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
* Former President George H.W. Bush apparently believes a different son, Jeb, should follow in the family business<\/a>. In an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” former President Bush said he would want Jeb to run for president “someday,” but now was not the time. “The timing’s wrong,” Bush Sr. said. “The main thing is, he doesn’t want to do it. Nobody believes that.” (No, the quote didn’t quite make sense to me, either.)<\/p>\n * With just a week left before New Jersey’s Republican gubernatorial primary, a new Quinnipiac poll shows businessman Doug Forrester with an 11-point lead over his principal rival, former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, 40%-29%<\/a>. The other five candidates remain in single digits. Last month, Forrester led, but by only six points.<\/p>\n * Forrester’s lead over Schundler has not come on the cheap. Forrester has vastly<\/i> outspent his six rivals,<\/a> including having spent $2.4 million of his own money to pay for television commercials and other campaign expenses in just the last month. Forrester has spent a total of nearly $9 million on the race, which is far more than all the other contenders combined. In contrast, Schundler has spent under $1.8 million.<\/p>\n * Dems in Montana, who believe Sen. Conrad Burns (R) is vulnerable next year, now have some polling data to flesh out their suspicions. The bad news is a new Mason-Dixon poll<\/a> shows the incumbent Burns leading his likely rivals. The good news is the poll shows Burns barely at the 50% mark, which suggests his support his thin for an incumbent senator in a “red” state. State Auditor John Morrison (D) trails Burns 49%-34%, while State Senate President Jon Tester (D) trails Burns 50%-26%, in large part because of Tester’s low name recognition.<\/p>\n * Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has another GOP rival for next year, former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer. Spencer, who was forced from office by term limits in 2003, said yesterday he will seek<\/a> the Republican and Conservative nominations to run for the Senate next year. He’s the second candidate to throw his hat into the ring, following lawyer Ed Cox, who last month announced his intention to run.<\/p>\n * Maryland is one of several states to have September primary elections, which gives candidates less time to compete before a general election and offers a huge financial advantage to candidates who don’t face primary opponents. A move is underway, however, to change the rules before next year’s elections to move the 2006 primary forward from September to June<\/a>. The proposal has the backing of the state’s top elected Democrats, including two U.S. senators, six members of Congress, Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley and Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan. Republicans, including Gov. Bob Ehrlich, are cool to the idea, but Dem leaders in the legislature hope to have the votes to override a veto.<\/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: * Former President George H.W. Bush apparently believes a different son, Jeb, should follow in the family business. In an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” former President Bush said he would want […]<\/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-4341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4341","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=4341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}