Tag: Charlie Bass

• IL-Sen: AG Lisa Madigan is still under a lot of pressure from inside the Beltway to move over from her preferred race (Governor) to the Senate race instead. Thing is, the pressure seems to be working (and the fact that Pat Quinn remains pretty popular also helps): she says she’s “seriously considering it” and will decide within “four to six weeks” whether to run for gov, senate, or another term as AG.

• KY-Sen: SoS Trey Grayson is still treating Jim Bunning as undecided about running for a third term, despite the crotchety Bunning’s many protestations, Abe Simpson-style, that he ain’t dead yet. While saying that he has “no plans to run against him right now,” Grayson says he’d have a better answer to the question “after next month, when Bunning makes a decision….” Still, he says “I don’t suspect that (having to run against Bunning) would be a problem,” if Bunning stays in the GOP primary. The remarks were made at a poorly-attended (as in less than 50) Grayson fundraiser in Corbin.

• MO-Sen: Rep. Roy Blunt can’t catch a break. No sooner than professor Tom Schweich bailed out and former Treasurer Sarah Steelman’s message discipline came completely unglued, along comes yet another likely primary challenger: state Senator Chuck Purgason, who formed an exploratory committee. It sounds like he’ll be going at Blunt from the right (Purgason is known for his “country-western fashion sense and iron-clad fiscal conservatism,” and said we must “stop the ‘changing’ of America”).

• NC-Sen (pdf): Good polling news out of North Carolina, according to PPP: Generic Democrat leads Richard Burr, 41-38. (There’s still the little matter of nailing down a candidate, of course.) Only 29% overall (and 49% of Republicans) think he deserves another term, while 49% say give someone else a chance. Burr’s approval is 34/35, with a 31% “not sure,” which is still crazily high for a sitting senator.

• NH-Sen: Senatorial speculation for the GOP in the Granite State has turned to AG Kelly Ayotte. (AG is an appointed position in New Hampshire; Ayotte was appointed by ex-Gov. Craig Benson, but retained by John Lynch.) Still, everything seems to be on hold until fall, when the younger John Sununu is supposed to make known his senate intentions. Dean at Blue Hampshire observes ex-Rep. Charlie Bass (another possible Senate, or NH-02, candidate) getting a little testy about having to wait for Sununu Jr. to make up his mind (or for Sununu Sr. to make up Jr.’s mind).

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn Maloney keeps ratcheting up her attacks on Kirsten Gillibrand, focusing increasingly on character and credibility. She hit Gillibrand’s “evolving” stances and said “She’s, to my knowledge, never passed anything. She spends all her time fund-raising. I spend my time doing things.” Meanwhile, Gillibrand rolled out the endorsements of 52 of the 62 Democratic Party county chairs in New York. That seems huge, but only half the population of New York state is accounted for, as they have yet to endorse in New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx, Richmond, and Suffolk Counties.

• CA-Gov: Rep. John Campbell from CA-48 in Orange County endorsed Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner a few months ago, but he recently dropped that endorsement and then this week endorsed ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman instead. Campbell’s explanation is that when he first endorsed Poizner, Whitman wasn’t in the race yet and he had never met her. (This Campbell, of course, is not to be confused with ex-Rep. Tom Campbell, who’s the third wheel in the GOP gubernatorial primary.)

• LA-03, LA-Sen: GOP state Rep. Nickie Monica, who has recently met with officials at the NRCC, is telling his contacts that he’s planning on running against Democrat Charlie Melancon. Meanwhile, faced with the prospect of a strong challenge and the looming uncertainties of redistricting, Melancon is still giving a race against GOP Sen. David Vitter a “pretty hard” look, according to a “Democratic insider.” (J)

• NY-23: Republican state Senator Joe Griffo, who’s based outside the district in Rome but whose turf overlaps part of the 23rd, said he won’t run in the special election. For the Dems, veteran Danny Francis (who ran twice against McHugh in the 1990s) said he’ll seek the nomination. Dem state Senator Darrel Aubertine shot down speculation that he’d fielded a call from Barack Obama about the seat, although he did cop to talking to DCCC recruitment guru Steve Israel about it.

• OH-15: ’08 candidate/ex-state Sen. Steve Stivers says that he’ll make up his mind on a rematch against Mary Jo Kilroy by the 4th of July, but Ohio Republicans apparently feel very confident that he’ll jump into the race. (J)

• PA-06, PA-Gov: Rep. Jim Gerlach has set a deadline of “this summer” for deciding whether to jump into the 2010 governor’s race — although he certainly seems to be moving to do so, positioning himself message-wise as the only GOPer who’s dealt with fiscal issues in a legislature. In the meantime, GOP power brokers are getting antsy that Gerlach’s delay in announcing his plans are complicating their efforts to hold this D+4 seat (although GOP state Rep. Curt Schroder is already warming up in the bullpen, having opened an exploratory committee).

• Votes: The war supplemental passed the House 226-202 yesterday, with 32 Democrats and 5 Republicans breaking ranks. The GOPers fall under the ‘moderate’ umbrella: Cao, King, Kirk, Candace Miller, and John McHugh (for whom a ‘no’ vote would be awk-ward, as the incoming Sec. of the Army). The Dems are generally the most liberal few dozen, although with a few eyebrow-raising exceptions (Eric Massa, maybe most notably): Baldwin, Capuano, Conyers, Doggett, Donna Edwards, Ellison, Farr, Filner, Grayson, Grijalva, Honda, Kaptur, Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Lofgren, Massa, McGovern, Michaud, Payne, Pingree, Polis, Serrano, Shea-Porter, Sherman, Speier, Stark, Tierney, Tsongas, Waters, Watson, Welch, and Woolsey.  

• MO-Sen: In an e-mail to local TV affiliate KY3, former Treasurer Sarah Steelman seems to be walking back her comments to the Hill yesterday, not wanting to appear to shut the door on a GOP primary bid against Rep. Roy Blunt. She says she’s still “very seriously considering” it.

• PA-Sen: Here’s an interesting development: a state legislator in Pennsylvania has introduced a bill to switch Pennyslvania from closed to open primaries. This seems like a nakedly pro-Specter bill: it would have helped him survive his GOP primary against Pat Toomey, and now it would have the opposite effect, helping him survive a Democratic primary against Joe Sestak by opening the door to independents and moderate Republicans.

• AK-AL: Unless the indictment fairy has a present for him soon, Rep. Don Young looks to have a much easier go of it in 2010 than last cycle. Not only is his Dem challenger ex-state House minority leader Ethan Berkowitz likely to run for governor instead, but now it sounds like his primary opponents, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell and ex-state Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, aren’t going to run again either. Unlike last time, Parnell would need to give up his LG job to run, and he may instead be running for Governor if Sarah Palin declines to run again. Businessman Andrew Halcro, who ran for Governor as an independent in 2006, also sounds likely to run for Governor rather than challenge Young. State Senator Hollis French, who sounded like a likely Governor candidate for the Dems until Berkowitz showed up, may be the Dems’ best bet.

• AL-07: The field to replace Artur Davis got bigger, as Jefferson Co. Councilor Shelia Smoot officially launched her campaign. She joins lawyer Terri Sewell, state Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr., and former Selma mayor James Perkins in the primary (which is the only real race in this D+18 district).

• CA-11: Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren Rupf turned down the chance to run as a Republican in the upcoming CA-10 special election, but that seemed to ignite his interest, as now he’s considering running in 2010 in next-door CA-11 against sophomore Rep. Jerry McNerney, at R+1 a more plausible race than the D+11 CA-10.

• FL-08: Republican state Representative Steve Precourt is considering making the race against Rep. Alan Grayson in this R+2 Orlando-area seat. His strongest words seemed to be reserved for likely primary opponent Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty, who Precourt doesn’t see as a “fresh face” or viable, although Precourt said he’d stand down if former state Sen. Daniel Webster got in.

• ID-01: The Republican field in ID-01 is filling up, as state House majority leader Ken Roberts announced he’s in. He’ll have to get past veteran and McCain ally Vaughn Ward before facing off against Rep. Walt Minnick, though. Ex-Rep. Bill Sali occasionally makes threatening noises about a rematch, but he hasn’t said anything definite.

• NH-02: Former state Rep. Bob Giuda (not to be confused with Frank Guinta, running in NH-01) is the first GOPer to launch an exploratory committee in the race to fill Rep. Paul Hodes’ open seat. He may still be joined by the 2008 candidate, Jennifer Horn, and, more remotely, a return by ex-Rep. Charlie Bass.

• NY-23: Douglas Hoffman, the head of a local accounting firm, has thrown his hat into the GOP nomination contest for the special election to replace Rep. John McHugh. Republicans also announced their schedule for picking a nominee, involving four regional meetings around the districts where candidates would speak to the Republican county committee members over a two- to four-week period once there’s an official vacancy.

• PA-03: Freshman Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, representing the swingy R+3 district based in Erie (won by John McCain by 62 votes), has managed to secure a hot ticket in view of its self-imposed membership cap: she joined the Blue Dog Coalition.

• Redistricting: A petition drive is underway in Florida to get an initiative on the ballot for 2010 that, while not creating an independent redistricting campaign, would at least place some non-partisan limitations on the creation of House and legislative districts. Most of the money behind the petition drive is coming from Democrats, but two prominent Democrats aren’t on board with the drive: Reps. Alcee Hastings and Corrine Brown, both of whom stand to inherit more difficult districts if they’re made less convoluted.

• CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons needs to look like one of those allegedly-not-quite-extinct moderate New England Republicans in order to get elected in Connecticut, but he’s not doing himself any favors by appearing with Newt Gingrich at the annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner. With a large Puerto Rican population in Connecticut, Simmons probably doesn’t want to be anywhere near Sonia Sotomayor’s loudest and most toxic critic. Another problem for Simmons: businessman Tom Foley, the former ambassador to Ireland, made his official entry into the GOP primary field today. Foley, unlike Simmons, has deep pockets he can self-fund with.

• MN-Sen: Sources close to Norm Coleman are suggesting he won’t appeal at the federal level if he loses his case with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Republicans still publicly say they’ll try to stop any Dem efforts to seat Al Franken until Coleman has conceded or exhausted his appeals. John Cornyn has sent some mixed signals, though, saying it’s “entirely” Coleman’s decision whether to keep fighting and that he’s “amazed that Sen. Coleman’s been willing to persevere as long as he has.”

• NV-Sen: Wondering why the GOP is having a hard time attracting a challenger to supposedly-vulnerable Harry Reid? Maybe it’s because of his deep levels of support among much of the state’s Republican establishment. The Reid camp released a list of 60 GOP endorsers, including, most prominently, soon-to-be-ex-First Lady (and former NV-02 candidate) Dawn Gibbons, Reno mayor Bob Cashell, and, in a move guaranteed to nail down the key 18-29 demographic, Wayne Newton.

• NH-Sen: Could it be that the NRSC could actually be stuck running Ovide Lamontagne against Rep. Paul Hodes? Just the very fact that the NRSC is talking to Lamontagne (a businessman whose one claim to fame is losing the 1996 governor’s race to Jeanne Shaheen) with an apparently straight face should be a red flag that their top-tier possibilities (ex-Sen. John Sununu, ex-Rep. Charlie Bass) aren’t looking likely.

• NY-Sen-B: Joe Biden reportedly had a sit-down earlier this week with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who may or may not be running in the Senate primary against Kirsten Gillibrand. Presumably the meeting would contain some of the same content as Barack Obama’s now-famous phone call to Rep. Steve Israel.

• OH-Sen: If a candidate falls in the woods with no one around, does he make a sound? State Rep. Tyrone Yates has been exploring the Senate race for several months, and apparently found nothing that would help him overcome Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and SoS Jennifer Brunner, as he bowed out of the race.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen has the first post-primary poll of the New Jersey governor’s race. Chris Christie may have gotten a bit of a brief unity bounce in the wake of his primary victory, as he’s up to a 51-38 edge over Jon Corzine now, as opposed to 47-38 last month. There’s one spot of ‘good’ news, as it were, for Corzine: his approval rating is back up to 42%.

• AZ-08: Construction company executive and ex-Marine Jesse Kelly seems to be the establishment GOP’s choice to go against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2010. He announced endorsements from three House members: Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, and Frank Wolf. (Not quite clear how endorsements from Hunter and Wolf help him in Arizona, though.)

• KS-01: State Senator Jim Barnett got into the race for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jerry Moran, who’s running for Senate. Barnett may quickly become front-runner, based on his name recognition from being the 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate (where he lost the state as a whole to Kathleen Sebelius, but won the dark-red 1st). He’s up against a more conservative state Senator Tim Huelskamp, and Sam Brownback’s former chief of staff, Rob Wasinger. The primary is the whole shooting match in this R+23 district.

• KY-01: After the purchase of “whitfieldforsenate.com” got people’s attention yesterday, Rep. Ed Whitfield had to tamp that down, confirming that he’s running for re-election in his R+15 House seat.

• MN-06: Even if this goes nowhere, it’s great to have a GOPer doing our framing for us… attorney Chris Johnston is publicly mulling a primary challenge to (his words, on his website) “‘anti-American’ hurling, malaprop-spouting, ‘they took me out of context'” Rep. Michele Bachmann. He confirms that he and Bachmann share “strong conservative beliefs;” he just thinks the 6th would prefer someone “who thinks before they speak.”

• NH-02: Attorney Ann McLane Kuster is launching an exploratory committee to run for the open seat left behind by Rep. Paul Hodes. St. Rep. John DeJoie is already in the primary field, and they may soon be joined by Katrina Swett.

• NY-03: Dems are scoping out potential candidates in Long Island’s NY-03 (which fell to R+4 in the wake of 2008), thinking that even if Rep. Peter King doesn’t vacate to run for Senate he’s still vulnerable. The biggest fish would be Nassau Co. Exec Tom Suozzi, who seems to have bigger fish to fry (reportedly AG if Andrew Cuomo vacates). The next-biggest fish would Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice. Smaller fish listed include Isobel Coleman of the Council of Foreign Relations, and minor league baseball team owner Frank Boulton.

• NH-Legislature: It took a rewrite of a couple sentences that Gov. John Lynch didn’t like, but after a few weeks of back-and-forth New Hampshire finally enacted gay marriage. Both chambers passed the amended bill yesterday (clearing the House 198-176) and Lynch signed it into law on the same day.

The Hill:

In an interview with The Hill, the former congressman said he is looking at both his old House seat and the Senate race.

“I am considering them both,” he said. “But I’m not in any hurry. I’ve been in Congress, so for me it’s a question of whether I want to re-enter the world of public service and what contribution I can make in either the House or the Senate.”

Bass says that he is “not spending every waking moment thinking about” whether he’ll run and that it is a “complex decision” for him. Since New Hampshire holds its primaries in September, well after most states, Bass notes he doesn’t have to make a decision soon. He expects to wait until the end of this year or the beginning of next year to decide.

Don’t strain the brain, there, Charlie — you have all the time in the world. It’s not like the Democrats have lined up a top-tier recruit for the Senate race who’s already squirreling away campaign cash for 2010. Oh wait… Paul Hodes. Right.

Well, maybe John E. Sununu will make up the Bassmaster’s mind for him.

UPDATE (David): Bass in 2006:

“If the opportunity ever presents itself, I will jump into the political fray with as much excitement, enthusiasm and passion as I have in the past,” he said.

Isn’t an open seat he once held the ultimate opportunity? Not a whole lot of excitement, enthusiasm and passion here, though.

The Bassmaster:

Rep. Charlie Bass (R), whom Hodes defeated in 2006 by a 7-point margin, has expressed interest in running for his old seat, but he is also mulling a Senate bid.

“If I feel like people here in New Hampshire are ready for a right-of-center pragmatist, then I’ll consider running,” Bass said.

Bass added that if he runs for his old House seat and wins it, he’ll be able to use his six terms of seniority to return to his work on the Energy and Commerce Committee where, he said, he was “rudely interrupted” by his re-election loss. Nonetheless, Bass cautioned that he would not make a decision for a while, but certainly before the June 2010 filing deadline. (Emphasis added)

I can has seniority back?

Crossposted with different title and a few clarifying edits from Blue Hampshire.

It appears that the GoOPers in high places have decided to put their heft behind Nashua right-wing radio talk show host Jennifer Horn to go against Paul Hodes in the second district of New Hampshire.  I say this because unlike earlier challenger, lawyer and veteran Jim Steiner, Horn’s candidacy has arrived with great fanfare, with the NRCC putting the Telegraph article on their site, an up-column mention from DiStaso in the Union Leader, and a feature from the Republico Politico, which, without any empirical evidence, declares her the “emerging as an early front-runner” and boasts:

National Republicans have been attempting to recruit her into the race for several months. She currently faces a nominal primary challenge from attorney Jim Steiner, though other candidates could emerge before the June filing deadline.

So, what’s Jennifer Horn’s candidacy in a nut-shell?

She said she entered the race because “it’s time we stop electing lawyers and politicians and people who have spent their entire lives setting themselves up for the next office.”

Yes, by all means, let’s not elect lawyers to the legislative branch of government.

And given the above statement, I’m somewhat amazed at the fawning eulogy she gave to career politician Charlie BassMaster at his defeat. Clearly what the law-making branch of our government needs is less experts on laws and public servants, and more right-wing talk show hosts.

What does she think of Paul Hodes?

“Paul Hodes is a do-nothing representative in a do-nothing Congress,” she said.

Quite a piece of shop-worn candidate rhetoric for someone framing herself as an ordinary person outside the beltway.  For those of you looking beyond the slogans of politicians, check out this graph of how the 2006-elected Blue Wave (of which Paul Hodes is frosh president, btw) stacks up against career politician Charlie Bass’ freshman year with the Gingrich-led Contract with America in 1994:

By all means, throw out the do-nothing lawyers and bring in the Gingrich-style ideologues.  That’ll drain the swamp and get things done.  And is back-bencher Bass available for an encore?

Former Republican Rep. Charlie Bass’ service in Congress can be called many things (“disingenuous” and “Bush-enabling” being my top two), but you've gotta give the Bassmaster some credit where credit is due for some straight-up honesty:

Charlie Bass, who lost to Hodes last year after serving five terms, isn't sounding like a candidate for a rematch.

“Life after Congress is not bad,” said Bass, now executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a Washington-based organization focused on getting moderate Republicans elected.

“I haven't ruled anything out, but, frankly, I think that if the election were held today, the outcome might be worse for me than it was last November. I'm not making any decisions at this point.” (emphasis added)

Couldn’t have said it any better myself, Charles.

(H/T: Dean Barker)