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:
* Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), a Tom DeLay protege, may seem like a safe GOP seat, but Barton’s support has been slipping over the last several campaign cycles, even as Republican support in Texas has grown, and this year he’ll have an aggressive Dem challenger. Davis Harris has a guest blog post up at Wampum explaining his candidacy and his take on the race.
* With Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) suffering in the polls and burdened by his connections to Jack Abramoff, there’s now talk that the two-term incumbent may face a primary opponent. Bob Keenan, the top Republican leader in the Montana Senate, said Thursday he is considering challenging Burns because he is “concerned” about Burns’ re-election chances because of a lobbying scandal. “First, Republican voters need to make a decision about their gut-level support for Conrad,” Keenan wrote in an e-mail from Costa Rica, where he is visiting his oldest daughter. “If they are for Conrad, then vote for him in June and fight for him to win the November election. If they want an alternate, viable option they can be proud of, then for a high-quality, clean candidate named Bob Keenan.”
* If Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne (R) leaves his post to become Bush’s Interior Secretary, it will create an odd campaign dynamic in November. Lt. Gov. Jim Risch (R) already announced that he’d seek re-election to his current post while Rep. Butch Otter (R) ran for governor. Now, however, Risch is slated to become the acting governor for the rest of the year, meaning that the governor would run for lieutenant governor. It’s not too late for Risch to change his mind about the top job — the filing deadline for the gubernatorial race is today.
* When Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) announced this week that she’d invest “everything that I have” into her Senate campaign, that wasn’t quite true. She’s reportedly willing to invest her $10 million inheritance, but according to personal financial disclosure forms, Harris’s net worth between $8 million and $37 million. She is also one of the heirs to the fortune of Ben Hill Griffin Jr., a citrus and cattle magnate.
* Though Rep. Ted Strickland (D) is considered a lock for the Dems’ gubernatorial nomination in Ohio, his primary opponent, Bryan Flannery, is still hoping to bring him down. Flannery accused Strickland of employing a sex offender on his congressional and campaign staffs, though he offered no proof to support his charge. Strickland responded by saying he received an anonymous letter in 1998 that accused a campaign employee, who had earlier worked on his congressional staff, of exposing himself in public. The employee denied the charge and Strickland dropped the issue. The accused employee left Strickland’s staff in 1999.
* Christy Mihos, Massachusetts’s recently-announced independent gubernatorial candidate, got caught up in an embarrassing flap yesterday when he had to amend his campaign bio, which exaggerated his past. Mihos had said he “paid his way through college by playing the saxophone, bass guitar, clarinet, and bouzouki (a long-necked mandolin) at Greek weddings,” when, in fact, his parents paid his tuition. The issue came to the media’s attention when Mihos’ own sister began complaining about the claim.