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. George Allen’s (R-Va.) presidential aspirations got a significant boost yesterday when former RNC chair and Bush confidant Ed Gillespie joined<\/a> Allen’s political action committee.<\/p>\n * In a poll that will further frustrate DC and Florida Republicans, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) enjoys a big lead over Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) in the latest Rasmussen poll, ahead 54% to 31%<\/a>. Nelson is viewed favorably by 54% of Florida voters and unfavorably by 29%. For Harris, the numbers are nearly reversed, 34% favorable and 55% unfavorable.<\/p>\n * The same Rasmussen poll points to a far more competitive Florida gubernatorial race next year. Hypothetical match-ups pitting Rep. Jim Davis (D), Florida state Sen. Rod Smith (D), state Attorney General Charlie Crist (R), and state Financial Officer Tom Gallagher (R) shows practical ties<\/a> across the board.<\/p>\n * Ohio Dems were encouraged by the fact that Rep. Ted Strickland (D) would secure the party’s gubernatorial nomination easily while Republicans dealt with a bitter and costly primary. Now, it appears both sides will have the same problem. State Sen. Eric Fingerhut (D) filed notice this week for his own gubernatorial campaign<\/a>, following his unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in 2004. Fingerhut is scheduled to make a formal announcement at a fundraiser later this month in Cleveland.<\/p>\n * In Washington state, Sen. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) continues to enjoy a sizable lead over businessman Mike McGavick (R), 51% to 36%<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) struck a very conciliatory tone<\/a> in his state-of-the-state address last night, while unveiling a quarter-trillion-dollar<\/a> transportation package.<\/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. George Allen’s (R-Va.) presidential aspirations got a significant boost yesterday when former RNC chair and Bush confidant Ed Gillespie joined Allen’s political action committee. * In a poll that will further […]<\/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-6267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267","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=6267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}