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• FL-13: This is some pretty bad news for ol' Vern:
U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan and his campaign “more likely than not” violated campaign finance laws and repeatedly provided inaccurate and inconsistent testimony to federal investigators, according to newly obtained Federal Election Commission documents.
The Jan. 25, 2011, FEC report also, for the first time, offers evidence that employees at the then-Buchanan owned Venice Dodge Nissan dealership were given $1,000 each in cash to repay campaign donations, in violation of federal election law. […]
During their investigation lasting more than a year, FEC investigators say, Buchanan repeatedly provided testimony that was not credible. And the report said investigators found potentially significant evidence that “could demonstrate that Buchanan was attempting to conceal his involvement in the reimbursement scheme.”
So why did Buchanan get off?
Despite the findings, the FEC late last year dropped its cases against Buchanan and his campaign team because agency lawyers said Buchanan’s chief accuser and former business partner, Sam Kazran, was not credible enough.
He's far from in the clear, though: Even though the FEC gave up, the Justice Department is now investigating. Buchanan also faces a serious challenge from Democratic former state Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, and this report will undoubtedly give Fitz plenty of ammunition.
Senate:
• CT-Sen: Connecticut's Working Families Party has been busy this week: They just endorsed Rep. Chris Murphy in his bid to fill Joe Lieberman's Senate seat, two days after giving their backing to state House Speaker Chris Donovan in his bid to fill Murphy's House seat. Murphy had received the WFP line in each of his last three congressional races, so it's not a surprise that the party would stick with him, but it's still a boon to his campaign.
Meanwhile, on the GOP side, I'd actually forgotten that former Vernon Mayor Jason McCoy was running for the Republican nomination, but in any event, this story isn't particularly good for him. Thing is, his chances of actually becoming the Republican nominee already were asymptotically approaching zero, so I just can't find the will to write this one up. Click the link if you truly must.
• IN-Sen: Treasurer Richard Mourdock (challenging Sen. Richard Lugar in the GOP primary) is up with his first radio ads of the cycle, but Sean Sullivan at The Hotline says that a Mourdock spokesman called the ad buy "limited," and adds that it will go dark on Saturday. Lame.
• NY-Sen: Gah. You know how much I hate candidate watches like this. A month ago, a spokesman for Harry Wilson, the wealthy self-funder who ran for state comptroller last year, said his boss was "seriously considering" a run against Dem Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Now, Wilson himself is refusing to rule out a run. Groan, either announce or don't. This dragged-out nonsense is a bunch of crap, no matter who does it.
• OH-Sen: Amanda Terkel reports that the Democrat "attracting more third-party spending by Republicans than any other Senate contest" is none other than Sen. Sherrod Brown. Here's her breakdown of the huge sums laid out so far:
Outside conservative groups not officially affiliated with the Republican Party have spent nearly $2.9 million on the Ohio Senate race, according to numbers compiled by a Senate Democratic campaign operative. Big spenders include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($1.5 million), the 60 Plus Association ($723,338), Crossroads GPS ($506,647) and Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee ($200,077). Brown is the only candidate 60 Plus has targeted.
Gubernatorial:
• NH-Gov: There's a new name in the gubernatorial mix for Democrats: attorney Terry Shumaker, a former Clinton ambassador to Trinidad, who says he's waiting until after the GOP primary "to think about it." So I guess that means he's pre-thinking about it now?
• WI-Gov: Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette has added his name to the list of Democrats potentially interested in taking on Gov. Scott Walker in a possible recall next year. Apart from retiring Sen. Herb Kohl, La Follette is the only Democrat who holds statewide office (narrowly surviving 2010's wave), and amazingly, he's served in his post since 1974! As you might guess, that means he's pretty old (71), but he's actually two years younger than another potential Dem, ex-Rep. Dave Obey. He's also has several unsuccessful runs for other offices under his belt, including Lt. Gov. (1978), Senate (1988), and the House (1996).
House:
• AL-06: Someone is conducting a poll in Alabama's infra-red 6th CD asking about a possible GOP primary matchup between the incumbent, Rep. Spencer Bachus, and a possible challenger, state Sen. Scott Beason. Beason himself is refusing to comment on whether he's planning to run, but his name's been in circulation at least since June, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if he did. Right after redistricting is the best time to come at the king, when he's got new constituents to introduce himself to.
• KY-04: Even though we've already mentioned about a billion potential Republican names for Geoff Davis's newly-open seat, someone still managed to get the drop on us: Attorney Ben Dusing, who is now in private practice but was a former assistant U.S. Attorney, says he plans to announce his candidacy next week. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Florence Mayor Diane Whalen said she won't run.
• MO-01: My friend Jeff Smith, a former Missouri state senator, has an excellent piece in The Hotline offering his advice to Rep. Russ Carnahan, whom the GOP rather famously (at least around these parts) turned into a redistricting victim earlier this year. Smith, as you may know, ran against Carnahan in the Democratic primary in 2004, losing by just 1.6% to a much more famous and well-connected name. And Smith, who is white, later won a majority-black state Senate seat, so he clearly knows the turf. His suggestion? Run against fellow Dem Rep. Lacy Clay in the new 1st CD. After all, says Jeff, it's what he would do if he'd been victorious back in '04 and found himself in Carnahan's shoes today. Here's a key excerpt:
Let's start by assuming that, as in most recent St. Louis elections between a white and a black candidate, voting splits along racial lines. Although the new 1st CD is plurality-black, the relative youth of the district's black population means that its voting-age population is 48.3% white and 45.5% black, an edge of 19K whites overall. But dig deeper and Rep. Clay is helped by the fact that district blacks are more likely to be Democratic than whites. Assuming 90% of district blacks and 65% of whites lean Democratic - appropriate given the terrain - it would mean approximately 234K black Democrats and 183K white Democrats.
However, in both South St. Louis City and in several district suburbs with substantial black populations, there are significant racial differences in average incomes. Because of higher income and education levels, a slightly higher likelihood of union affiliation, and a lower percentage of voters ineligible due to felony convictions, district whites are likely to turn out at a higher rate than blacks. If white Democrats vote at a rate 5% higher than blacks (25% vs. 20%), it would mean that about 47K of projected primary voters are black, and 46K white. […]
Overall, there won't be many crossover votes; each family has been prominent for five decades, so most voters possess accurate information regarding the candidates' racial identities. Given the factors described above, I estimate Clay gets 10% of the white vote in the primary (optimistic), and Carnahan gets 15% of the black vote (a conservative estimate). That would leave Carnahan with a narrow 48K-45K vote victory.
• NY-19: State Sen. Greg Ball, no one's idea of a liberal, is nevertheless smacking Rep. Nan Hayworth—a fellow Republican—from the economic left once again, this time over the House GOP's refusal to extend the payroll tax cut:
They had everything they wanted in a deal handed to them with white gloves and a silver platter, yet still found a way to not support this critical tax cut for struggling families. Let me join the thousands of blue collar families who will be thanking our ultra-wealthy Congresswoman for the coal this Christmas. From a political perspective, I appreciate their efforts to extend these measures for a full year, but a two-month extension is an immediate necessity and one that should not be aborted due to dogma or political ideology.
Along with some of her colleagues, the Congresswoman seems to be completely out of touch with working families and struggling small businesses. Ensuring that blue-collar families can rely on a tax cut in a time when so many families are feeling the ravages of a hemorrhaging economy is the right thing to do regardless of how the politics play out in the next election.
Back in October, Ball called Hayworth out for looking out for the interests of the powerful, and prior to that, he absolutely slammed her for insisting that hurricane disaster relief money had to be accompanied by spending cuts. Ball's still refusing to say whether he plans to primary Hayworth, but he sure as hell sounds like someone who wants to.
• OH-03: Well, we all know that Ohio Democrats extracted a critical concession from Republicans in redistricting: moving the house of one of their own, state Rep. Ted Celeste, into the new 3rd CD. What I didn't realize is that they also moved ex-Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy's home out of the district as well. None of this matters legally, and Ohio Dems are even dumber than I thought if they think this is going to matter on the campaign trail, either, but it just goes to show you how f*cked up their priorities were. Commenter jmknapp has put together a map highlighting exactly how ridiculous this all is. OH-03 is in light green, Celeste's house is the red dot on the bottom left, and Kilroy's the blue dot toward the top right:
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OR-01: According to the Republican media buying firm Smart Media Group, EMILY's List just placed a small ($57K) cable buy on Portland TV for the first week in January, ostensibly in support of Democrat Suzanne Bonamici. I'm not seeing any copies of the presumably forthcoming ad, though it's possible it hasn't been created yet.
• PA-12: When state Rep. Jim Christiana unexpectedly declined to run for Congress just the other day, there was some speculation that he was making room for his more senior colleague, fellow Republican Mike Turzai, the state House majority leader. On Thursday morning, an enterprising reporter cornered Turzai, who refused to rule out a bid.
• PA-17: It's exactly the sort of thing Blue Dog Dem Tim Holden had to expect would happen in the redrawn 17th, a much bluer district than he's traditionally represented: a potential primary challenge from left. Attorney Matt Cartwright says he is "seriously, seriously considering" doing just that, and to erase any doubt, he invoked Paul Wellstone/Howard Dean language and identified himself as a member of “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” It's a little hard to say how stiff of a fight Cartwright might be able to offer: On the one hand, he sounds like a pretty well-connected attorney; on the other hand, he's never run for office before and he doesn't sound like a self-funder. Then again, liberal activist Sheila Dow-Ford held Holden to just 65% in the primary last year, fueled by unhappiness over Holden's vote against healthcare reform, even though she raised only $30K while Holden spent about half a mil.
• RI-01: This can only have been about one thing: David Segal and Anthony Gemma, both of whom lost in the Democratic primary to now-Rep. David Cicilline last year, recently met "to discuss their political futures" at restaurant in Providence. Gemma and Segal have both said they were interested in running against Cicilline again, but Gemma's been much more forthcoming on the topic, saying just last week that he was "95%" in. What's weird, though, is that Gemma is very conservative as Democrats go, while Segal billed himself as the progressive candidate. So I can't see them as having much in common. But there have been stranger bedfellows in the history of politics, and both men probably realize Cicilline is much better off facing a divided primary field.
Other Races:
• IN-SoS: Holy moly! Remember the Charlie White saga? He is—or perhaps was—Indiana's Republican Secretary of State who admitted to personally committing voter fraud (amazing, huh?) but nonetheless won election last year. White was indicted earlier this year on charges related to this fraud, in the midst of a Democratic challenge to his eligibility to stand for office on account of this very same malfeasance. After a number of setbacks to their claim, a state court judge just ruled that White in fact cannot serve as SoS, and further that the second-place finisher, Democrat Vop Osili, must serve in his stead. This amazing decision will undoubtedly be appealed, but wow.
Grab Bag:
• I often link to Colin Campbell, the blogger behind The Brooklyn Politics who was indispensable during the NY-09 special election in particular, and on Brooklyn in general. Now Colin is turning his hobby into a full-time gig at Politicker. So, congratulations! And I look forward to reading more of his stuff.
• Polltopia: Poll junkies throw around the term "likely voter" all the time, but what even does that mean? Part of the problem with the definition is that a fair number of people who decide, in the heat of the moment with a pollster on the phone, that they are likely voters (something you might call the "halo effect") turn out to be lying, or just don't get around to following through on their good intentions. Dem pollster GQR finds that only 87% of those "almost certain to vote" do so, and 74% of those who "probably" will vote do... but at the same time, 55% of those who said they wouldn't vote eventually voted anyway.
Slate has an interesting piece out on how this realization is leading to a sea change in the way that private pollsters who work for campaigns are starting to do their work, starting with lists of active voters maintained by the parties (like the Dems' Catalist). Public pollsters still seem to be playing catch-up, often relying on random number dialing, and that may explain disparities in certain races (maybe most notably, last year's Nevada Senate race, where the public polls were all wrong but the private pollsters knew the score all along). (David Jarman)
• VRA: Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act lives to fight another day: Judge John Bates of the D.C. District Court (a George W. Bush appointee) just issued a 96-page opinion upholding the constitutionality of Section 5, which requires that certain jurisdictions with a history of insufficiently protecting minority voting right must "preclear" any proposed changes to voting procedures with the Department of Justice. Of course, things could look very different once the Roberts court sinks its teeth into this one.
Redistricting Roundup:
• CA Redistricting: Hot damn! I wish all Democrats could learn to speak this way. In response to ProPublica's new report claiming that Democrats manipulated California's new redistricting commission to obtain their desired results, state party chair John Burton went ballistic:
“It’s complete bullshit, an absolute fucking fabrication.”
Burton said he was never contacted for comment on the story which published by the San Jose Mercury News this afternoon — and only just heard about the allegations it contains. […]
“As the chair of the party, I know the party didn’t do this… the Democratic Party didn’t do shit,” he said. “As far as I was concerned, there was nothing you could goddamned do.”
I liked this zinger, too:
Democratic Party campaign advisor Bob Mulholland, in an email, said it would have been “easier to influence North Korea” than the redistricting commission, which was made up of five Republicans, five Democrats and four decline to state voters chosen through a lengthy vetting and lottery process.
Republicans, of course, are calling for an investigation.
• CT Redistricting: Democrats and Republicans have submitted their initial briefs to the Connecticut Supreme Court, which is now tasked with drawing a new congressional map because the state's redistricting panel could not reach an agreement. In the early going, it looks like the main dispute is over how the court should go about actually drafting a new map: The GOP wants it to appoint a special master to draw up a proposal, while Democrats want the parties to submit their own plans directly to the judges.
• NJ Redistricting: PolitickerNJ reports (according to unnamed sources) that both Democrats and Republicans have submitted maps to redistricting commissioner John Farmer which pit Dem Rep. Steve Rothman against GOP Rep. Scott Garrett. The difference is that the Republican plan gives an edge to Garrett, while the Democrats are offering more of an even split. Since it sounds like Farmer will pick one of the two maps, rather than draft his own mashup, this might be a canny move by Democrats if they can convince him their proposal is fairer. In any event, Farmer says he won't make a formal statement until Friday morning.
• Redistricting Contest: If you haven't read about it yet, we're holding a second redistricting contest! This time, we're mixing it up a bit and asking you to remap Chicago's city council. Click the link for full contest details.
