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August 25, 2010
Former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman decided to announce publicly that he is gay,
Marc Ambinder reports.
"He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would be asked about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California's ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8."
Said Mehlman: "It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life. Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I had done years ago."
A new
Rasmussen Reports poll in Illinois finds Alexi Giannoulias (D) leading Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) by the slimmest of margins in their race for President Obama's former Senate seat, 42% to 40%.
The poll shows the race virtually unchanged since last month.
A new
Public Policy Polling survey in Louisiana finds Sen. David Vitter (R) leading Rep. Charlie Melancon (D) in the U.S. Senate race by ten points, 51% to 41%, essentially no change from the previous two polls.
Key findings: "Vitter has a 53% approval rating with 41% of voters disapproving of him. That actually makes him, along with Barbara Mikulski and Dick Durbin, one of only three Senators PPP has found with approval ratings over 50% in all of 2010. He is significantly ahead of the curve in terms of his personal popularity."
With Joe Miller (R)
on the verge of unseating Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Alaska, the
Daily Beast reports Murkowski is considering her options as a possible write-in or third party candidate. The filing deadline for an independent bid has passed but "a source within the Murkowski campaign says they know of one possible legal option to pursue a third party run."
Making the race even more interesting are
reports that Democrats could try to push aside their nominee, Scott McAdams (D), and give the nomination to former Gov. Tony Knowles (D) instead.
In an interview with
WKOW-TV, Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson (R) blasted government subsidies.
Said Johnson: "I'm in business. I have never lobbied for some special treatment or for a government payment.... When you subsidize things...it doesn't work through the free market system very well."
However, it turns out Johnson actually received a $2.5 million government subsidized loan to expand his company back in 1985.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) acknowledged his administration "made a clerical error that blew its chance at winning $400 million in federal money for schools, but he blamed Obama administration bureaucrats for not giving New Jersey a chance to correct the mistake," the
Newark Star Ledger reports.
Said Christie: "This is the stuff, candidly, that drives people crazy about government and crazy about Washington."
An email appeal from President Obama to his supporters for Jerry Brown's (D) run for California governor led to the crash of his website, the
Los Angeles Times reports.
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Marc Ambinder: "Joe Scarborough, former congressman from Florida and co-host of MSNBC's agenda-setting wake-up show Morning Joe, has protested, kindly and loudly (he is kind and loud), when speculation arises about his presidential ambitions. He points out that MSNBC is not the platform a conservative would use to build street credentials among his base. He insists he enjoys his current job, turning down entreaties from Republicans to run for Senate by noting that he has more influence as a broadcaster than as a member of the saucer cooler. Nonetheless, a studio apartment industry has arisen of conservatives who think that Scarborough might just be the type of Republican who can be successful in the future."
"Scarborough describes himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. He's a fiscal hawk who cares more about the debt because it's a genuine burden than because it's an opportunity to prevent liberals from spending. He is not a denialist. He doesn't traffic in fear-based politics. He doesn't like cant, and has been trained, as an off-the-cuff broadcaster, to speak more like the normal person he is than the politician he once was. "
Nate Silver's latest Senate forecast shows the Democratic majority in increasing jeopardy.
The simulation finds Democrats now have an approximately 20% chance of losing 10 or more seats in the Senate which would cost them control of the chamber -- unless Florida Gov. Charlie Crist wins his race and decides to caucus with them.
On average, Democrats are projected to lose a net of six and a half Senate seats, which would leave them with 52 or 53 senators.
A new
Reuters/Ipsos poll in Colorado shows Tom Tancredo (I) "appears to be playing a spoiler's role" in the race for governor.
John Hickenlooper (D) leads Dan Maes (R) among likely voters, 41% to 33%, with Tancredo at 16%. Without Tancredo in the race, Maes and Hickenlooper would be tied at 45% each.
A new
Reuters/Ipsos poll in Colorado shows Ken Buck (R) leading Sen. Michael Bennet (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 49% to 40%.
Little is known about the Kennedy family fortune, but
WPRI-TV notes recently-filed financial disclosure forms from Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) shows he "will retire from Congress a much wealthier man after receiving a multimillion-dollar inheritance from his father, the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died a year ago today."
The disclosure "shows Kennedy's net worth rose last year to more than $6 million, and likely much more than that, according to an analysis by Eyewitness News. His annual income from dividends and other sources was more than $205,006, on top of his congressional salary of $174,000."
Chris Young (D) -- the
strange mayoral candidate who decided to sing during a recent interview -- was "relatively well-behaved" in last night's debate.
But Ted Nesi at
WPRI-TV notes he "managed to steal the show toward the end when he used his closing statement to propose marriage to Kara Russo, his campaign manager and longtime companion."
"In the normal course of events, political movements begin as intellectual arguments, often conducted for years in serious books and journals. To study the Tea Party movement, future scholars will sift through the collected tweets of Sarah Palin."
-- Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, in a
Washington Post op-ed, on why the Tea Party is "toxic" for Republicans.
In an interview with the
Louisville Courier-Journal, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) said he is not planning for to run for president in 2012.
"Daniels said he is not interested in the post, is not raising money for such a campaign and has not spent much time outside of Indiana. He said all are proof that he is not running."
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) one of the main authors of the new health care law, admitted in a Montana town hall meeting that he did not read the entire 2,400 page piece of legislation, according to the
Flathead Beacon.
Said Baucus: "I don't think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. You know why? It's statutory language. We hire experts."
To anyone who has worked in the U.S. Senate this is not at all surprising but the politics of this line of attack has dogged Democrats for months.
A new
Public Policy Polling survey in Florida shows Alex Sink (D) leading Rick Scott (R) in the race for governor, 41% to 34%, with independent Bud Chiles (I) at 8%.
"Sink is doing well because she has a higher degree of party unity than Scott does and because she's the favorite with independents. 72% of Democrats say they'll vote for Sink while only 57% of Republicans are committed to voting for Scott. Sink also has a 37-28 advantage with independents."
Key finding: "Scott has dreadful personal favorability numbers with 49% of voters holding an unfavorable opinion of him while only 28% see him favorably. His numbers are even worse with independents than they are with the population at large -- a 54% majority of them see him in a negative light."
"We've reached a point now where it's like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!"
-- Former Sen, Alan Simpson (R), describing Social Security in "an unsolicited and hilariously ill-tempered
email to a critic, who'd accused him of sexism and of insensitivity to poverty among seniors."
This
interview with Providence, RI mayoral candidate Chris Young (D) cannot possibly help his campaign.
See more...
If Joe Miller (R) ends up beating Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) in Alaska -- a result that won't be known until absentee ballots are counted over the next week -- he would become the fifth Tea Party candidate to win a Republican U.S. Senate primary this year, joining Mike Lee in Utah, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Ken Buck in Colorado.
First Read: "Perhaps one of the most underreported stories heading into November is what the U.S. Senate -- the world's greatest deliberative body -- would look like next year with these Tea Partiers as members. Bennett and Murkowski were known as Republicans who would cut deals. But what happens when you replace these folks with Lee or Miller? Then again, partisans on both the left and right want to blow up the Senate, so they very might get their wish."
With several upsets in last night's primary results,
First Read notes "these results tell us something very significant about American politics right now: The candidates who are channeling the public's anger best are winning, especially on the GOP side. One observer put it this way: If 2008 was about hope, then 2010 might be about fear."
"In fact, this explains why someone like John McCain cruised to victory
last night in Arizona and Murkowski didn't. McCain -- though it meant
reversing himself on some key issues like immigration -- picked up the
pitchfork and channeled the growing anger on the right. Murkowski, on
the other hand, touted her record and what she had done for Alaska.
Indeed, how McCain ran his campaign could very well be a model for
Democrats or any troubled incumbent in November: go negative and peel
the paint off of your opponent. Incumbents who run on what they've done
in D.C. and for their constituents back home are wasting their time and
money."
With all but nine precincts reporting in the Alaska Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Sarah Palin and Tea Party Express candidate Joe Miller (R) is leading incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) by 2,000 votes, a result that no
recent polls had suggested was possible.
The Hill: "Miller appears on the verge of a stunning upset in Alaska's Republican Senate primary but the race has not been officially called and could be headed for a recount.
.. With the margin so close and absentee ballots coming in until September 8th, it could hold up final results."
The Hotline: "A Miller win would surpass Rick Scott's in the FL GOV primary as the most stunning of the night. Miller had been written off by most pundits thanks to surveys that showed him trailing Murkowski by significant margins. Murkowski had a significant cash advantage over Miller and used it, advertising on radio and TV during the primary."
The
Anchorage Daily News has the latest tally.
A five-way race for the Democratic nomination for governor is still too close to call, "matching all the speculation that nearly anything could happen in this extraordinary election," the
Burlington Free Press reports.
Peter Shumlin (D) clings to a razor-thin margin over Doug Racine (D) by just 121 votes.
The
Brattleboro Reformer notes that i
f the race comes down to a recount, which seems likely, "it may not be resolved until September."
A new
Opinion Works survey in Maryland shows Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) leading former Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) in their rematch for governor, 47% to 41%.
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