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 Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker (I) may be undecided about taking on Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D) in November, but if he does, Lieberman will start with a huge lead. According to a new Quinnipiac poll<\/a>, in a hypothetical match-up, Lieberman leads Weicker 65% to 21%. Overall, 62% of Connecticut voters approve of Lieberman’s job performance, while 64% believe he deserves another term.<\/p>\n * Speaking of Lieberman, he said yesterday that he would not accept<\/a> the Secretary of Defense position if Bush were to offer it to him.<\/p>\n * Despite suggestions to the contrary, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained this week that he will not quit the Senate, but will instead show his disappointment over drilling ANWR by shunning his colleagues<\/a>. “I’m not traveling with them anymore, and I’m not going to play tennis or swim or do various things with them,” Stevens said. (Responded 99 senators, “Don’t throw us in that briarpatch…”)<\/p>\n * Rep. Katherine Harris’ (R-Fla.) Senate campaign is expected to announce that she raised about $1 million in the final quarter of 2005 — but the number will be inflated a bit<\/a> by a $250,000 loan Harris contributed to her own campaign coffers. State observers are unimpressed. “If her cash on hand is below a million dollars, if it’s anywhere in that neighborhood, that’s just not good news,” said former Florida GOP Executive Director Geoffrey Becker. “Florida is simply too expensive, and she’s got too much work to do. She’s got a lot of image building and image rebuilding to do to get to a general-election competitiveness.”<\/p>\n * Recognizing that Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) is on track to run without a GOP opponent, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Republican National Committee are pressing John Raese<\/a>, a West Virginia media mogul, to get into the race. Raese ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1984 and for governor in 1988. A NRSC spokesman said, “We’re really excited about this guy.”<\/p>\n