SSP Daily Digest: 8/26

FL-Sen: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says she won’t endorse in the GOP Senate primary or in the general election, out of deference to Kendrick Meek. Says IRL: “Kendrick was a gentleman and I’m a lady back to him,” because he didn’t lift a finger to help Annette Taddeo last year, “despite all the nasty bloggers egging him on.” Next time, we’ll just have to egg harder. (D)

Meanwhile, in the contest purely in Charlie Crist‘s mind over who to appoint to replace Mel Martinez, Crist will reportedly name someone by week’s end from his not-so-short list of eight or so names.

OR-Sen: John Frohnmayer, the former head of the National Endowment for the Arts under Bush I, was reportedly considering a bid for the Senate against Ron Wyden, but has now decided against it. (You may remember Frohnmayer had tried running as an Indie in the 2006 Smith/Merkley Senate race, but decided against that too.) Interestingly, the story makes it completely unclear whether he was planning to run as a Democrat or an Independent (probably not as a Republican, despite that he’s from one of the state’s brand-name GOP families, considering that the once-dominant moderates have been routed from the state party), but it sounded like he’d be going after the usually-liberal Wyden from the left, as he’d been reaching out to Democratic activists upset over Wyden’s foot-dragging on health care reform. No GOPer has stepped forward to take on Wyden from the right.

NJ-Gov: One more wheel popped off the suddenly overloaded Chris Christie bus: the woman who allegedly received the undisclosed loan from Christie while working for him has resigned. Michele Brown was the acting first assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, but she quit yesterday, saying she didn’t want to be a distraction for the campaign.

NY-Gov: Politico’s Alex Isenstadt offers a rebuttal to the NYT’s speculations that Rudy Giuliani is prepping for a gubernatorial run. Close associates say that while he’s not saying no, he isn’t fundraising either, and that his bids for attention may have more to do with paying down campaign debts from his epic presidential fail.

SC-Gov: Two Republican state Reps, Nathan Ballentine (known as a Mark Sanford ally) and Gerry Simrill met privately with Sanford to let him know that if he doesn’t step down, the GOP-held legislature will impeach him. (Sanford told them he’s staying.) Also, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer publicly called for Sanford to resign today (and, by the way, give him his job). Bauer said he’d drop his 2010 gubernatorial bid if he were to become governor, though.

TX-Gov: It looks like there’ll be an alternative to Bush-backer Tom Schieffer and weirdo self-promoter Kinky Friedman in the Democratic primary after all: Hank Gilbert, a cattle rancher who lost the 2006 Agriculture Commissioner race (although he did do the best of any Dem statewide candidate that year), says he’ll run. Burnt Orange Report sounds very pleased. Meanwhile, Kay Bailey Hutchison faced down a truckload of pigs brought to one of her rallies by snout-wearing pro-Rick Perry, anti-pork activists. KBH is also looking to sell her mansion in McLean, Virginia, a tea leaf that a) she’s serious about bailing out of the Senate and b) she needs money.

WI-Gov: There’s already a Republican internal poll from the Scott Walker camp done by the Tarrance Group, reflecting the new post-Jim Doyle configuration of the Wisconsin governor’s race. As one might expect from a Walker poll, he leads all comers, although the Milwaukee Co. Exec barely beats Milwaukee mayor and ex-Rep. Tom Barrett, 44-43. Walker posts bigger numbers over Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, 48-40 and Rep. Ron Kind, 49-39, and an even-bigger number against GOP primary rival ex-Rep. Mark Neumann, 57-21. Barrett leads a Dem primary over Lawton and Kind, 39-25-19 (only Lawton has committed to the race so far, though).

NYC-Mayor: The mayor’s race in New York seems to be in a holding pattern, with I/R incumbent Michael Bloomberg beating Democratic Comptroller William Thompson, 50-35, not much change from last month’s 47-37 spread. Thompson leads city councilor Tony Avella 45-10 in the primary. Further down the ballot, it looks like Air America head Mark Green is poised for a comeback as Public Advocate (a job he held 1994-2001), with 38% in a 4-way Dem primary field.

Ads: The DNC has launched a series of radio ads providing cover for 13 potentially vulnerable Dems, regarding their earlier stimulus and SCHIP votes: Berry, Himes, Donnelly, Kissell, Teague, Rodriguez, Perriello, Ross, Hill, Etheridge, Brad Miller, Pat Murphy, and Inslee. (OK, those last four don’t seem vulnerable at all, but whatever.) Also, a coalition of MoveOn, Americans United for Change, the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters launched TV spots against 5 Republicans over cap-and-trade: McCotter, Rehberg, Blunt, Wolf, and Cantor… and print ads against 2 Dems who also were ‘no’ votes: Jason Altmire in the Pittsburgh suburbs and Ann Kirkpatrick in rural Arizona.

45 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 8/26”

  1. If this is a 3 person or more race, Barrett will win. Milwaukee, proper, makes up about 20% of the typical Dem electorate and when you account for the Milwaukee suburbs its another around 15% and he’s going to absolutely clean up in this area.  

  2. I discussed this in the AR thread but had to step away from the computer so I’d like to make an argument.  Someone said that we didn’t need Lincoln and I responded by saing that if we can get to 67, which is possible if we hold our tough holds and win where we should, we could get rid of the filibuster.  Someone said that we’d never do it because it would hurt us when we were in the minority.  

    My response to this is that we could do two things.  We could get rid of it and then we could also make a clause that to reinstate it you’d need 51 votes to reinstate it or something.  Sure this would anger all the republicans but if we lost an election that put us below the 51 seat threshold, we could put the filibuster back in before the new represenatives were put in place.  This would allow us to pass pretty much anything we wanted for a short time.

  3. If you’re talking about votes, Gilbert was third in terms of statewide Democrats.  He was beaten out by a state supreme court candidate and a court of criminal appeals candidate.  

  4. In 2005, New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie (R) was issued traffic tickets for speeding, driving an unregistered vehicle and driving without insurance but was allowed to drive the vehicle home, reports Millennium Radio.

    The three tickets had the words “no deal” written on them. Christie later pleaded guilty, paid a large fine and signed an affidavit.

    A spokeswoman for Christie acknowledged that “the fact that Christie was U.S. Attorney did come up.”  

  5. This is an example of why you shouldn’t screw over your party.  How exactly does it help Meek that Ileana isn’t going to campaign against him?  Maybe it helps him a little bit, but it’s nothing compared to the world of hurt his not standing up for Taddeo will cause him among the grassroots.  Screwing over your party isn’t just unethical; it’s bad politics.

  6. With Insurance Commissioner and 2010 Republican Gubernatorial candidate John Oxendine having recently gotten in trouble for his donations from the insurance industry, fellow gubernatorial candidate, U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal has joined in the fun.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/deal-a

  7. The reason why the DNC is buying ads for Jay Inslee is that he is preparing to run for Governor in Washington State in 2012. They just want to start laying some ground work now.

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