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
* Californians apparently don’t mind electing actors as governor, so Warren Beatty is apparently mulling a bid. After delivering a blistering critique of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s leadership of the state, Beatty initially indicated<\/a> he did not want to run in next year’s election. In follow-up remarks, Beatty was hedging his bets<\/a>: “I don’t think anyone should ever rule public service out,” he said. “It’s a way of saying, ‘Take me out of the mix and don’t listen to me any more.'” <\/p>\n * With just two weeks until New Jersey’s gubernatorial primary election, another televised debate between the seven contestants proved how much they’ve grown to hate each other<\/a>. Front-runners Doug Forrester and Bret Schundler, in particular, accused each of other of being tax-raising liars.<\/p>\n * Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s won a whopping 80% of the vote when he won a fourth term in 2003, but his popularity has clearly taken a hit of late with allegations of corruption undermining the mayor’s office. A new Chicago Tribune\/WGN-TV poll of 700 registered voters in Chicago showed Daley’s job approval rating slipping to 53%<\/a>.<\/p>\n * With Gov. Mike Easley (D-N.C.) prohibited from seeking a third term in 2008, jockeying for position has already begun. At a state GOP convention over the weekend, State Sens. Robert Pittenger, Fred Smith, Patrick Ballantine, and activist Jim Cain all hinted strongly that they’ll be running<\/a> for governor in three years.<\/p>\n * And speaking of premature candidate parades, likely GOP presidential aspirants have been lining up for face time in California’s Orange County, a traditional Republican stronghold. New York Gov. George Pataki and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have traveled to the OC<\/a> for recent Republican events and County Republican Chairman Scott Baugh has said there are commitments — but no dates yet — for Virginia Sen. George Allen and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to make similar trips.<\/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: * Californians apparently don’t mind electing actors as governor, so Warren Beatty is apparently mulling a bid. After delivering a blistering critique of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s leadership of the state, Beatty initially indicated he […]<\/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-4270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4270","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=4270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}