Today's installment of campaign-related news items that won't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) announced this morning he will not run for governor next year, and will instead "explore the possibility of running for United States Senate in 2014." Potential problem: the Senate seat is currently held by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D), who has not yet said whether he intends to retire or seek re-election.
* With Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) likely to become the next Secretary of State, a new WBUR poll of Massachusetts voters shows defeated Sen. Scott Brown (R) as the favorite to win a special election to fill Kerry's vacancy. Brown has strongly hinted about his intention to run if Kerry moves to the Obama administration's cabinet.
* The latest Quinnipiac poll in Florida shows voters feeling more optimistic about the state's future, but the trend isn't helping Gov. Rick Scott (R), whose approval rating is down to just 36%. Even more striking: more than half of Florida Republicans hope some other GOP candidate runs for governor in 2014, when Scott's first term ends.
* In Arkansas, state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel's (D) gubernatorial ambitions ran into a little trouble this week when he admitted he had an "inappropriate" "limited interaction" with a woman who isn't his wife. McDaniel is the only Arkansas Democrat running for governor in 2014.
* As hard as this may be to believe, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said this week he's considering a Senate race in 2014 against incumbent Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Harkin, for the record, has not yet said whether he'll run for re-election, and is rumored to be considering retirement.
* And in North Carolina, a Public Policy Polling survey shows Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) as the leading Republican Senate candidate to take on Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) in 2014. Foxx has not officially announced her intentions.
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If Dem party leadership fails to persuade Rachel to go to the Senate, Scott Brown will win the Massachusetts seat.
The poll guaged support for Ed Markey, Mike Capuano, Steve Lynch and Marty Meehan. Maddow has a strong following in MA and would slaughter Brown in debates or any other media encounter.
More than this, I see her as a future Pelosi, able to broker deals between people of diverse perspectives, insightful enough to perceive paths towards common ground legislation, and with the initiative and drive to press forward progressive legislation in unconventional ways.
Write to Pelosi, Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein- write your Senator. Maddow may dismiss our opinions here as fan chatter, but if she hears from seasoned leaders the same request, then maybe RM will do the right thing and step up.
Omitting Deval Patrick from the hypothetical matchups is quite an oversight.
National Dems can't let the MA local egos mess this up again. This is a golden opportunity to move RM's poli sci brilliance from talking to doing. Deval Patrick should appoint Maddow to fill the seat in the interim and let the Coakley's of MA try to beat her in the Primary for the special election. Rachel will cream them all.
Worst case, say she tries it and finds it isn't her cup of tea- maybe she finds she isn't able to stomach the perfidy. It's still a net win for the country. She can leave after a term or two and would be that much more valuable a source of information and insight for the American electorate.
If that last one comes to pass, I'd advise Senator Hagan to get in contact with former Rep. Barney Frank. He might have some thoughts on how to debate an inanimate object.
Always nice to have the North Carolina hillbillies remind us once again that too much inbreeding leads to widespread moron stupidity.
Booker's decision was based entirely on Christie's poll numbers. Two men with very outsized egos. Not a fan of either one.
I think Cory Booker should probably focus on running for Governor. If he plays his cards right, he could be President of the United States one day.
Could Scott Brown be the real reason behind the Susan Rice sandbagging? Or am I giving them too much credit?
What planet in what alternative universe have you been visiting the past month? Of course that was what it was all about! We kind/sorta figured that out before Thanksgiving, as I recall. :-)
Yet another shrewd, shrewd move by Obama. Allow the phony Rice nonsense to motivate Obama to withdraw her from consideration and serve up Kerry so Brown can take Kerry's seat.
There's no end to the stupidity in the Obama White House. There's just no end to it.
Plus, it gave Obama another opportunity to show his (lack of) support for his own people by throwing another one under the bus. Does wonders for staff, not to mention party, morale when you know your leader has (the knife ready to stick in) your back.
Kerry was always the lead contender for this post, and if it wasn't State it would be Defense.
Scott Brown is not a shoe-in for Kerry's seat. He got in as an unknown quantity in 2010, and his incumbency was his only asset in 2012.
Now he has name recognition. As a misogynist. And a bigot. And a LOSER.
Until there is a single Democrat running against him, his "lead" is meaningless if it is less than 50%.
And if Kerry was always the lead contender for State or Defense, nothing I said above changes at all. It's beyond stupid.
If we were still dealing with the Model 1971 Mark I John Kerry I knew back in the day, he would know to turn down the President on this, that his duty lies in the Senate. Unfortunately over the past 30 years, he has become just another beltway careerist.
The Senate is the right place for Booker. Lautenberg will be 89 next month, 91 shortly after the 2014 elections. If he doesn't choose to retire, the NJ electorate is likely to retire him. At 43 and from a fairly blue state, Booker could have a long and illustrious Senate career.
Scott Brown is the favorite right now because 1) there's no identified opponent; and 2) his name is fresh in the voters' minds. Given six to eight months, someone like Ed Markey or Deval Patrick can ramp up a substantial campaign and turn those numbers around. I hope Patrick decides to run. At 56, he's a little older than Cory Booker, but his six years as Governor give him both name recognition and gravitas. He can't run again for MA Governor, and he's ready to move up.
Let's hope that both Steve King and Virginia Foxx decide to run for the Senate. The recent record of conservative crazies in U. S. Senate races hasn't been good, and I doubt that either would improve that record. It would also rid the House of two of its lesser lights.
I'd like to believe Deval Patrick had a good chance, but even with his good reputation and name recognition, Scott Brown beats him by 7 points according to the WBUR poll (pdf).
Unlike Warren, Deval Patrick does not have the national profile that would give him access to the vast financial resources a candidate will need to counter Scott Browns Wall Street backers.
Not true of Maddow. She has an immense national following and would raise mind blowing amounts of money.
This is very much like the Coulter mantra that O'Donnell ran at the start of every broadcast. "If we don't run Chris Christie, Romney will be the nominee and we'll lose."
If we don't run Maddow, we'll lose and Scott Brown will be back in the Senate.
The year Tiny Tim died in a massacre.
This story is implanting deeply. Its roots are winding their way into the myriad subterranean passages of GOP callousness- resonating with the empathic indifference on all political issues. It is as complete a resonance as Dickens did in his Christmas Carol. He used Tim convincingly as a key to turn Scrooge.
It is a dark song- a carol of Christmas season massacre which simply will not go away within a few news cycles. It will be echoed over and over from this massacre to the next to the next. That it happened at Christmas ties it to timeless repetition.
Given the failure of progressives to focus on the House races, the song will not become obsolete anytime in the forseeable future.
Why did Dickens name his story after a singing round style? Because he was after the theme of timeless repetition of a theme about callousness towards others. Such songs were the way news was spread before technology. It was the backbone of mass communication prior to the technology revolution of paper, and the repetitions remain the backbone of modern mass communication.
The first tellings of this story will affect the course of its repetitions. I think O'Donnell made a great contribution to re framing before we are stuck with another ill conceived frame like "fiscal cliff". His segment last night was entitled Massacre Control, not Gun Control.
That was a good idea and other writers should consider the value of this reframing in their stories.
It would be superhuman if any of the parents had moved rapidly enough from grief to activism. Because before the story loses its legs, a crucial thing is to link a face with this Carol.
Another possible move, might be to cement Christina Taylor Green's face into the Carol- Telegraphing the idea that this Carol transcends a specific event. Gun Violence against Children is just as much about Sandy Hook as it is about Tuscon as it is about Ryder Rozier, the boy who found a loaded handgun in his uncle's home. A child dies every three hours due to guns, with 2/3's of those homicides. (same source)
Since Sandy Hook, the statistical likelihood is that 48 more children will not see Christmas due to guns, with 32 of those homicides.
Christina's family is not averse to the spotlight and have a memorial foundation for her, so they are emotionally much more better fortified than the grieving parents.
I love me my Rachel, but she can do more good, pointing out what the republicans are actually doing with the power they have at the state level. I don't see any of the main news programs doing this (shame on them all it's what they are supposed to do).
Sorry, it was just a dream I had last night.
* With Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) likely to become the next Secretary of State, a new WBUR poll of Massachusetts voters shows defeated Sen. Scott Brown (R) as the favorite to win a special election to fill Kerry's vacancy. Brown has strongly hinted about his intention to run if Kerry moves to the Obama administration's cabinet.
So, naturally, President How-Can-I-Screw-Up-Worse and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, will take Kerry for Secretary of State, like he took Sibelius from Kansas and Napolitano from Arizona. How did those picks work in the long term, sir?
If Kerry was a patriot (like he used to be) he would tell the President to nominate someone else and hold on to that seat since what he can do in the Senate is one helluva lot more valuable than anything he can do as Secretary of the Imperial State.
Maddow for senate ? be careful what you wish for.
Overheard at a food court in a mall today by a couple of women...."Time magazine has the president as person-of-the-year...but what has he done ? nothing....but wait said another his campaign phonyed up the war on women and those dumb broads voted for him". This was in a blue state no less.
Liberal/progressive untill you get rich
Feminist untill you get married
Atheist untill the airplane starts falling
I guess I'll have to agree with all those pointing out how incredibly stupid the idea of President Obama appointing Kerry as SoDefense is. I mean, it's not as if Senator-elect Warren had to campaign or anything when she ran! It's not as if she was unknown to most of the population. I'll bet you couldn't go five feet in any village, town, suburb or city in the Bay State without someone demanding your opinion on her, her family, pets, positions. And that was before she even got the nomination! Wasn't it?
//eos//
What will make a difference is how quickly MA Democrats decide on who they want as Kerry's replacement and how effectively they, and whichever candidate is chosen, run the campaign once that decision is made.
Brown's not only a loser, he's a Republican loser. Once it starts looking as it's not going to be a cakewalk, he'll revert to the same persona that ensured his loss this year.