New Year's Round-up

by: James L.

Wed Jan 02, 2008 at 12:21 AM EST

• NY-19: Strike three!  After uber-wealthy self-funding Republican Andrew Saul pulled the plug on his congressional campaign against freshman Rep. John Hall after some shady ethics violations came to the fore, some Republicans hoped that former state assemblyman Howard Mills would be an adequate replacement.  Too bad he said no in late November.  The next great hope for the NRCC, assemblyman Greg Ball, announced yesterday that he won't run, either.  This leaves the GOP's ball in the hands of Iraq war vet and wingnut Kieran Lalor.  Will the Republicans really end up without a top flight challenger in a district that they held for 14 straight years before Hall's win?

  Perhaps now is a good time to revisit Ball's sage words from November, when the GOP line on the NY-19 ballot was his for the taking:

  Ball is concerned about the electoral outlook for the GOP in the 2008 election cycle.

  "George Bush has not only hurt the Republican Party, he's left the nation without leadership," the Republican state lawmaker said. "It's going to be a tough year to run as a Republican at the national level."



• IN-02: Speaking of the GOP's bare shelf, a whole year has passed and Indiana Republicans are still lacking a challenger to frosh Rep. Joe Donnelly.  Has NRCC Chair Tom Cole really gone through his entire Rolodex of ethically-challenged Republican millionaires who live in this R+4.3 district? (H/T: Blue Indiana)


• Kentucky: The Lexington Herald-Leader's blog has a thorough run-down of all the upcoming down-ballot special elections in the weeks and months ahead in Kentucky.  The first two happen next week.


• NM-Sen: New Mexico's very own Dr. Doolittle, political gossip blogger Joe Monahan, has been talking to "the alligators" again, and this time they're telling him that Steve Pearce outraised Heather Wilson in the fourth quarter by a margin of $450,000 to $350,000.  Seems kinda low-ish to me, but I suppose that's probably the end result of having the state's GOP money divided between two of their heaviest hitters.


• NM-02: State Rep. Joe Cervantes (D) has dropped out of the race to replace Steve Pearce, leaving former Lea County Commissioner and oilman Harry Teague and Dona Ana County Commissioner Bill McCamley as the only top-tier candidates left in the Dem field.  Monahan thinks the news will favor Teague, a conservative Democrat, but McCamley's fundraising has been solid and he's been running for quite some time.  It'll be interesting to see how this one shakes out.


• MN-03: MNPublius is hearing rumors that GOP Rep. Jim Ramstad's retirement is definite.  Let's hope that they're true!


• IL-18: Aaron Schock, a 14-year old GOP state legislator and nuclear proliferation advocate, is doing his best to avoid any foreign policy debates with his primary opponents for the open seat of retiring Rep. Ray LaHood.  I guess Schock has now fully realized that his "ideas" of selling nukes to Taiwan don't play so well outside of his local college Republican chapter.


• IN-07: State Rep. Joe Orentlicher is the first to file for the Democratic nomination to succeed the late Rep. Julia Carson.  Carson's grandson, newly-elected Indianapolis city councilor will make his decision soon, but it's looking like he'll throw his hat into the ring.  It's also looking like the special election to fill the seat may be pushed back until May.