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
* As expected, former vice presidential nominee John Edwards has finalized plans to launch another presidential campaign<\/a>. Insiders close to the Edwards campaign acknowledged over the weekend that the former senator is to announce his campaign in New Orleans between Christmas and New Year’s. As the AP noted, “Edwards’ novel choice of sites shows how he wants to distinguish his candidacy: emphasizing policies he believes can unite a country divided by economic inequality, a situation no more evident than in the city’s Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina.”<\/p>\n * Following a few weeks of speculation, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) has filed presidential exploratory papers<\/a> with the Federal Election Committee. Thompson also recruited Steve Grubbs, an Iowa political strategist, to help lead his fledging efforts.<\/p>\n * Speaking of former governors eyeing the 2008 campaign, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating (R), as noted here<\/a> two weeks ago, is reportedly moving forward<\/a> with his presidential plans.<\/p>\n * Newt Gingrich might run for president in 2008 if the race is still open<\/a> — i.e., with no one candidate dominating — by Labor Day 2007. On Meet the Press yesterday, Gingrich said, “If one of them seals it off by Labor Day, my announcing now wouldn’t make any difference anyway. If none of the three, having from now till Labor Day, can seal it off, the first real vote is in 2008. And there’s plenty of time in the age of television and e-mail between Labor Day and 2008.”<\/p>\n * Despite widespread rumors that Sen. John Warner’s (R-Va.) retirement in 2008 was practically a sure-thing, Warner told the Senate GOP leadership late last week that he will seek<\/a> another term. “I have decided to devote my full time to security responsibilities in the Senate and the demands of a vigorous and challenging reelection campaign,” Warner wrote to incoming Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).<\/p>\n * And just a few weeks after former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) surprised the political establishment by announcing that he would not run for president in 2008, rumor has it that he’s having second thoughts. National Journal noted<\/a> yesterday that “there was a lot of commentary on the Sunday shows” about Warner giving the campaign another look, especially in light of Evan Bayh’s decision to skip the race. Shortly thereafter, Political Insider quoted<\/a> anonymous sources that confirmed Warner has, in fact, “been rethinking his decision.”<\/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: * As expected, former vice presidential nominee John Edwards has finalized plans to launch another presidential campaign. Insiders close to the Edwards campaign acknowledged over the weekend that the former senator is to […]<\/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-9371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371","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=9371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}