2010
News about 2010 midterm elections
From NBC's Mark Murray
First Read has confirmed that former President Bill Clinton will host a fundraiser for New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney -- which is certainly interesting given that Maloney is challenging incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
A Clinton source insists that this doesn't mean he's endorsing Maloney, and says the former president is raising money for her "as a way of saying thanks for Maloney's help" during Hillary's failed 2008 presidential bid.
Bill Clinton, in fact, helped raise money for Gillibrand earlier this year.
Still, the news that Clinton is assisting Maloney here probably isn't welcome news to the Obama administration (which includes Clinton's wife) and establishment Democrats backing Gillibrand.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Former Sen. John Sununu made it official yesterday that he would not run for Judd Gregg's seat in 2010. Republicans are now hoping they get their woman in state AG Kelly Ayotte.
NEW JERSEY: Republican candidate Chris Christie said President Obama’s planned appearance at a July 16 rally for Gov. Jon Corzine (D) “adds to the challenge” of beating the incumbent, but will not be a game-changer. “Obviously, when Air Force One lands someplace, it gets a lot of attention… Ultimately these races are going to be decided on New Jersey and Virginia issues.” Political scientist Peter Woolley, from Farleigh Dickinson University, “said Obama’s arrival in July -- rather than waiting until the September and October campaign homestretch -- underscores the need for Corzine to bring Democrats back into the fold.”
VIRGINIA: Noticeably absent from President Obama’s health care town hall yesterday in Virginia was Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds. Although he was invited, Deeds spent part of the afternoon addressing secondary school principals in Williamsburg. Despite Republicans’ attempts to tie Deeds to the national Democratic Party agenda (the union card check bill, cap-and-trade) Deeds “has been just as busy insisting he wants to stick to state issues that relate directly to the governor’s portfolio.”
His communications director later denied that Deeds was “distancing himself from President Obama.” Already, the President has “spoken to Sen. Deeds on the phone and has signed an email sent to the DNC lists. I am certain there will be more opportunities.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell challenged state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D) to a series of 10 debates between now and the November election. Said the Deeds camp: “Creigh is eager to go out and debate Bob McDonnell, but we’re going to do it on independent terms.” A Richmond Times-Dispatch blogger notes that in 2005, Bob McDonnell was also invited to participate in seven debates when running for attorney general against attorney Steve Baril. At the time, McDonnell’s campaign accused Baril of “grandstanding.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee is going up with a TV ad hitting Democratic freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (VA) for voting for the energy bill. The ad is part of a media campaign (radio, Web ads) targeting other Dems who voted for the legislation, including Reps. Boucher (VA), Markey (CO), Space (OH), and Kilroy (OH).
NEW JERSEY: New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is still behind GOP candidate Chris Christie, but he has “closed the gap a bit,” according to a new poll from Farleigh Dickinson-PublicMind. The poll found that 45% favor Christie, while 39% prefer Corzine, with 14% undecided. Despite the tightened margin between the two, “only one in five voters said they believe New Jersey is on the right track, and 54 percent said their view of Corzine is unfavorable.”
NEW YORK: "Rep. Carolyn Maloney has decided to take on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the 2010 Democratic primary, refusing to bow to party leaders who want her to stay out, the Daily News has learned. 'She's definitely decided to run,' said a senior Maloney adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'She's in it.'"
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NEW JERSEY: “Chris Christie walked out of a blockbuster congressional hearing last week with an air of defiance, saying he survived a political booby trap and would get right back to his own campaign agenda,” the Newark Star-Ledger reports. “But Democrats say they are not finished pursuing the questions they've raised about Christie, who leads Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine by 10 points in most polls. They vow to raise them again with proposed legislation, a forthcoming report and perhaps more hearings.”
NEW YORK: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand got NARAL’s endorsement.
Giuliani says
he’s considering running for governor.
PENNSYLVANIA:
Politico looks at how the GOP is rallying around Toomey now, with no other choices.
Roll Call looks at the elections in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, California and New York, which it says “have the most overlap in terms of competitive elections on the state and federal levels. All of the states are relatively large, and the gubernatorial and Senate races there are expected to be very expensive.”
KENTUCKY: “Sources close to Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R), who has formed a Senate exploratory committee, say he is on track to report raising close to $500,000 in the second quarter of the year. Grayson had only two months to fundraise this quarter after filing his exploratory committee in early May. Grayson, who has said he does not plan to challenge Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) and has said he will only run if the incumbent decides to step aside, has fundraisers scheduled for Monday in London, Ky., and Tuesday in Lexington.”
NEW JERSEY: Vice President Joe Biden
-- shockingly --
misspoke at Thursday’s LGBT fundraiser in Washington, this time confusing the New Jersey and Virginia governors. When introducing Virginia Governor Tim Kaine at the event, Biden said Kaine is a “great governor for New Jersey.” That distinction, of course, goes to Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine.
VIRGINIA: Gubernatorial hopefuls Creigh Deeds (D) and Bob McDonnell (R)
made their first back-to-back appearances on Friday, speaking to an audience of 800 high school students. They both said they would not raise taxes for state transportation improvement but would find alternative means of paying for planned projects. Deeds said he would “promote business growth” to increase state revenues, while McDonnell said he’d cut “spending on things that are not a priority.”
Those statements came on the heels of several polls showing “increasing anxiety nationally about rising government spending--”a fear that both candidates are trying to assuage among Virginia voters. The Washington Post says “the challenge for McDonnell will be to paint Deeds as a reckless spender without making himself look like an extremist who would starve government services.” McDonnell has already come under fire from Republicans for declaring his intent not to sign a pledge against raising taxes.
From NBC's Mark Murray
Pegged to the upcoming July 4 holiday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says it will begin airing radio ads against some targeted House Republicans -- including GOP Reps. Ken Calvert (CA), Charlie Dent (PA), and Lee Terry (NE) -- for voting against the recent war supplemental bill.
The ads will begin July 1 and will run for a week.
Here's a sample of one of the ads: "When
George Bush asked, Congressman Terry voted to fully fund our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan," a narrator says. "And last year he said, quote, 'We must give our military every resource it needs.'"
It continues, "Seems like Congressman Terry is playing politics now. Last month Congressman Terry voted AGAINST funding for those same troops... It’s a shame. Call Lee Terry. Ask him why he voted against our troops. Ask him: What changed?"
Republicans who voted against the legislation say they supported the troops, but opposed it because it contained unnecessary spending, like money for the International Monetary Fund.
NEW JERSEY: In a heated hearing before a Congressional panel, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie testified that he awarded lucrative corporate anti-fraud monitoring contracts to political allies “to achieve results of justice for the public.” He denied that giving former attorney general (and ex-boss) John Ashcroft a $52 million contract to oversee a corporation charged with fraud was “an example of cronyism.” He did, however, concede that one of the law firms he had awarded a contract has since made large donations to his gubernatorial campaign.
Christie denied applying any pressure to the seven firms involved in the corporate fraud cases to accept the monitors Christie supported. Pressing the issue, one Democrat on the panel said, “You made them an offer they couldn’t refuse,” to which Christie said was a slur on his Italian-American background. (That indignation remind anyone of this? "I mean my goodness -- because I happen to have Greek heritage and if I go out in the sun for a half-hour and it looks like I've been out there for four hours because I have a darker complexion than somebody -- honestly Jim, I thought we were at the place in this country where the color of somebody's skin or the complexion that they have is not something that's an issue of political debate anymore." Name that pol.)
Two and a half hours into the hearing, Christie got up and left the hearing, saying, as he had previously told the panel, that he had to get back to New Jersey to attend to “pressing business.” As Democrats continued to shout out questions, Christie hurried out of the Capitol, calling the hearing a “political circus.”
Democrats on the subcommittee accused Christie of letting corporations get away with fraud by simply paying their way out of charges. New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell (D) said, “These corporate criminals never admit guilt to the consumers they cheated, and thanks to Mr. Christie, they never will.” But House Republicans praised him, with one offering to endorse his run for governor. Rep. Trent Frank (R-Ariz) said, “Chris Christie deserves a medal for achievements like these.”
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From NBC's Mark Murray
Contrasting the differences between what happened in the early 1990s and what's happening now, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel -- who also worked in Bill Clinton's White House -- was optimistic about passing health-care reform this year. "We are in good shape," he told reporters in an off-camera breakfast meeting.
The first difference, Emanuel said, was that the interest groups that helped defeat health reform in the '90s -- the doctors, the hospitals, the insurers -- are playing a constructive role in the reform. Second, he noted that the three House committees working on the legislation are all on the same page, unlike what happened 15 years ago. And third, he said the Obama administration was allowing Congress to draft the legislation, which didn't happen in the '90s.
Yet in perhaps his most striking comments during the breakfast, Emanuel also observed this difference between now and then: fewer moderate Republicans, like the late Rhode Island Sen. John Chafee, who might be open to helping pass health-care reform. "They are a party that doesn’t have Sen. Chafees" anymore," he said answering a question about whether the White House could get 10 or more Senate Republicans to vote for the legislation. "That makes getting bipartisanship done hard." He added that the Republican Party has transformed into a regional party and is seeing its poll numbers decline even after suffering defeats in two consecutive national elections.
Video: Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, joins the Morning Joe gang to discuss the back and forth over health care reform.
Given the dwindling number of GOP moderates, Emanuel urged the reporters in attendance not to judge whether the legislation is bipartisan based on whether how many Republicans vote for it. A better standard, he said, is 1) does it have Republican ideas in it, and 2) has
President Obama tried to be bipartisan? All that said, Emanuel expects to get some GOP support, although he wouldn't say how many. "I do believe you'll see bipartisan votes."
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FLORIDA: "Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (R)
on Tuesday lit into the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) for endorsing Gov. Charlie Crist over another Republican in Florida’s open Senate race. Huckabee announced his official support for former state House Speaker Marco Rubio (R) in a video Tuesday. In an interview with
The Hill, he criticized the NRSC for turning its back on a true conservative. 'I’m disgusted that they would take a position in a hotly contested race when you have a quality candidate like Marco Rubio, who was the youngest Speaker in the Florida House,' Huckabee said. 'This is not just some nameless, faceless guy that decided to throw his name in, who had no chance and no credibility.'"
NEW JERSEY: “Corzine is ready to file a brief in support of an existing lawsuit claiming the 1992 federal sports betting ban is unconstitutional, a source said on Tuesday,” per ESPN.
The move comes after state Sen. Ray Lesniak filed a lawsuit shortly after neighboring Delaware moved to reinstate sports betting there. Corzine’s appears to be “reacting to Delaware approving it, the nationwide financial crisis and a recent poll indicating the majority of New Jersey residents want it.”
VIRGINIA: Ad wars: Republican Bob McDonnell
will launch a new campaign ad in markets across Virginia later this week. Although his opponent Creigh Deeds does not plan to retaliate with his own spot, his campaign manager emailed supporters, saying it signals the concerns of McDonnell and national Republicans about the race. McDonnell’s spokesman reproached Deeds for “going negative right at the start of this campaign. Virginia wants new ideas, not baseless attacks.”
CALIFORNIA: "Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles announced he would not enter the 2010 race to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who is barred from seeking re-election. Mr. Villaraigosa, a Democrat who begins his second term in July, said he could not leave his job as his city faces a budget crisis and high unemployment," the AP writes.
This is HUGE news. The Latino vote in the Democratic gubernatorial primary is officially up for grabs. This could be a big boon for Jerry Brown's comeback attempt, as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who doesn't have a statewide base, needs the winning number in the primary to be in the 30s, not 50s.
LOUISIANA: "Political insiders on both sides of the aisle are convinced that Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) is set to challenge Sen. David Vitter (R) in 2010, which begs the question of what happens in Melancon’s south-central district next year," Roll Call reports. "Judging by all the noise out of the National Republican Congressional Committee over the news that Melancon is considering the race, there is little doubt that the Bayou State’s 3rd district is about to rocket to the upper echelon of GOP targets. Republicans have yet to unite behind one candidate, but state Rep. Nickie Monica has already said he’s thinking about the race."
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