Elections 2010

Rand Paul, who has surprised a lot of people by becoming a real contender for a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky, bows to political reality — he’s blasting the Obama administration’s policy on terror trials and proposing to “try, convict, and lock up terrorists in Guantanamo.”
Paul’s father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), is one of the [...]

Rasmussen Reports finds Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) clinging to a two-point lead over a possible challenger, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.). Chris Simcox, the leader of the anti-illegal immigration Minuteman Project who’s already in the race, scores 4 percent. All of this puts McCain, who has never been seriously challenged since he came to the [...]

Markos Moulitsas leaks (on Twitter) the results of the latest Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, which has Marco Rubio surging against Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.) in the 2010 GOP Senate primary. The trendlines:
Charlie Crist – 47 percent (-10)
Marco Rubio – 37 percent (+26)
Likely Democratic candidate Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), according to Kos, is a non-factor in [...]

Lisa De Pasquale, director of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, shares the news on Twitter. It’s another confirmation of Rubio’s prominence as the next, post-Doug Hoffman, conservative cause celebre.

This is starting to look like a trend — Florida Republican activists are demanding a “special emergency closed meeting” with state party chairman Jim Greer. Their stated reasoning is nebulous, but a quick scan of the names reveals some supporters of Marco Rubio, the dark horse candidate running against Greer’s preferred 2010 Senate candidate, Gov. [...]

Josh Kraushaar catches a surprising poll in the 2010 primary for U.S. Senate in Kentucky. In the GOP race, Rand Paul, the son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and a first-time candidate, has jumped out to a small lead over Secretary of State Trey Grayson. The trends:
Rand Paul – 35 (+9)
Trey Grayson – 32 (-4)

The smart take among liberal and Democratic strategists is that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is making an empty threat to filibuster his party’s health care bill. But there are short-term consequences for what Lieberman is doing. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is using Lieberman to push Democrats in red and purple states to back away [...]

The former Speaker of the House bucks the tide somewhat and endorses the GOP candidate in New York’s special election. The statement comes with typical Gingrichian hyberbole:
The Republican Revolution in 1994 started very much like what we see today. Like then, our country is reeling from misguided liberal policies, high taxes and out-of-control spending. This [...]

The candidates share a rationale: if any Democrats deserve to lose next year, it will be the powerful committee chairmen who are shepherding the party’s agenda through Congress.

Aurora, Colo. Councilman Ryan Frazier, an African-American Republican I spoke to for this piece on 2010 candidates, has dropped his Senate bid and launched a congressional campaign. Frazier’s new target: Rep. Earl Perlmutter (D-Colo.), who captured the state’s 7th District, which includes Aurora, in 2006.
The 7th District is considerably bluer than the rest of the [...]