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• FL-Sen: Jeb Bush has studiously avoided explicitly taking sides in the Florida Senate primary, but various actions (like sending out his sons to endorse Marco Rubio) have tipped his hand. Another moment like that today, as he said on a radio interview that he's "proud" of Rubio and the challenge he's mounted. Meanwhile, Charlie Crist seems to be digging in rather than making plans to switch to an indie or Dem bid: he's saying "he's no RINO," and perhaps more tellingly, now saying he opposes the repeal of "don't ask don't tell," a wedge issue he could be using to propel himself out of the GOP if he so chose. (h/t sapelcovits)
• OH-Sen: Geez, this is just bad to worse for Jennifer Brunner. She's been holding off on reporting her fundraising again, and here's why: she raised $93,000 in the fourth quarter, and managed to burn through more than that, leaving her sitting on a whopping total of $60,000 in the bank (1% of what Rob Portman has). Clearly she thinks someone is going to bail her out at some point - I'm just wondering who she thinks it'll be.
• FL-Gov (pdf): Republican internal pollster McLaughlin & Assocs. finds a sizable lead for Republican AG Bill McCollum over Democratic state CFO Alex Sink: 41-30. That's right in line with both Rasmussen and Quinnipiac's most recent looks at the race, so this one seems to be moving away from Sink for the time being.
• IL-Gov: With all the new allegations popping up about pawnbroker-turned-LG nominee Scott Lee Cohen - on top of yesterday's news about his rap sheet, today's news features his steroid use and resulting 'roid rage and sexual violence -- I'm starting to wonder where the other Lt. Governor candidates were in terms of doing opposition research. For that matter, where was the media? That's the kind of thing that sells papers, if nothing else. At any rate, Cohen is saying he isn't stepping down (having invested more than $2 million of his own money in winning the race purely on name rec), while Pat Quinn is reduced to saying that "the situation will resolve itself." Ex-Sen. Adlai Stevenson is advising Quinn to take the same route he did in 1986 when he was saddled with a LaRouchie running mate, which is to abandon ship and make a third-party run. Of course, that didn't work too well for Stevenson, who lost anyway, although he was running an uphill fight against popular Gov. Jim Thompson.
The one bright spot for the Dems in all this is that the GOP may be months away from having a candidate. State Sen. Kirk Dillard, who came up 406 votes short, isn't conceding, and is saying let's wait until all the absentee and provisional ballots (possibly up to 10,000 of them) are counted. Even if he wants a recount, that won't be able to start until the race's certification in early March.
• MN-Gov: The Democratic field in the Minnesota governor's race got a little smaller, as state Sen. Steve Kelley dropped out. He was probably motivated by his poor showing on Tuesday's informal straw poll, where he finished with 4%, behind at least half a dozen other candidates and "uncommitted" as well.
• OR-Gov: With ex-SoS Bill Bradbury getting a Howard Dean endorsement, ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber just rolled out an endorsement of his own from another netroots favorite: Steve Novick, who barely lost the 2008 Senate primary. Kitzhaber, of course, was one of the few establishment figures to line up behind Novick, so Novick is returning the favor. (You've gotta love the photo of the two of them at the link.)
• AL-05: Looks like the Democrats are moving closer to a candidate to take on Parker Griffith (or whoever defeats him in the GOP primary). Taze Shepard, a Huntsville attorney and elected member of the state Board of Education in the 90s, is considering the race. He has quite the pedigree, too: he's the grandson of John Sparkman, who represented the 5th from 1936-1946 and then was Alabama's senator from 1947 to 1979 (and was the Democratic VP nominee in 1952). Also, Griffith may have a little more company in the GOP primary, and it's an old foe: businessman Wayne Parker, who narrowly lost to the Democratic version of Griffith in the open seat race in 2008.
• MA-10: There are increasing retirement rumors about Rep. William Delahunt, since, of course, the dominant narrative is that Democrats start to cry and run home as soon as usually-ignored Reps face a halfway-credible challenge. Also feeding the rumors, perhaps, are Delahunt's fundraising numbers from last quarter: $31K (although he is sitting on $568K). What may be most interesting is that the rumors all come with a likely replacement attached: Joe Kennedy III.
• WA-08: Ex-Microsoft executive Suzan Del Bene brings her own money to the race (and lots of it - she already has $773K on hand, compared with Rep. Dave Reichert's $477K), but now she's poised to tap into a nationwide donor base, with an endorsement from EMILY's List.
• Mayors: So primary season is here for real: the primary election in the New Orleans mayoral race is tomorrow. With a highly cluttered field and one clear frontrunner looming over the field (Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu), the real question here seems to be who manages to get into a runoff with Landrieu (who was polling at 45% in the most recent poll of the race). Other major opponents include John Georges, Rob Couhig, Nadine Ramsey, James Perry, and Troy Henry.
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