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
* Sen. Linc Chafee (R-R.I.) is a top Dem target for 2006, but before former Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse (D) gets his shot, Chafee appears poised for a primary fight. As I first mentioned<\/a> in April, Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey (R) has had his eye on the race for sometime and now appears ready to make his move. Laffey met<\/a> with former Rep. Pat Toomey and the Club for Growth for recently, in part because the group specializes in backing right-wing Republicans battling moderates in GOP primaries. Toomey has the impression that Laffey “probably will” be a Senate candidate.<\/p>\n * In Oklahoma, former Rep. J.C. Watts (R) announced today that he will not run<\/a> for governor against Brad Henry (D) next year. “I have determined that the timing for such an adventure is not right at this point in our lives,” he said in a statement. Watts is the second top-tier Oklahoma Republican to pass on the race, after Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin announced earlier this year that she will run for re-election instead. Watts has spent most of his time of late in the lucrative world of infomercials<\/a>.<\/p>\n * A Repubilcan poll out today in Florida shows Sen. Bill Nelson (D) leading Rep. Katherine Harris (R), 47% to 38%<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Though it’s still unclear if Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) will run for re-election next year, his time on the presidential trail has not endeared him to his constituents. A recent Boston Globe poll<\/a> showed Attorney General Thomas Reilly (D) leading Romney in a hypothetical match-up, 51% to 38%. What’s worse for Romney, Massachusetts Republicans were asked who’d they’d back for president in 2008, and Romney came in third<\/i>, behind Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.<\/p>\n * Speaking of presidential long-shots, former HHS Secretary and former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) acknowledged<\/a> over the weekend that he’s “considering” a White House campaign in 2008. Thompson, who once outlined<\/a> the most inefficient model for socialized medicine imaginable, said his campaign would emphasize the need to improve the nation’s health care.<\/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: * Sen. Linc Chafee (R-R.I.) is a top Dem target for 2006, but before former Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse (D) gets his shot, Chafee appears poised for a primary fight. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039","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=5039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}