{"id":3752,"date":"2005-03-16T14:09:46","date_gmt":"2005-03-16T19:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3752.html"},"modified":"2005-03-16T14:09:46","modified_gmt":"2005-03-16T19:09:46","slug":"wednesdays-political-round-up-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wednesdays-political-round-up-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday’s political round-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

My new daily feature<\/a> about campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may nevertheless be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n

* New Jersey Sen. Jon Corzine’s (D) gubernatorial campaign is off to a good start<\/a> — a new Quinnipiac University poll<\/a> shows Corzine with double-digit leads over both of his likely GOP opponents. Corzine leads former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler 50-34, and local businessman Doug Forrester 50-33.<\/p>\n

* Virginia Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine (D) will formally launch his gubernatorial campaign<\/a> today, focusing on “homeowner tax relief and a promise to improve the state’s transportation system, promote excellence in education and maintain discipline in the state budget.” He’ll get plenty of party support<\/a>. His likely GOP opponent is Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore.<\/p>\n

* Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-Colo.) seems to be listening to party leaders who’ve been urging him to run for governor. He announced yesterday that he will form an exploratory committee to “kick the tires<\/a>” on the idea of running. In the same race, University of Denver President Marc Holtzman announced that he too will run<\/a> for governor as a Republican. As for the Dems, party leaders are have stepping up efforts to recruit Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper<\/a> for the race.<\/p>\n

* The wide-open race to replace Jeb Bush as governor of Florida is about to get a new contestant: Scott Maddox<\/a>, who up until recently as has been chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. Maddox was a popular mayor of Tallahassee from 1997 to 2003 and has been making noises about the race in recent months.<\/p>\n

* Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.), fresh off her exciting victory over former Rep. Phil Crane (R), is rumored to be a top GOP target in 2006. Her prospects improved yesterday, however, when state Sen. Pamela Althoff (R) announced she would not take Bean on<\/a> next year. Althoff had scheduled a meeting in DC to discuss the race with the National Republican Congressional Committee, but she canceled the trip.
\n
\n* Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is supposed to be a top target (Dem lawmaker, very “Red” state), but up until recently, Republicans were having trouble recruiting a top-tier rival. That may be about to change. North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven (R) apparently has grown “increasingly interested<\/a>” in the race.<\/p>\n

* Rumors that Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) might retire seem to be untrue. Thomas announced yesterday that he fully intends to seek<\/a> a third term next year.<\/p>\n

* And in news that seems too silly to be true, there’s actually a group of well-intentioned people in Pennsylvania who have an outside-the-box idea about a Dem candidate to take on Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum next year: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews<\/a>. Though Matthews has expressed literally no interest in the campaign, this site appears to be serious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My new daily feature about campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may nevertheless be of interest to political observers: * New Jersey Sen. Jon Corzine’s (D) gubernatorial campaign is off to a good start — a new Quinnipiac University poll shows Corzine with double-digit leads over both of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}