• CA-Sen: For a brief shining moment there, Tom Campbell had some good news: in the April 1-May 19 reporting period, Campbell actually outraised Carly Fiorina from outside donors. Campbell pulled in $990K while Fiorina got $909K. Fiorina’s response? She wrote herself another seven-figure check.
• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist’s 7-word-long Google ad attacking Jeff Greene (almost haiku-like in its simplicity: “What has Jeff Greene done? Experience matters.”) prompted a 300-word press release from the Greene camp landing some solid hits on Crist.
• KY-Sen: In terms of rocking the political boat, this probably isn’t as eye-opening as his comments about the Civil Rights Act or the NAFTA Superhighway, but it’s one more weird, sketchy act by Rand Paul: in 1999, he created a whole new certifying body for ophthalmologists, the National Board of Ophthalmology, in order to compete with the establishment American Board of Ophthalmology. The NBO has looser certification requirements than the ABO.
• NH-Sen (pdf): Republican pollster Magellan has been really active lately in GOP primaries where they don’t have any skin in the game; they’re back to looking at the New Hampshire Senate race. They find the real race here between Kelly Ayotte, at 38, and Bill Binnie, at 29. Ovide Lamontagne is lagging at 9, with Jim Bender at 4.
• OH-Sen, OH-Gov (pdf): The Ohio Poll, conducted by the University of Cincinnati, is out today with pleasant results for Democrats (perhaps doubly so, considering they have a reputation for producing GOP-leaning results). They find Dem Lee Fisher with a one-point lead over GOPer Rob Portman in the Senate race, 47-46. They also find incumbent Dem Ted Strickland looking OK in the gubernatorial race, leading John Kasich 49-44 (and sporting a surprisingly high 55/35 approval, suggesting that whatever he’s been doing lately has been working).
• FL-Gov: Ad wars are reaching a fever pitch in the GOP primary in the Florida gubernatorial race; Rick Scott placed a sixth major media buy for another $2.9 million, taking his total to $10.9 million. We’ve also found out more about that mystery group that’s planning to spend nearly a million hitting Scott (primarily on the issue of the fraud charges against his company): it’s the Alliance for America’s Future. While it’s not clear what their interest in Bill McCollum is, the group is headed by Mary Cheney (daughter of Dick).
• HI-Gov: After many months of operating in running-but-not-running limbo, Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann made it official yesterday: he’ll run in the Democratic gubernatorial primary against ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie.
• NM-Gov: Former state GOP chair Allen Weh, who’s turned into the main GOP primary opposition to Susana Martinez by virtue of his money, just loaned himself another $600K for the home stretch, on top of $1 million he’s already contributed. Lt. Gov. Diane Denish is unopposed in the Dem primary, but watching Martinez catch up to her in polls of the general, has launched into a fundraising frenzy as of late; she’s raised $464K from donors in the last three weeks.
• SC-Gov (pdf): Two different polls are out in South Carolina: one, from Insider Advantage, continues the trend of giving an advantage to Nikki Haley (and the survey period was May 25, after the current imbroglio broke). Haley is at 31, Andre Bauer at 21, Gresham Barrett at 14, and Henry McMaster at 13. On the Dem side, Vince Sheheen leads at 26, with Jim Rex at 17 and Robert Ford at 12. SCIndex didn’t look at the primaries, but had some rather heartening numbers for November: Generic Republican leads Generic Dem only 46-44 in the gubernatorial race, while in the Senate race, Jim DeMint leads Democratic challenge Vic Rawl only 50-43.
• IN-03: Mitch Daniels made it official today, setting the date for the special election to replace resigned Mark Souder on Nov. 2, at the same time as the general election. (So the special election’s winner will only serve during the House’s lame duck session.) The state GOP will pick its candidates for both elections at a June 12 caucus; presumably, they’ll choose the same person for both.
• MO-08: Where’s the New York Times when you need them? Rep. Jo Ann Emerson just lied big-time about her Dem opponent Tommy Sowers’ military record, saying that her opposition to DADT repeal was based on talking to actual commanders, as opposed to Sowers, who “never commanded anybody.” Um, yeah… except for that platoon of combat engineers that Sowers led in Kosovo.
• MS-01: Wow, even Mississippi Dems are now taking a page from the Gray Davis playbook. A Dem 527 called “Citizens for Security and Strength” is hitting presumed Republican frontrunner state Sen. Alan Nunnelee prior to the primary as a “hypocrite on taxes.” Apparently they too are sensing some late-game momentum by Henry Ross, a teabagger whom they’d much rather Travis Childers face in the general than financially-flush establishment figure Nunnelee, and would like to facilitate a Ross victory (or at least a runoff).
• NC-08: Thinking that Barack Obama is a Kenyan secret Muslim? Check. Wanting to repeal the 17th Amendment? Great! Thinking that there’s a 1,000-foot-high pyramid in Greenland? Sorry, that’s a fridge too far even for the teabaggers of North Carolina. Six leaders among the local Tea Partiers publicly switched their allegiances to Harold Johnson in the runoff in the 8th, following revelations of just how off-the-rails their one-time fave Tim d’Annunzio is.
• NY-23: Determined to relive the NY-23 special election over and over again, the Concerned Women of America are sticking with their endorsement of Doug Hoffman, who seems on track to pick up the Conservative Party line while the GOP line goes elsewhere (like Matt Doheny, most likely).
• Votes: The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell cleared the House by a 234-194 margin yesterday, with 5 GOPers voting yes and 26 Dems voting no. The GOP ‘ayes’ were Judy Biggert, Joe Cao, Charles Djou (in his first week of work), Ron Paul, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Dem no votes were — no surprise — mostly vulnerable members in culturally conservative areas: Berry, Bishop (GA), Boucher, Bright, Carney, Childers, Costello, Critz, Davis (TN), Donnelly, Edwards (TX), Etheridge, Green (TX), Lipinski, Marshall, McIntyre, Ortiz, Peterson, Pomeroy, Rahall, Ross, Shuler, Skelton, Spratt, Tanner, and Taylor.
• Polltopia: Somebody must have slipped some Red Bull into Nate Silver’s Ovaltine lately, as he’s just landed his third hard hit on Rasmussen in as many days. Today, it’s their Wisconsin Senate race poll showing the unknown Ron Johnson competitive (and known by 68% of likely voters) that’s drawing Nate’s ire.
Democrat wins in PA-12 and votes against the amendment. Republican wins in HI-01 and votes for it.
McMaster in 4th place, WOW!! A Haley-Bauer runoff could be a dream come true for Dems. BTW, Sheheen has 300k on hand and Rex 30k. Hopefully Sheheen wins without a runoff.
as being in safe seats, and two others who are retiring and have no excuse to vote against it.
Cultural conservatism has nothing to do with it; national polling has shown over 70% support, including a majority of Republicans supporting an end to official discrimination by our government against our troops based on sexual orientation. And what’s more ridiculous is this bill is a compromise plan, a trigger that may or may not be pulled depending on what the state department decides. So there is absolutely no excuse, politically and legislatively, to vote against it, and no sense either, no political gain from it. Not only is it idiocy, but its bigotry as well.
Of all these people Lipinski most desperately needs to be primaried, especially after his abortion antics during the Healthcare debate.
Taking into account his orthodox adherence to Catholic dogma, I’m pretty surprised to see him voting in favor of repealing DADT – all the more so when one considers that LGBT rights probably is not that salient an issue in a district like LA-02. I just don’t see his electoral future hanging on this vote the way it may have with the stimulus package and HCR.
I gotta say if Meek can’t get his act together we may want to go with Greene allthough i’ve heard his personal politics/history is somewhat odd. I mean as long as he is more progressive then Crist or Rubio and doesn’t have any major skeletons in the closet I would back him.
Its nice to see that the conservadems in Ohio–Boccieri, Dreihous, Space, and Wilson voted to end DADT. Ditto for Altmire and Dahlkemper in PA and Hill and Ellsworth in Indiana. Minnick needs the support of the significant ID gay community.
Most of the opposition was from conservative Southern Dems, which is something that we’ll just have to accept. The Northern Dems opposing DADT (Critz excepted) have little excuse: Carney, Costello, Donnelly, Lipinski, Peterson, and Pomeroy.
Colin Peterson is one Democrat that I would like to see retire immediately. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing him defeated by a GOPer because it would likely mean a better House Ag committee chair. (BTW, I will be quite happy to see D. Stabenow take over for Lincoln in the senate).
I was happy to see Illeana Ros-Leitham oppose DADT. She’s not so bad on issues not related to foreign policy/Cuba.
Some Republicans may regret opposing DADT repeal:
CA-45 Bono-Mack; The Coachella Valley has a huge and growing gay population. She faces a serious challenge from openly gay Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet. This may make it tougher for her.
MO-02 Akin; He gave a stunningly loathesome speech in opposition to repeal of DADT. I thought he was a milquetoast moderate. If he keeps it up, he may actually get a decent challenge in a few years. Demographics in Suburban St. Louis are not on his side.
Other Northern GOPers that this vote will hopefully haunt: Gerlach PA-06, Reichert WA-08, Lungren CA-03, Bilbray CA-50, Dreier CA-26, LoBiondo NJ-02 (Van Drew in ’12!).
Walt had voted no. This is really a big spot on his back in my district. So far, he’s kept his slate clean from the controversial votes, and I’d much rather see him keep his seat for three terms than one. After the first two terms, he would be fairly free to be a mainstream Blue Dog. But that includes keeping his anti-liberal credentials at a high for a couple more years.
I bet even in Idaho the repeal has strong support. Also I doubt republicans will be making a big issue out of this considering the economy and much more pressing issues people care about
Whoa, Charlie Melancon, of all the people in Congress I thought might tear up at some point during a speech, I would’ve never guessed it would be him. Seriously, I got a little teary-eyed watching his lip quiver.
You can’t fake stuff like this. He cares. Like, he really cares. It’s personal for him. He’s a Cajun and he knows what his people are losing thanks to this oil spill.
I can’t help but feel like if everyone in Louisiana saw that video (preferably alongside Vitter’s pissy, whiny remarks about the situation) they would vote for him in a landslide.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
Specter (Toomey)
Crist (Rubio)
Grayson (Paul)
Simmons (McMahon)
Campbell (Fiorina)
Norton (Buck)
Lowden (Angle)
and the next can be Ayotte (Binnie)
I see not safe Ayotte. Lamontagne supporters are far from Ayotte, and if Lamontagne retires like Wiens in Colorado, Ayotte can be toast too.
I know its a little off topic for SSP but has anyone seen this Chris Christie video:
He basically tells a NJ teacher if she doesnt like what the job pays quit! Wow! Never thought I would see a politician talk tough like that to a public employee. That’s the kind of stuff you see from private sector CEOs not from elected officials.