Tuesday’s political round-up

July 26, 2005

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:

* Despite months of saying that he hasn’t ruled out a presidential bid, Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum said yesterday that he has no “intention” of running in 2008. Santorum said he couldn’t imagine putting his family through another campaign after his re-election bid in 2006. “I have six children ages 4-14. And the idea of coming off a race of the intensity that I am engaged in at this point and turning around and running another two-year campaign for president is not something that I believe is in the best interest of my family,” Santorum said.

* Republicans in DC want Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) to drop out of Florida’s Senate race, but GOP voters in the state are rallying behind her. A recent GOP poll in the state show Harris with a big lead over other possible Republican candidates for the Republican nod. But in the number that reinforces establishment concerns, Harris trailed Sen. Bill Nelson (D) in a general election match-up, 48% to 40%.

* Speaking of Harris, establishment opposition to her campaign from Karl Rove and NRSC Chairwoman Elizabeth Dole hasn’t stopped Harris’ fellow House Republicans from backing her campaign. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart has already endorsed Harris; Reps. Mark Foley and Tom Feeney are vocal supporters; and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart is expected to endorse Harris in the coming months.

* Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey (R) continues to consider a challenge to Sen. Linc Chafee (R-R.I.) in a GOP primary next year, and if he does, Laffey can take some confidence in knowing that state leaders will stay neutral. Gov. Don Carcieri (R) recently told a local television station that he would stay out of the fray if Laffey takes on Chafee. Moreover, the state GOP chair would only go so far as to say she’s supporting Chafee because he’s the only candidate in the race.

* Ford Bell (D), president of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, formally kicked off his 2006 Senate campaign late last week. He joins Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar, child safety advocate Patty Wetterling and real estate developer Kelly Doran in seeking the Democratic nomination. The winner of the primary fight will take on Rep. Mark Kennedy (R), who has not primary opponent, next fall.

* New York Mayoral challenger Tom Ognibene (R) acknowledged yesterday that he probably didn’t collect enough signatures to earn himself a spot in the GOP primary ballot, in large part because some of his signatures may have been forged.

Gov. Don Carcieri (R) recently told a local television station that he would stay out of the fray if Laffey takes on Chafee. Moreover, the state GOP chair would only go so far as to say she’s supporting Chafee because he’s the only candidate in the race.

Not what I’d want to hear if I were Chafee … I wonder if anyone has told Carcieri that if this seat goes Dem, it’ll be a long, long time before Repubs win ANYTHING in Rhode Island again.

  • Ford Bell (D), president of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, formally kicked off his 2006 Senate campaign late last week. He joins Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar, child safety advocate Patty Wetterling and real estate developer Kelly Doran in seeking the Democratic nomination. The winner of the primary fight will take on Rep. Mark Kennedy (R), who has not primary opponent, next fall.

    Any word on whether Kennedy is considered vulnerable? Or is this similar to Nelson in FL (seat is vulnerable but opposition candidate is relatively weak so race is tight)?

  • “I have six children ages 4-14. And the idea of coming off a race of the intensity that I am engaged in at this point and turning around and running another two-year campaign for president is not something that I believe is in the best interest of my family,” Santorum said.

    Can someone just record this and play it back to the undecided voters of Pennsylvania?? I know he’s just written a book about “families”, but it still is called public service, and for a good reason.

  • “Any word on whether Kennedy is considered vulnerable? Or is this similar to Nelson in FL (seat is vulnerable but opposition candidate is relatively weak so race is tight)?”

    Kennedy isn’t like Bill Nelson — Nelson is the incumbent, and Kennedy is just a challenger for the seat being vacated by Sen. Mark Dayton. He does have vulnerabilities, and he is a candidate that can be beaten in a state that, while definitively swing, has gone Democratic in a number of important elections.

    However, it all comes down to the candidate, and the Democratic field in Minnesota for 2006 just screams “third tier” — a few of the candidates are barely second tier, at best. Any Democratic enthusiasm towards this seat is, at this time, wholely unwarranted.

  • thanks for the insight, jbryan. Why can’t the Dems in Minnesota put forward a strong candidate for the Senate? The Senate. sigh…what about the DNC?

  • “Why can’t the Dems in Minnesota put forward a strong candidate for the Senate? The Senate. sigh…what about the DNC?”

    The DSCC has done a pretty decent job at recruitment this year… compared to recent years, anyway (though at least they’ve done dramatically better than the NRSC has done this year). But their success at recruitment is still far below what it should be. I’m certain it took some very serious persuasion to get Bob Casey into the PA race, and that was a major recruiting victory. As of right now, however, it’s the only one.

    Schumer, Reid, and other officials are currently working very hard to recruit top tier candidates in Missouri (state auditor and narrowly defeated gubernatorial candidate Claire McCaskill) and Ohio (Reps. Sherrod Brown or Tim Ryan), but while these efforts are looking promising, the deals have not been closed yet. And the DSCC suffered a pretty humiliating series of setbacks in Rhode Island when the #1 candidate the party could possibly field, Rep. Jim Langevin, backed out of a race, and then the DSCC’s second choice, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, similarly did so (which, in my opinion, was not a bad development, since Kennedy would have been a terribly rotten candidate; but I digress).

    And despite how strenuously everyone stresses the importance of the 2006 elections and how if things go right, the Democrats could prosper off a wave of anti-incumbent/anti-Republican anger… the party has just completely failed at recruitment in a number of critically important states. No decent candidates are being fielded in Nevada, and the best the party is offering in Arizona is a self-financer. Despite all the talk of Virginia as one of the most important developing swing states of the coming years, the Democrats are failing to capitalize on the possibility of increasing Democratic strength by taking advantage of this very key Senate race… there are no good candidates running. I understand that most everyone is focused on trying to get Lieutenant Governor Tim Kaine elected Governor, and Mark Warner is dedicated to his presidential campaign, but there’s still no reason for the Senate seat held by George Allen to be completely ignored. Serious pressure should have been placed on Warner to run against him.

    And then there’s Minnesota, a seat the Democrats *can* win and which is currently held by a Democrat… and the party’s got a bunch of third tier no-names and also-rans going against a top tier Republican. It’s very disappointing, but the field is pretty weak (though not weak enough to justify the lack of a serious candidacy), and the party doesn’t seem to have made a serious effort to forego these lacklustre candidacies in favour of luring a prominent, major person into the race.

    You ask: why can’t they? Well, a number of factors contribute. First, the old standby — the longer the Democrats are in the minority, the harder it is to lure in top talent to make tough campaigns only to end up backbenching in the powerless minority. Second, an answer more specific to Minnesota in particular: the party has run lots of poor candidates, combined with lots of bad decisions, for plenty of races, and this has resulted in a weak bench from which to draw top candidates. Go back to 1998, when they fielded Hubert Humphrey III for governor — a disappointing party-man whose only real claim is the legacy of his family. But, look, the Humphrey legacy is a big labour legacy, and the decline of labour is undeniable. In a state like Minnesota, a purple state with odd reform tendencies, that sort of staid, tired old candidacy wouldn’t (and didn’t) work. And then in 2002, the party ignored a truly exciting candidate — a young, attractive, popular, moderate woman named Judi Dutcher who had won election as State Auditor and who was a former Republican that had switched parties to the Democrats — in order to go with the tired, staid, boring, traditional candidacy of insider party-man Roger Moe, a warhorse leader of the legislature whose “time had come.” He, predictably, lost. And deservingly so. Then Paul Wellstone dies — truly an exciting, invigorating reformer — and the best the state could muster was Walter Mondale? It was an absurd spectacle. And he lost.

    The Democrats in Minnesota keep running tired, party-man, legacy candidacies while the Republican Party in the state is cultivating a bench of young and, by all rights, exciting candidates who are finding great success — people like Tim Pawlenty and Norm Coleman (who was originally a Democrat and switched parties). And so now we find ourselves in 2005, and since the party has wasted so many valuable opportunities, they haven’t cultivated a strong, promising field. And so the party offers up disappointing, weak candidates.

    So if you want to know why Rep. Kennedy will probably win, this is why.

  • The RI Governor (Carcieri) has fully endorsed Chafee and word has it that he actively tried to discourage Laffey from running. The White House has already put together fundraising events for Chafee in DC, so I don’t think that there is a question on where the Republican party stands on the race. Laffey needs the far right to carry him through the primary and then needs to quickly re-brand himself as a moderate.

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