana Democrats still seem to standing around scratching their heads wondering who their nominee will be. With GOP incumbent Bobby “Kenneth the Page” Jindal sitting on a $7.2 million war chest and, while not super-humanly popular anymore, still in positive territory, willing victims do not seem forthcoming. Dems seem most interested in somebody who can self-finance, which would probably be oft-rumored Shaw Group CEO Jim Bernhard, although other more remote possibilities include losing Lt. Gov. candidate Caroline Fayard, PSC Commissioner Foster Campbell (who finished 3rd in the 2007 primary), retired Gen. Russell Honore (who was briefly the subject of speculation for a GOP primary challenge to David Vitter last year), and even a return engagement from ex-Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

• AZ-08: Best wishes to Gabby Giffords for what will no doubt be a long, slow recovery after this weekend’s shooting. Physicians say that she is rapidly improving and may be removed from her breathing apparatus in several days if progress continues.

• ND-AL: This has implications for North Dakota’s House seat, but also potentially for the Senate seat in 2012, if Kent Conrad (last seen ramping up to start advertising already) does a sudden turnaround and opts for retirement. Ex-Rep. Earl Pomeroy (who’s 58) is joining DC law firm Alston & Bird and says “I don’t see myself running for office again.”

• NM-02: Similarly, Harry Teague has announced that he won’t run again for his old seat or anything else, saying he has no plans to seek another office. The 61-year-old (and independently wealthy) Teague plans to return to his family oilfield business.

• Mayors: Another day, another poll showing Rahm Emanuel way in the lead (albeit not out of runoff territory yet). This one’s from Anzalone-Liszt on behalf of the Teamsters, and while it shows Carol Mosely Braun gaining ground (thanks to dropouts from Danny Davis and James Meeks), she’s still far behind. It’s Emanuel 42, Mosely Braun 26, Gerry Chico 10, and Miguel Del Valle 7. (November’s Teamster poll was Emanuel 36, Mosely Braun 13, Chico 10.) Meanwhile, Chico can now boast an endorsement from Rep. Luis Gutierrez, which seems like a bit of a thumbed-nose at Emanuel (who used to be Gutierrez’s neighbor in the House). And on the other side of the country, San Francisco has a newly-minted interim mayor: city administrator Ed Lee, who will fill in for the next 10 months as Gavin Newsom becomes Lt. Governor. The main thing that clinched it for Lee (who will be the city’s first Asian-American mayor) was his promise not to run for the job in the November election. One of Newsom’s last acts was to appoint a new DA in San Francisco, too (to replace the state’s new AG, Kamala Harris): he promoted police chief George Gascon to that job.

• WATN?: Where are they now? On the prison bus, that’s where. At least that’s the case with former Republican House majority leader Tom DeLay, just sentenced this morning to three years on conspiracy charges associated with laundering corporate money into campaign donations.

• NE-Sen: After a few months in exploratory committee purgatory (and after screwing up many of the documents associated with said committee), Republican AG Jon Bruning has made it official. He’s now upgraded to Candidate, against Ben Nelson in the 2012 Senate race.

• TX-Sen: Local insiders seem to think that Kay Bailey Hutchison is increasingly moving toward another run for Senate in 2012 (after having postponed her resignation a number of times amidst the gubernatorial race, and then having dropped the subject altogether). That speculation seems based mostly on her sheer silence on the issue, though.

• IA-Gov: On his way out the door, outgoing Gov. Chet Culver talked up state Sen. majority leader Mike Gronstal as a possible 2014 gubernatorial candidate for the Dems. Culver said Gronstal won’t suffer for his reluctance to put gay marriage up for a statewide vote, which seems to be one of the state’s big flashpoints right now.

• WA-Gov, WA-08: This is very unexpected, considering that GOP AG Rob McKenna has had the 2012 gubernatorial nomination staked out for about six years now, but Rep. Dave Reichert is publicly expressing some (or at least not ruling out) interest in a gubernatorial run (a race he’d been encouraged to run in 2004 back when he was King Co. Sheriff, although he ran for House instead). I’m sure local GOPers would prefer he run for Senate, where no viable GOP nominee seems to be on the horizon, rather than creating a fractious gubernatorial primary that might hobble their best shot in decades at winning the governorship. Actually, I’m sure they’d prefer he continue to hold down WA-08 rather than open up the 8th while embarking on a fool’s errand against Maria Cantwell, and with redistricting likely to give him a safer district in Seattle’s southeastern exurbs while opening up a solid-blue WA-10 on the true Eastside, that’s probably what he’ll keep on doing.

• CO-03: New Gov. John Hickenlooper just appointed recently-defeated Rep. John Salazar as the state’s agriculture commissioner. Salazar has already said he was open to a rematch with Scott Tipton; the question is whether this makes a rematch less likely or if it’s designed to keep him in the public spotlight. (Speaking of Hickenlooper, if you haven’t read the NYT Magazine section’s long profile of him, it’s worth a read.)

• FL-25: Add one more mysterious bit of financial information to the mounting pile of sleaze that’s engulfing David Rivera in his first week on the job: he sold a condominium to his mother’s marketing company (the same company that’s under criminal investigation for its relationship to the Flagler Dog Track) in November, shortly before he paid off $137K in undisclosed loans… also to that same marketing company.

• IA-03: Buried in an article on the Iowa redistricting conundrum, which will see the state compacted to four House districts, is an important piece of unexpected news: septuagenarian Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell, who’s been a prime candidate for retirement for a number of cycles now, tells Roll Call that he will be running again in 2012, regardless of what district he gets stuck into. Tom Latham, Bruce Braley, and Dave Loebsack all plan to “plow ahead” as well; only Steve King didn’t comment, although his district, by virtue of geography (having the state’s western half pretty much to itself) seems least likely to get messed with. A collision between Des Moines-based Boswell and Ames-based GOPer Latham seems likeliest to me, but with a commission making the decisions, almost any configuration seems possible.

• NC-07: Rep. Mike McIntyre — already in the news today as one of only two Dems who voted against HCR to also say that he’d go ahead and support Republican repeal efforts — is now about to draw a Democratic primary challenger from the left, although one who seems kind of on the Some Dude end of the spectrum. Business counselor Del Pietro says he’ll take on McIntyre.

• California: This piece is mostly about House redistricting in the Golden State, but has some thoughts about potential retirements too, given the possibility that redistricting via commission may result in less incumbent protection and various House members getting stuck together (and also given the advanced age of many of California’s long-timers). Jerry Lewis and Pete Stark are listed as most noteworthy possibilities, along with Elton Gallegly (who’s waffled about retirement before), Lois Capps, Gary Miller, and Howard Berman… and Bob Filner is mentioned as a possible San Diego mayor candidate in 2012.

• House: This Roll Call piece is mostly a grab-bag of vague quotes and speculation (of course, what article in the Beltway press isn’t), but it does do some useful handicapping on which sought-after House members are likely or unlikely to make the jump to running for Senate in 2012. New York’s Peter King says “I really don’t expect it,” Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent says he hasn’t “been actively pursuing it,” and Ohio’s Jim Jordan is “leaning against it.” Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan didn’t comment, but has repeatedly said he isn’t looking for higher office anytime soon (and here’s some further confirmation on that from today), while Florida’s Connie Mack IV seems to be moving definitely moving in a Senate direction and Montana’s Denny Rehberg remains studiously vague.

• DCCC: DCCC head Steve Israel announced his team of lieutenants for the 2012 cycle, which includes the two other likeliest chairs who got passed over, Joseph Crowley (in charge of fundraising) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (incumbent retention and redistricting). Also on board are Allyson Schwartz (recruitment), Keith Ellison (community partnerships), and Puerto Rico’s Pedro Pierluisi (constituency mobilization).

• Mayors: State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (last seen barely hitting the double-digits in the Democratic gubernatorial primary) has a new gig in mind: he’s publicly expressing his interest in running for Philadelphia mayor, one of the many mayoral races up in November. The only other person to have actively looked into challenging fairly-popular incumbent Michael Nutter is wealthy businessman Tom Knox, who also made a brief appearance in last year’s governor’s race Dem primary.

• Twitter: We made it over the 4,000 mark on Twitter; thanks to all our new followers. We’re still taking new applications, though, so we encourage any other fans of microscopic bits of political wisdom to sign on, too.

• AK-Sen: With the book about to close on 2010, so too is the last outstanding race of 2010, the Alaska Senate race. Today the state is planning to certify Lisa Murkowski as winner of the race, including hand-delivering the certification papers to Washington DC so there won’t be any possible obstacles to Murkowski’s swearing-in next week (and ensuing temporary loss of state clout). This, of course, follows a legal one-two punch to Joe Miller’s hopes: last week’s loss at the Alaska Supreme Court, which upheld the trial court’s decision that the write-in votes for Murkowski were properly counted, and then this week’s ruling by a federal district court judge dismissing his related federal suit and lifting the hold on the race’s certification. Miller will not stand in the way of the certification, although he says he is still considering whether to continue litigating the matter (which, if he did, would feature the 9th Circuit as the next stop).

The most ironic part of the whole tale is that the Tea Party Express, in their ill-advised RINO hunt, seem to have only succeeded in making Murkowski into more of a free agent. If you’ve noticed that Murkowski seems to be toeing the GOP line less since winning the election without running under the GOP banner, you’re not alone: she was the only Senate GOPer to vote with the Dems on all four big action items during the lame duck session (the tax compromise, DADT repeal, START, and the DREAM Act).

• DE-Sen: SSP isn’t about re-litigating old elections, but this is indeed relevant because Christine O’Donnell, looking to capitalize on her newfound celebrity, may yet be a fourth-time candidate for the Senate against Tom Carper in the future. That fourth run might be more difficult, though, if she’s in prison… perhaps possible as it seems like the federal government has decided it’s had enough of her once-every-two-years grifting tours and is now criminally investigating her use of campaign funds for personal purposes during her 2010 campaign. Anyway, she put out a truly epic statement today on the matter that ought to have you reaching for your copy of the DSM, so laden with paranoia and delusions of grandeur it is.

• MA-Sen: While everyone seems to be wondering which U.S. Rep. will step into the gap if nobody named Kennedy runs for the Senate, there’s always the outside possibility that someone with a business background and lots of his own money tries to move to the head of the pack in the Bay State. Robert Pozen may fit that bill, and he’s apparently been talking to party insiders about the possibility. The investment banker-turned-Harvard Business professor has some liabilities, though: he served briefly in Mitt Romney’s cabinet, which may help his bipartisan bona fides but could be poison in a primary, and his personality has been described as [John] “Silberesque,” which would just be all-purpose poison.

• MI-Sen: If the NRSC ever had any interest in Tim Leuliette as their Senate candidate in Michigan, that probably evaporated this week. The auto-parts magnate just said that he’s not comfortable with self-funding his campaign and wouldn’t put much of his “large fortune” into a run. Considering that that was the main (if not only) selling point for a candidacy from an otherwise unknown political newcomer, that should pretty much be end-of-story.

• MO-Sen, MO-Gov: A poll from Republican pollster Wilson Research (commissioned by consulting firm Axiom Strategies) has (big surprise) good news for Republicans in it, most notably Jim Talent. The ex-Sen. has a significant lead in a rematch against Claire McCaskill, ahead 51-40. Talent seems to have a big electability edge over Sarah Steelman, who’s tied 44-44 with McCaskill. McCaskill’s approvals are 48/45. They also look at the Governor’s race, finding a more competitive race than PPP did but not the lead that a Peter Kinder internal showed. They find Dem incumbent Jay Nixon leading Kinder 45-42, with Nixon’s approvals at 52%. Worth noting: the poll’s a little stale, taken Dec. 1-2.

• ND-Sen: It’s starting to look like Kent Conrad will face some serious opposition from Republicans this cycle (assuming the 62-year-old runs for re-election), although it’s not clear exactly from whom. Perhaps the heaviest-hitter available, the state’s ex-Gov. and the former Bush administration Agriculture Secretary, Ed Schafer, has just ruled it out. For now, the likeliest-sounding one right now seems to be Brian Kalk, one of the state’s three Public Service Commissioners, a statewide elected position. Kalk says he’s giving it “serious thought,” which contrasts with oft-mentioned AG Wayne Stenehjem’s statement that he doesn’t have “any plans” (although not closing “any doors” either) and with newly-promoted Gov. Jack Dalrymple, for whom it’s the “last thing” on his mind.

• NE-Sen (pdf): In case you weren’t sure whether or not Ben Nelson’s in trouble for 2012, um, yes, he’s in trouble. Republican pollster Magellan is out with a poll finding Nelson with an overall 29/59 re-elect, and trailing GOP AG Jon Bruning 52-38. He’s also trailing state Treasurer Don Stenberg (not yet a candidate, but sounding likely to run as well) 46-40. Hopefully we’ll get a look from PPP at this one soon for confirmation. It seems like the Dems are already treating Bruning as a serious threat, though, with the state party trying to throw obstacles in his path by filing FEC and IRS complaints against Bruning over shoddy campaign-committee setup.

• VA-Sen: So apparently all you have to do is append “Tea Party Activist” to your job description, and all of a sudden you’re magically promoted from Some Dude to Very Serious Candidate Worthy of National Media Attention. Or at least that’s the case with the campaign announcement from Jamie Radtke, head of the Judean People’s Front People’s Front of Judea Virginia Federation of Tea Party Patriots, whose main claim to fame seems to be organizing a gathering of 3,000 ‘baggers in Richmond. At any rate, Radtke is the first actually announced GOP candidate. Meanwhile, Jim Webb seems to be moving closer to making a decision on whether to run for re-election (though no clues on how he feels), saying he’ll sort it out over the holiday break and make an announcement in the first quarter of 2011.

• IN-Gov: This comes as a surprise, since there had been a lot of buzz about her as the nominee, with increasing moves from Rep. Mike Pence toward a presidential run instead. But Becky Skillman, Indiana’s Lt. Governor, recently announced that she wouldn’t run for Governor in 2012, citing “minor health issues.” Does this make likelier a Pence gubernatorial run, now that he’d have an easy stroll to the nomination? And if Pence doesn’t run, that seems to point to a truly wide open field, as no one seems to have contemplated a GOP field that didn’t include Pence or Skillman. Who else might step up? (I hear Mike Sodrel may still be looking for a job…)

• NC-Gov: Rounding out the troika of Republican polls showing Dem incumbents in trouble is one from North Carolina from Civitas, who have coordinated with a variety of pollsters and this time went straight to the big daddy of GOP pollsters, POS. The poll finds GOP former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory cruising in a rematch against Dem incumbent Bev Perdue, who never really seemed to gain her footing after a narrow 2008 win: he leads her 51-36 (with Perdue getting only 64% among Democrats).

• WA-Gov: Two interesting developments mean this race isn’t as open-and-shut as I’d thought. One is that there’s increasing buzz linking Dow Constantine, just elected in 2009 as King County Executive, to the governor’s race. I’ve regarded Constantine (who’s 47) as a very likely Governor starting in 2020, but with Dems seeming a little edgy that none of their biggest-name candidates (Rep. Jay Inslee, whose WA-01 is centered in suburban Snohomish Co., Snohomish Co. Exec Aaron Reardon, Spokane-based state Sen. majority leader Lisa Brown) are from their stronghold of King County while likely GOP candidate Rob McKenna is, there might be some pressure on Constantine to move up his timetable. (It’s worth noting that Gary Locke became Gov. in 1996 after three years as King Co. Executive.) The other develompent is that Chris Gregoire isn’t categorically ruling out an attempt at a third term, which she’s legally entitled to do but Just Isn’t Done. (Although she might point out that the last time it was tried, 1972, Dan Evans was successfully re-elected… in fact, the last time a Republican was re-elected Governor in Washington.) She registered as a 2012 candidate with the Public Disclosure Commission, in order to “keep her options open.” (UPDATE: Big h/t to meekermariner, who points out in comments that this Gregoire article is nearly two years old, leaving me to wonder why Politico was linking to it with such enthusiasm. At any rate, the Gregoire committee remains open today, although that in itself isn’t much of a suggestion that a third term may be in the offing.)

• WV-Gov: This week was the deadline for filing briefs for the lawsuit that’s attempting to move up the special election to replace Joe Manchin up to 2011. We still don’t have an answer to when it will happen, but at least we know who’s on what side in the case: the state’s major unions (including the AFL-CIO and WVEA) want it sooner, and so does likely candidate and Dem state House speaker Rick Thompson. State Auditor Glen Gainer supports the expedited election too, while SoS Natalie Tennant (another possible Dem candidate) has basically punted on the issue. And if you’re wondering about Joe Manchin’s decision to duck DADT and DREAM Act votes in order to enjoy family holiday festivities, it seems like it wasn’t, first and foremost, a self-protecting profile in cowardice. With Manchin having survived probably his toughest challenge, he’s more interested now in clearing the way for ally and acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, and not interested in provoking a social issues-based civil war within the state Dem party that could undermine Tomblin’s shot at getting elected to a full term.

• OH-01: Guess who’s sounding like he’s gearing up for a rematch? Steve Driehaus, in an interview with the Cincinnati paper, took a variety of potshots at Steve Chabot, calling him a Boehner “follower” and saying he shouldn’t “sit too easy.” Driehaus has previously said he’s “open” to another attempt. (This is Cincinnati-based district is notorious for steep dropoff in African-American voting in off-years, so if any time would be the right time for Driehaus to try again, 2012 would be it.)

• LA-St. House: There was a long period of threatening and flirting, but now it’s official: state Rep. Noble Ellington switched to the Republican Party, formally flipping control of the state’s lower legislative chamber to the GOP for the first time since Reconstruction. Functionally, it may not make much perceptible difference, since there was already a Republican speaker, and many Dems were already quite conservative.

• NY-St. Sen.: Looks like the end of the line in one other outstanding race (which ultimately had the balance of the New York state Senate in play): the state’s Court of Appeals said no thanks to incumbent Dem Craig Johnson’s appeal of a lower court decision that said there didn’t need to be a hand recount of machine votes in New York’s 7th District. GOPer Jack Martins had been declared the winner in the race by several hundred votes, handing the state Senate back to the GOP by a 32-30 margin.

• PA-St. Sen.: Pennsylvania’s state Senate has been even more stubbornly Republican over the years than New York’s, and it looks like the Dems are going to have play a bit more defense there in an upcoming special election. Democratic minority whip Michael O’Pake (the state’s longest-serving legislator) died several days ago at age 70, leaving a vacancy in SD-11 that will need to be filled by special election at some point between March and May (date TBD). On paper, this looks like the kind of district that would be a major test case for whether the Dems are going to continue their run of bad luck in the Keystone State from the 2010 election: while it works out to about D+4 (going 59/40 for Barack Obama and 51/48 for John Kerry), it also gave 55% of the vote to Tom Corbett and 50.6% to Pat Toomey this year. However, this may all boil down to bench strength in a traditionally-Dem district (centered on the blue-collar city of Reading, although made purple by inclusion of its suburbs, too): insiders from both parties are treating Democratic former Berks Co. Commissioner Judy Schwank as “prohibitive favorite.”

• Approvals: PPP does us the favor of consolidating all their year-end Senate approval ratings and gubernatorial approvals in one (or two, really) places. In the Senate, the most popular Senator overall, in addition to most popular one up in 2012, is Amy Klobuchar (59/29); while outgoing Roland Burris is the overall goat, Joe Lieberman is in worst shape of anyone up in 2012 (33/54). Among the few governors facing 2012 re-election, Jack Markell is tops at 50/32 (with Jay Nixon not far behind at 44/30), while Chris Gregoire fares the worst, in case she actually runs (although this might dissuade her sudden interest in a third term); her 40/53 is actually a worse spread than Bev Perdue’s 35/44.

• Redistricting: The Fix has a good piece on redistricting out, that should pretty much serve as the last word on why GOP purely-redistricting-related House seat gains are likely to be limited to the single digits for 2012: thanks to their 2010 overperformance, they’re thoroughly maxed out in the big four prizes where they have total control (Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania). That’s compounded by, in Florida, the new Fair Districts initiative, and in Texas, the need to create at least two more VRA districts while still protecting Blake Farenthold. Also, here’s one other redistricting implication that’s gotten totally overlooked in all the last few weeks’ discussion: although California didn’t lose or gain a seat, there’s been enough population shift within the state (thanks to stagnation in the Bay Area and rapid growth in the Inland Empire) that the net result will be the moving of most of one district from NoCal to SoCal. It’ll be interesting to see whether the new independent commission is able to do that in a way that lightly shifts boundaries southwards and protects the jobs of all 53 incumbents, or if someone from the north actually gets turfed out and an effectively new seat opens up in the south.

• Chicago mayor: A lot has happened in the Chicago mayoral race since we last checked: first, Rahm Emanuel cleared the first hurdle in ascertaining that he is, indeed, a Chicago resident and not a Kenyan (although there will be inevitable courtroom appeals for weeks to come, with opponents willing to go to the state Supreme Court). The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners last week rejected claims that Emanuel had abandoned his Chicago residency when he went to work in the White House. Also, we’ve seen two of Emanuel’s erstwhile opponents drop out of the race, narrowing the number of African-American candidates but still leaving that part of the field split between Danny Davis (last seen publicly urging Bill Clinton against coming to Chicago to campaign for Emanuel) and Carol Mosely Braun. State Sen. James Meeks dropped out, saying he didn’t want to further split the black vote, and Roland Burris also withdrew, via press release, from the race (although it’s unclear whether he ever really was in the race, since he never made any public appearances). Finally, we got another poll of the race from We Ask America, which may be most noteworthy for showing Gerry Chico in position to make the runoff. They find Emanuel at 44, Chico at 12, Braun at 8, Davis at 7, Miguel Del Valle at 6, and Meeks at 4.

• AZ-Sen: There have been vague rumblings that maybe Jon Kyl, the GOP’s 68-year-old #2 in the Senate, may not be running for another term… but that seems to be coming into sharper relief all of a sudden. Kyl has refused to publicly discuss his plans, the GOP’s state chair is saying Kyl is not likely to run again, and people are starting to notice that he’s sitting on only $620K CoH and hasn’t engaged in any fundraising yet. (Although it’s likely, once he decides, that he could quickly do whatever fundraising was needed to win.)

• CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons sounds torn about another Senate run in 2012, and refuses to rule it out. However, he sounds unenthused, not so much because of his odds in the general as the likelihood of butting heads with the NRSC in the primary, whom he thinks has a fixation on Linda McMahon and her self-funding ability. Meanwhile, Rep. Chris Murphy is busy framing his “no” vote on the tax compromise in populist terms, clearly trying to set up some contrasts with Joe Lieberman.

• NE-Sen: I’d thought AG Jon Bruning was supposed to be some sort of killer-app for the local GOP to go against Ben Nelson, but you wouldn’t know it by the way they’ve kept casting about for more talent. Local insiders are still publicly airing their wish list, adding a couple more prominent names to it: Rep. Jeff Fortenberry and state Auditor Mike Foley. One lower-tier option is also floating her own name: state Sen. Deb Fischer, who represents that big empty north-central part of the state and says she’ll decide on a run once the legislative session is over.

• OR-Sen: Best wishes for a quick recovery to Ron Wyden, who will be undergoing surgery on Monday for prostate cancer. While it sounds like he’ll be back on his feet soon, he’ll be unable to vote for anything next week, which could complicate the final rush to wrap up stuff in the lame duck.

• TN-Sen: Bob Corker occasionally gets mentioned, at least in the rightosphere, as the possible recipient of a tea party primary challenge in 2012. The Hill finds that this may be fizzling on the launching pad, for the very simple reason that no one seems to be stepping forward to consider the race.

• WI-Sen: PPP is out with its poll of the 2012 GOP Senate primary, with another one of those let’s-test-everyone-and-their-dog fields, but unlike some of the other states they’ve looked at in the last few weeks, a U.S. Rep. wins, rather than a statewide figure. Paul Ryan (who probably gets enough Fox News attention to trump the disadvantage of representing only 1/8th of the state) is far in the lead at 52. Ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson (who if he didn’t run this year surely isn’t going to in 2012) is at 14, ex-Rep. Mark Green is at 9, AG JB Van Hollen and new Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch are at 6, new Rep. Sean Duffy is at 5, and already-forgotten 2010 contender Dave Westlake is at 1.

• IN-Gov, IN-09: Baron Hill says he most likely isn’t going to be running for anything in 2012, not Governor, and not his old seat in the 9th, saying he’s looking into private sector jobs for now, though also leaving the gubernatorial door “slightly open.” Interestingly, he seemed more enthused about a run for Governor in 2016 (which may be a tougher road to hoe, if there’s an entrenched GOP incumbent then instead of an open seat like 2012), although he also commented that “I don’t know if I’ll be alive in 2016.”

• MO-Gov: In case there was any doubt, Democratic incumbent Jay Nixon confirmed that he’ll run for re-election as Governor in 2012. Nixon also said that he’s raised $1 million for that race just since November; he’ll need it.

• WV-Gov: For what it’s worth, two of the state’s largest unions would like to see an expedited special election to replace Joe Manchin. Democratic House Speaker (and likely gubernatorial candidate) Rick Thompson agrees with them, saying there’s a constitutional conflict of interest in acting Gov./Senate president Earl Ray Tomblin’s dual position. In what may not be a surprise, Tomblin disagrees, saying that the law is clear that the special will be held in 2012.

• CA-06: Rep. Lynn Woolsey is seeming like she may be one of the first retirements of the cycle, if the flurry of activity among lower-level Marin County politicos jockeying for position is any indication. The 73-year-old is publicly weighing retirement, and state Assemblyman Jared Huffman has already formed an exploratory committee to run in her stead. State Sen. Noreen Evans, Sonoma Co. Commissioner Shirlee Zane, and Petaluma mayor Pam Torliatt are also listed as possible replacements.

• FL-25: It certainly didn’t take newly-elected Rep. David Rivera to get in legal trouble, and it’s something completely new, instead of anything having to do with that whole let’s-run-that-truck-off-the-road incident. He’s under investigation for an alleged $500,000 in secret payments from a greyhound track that he helped out to a marketing firm that’s “run” by his septuagenarian mother.

• ID-01: Don’t count on a rematch from Walt Minnick (or a run for higher office in Idaho, either): he says he’s done with elective politics. An oft-overlooked fact about Minnick: he’s a little older than your average freshman, at 68. He wasn’t going to be in the seat for much longer or look to move up anyway.

• NY-14: Remember Reshma Saujani, after losing the Dem primary in the 14th, said “I’m definitely running again” and “There’s no way I’m going to be ones of those folks who runs, loses, and you never see them again.” Well, fast forward a few months, and now she’s definitely not running again, although she may be looking toward a run for something in 2013 at the municipal level.

• DCCC: The DCCC held its first real strategy session of the cycle yesterday, and the list of top-tier targets that emerged is pretty predictable (Dan Lungren, Charlie Bass, Charlie Dent, Bob Dold!) except for one: Leonard Lance, who’s proved pretty durable so far. They may be counting on Lance’s NJ-07, which occupies roughly the middle of the state, to get tossed into the blender in the redistricting process.

• Votes: Here’s the vote tally from yesterday’s vote in the House on the tax compromise. It was a very unusual breakdown, with Dems breaking 139 yes/112 no and the GOP breaking 138 yes/36 no, with the “no”s coming generally from each party’s hard-liners, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of how the TARP vote broke down. (Also, some defeated or retiring Blue Dogs still voted “no,” like Allen Boyd, Gene Taylor, and Earl Pomeroy… while Dennis Kucinich was a “yes.”)

• History: Here’s an interesting story about the end of a little-known but important era in North Dakota politics: the effective end of the Non-Partisan League, a vaguely-socialist/populist farmers’ party that cross-endorsed Democrats for many decades, and had an outsized influence on the state (as seen in their state-owned bank and similar enterprises). With Byron Dorgan retired, most NPL stalwarts dead or aging, and agribusiness having replaced the family farm, it looks like the end of the NPL’s line.

• Redistricting: Dave Wasserman is out with a preview of next week’s reapportionment, and he’s rightly treating it like the NCAA playoffs draw, in that there a bunch of states on the bubble of getting or losing seats. Here’s how that plays out:

Georgia, Nevada, and Utah are all but certain to gain an additional seat in the House, while Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are all but certain to lose a seat and Ohio is all but certain to lose two seats…. the ten states in contention for the “last five” seats in the House (in order of likelihood to make the cut) are South Carolina, Florida, Minnesota, Washington, Texas, New York, California, Arizona, North Carolina, and Illinois.

He’s also been tinkering around with Dave’s Redistricting App, and has some maps that you’ll want to check out. Maybe most interestingly, there’s a solution to the IL-17 problem that actually makes it more Democratic while letting Aaron Schock and Bobby Schilling get much better acquainted with each other (the Fix also takes a look at Illinois today, coming up with similar ideas). Also worth a look: a good 10-district Washington map that gives Dave Reichert a heaping helping of eastern Washington.

• Site news: Due to holiday travel, other time commitments, and hopefully what will be a very slow news week, the Daily Digest will be on hiatus all next week. Don’t worry, though: I’ll make sure to be around on the 21st for the Census reapportionment data release (hell, maybe I’ll even liveblog the news conference), and if there’s any important breaking news, someone will get it up on the front page. In the meantime, happy holidays from the whole SSP team!

• MO-Sen: Ed Martin, who lost narrowly in MO-03, has kept spamming me (and presumably everybody else who writes about politics) with press releases vaguely hinting at voter fraud. It’s seeming like maybe there’s something more there to it than just garden-variety sore-loserism; there’s growing buzz that he’s trying to stay top-of-mind for a possible run for the GOP Senate nomination. Now, you might be saying, that’s a whole lot of hubris for a guy who couldn’t even win a House seat to go up against Sarah Steelman and possibly Jim Talent, but Martin might be able to grab the tea party mantle considering that the local ‘baggers are quite adamant that they aren’t as enamored with her as the national-level ones are. Martin is apparently also considering another run for the House; part of his decision will be what happens with redistricting, as MO-03 may be on the chopping block, between St. Louis-area depopulation and Republican legislative control.

• MT-Sen: Trying to decipher Rep. Denny Rehberg’s intentions, about a possible run against freshman Dem Jon Tester? David Catanese is actually picking through his Christmas card to read the tea leaves. Rehberg tells his supporters (and extended family members) that he’s “not taking anything off the table” in terms of his next step, which is interesting, as it may mean he’s thinking about the open seat gubernatorial race too.

• NE-Sen: Now here’s a blast from the past: ex-Gov. Kay Orr is so old-school that she was actually defeated for Governor by Ben Nelson, way back in 1990. Despite 20 years out of the political scene, her name is being floated as a possibility for the GOP Senate primary for the right to take on Nelson in 2012. Orr herself says she’s undecided, but sounds leaning against it. The Fix also seems to think that state Treasurer (and another long-ago loser to Nelson, although at least this time in a Senate race) Don Stenberg is likely to run, which would force a primary against AG Jon Bruning.

• PA-Sen: There are two different overviews of the Pennsylvania situation today; one is from Alex Roarty at National Journal (and unfortunately is behind a paywall, so I’ll give you the gist). The one new name that surfaces in it is GOP Rep. Tim Murphy (from PA-18 in the Pittsburgh-suburbs); while he isn’t pushing forward on it, he’s shown more behind-the-scenes interest in it than Charlie Dent or Jim Gerlach, both of whom have gotten more touting but seem content with their cushy new committee posts. He also mentions that state Sen. Kim Ward is now leaning against, and confirms that ex-Gov. Mark Schweiker is at the top of the GOP’s wish list but probably a pipe dream. A Philadelphia Magazine article tries to handicap the GOP field, with absolutely nobody on the first tier, Gerlach alone on the second tier, and state Sen. Jake Corman (and Ward) comprising the third tier.

• VA-Sen: Newsmax has an interview with new right-wing hero Ken Cuccinelli, who despite his new HCR-related celebrity is taking the opportunity to make clear that he isn’t running for Senate in 2012 (which would remove George Allen’s main impediment for the GOP nomination). He wouldn’t rule out running for Governor in 2013, though. (I wouldn’t link to Newsmax if you paid me to, so you’ll have to take my word for it.)

• IN-Gov: Rep. Joe Donnelly is another option for Dems for Indiana Governor, although a run by Donnelly would require him giving up his seat. What if the GOP decides to get really aggressive in gerrymandering and build a nightmare seat for him (for instance, creating a dumbbell-shaped district linking Gary and his town of South Bend, forcing him to run against Lake County-based Pete Visclosky or else to move to a mostly rural red district)? South Bend’s Dem party chair is now saying that Donnelly would look at a statewide race in the event that the House map is too unfavorable.

• FL-22: I think I’m going to greatly enjoy Allen West’s two years in the House, if only because he has the skill of digging his own hole deeper every time he opens his mouth. Fresh off the outrageous suggestion that the government should “censor” mainstream media outlets that publish information obtained via WikiLeaks (and apparently having had someone explain First Amendment jurisprudence carefully to him), now he’s claiming that he was misinterpreted, and that he actually said “censure” instead.

• IL-17: Now here’s a fool’s errand: declaring your intention to run for a district that’s about to vaporize. Soon-to-be-ex-Rep. Phil Hare has already expressed his interest in a rematch with Bobby Schilling, but he may have some company. Both former Rock Island mayor Mark Schweibert and state Rep. Mike Boland said they’re interested in running in the Dem primary, too. (Hare, former aide to Lane Evans, was picked over Schweibert by local party heads to be the 2006 nominee after Evans dropped out of the race post-primary.) The 17th seems like the likeliest district on the Illinois chopping block, though, seeing as how most of the state’s population loss has been Downstate and there’s not much point for the Dem-held legislature to preserve a Democratic vote sink if it’s not even going to elect a Democrat.

• KS-??: Despite his various Sherman-esque statements when he first announced he wouldn’t run for a full term as Governor, outgoing Dem Gov. Mark Parkinson is saying in an exit interview that he won’t rule out running for something in the future. (In the meantime, he’s heading to DC to rule the nursing home trade association.) It’s unclear what he’d run for, though… KS-03 is certainly a possibility, as it’s the most Dem-friendly part of the state and Parkinson is an Olathe resident.

• NY-10: This may be taking tea leaf reading a step too far here, but the subtext to Ed Towns’ surprising decision not to seek the ranking member position on the Oversight committee (and back Carolyn Maloney for it) may be that he’s about to wind down his entirely unremarkable decades-long House tenure. Towns will be 78 in 2012.

• KY-AG: It looks like Jack Conway is getting some GOP opposition after all, although not from as serious a threat as outgoing SoS Trey Grayson. Todd P’Pool, the state attorney for planet Vulcan Hopkins County (population 46K) has announced that he will challenge Conway in a battle to the death for the right to mate with T’Pring the 2011 election. Cue the epic fight music!

• OR-St. Sen.: Who woulda thunk that the Oregon state Senate would be one of the last question marks to get resolved this year? The GOP-funded recount in SD-3, where Dem Alan Bates narrowly won, and the retaliatory Dem-funded recount in the race where Martha Schrader narrowly lost (she had been appointed to fill the seat vacated by her husband, now-Rep. Kurt Schrader), are over, with the numbers barely budging at all. The Dems retain a 16-14 majority.

• TX-St. House: Two more party switchers to report, this time in the Texas state House, where Dems had actually entertained the notion of flipping the body a while ago and instead are now facing the wrong end of a supermajority. Aaron Pena and Allan Ritter have both announced that they’re joining the GOP, despite their blue districts (in fact, Pena’s Hidalgo County district went over 70% for Obama), apparently for the same rationale that the Georgia party-switchers are giving: deep in the minority, it’s the only way for them to have any effectiveness in the capitol.

• Mayors: There’s a new Chicago mayoral poll out, where again the main question seems to be whether Rahm Emanuel can win outright without a runoff. That’s not looking likely, given the crowded field, although he still has a substantial lead in the new Tribune/WGN poll, at 32%. Gery Chico and Danny Davis are at 9, James Meeks is at 7, Carol Mosely Braun is at 6, Miguel del Valle is at 3, and Roland Burris is at 2, leaving 30 undecided. Emanuel leads among both blacks (with 19%) and Hispanics (27%).

One other mayoral race (or “situation,” really) that’s heating up is in San Francisco, where there’s a regularly scheduled 2011 election but also a looming vacancy with Gavin Newsom about to become Lt. Governor. The Board of Supervisors will have to choose an interim mayor to serve out those 11 months, and they’ll have to choose between one of their own who may be considering a November run, or an elder-statesman placekeeper. However, the Board is split any number of ways, and if there’s nobody who gets 6 of its 11 votes, the Board’s President, David Chiu, becomes acting mayor. The only person who seems in position to pick up at least six votes would be state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano.

• Census: All manner of data analysis is pouring forth, in the wake of yesterday’s massive data dump of the Census Bureau’s five-year ACS estimates (which is where you’re going to find a lot of the information that used to be on the “long form”). Perhaps most amazingly of all is a new mapping tool from the New York Times, which lets you zoom in or out from the state level to the block level anywhere in the country to look at race and foreign-born status. (Set aside a few hours to explore this one.) Also worth reading are new articles on changes in racial segregation (in major decline in certain metro areas, especially Atlanta and Miami, which can have major VRA implications in terms of it being harder to cobble together districts that have a majority of any particular group) and in rural populations (declining rapidly, as you might imagine).