Redistricting: It’s in the states

Mar 4

Posted by Parched in In the states | No Comments

From Karl Rove/Wall Street Journal:

The political world is fixated on whether this year’s elections will deliver an epic rebuke of President Barack Obama and his party. If that happens, it could end up costing Democrats congressional seats for a decade to come.

Some of the most important contests this fall will be way down the ballot in communities like Portsmouth, Ohio and West Lafayette, Ind., and neighborhoods like Brushy Creek in Round Rock, Texas, and Murrysville Township in Westmoreland County, Pa. These are state legislative races that will determine who redraws congressional district lines after this year’s census, a process that could determine which party controls upwards of 20 seats and whether many other seats will be competitive.

Read the rest…

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One Young Candidate

Mar 4

Posted by Parched in In the states, Rising Stars | 1 Comment

In Washington State’s 18th legislative district Republican incumbent state representative Jaime Herrera is leaving his seat to run for Congress.  That leaves an open seat for Republicans to defend as the GOP seeks to win a majority in the Washington House of Representative in November – where the GOP needs 14 seats to take control of the chamber.  In the 18th, Republican are well positioned to hold the seat with 5 candidates running to fill Mr. Herrera’s seat.  You’ve got a Mayor Pro-Tem, a county planning commissioner, and educator, a businesswoman, and a 17 year-old high school student.

That’s right – 17 year-old Skyview High School senior Anthony Bittner is one of 5 Republican candidates seeking the GOP nomination in the August 17th primary.  Apparently Anthony is a planner.  He’ll turn the statutorily required 18 years old in April – plenty of time before the June 11 filing deadline to be legally eligible to run and hold office.  From the Columbian:

Bittner describes himself as a Republican with independent ideas and conservative values.

“As the son of a small-business owner, I have experienced firsthand the oppressiveness and unfair burden the government forces upon hard-working families,” he said in a statement.

He said he already feels burdened by the state’s budget deficit and would work to reduce government’s intrusion into private lives and the business world.

Other candidates in the race are talking about job creation, Bittner said in an interview, but he disagrees with that approach. “They want to give money to these companies,” he said. “I think we should be taking away the tax burden. I don’t think it should be the government’s job to create jobs. It’s the job of businesses to create jobs.”

He brings a different skill set to the table than any of his opponents – but the question is will anyone take him seriously.  Bittner has his Twitter page up already, though with only 12 followers and him not following anybody kind of makes it hard to get the word out.  Can’t find his campaign website or a Facebook fan page yet…this guy should be nailing those mediums ahead of his older opponents right?

The 18th is a big district for Republicans to hold onto if they want to make real gains in November – will the Republican nominee have to choose between campaigning and freshman orientation?

The Rock?

Chanelling "The Rock"?

Is the Republican candidate one of the GOP’s rising stars?  Will we be reading about Anthony running for Governor of Washington in 10 years?  Is that too soon?  Of course not – heck at 17 he’s already at least 3 years behind Jonathan Krohn.

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Tea Party: Candidates walking the line in search of new voters

Feb 22

Posted by Parched in In the states, That's Odd | No Comments

Is Texas Republican governor primary candidate Debra Medina continuing to tread outside the Republican primary main stream with these latest comments at a Texas Tea Party rally this weekend on who’s to blame for Joe Stack’s flying a single engine plane into the Austin IRS building?  Is she appealing to new voters who she’ll need to make the GOP runoff, or is she talking herself onto an island?

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Dem AG Says Dem AG Candidate Not Qualified

Feb 3

Posted by Parched in In the states, Rising Stars, That's Odd | No Comments

A quick follow up on the saga of whether or not Connecticut Democrat Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz is qualified to seek the office of attorney general – an office for which she is actively campaigning.  The current occupant of the office, Democrat Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is running for United States Senate, with Chris Dodd out of the way he can finally do something, has essentially stopped Bysiewicz’s candidacy in its tracks.

During a news conference in his office, Blumenthal said Bysiewicz, who recently dropped a bid to run for governor and, instead, run for attorney general, does not have enough years as a practicing attorney.

Blumenthal said Bysiewicz, of Middletown, has not accumulated 10 years in the legal profession. In a formal opinion, Blumenthal said that the requirement for “active practice” means more than retaining a law license.

“Active means something more than being a member of the bar,” Blumenthal told reporters.

The Connecticut Post has the full story. You can imagine that Democrat former legislator George Jepsen and current Democrat State Representative Cameron Staples are gleefully pushing this story around Connecticut. And, a story like this makes for a better February day for Republican State Senator Andrew Roraback, Republican former prosecutor John Pavia, and GOP State Representative Arthur O’Neill – who are all reportedly mulling or exploring the race.

Susan Bysiewicz might be toast.

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A Cornhusker Kickback Mashup

Jan 29

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A good way to wrap up the week…and the Cornhusker Kickback.  Just think – if it weren’t for Henry McMaster, and his band of bipartisan state attorneys general, none of this would’ve ever been possible.

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Candidates and their wardrobes

Jan 28

Posted by Parched in In the states, That's Odd | No Comments

Is it right, regardless of what state law says, for a candidate to use campaign funds to pay for clothes for candidates?  We heard about this is in 2008 – and it’s popping up again, this time in Texas.  If you’re a candidate, what would you do?

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Why it stinks to be a Biden in Delaware

Jan 22

Posted by Parched in U.S. Senate | No Comments

The results of this week’s U.S. Senate special election in Massachusetts made things stink a bit down in Delaware.

On the Democrat side of the aisle, probably one of the more agonized over U.S. Senate seats is what is known as the “Biden” seat.  Ok, maybe it’s a bad idea to name seats after their former office holders – remember what happened to the “Kennedy” seat?  Anyhoo, Democrat Attorney General Beau Biden, he’s Vice President Joe Biden’s eldest son, was first elected Attorney General in 2006 defeating Republican Ferris Wharton by just over 13,000 votes.  It should be noted that Biden’s name appeared as “Joseph R. Biden III” – giving a bit of a name ID advantage in a state that was used to having another Joseph R Biden on the ballot for centuries.  You’d expect a bigger margin of victory for such a solidly named candidate in a great year for Democrats – against unknown, but some would argue, much better qualified candidate.

Regardless – the Beau Biden star was on the rise, and it was only a matter of time before he took his dad’s place in the Senate.  The election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden seemed to only solidify that sense.  And then they took office.  And the rest, is history.  Who knows, maybe historians will be kinder to the Obama-Biden administration than the voters have been so far.  Maybe historians will view the Obama-Biden administration’s over reaching on health care, fouling up the war on terror, and ignoring the looming jobs and economy issues more favorably than those who are living through those issues now do.

So today we have Beau Biden, or Joseph R. Biden, III, trying to figure if he wants to put political steak on the grill in an election year that is proving to be tough for candidates linking themselves to national Democrat policies, or more to the point, the policies of Democrats Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Beau Biden - DE Online

It’s going to be tough for Democrats up and down the ballot, all across the country, to extricate themselves politically from the muck that Reid/Pelosi/Obama/Biden have made of their party brand.  It’s going to be even tougher – some might say down right impossible – for Beau Biden to credibly distance himself from his father’s party and policies (because really Vice President Biden can’t distance himself from President Obama’s policies).

So, what seemed like a sure thing for Democrats – sure thing being they get to keep the Biden seat in the family and in the party – is no longer quite so sure.  Beau Biden seeing Martha Coakley go down in flames in Massachusetts to Republican state senator Scott Brown in a special election makes Biden’s facing Republican Congressman Mike Castle, who has been a state legislator, Lt. Governor, Governor, and U.S. Congressman during his public career in the 3 county state that is Delaware, look down right terrifying.  Beau won in ‘06 by 13k votes during a great year for Democrats nationally against a candidate who was new to Delaware politics.  The ‘10 U.S. Senate race is a much different affair in a much more toxic – for Democrats – environment than any Biden has ever seen – against a very popular, statewide elected official, who is not seemingly inextricably linked to all that makes Independent, and some soft Democrat, voters down right furious.

So what’s the best thing for Beau Biden to do?

Well, if his name wasn’t Biden, and his dad wasn’t the Vice President of the United States, and this wasn’t his dad’s seat (again with the owning/naming the seat thing), the decision would be easier. He could run for the seat on his record as Delaware’s Attorney General, distance himself from the failing policies of Obama/Biden administration, and maybe have a shot at winning.  Or he could just not run and be done with it – no harm done.  But his name IS Biden, and he can’t just walk away and wait for another chance – w/out there being some serious political consequences for himself, his dad, and his party.  And if he runs, he can’t do anything to distance himself from what’s ticking off voters all across the country.

As you can see, Joseph R. “Beau” Biden, III is boxed in and it’s hardly his fault.  But he can’t blame anybody, and he can’t walk way.  And that really stinks for him.

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The Secretary of State is That Important

Jan 22

Posted by Parched in In the states, Rising Stars, secretary of state | No Comments

In Ohio, Republican Secretary of State candidate Jon Husted is proving that, at least in Ohio, people think the office of secretary of state is pretty important.

Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, on Wednesday, Jan. 20, announced that he has more than $2 million on hand in his campaign fund for the secretary of state’s race.

“This is evidence that support for my campaign for Secretary of State continues to grow,” Husted, a former House speaker, said in a press release.

Maybe Ohio voters remember previous elections where the Secretary of State’s office played a less than neutral role in elections. Maybe they remember Joe the Plumber. There are a number of states in 2010 with SOS races that carry implications beyond run of the mill state elections.  You can read the rest of the story here.  You can learn more about Jon Husted here.

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The Last We’ll Write About Martha Coakley

Jan 20

Posted by Parched in In the states | No Comments

Martha Coakley was not some unknown, unproven Democrat candidate.  Massachusetts voters knew her, and knew her well.  She was elected attorney general in 2006 with a nearly 1,000,000 vote margin of victory.  In fact, she got more votes than Senator Ted Kennedy in his re-election contest on the same day.  Prior to that, she was the popularly elected District Attorney for Middlesex County in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  In short – she is a well known quantity in Massachusetts politics.  She was not a flawed candidate.

Is this the end of Martha Coakley – it all depends on how she handles herself as attorney general in the weeks and months ahead.  If she does her job well, and reminds folks why they liked her BEFORE she became a U.S. Senate candidate in a horrible year for Democrats, she’ll be fine and well positioned for re-election in the fall.

If she’s trying to figure out how she’ll do it – maybe she should talk Mr. Political Makeover himself, New York A.G. Andrew Cuomo – and see what it takes to pick yourself up and dust yourself off politically.

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The Cornhusker Kickback is Dead

Jan 15

Posted by Parched in DC, U.S. Senate | No Comments

The pressure brought by state attorneys general appears to have worked.  The Cornhusker Kickback is dead.  From Roll Call:

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) on Friday asked that a deal he secured for his state on Medicaid funding be removed from the health care reform bill, a move that follows weeks of unrelenting political blowback.

Nelson contends that a $100 million deal he extracted for Nebraska in December to pay the state’s cost of a proposed Medicaid expansion was misunderstood. He said it was intended to act as a placeholder to ensure that all states received similar treatment once negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate bills commenced.

But after weeks of criticism from Nebraskans and fellow Democratic Senators and a backlash that extended nationwide for a deal that came to be known as the “Cornhusker Kickback,” Nelson on Friday sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asking him to strip the provision from the reform bill.

In his letter, Nelson asks that the Nebraska-only measure be replaced with one that would exempt all states from paying the cost of a proposed Medicaid expansion. However, his letter appears to make clear that regardless of whether that request is granted, he wants the provision affecting Nebraska removed.

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