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:<\/p>\n
* Now that Richard Morrison, Tom DeLay’s 2004 opponent, has withdrawn<\/a> from consideration in 2006, a new name is in the mix among Dems who want to take on the flailing Majority Leader: former Rep. Nick Lampson<\/a> (D-Texas). Despite serving in a GOP-leaning district, Lampson was a popular lawmaker first elected in 1996. DeLay’s outrageous re-redistricting stunt forced Lampson out of a job, and now Lampson appears ready to settle the score. Vowing to make DeLay’s ethical lapses a central focus on the 2006 campaign, Lampson will formally file papers as a candidate today. He told reporters he’s willing to spend $4 million or more on the race.<\/p>\n * Speaking of re-redistricting, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) signed a new congressional map<\/a> into law yesterday. The redrawn map still awaits approval by the Justice Department, which has to ensure the new district lines are consistent with the Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n * In New York, a new Quinnipiac poll<\/a> shows New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s (D) statewide support growing even stronger the past couple of months. Spitzer now leads incumbent Gov. George Pataki (R), 53% to 32%, and trounces would-be candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, 60% to 16%.<\/p>\n * Just a day after Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) announced<\/a> he will not take on Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) next year, a couple more top-tier Kansas Republicans have bowed out as well. Yesterday, Rep. Jim Ryun (R) and Attorney General Phill Kline (R) said they had decided against<\/a> running for governor.<\/p>\n * Speaking of rumored candidates who aren’t running for governor, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had been considered a likely gubernatorial aspirant, but he announced yesterday<\/a> that he will instead seek re-election to the House. For now, Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman is the only Dem candidate officially in the race.<\/p>\n * Less than a week after a statewide poll showed her running even<\/a> with Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), Missouri state Auditor Claire McCaskill (D) will meet<\/a> with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to discuss the race. McCaskill ran unsuccessfully for governor last year and is one of three Democrats to hold statewide office in Missouri. A DSCC survey showed McCaskill tied with Talent in a hypothetical match-up among state voters, both garnering 43%.<\/p>\n * Two years ago, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) appointed Dr. Oscar Lovelace (R) to be the chairman of Sanford’s health care task force. Lovelace apparently wasn’t too impressed with what he saw in state government — told reporters yesterday that he’s going to challenge Sanford<\/a> in a Republican primary next year. Lovelace, 45, has never run for public office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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: * Now that Richard Morrison, Tom DeLay’s 2004 opponent, has withdrawn from consideration in 2006, a new name is in the mix among Dems who want to take on the flailing Majority Leader: […]<\/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-4126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126","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=4126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}