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:
* Sen. Robert Menendez (D), one of New Jersey’s most influential Dems and a leading Hispanic lawmaker, will endorse Hillary Clinton today. That’s a valuable pick-up for the Clinton campaign.
* A new libertarian/conservative group, American Freedom Agenda, is pushing Republican presidential candidates to sign a pledge vowing to get search warrants before wiretapping, not to use signing statements, and promising to use the federal courts for terrorism suspects instead of military commissions. The group hasn’t had too many takers. Ron Paul is the only GOP candidate who has signed the pledge.
* Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has the honor of holding the record for defeating more Republican House members in Senate races than any other senator in history. But that may not matter to Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), who appears to be making moves towards a race against Harkin. The WaPo reported, “National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign (Nev.) said that Latham ‘looks like a senator’ and would have ‘broad-based statewide appeal.'”
* Howard Dean’s game of chicken with the Florida Democratic Party continues: “They warned him yesterday not to ‘disenfranchise’ state voters and risk being blamed for a debacle on the scale of the 2000 recount. The warning comes amid alarm over a decision Sunday by state Democratic leaders to embrace Jan. 29 as the primary date. They are defying DNC headquarters and daring it to follow through on its threat to disqualify electors selected in the primary and punish candidates who campaign there. But the DNC is not backing down.”
* Speaking of Florida, reader W.B. alerted me to some political trouble back home for Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), whose work on the compromise immigration bill, coupled with his support for Bush’s Iraq policy, seems to have hurt his standing. Overall, Martinez’ approval rating has dipped to 37% in Florida.
* And in Wyoming, several top-tier Dems are lining up to run for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat following Sen. Craig Thomas (R) death last week. Former House candidate Gary Trauner, state Sen. Mike Massie and former gubernatorial candidate Paul Hickey are all weighing campaigns, and popular incumbent Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) hasn’t ruled it out.