Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* This morning, Florida House Speaker [tag]Allan Bense[/tag] (R) announced that he will not run for the Senate, despite pressure from the entire GOP establishment, including the president, to take on [tag]Katherine Harris[/tag] in a primary. In an e-mail to state House employees, Bense said, “I have been humbled by the strong encouragement” from many people, but “I have decided not to run for the United States Senate.”
* The open Senate seat in Minnesota continues to be one of the nation’s most competitive contests. A new Rasmussen poll shows Hennepin County Attorney [tag]Amy Klobuchar[/tag] (D) with a narrow lead over Rep. [tag]Mark Kennedy[/tag] (R), 45% to 43%. Kennedy fared better against Klobuchar’s Dem primary rival, Ford Bell, leading 44% to 33%.
* Texas Comptroller [tag]Carole Keeton Strayhorn[/tag] (I) announced yesterday that she had turned in 223,000 signatures to get her name on the ballot for the state’s gubernatorial race. According to the Houston Chronicle, the total is almost five times as many signatures as she needs to qualify, giving Strayhorn a significant margin for error. Entertainer [tag]Kinky Friedman[/tag] plans to turn his petitions in tomorrow.
* Primary Day in Nebraska and West Virginia produced lots of results, none of which were terribly surprising. In Nebraska, acting Gov. [tag]Dave Heineman[/tag] beat Rep. [tag]Tom Osborne[/tag] in the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary, while former Ameritrade exec [tag]Pete Ricketts[/tag] beat former Attorney General [tag]Don Stenberg[/tag] and lawyer [tag]David Kramer[/tag] in the Republican senatorial primary. In West Virginia, businessman [tag]John Raese[/tag] (R) won the state’s Senate primary and will face Sen. [tag]Robert Byrd[/tag] (D) in November, while former federal prosecutor [tag]Mike Callaghan[/tag] won a close Dem primary in the state’s 2nd congressional district and will face Rep. [tag]Shelley Moore Capito[/tag] (R) in the fall.
* In Newark, voters chose their first new mayor in two decades, electing [tag]Cory Booker[/tag], a 37-year-old former Rhodes scholar. Booker narrowly lost to out-going Mayor [tag]Sharpe James[/tag] four years ago in a race so tough that federal election monitors were called into Newark, and which ultimately was turned into an Oscar-winning film called “Street Fight.”