GOP Senate Takeover Planned In Nov. 2010

Dan Coats Bid Inches Ahead



Former Indiana GOP Sen. Dan Coats is launching a political comeback, announcing Wednesday that he’s preparing to challenge Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh in a race that’s poised to be one of the marquee Senate contests of 2010.

“After coming back from Germany I was content to return to the private sector. But like many Hoosiers, I have become increasingly alarmed and frustrated about the direction of our country and the failure by leaders in Washington to listen to those they were elected to represent,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “After much thoughtful consideration, I have authorized my supporters to begin gathering signatures as I test the waters for a potential challenge to Evan Bayh in 2010.”

Coats, who represented Indiana in the Senate from 1989 to 1999, retired instead of facing Bayh, then the state’s popular young governor, in the 1998 election.

He later served as former President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Germany and worked on shepherding the Supreme Court nominations of Harriet Miers and Samuel Alito through the Senate confirmation process. Since then, he’s worked as a lobbyist for the Washington law firm King & Spalding.

Coats’s decision to challenge Bayh is a major recruiting coup for Senate Republicans, who kept their recruitment of Coats quiet even as several other high-profile Republicans — notably Rep. Mike Pence and Secretary of State Todd Rokita — passed on the race.

“It’s very exciting. It’s a game changer. Evan Bayh is very vulnerable, and certainly Dan Coats is one of the two or three people who can win the seat,” said James Bopp Jr., a Republican National Committee member from Indiana who said he will be playing an advisory role in Coats’s campaign.

Pence offered his own endorsement of Coats’s candidacy, calling the former senator “the ideal candidate for Hoosiers” in a statement.

Bopp said that Coats decided to officially enter the race after Pence and Rokita opted not to run.

Coats’s decision comes just over two weeks before the Feb. 19 deadline for candidates to file in Indiana to qualify for the ballot. He began enlisting political allies Wednesday to gather the 4,500 signatures — 500 per district — to become a candidate in the GOP primary. That’s not a foregone conclusion given the compressed time frame, but Indiana Republican operatives expect him to receive the assistance of the state party apparatus in the petitioning effort.

Assuming he qualifies for the ballot, Coats starts out as a heavy front-runner for the nomination against former Rep. John Hostettler and state Sen. Marlin Stutzman.

Against the backdrop of a difficult political environment for Democrats across the country, Republicans view Bayh as vulnerable to a serious challenger — and quickly ramped up their recruitment efforts in the wake of Republican Scott Brown’s upset Senate victory in Massachusetts.

Coats’s entrance into the race means Republicans now have a conceivable — though still highly unlikely — path to winning back control of the Senate, if everything falls their way in the November midterms. The Cook Political Report moved Indiana to its list of nine potentially competitive Democratic-held Senate seats on Wednesday, and the party needs to capture 10 seats to win back control.

Last month, Bayh polled under the 50 percent threshold considered safe territory for an incumbent in a Rasmussen Reports poll and even trailed Pence in a head-to-head matchup.

The two-term incumbent’s support for the Democratic health care bill was also viewed unfavorably — just 37 percent of voters said they supported the legislation, while 60 percent opposed it.

But recognizing the climate in a historically Republican state, Bayh has been distancing himself from much of the president’s agenda. At a Senate Democratic conference with President Obama Tuesday, Bayh confronted the president over the administration’s spending and handling of a ballooning deficit.

“The voters are way ahead of the political class on this. They understand in the long run, this is unsustainable, it’s bad economics,” Bayh told Obama. “There’s a sense of unfairness. ... Ordinary citizens are making sacrifices, and yet we want our earmarks for pet projects, and they tell us, 'Why can’t Washington make the same sacrifices we’re willing to make?'”

Bayh, however, is sitting on the most campaign cash of any Democratic senator, ending last year with nearly $13 million in the bank, while Coats is starting from scratch. Coats opted not to run for reelection in 1998 because of, among other reasons, his disinterest in raising the millions of dollars necessary for a highly competitive campaign.

“This race was 12 years delayed. This race was supposed to be in 1998. I think there is some personal and professional unfinished business,” said Indiana political analyst Brian Howey, who first broke news of Coats’s Senate aspirations. “I think there is a potential upset here.”

Democrats quickly moved to portray Coats as the ultimate Washington insider, citing his work representing clients including Bank of America, Lockheed Martin and various pharmaceutical interests, and noted that he doesn’t even live in the state anymore.

“Indianans won't ignore Dan Coats’s decade as a lobbyist working the system to gain special favors for the banking industry at the time of financial collapse and at the expense of working Americans,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Eric Schultz.

Another complication is that Coats has voted in Virginia elections for the past decade and needs to re-establish residency in Indiana to qualify as a candidate, adding fuel to the Democrats’ narrative against him.

One Republican Senate strategist, however, argued that Bayh has his own connections to moneyed interests, given that his wife, Susan, serves on corporate boards of businesses with issues before Congress.

“Do they really want additional light shined on the Bayh family partnership which has earned them millions of dollars over the years from companies who have key issues before the Senate?” said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Brian Walsh. “Hopefully we can focus instead on the bread-and-butter issues that truly matter to working families in Indiana.”

Howey said that Bayh is personally well-liked back home and has never faced a serious challenge, but the state’s anti-Washington sentiment could seriously jeopardize his prospects.

“The voters in Indiana have not hesitated to throw the bums out. The question is whether that can be extended to a [Dick] Lugar or a Bayh,” said Howey.





Could Republicans Win Back The Senate?


Republicans suddenly have a conceivable path to winning back the Senate in November, after locking in top-flight candidates overnight in Illinois and Indiana.

A 10-seat pickup for the GOP — once regarded as an impossibility even by the party’s own strategists — remains very much a long shot. It would still require a win in every competitive race, something that happens only in wave elections like 1994 and 2008.

But only 14 months after the GOP was routed up and down the ballot on the night of Barack Obama’s election, the new political environment makes significant Senate gains likely. And within the past 24 hours, a Republican recapture of the Senate is at least within the realm of speculation.

With all the usual disclaimers attached — do not engage in political odds-making while taking medication or operating heavy machinery — here's why a Republican takeover is at least possible:

GOP officials tell POLITICO former Sen. Dan Coats will run against incumbent Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, instantly transforming Indiana into a competitive race.

Rep. Mark Kirk won the Republican Senate primary in Illinois, beating back a tea party challenge and giving the GOP the best chance of winning President Obama's former seat.

This comes one week after Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, decided not to run for his father’s former seat in Delaware. Democrats have a credible backup candidate in New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, but GOP Rep. Mike Castle, who has run and won 11 times statewide, is the strong favorite.

To pick up 10 seats, Republicans would have to run the table in competitive races — and get a miracle (or a big favor from an old friend), too. More on that in a moment.

Republicans look very strong in many of those races. They are clobbering Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas by 20 points in recent polls. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid isn't faring much better. He's down by double digits to relatively unknown GOP opponents. Sen. Byron Dorgan's decision to retire made North Dakota an almost hopeless case for Democrats.

The GOP has pickup opportunities in three other states: Colorado, where appointed Sen. Michael Bennet's reelection numbers remain low; Pennsylvania, where Sen. Arlen Specter trailed former GOP Rep. Pat Toomey by 14 points in one recent poll; and California, where either former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina or former Rep. Tom Campbell could make 2010 Sen. Barbara Boxer's toughest campaign in years.

It would be a tall order for Republicans to take nine of those races on Election Day — and even if they did, they'd still be one victory short of the 51 seats they need.

But in both 2006 and 2008, almost all the competitive Senate races broke in the same direction. Democrats won control in 2006 by seizing six out of seven targeted seats, and by putting one more race in play Republicans would have a similar path to taking a majority.

They would also need to recruit a living, breathing, competitive candidate to run against appointed New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Former Republican Gov. George Pataki consistently leads Gillibrand in public polling. Even if he stays out, Gillibrand could be vulnerable to a second-tier challenger, as almost-candidate Harold Ford Jr. is proving to be in the Democratic primary.

If they can battle Democrats to a 50-50 split in the Senate, Republicans could also try to bring Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman all the way across the aisle. Lieberman recently said "it's possible" that he could run as a Republican in 2012 — "a good, old-fashioned, New England moderate Republican" — which should have been an alarm bell for Democrats concerned about keeping his vote.

Democrats think it's absurd to speculate about the possibility of a GOP takeover. In the ultimate wave year of 1994, Republicans picked up eight seats, prompting Sens. Richard Shelby and Ben Nighthorse Campbell to switch parties only after the GOP already had control. Until Republicans have a concrete, nonspeculative path to 51, Democrats say, it's all a parlor game.

Make no mistake: It's much more likely Republicans will end up gaining a handful of seats but fall several short of a majority.

The GOP has a number of seats to defend, too — in Florida, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Ohio, Louisiana, Missouri and North Carolina — and Democrats hold a significant cash advantage. The DSCC had $12.5 million in the bank at the end of December, with $1.2 million in debt, compared with $8.3 million on hand for the NRSC. The DNC has an even wider cash advantage over its Republican counterpart.

But the remote possibility of a power shift gives the 2010 campaigns even more drama — and national significance.





Richard Burr Has $4.3 million For campaign


Republican Sen. Richard Burr began the year with a $4.3 million campaign war chest, almost certainly giving him a financial advantage over his potential Democratic challengers.

Burr raised $1.2 million in the final three months during the past quarter, according a report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The Winston-Salem freshman reported raising $6.4 million during the election cycle and spending $2.5 million, Rob Christensen reports.

He reported raising $3.4 million from individuals and $2.4 million from political action committees.

He will likely face one of three Democrats seeking their party's nomination: former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, Chapel Hill attorney Ken Lewis, and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall.



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Sources: Politico, McClatchy Newspapers, Newsobserver, Boston Globe, AP, Google Maps

GOP Destruction! Dems Plan To Split GOP & Tea Party

Democrats Plan: Split GOP, Tea Party



Democrats are looking for someone to blame for their electoral woes — and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez is working hard to make sure it’s not him.

Showing that they’ve learned the lesson of Massachusetts, Menendez and his staff will distribute a memo Tuesday advising Democratic campaign managers to frame their opponents early — and to drive a wedge between moderate voters and tea-party-style conservatives.

“Given the pressure Republican candidates feel from the extreme right in their party, there is a critical — yet time-sensitive — opportunity for Democratic candidates,” the DSCC writes. “We have a finite window when Republicans candidates will feel susceptible to the extremists in their party. Given the urgent nature of this dynamic, we suggest an aggressive effort to get your opponents on the record.”

The memo urges Democratic candidates to force their opponents to answer a series of questions on health care, taxes and some of the favorite causes of the far right:

“Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen? Do you think the 10th Amendment bars Congress from issuing regulations like minimum health care coverage standards? Do you think programs like Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should never have been created in the first place? Do you think President Obama is a socialist? Do you think America should return to a gold standard?”

If a Republican candidate says no to any of the questions, the memo says Democrats should “make their primary opponent or conservative activists know it. This will cause them to take heat from their primary opponents and could likely provoke a flip-flop, as it already has several times with Mark Kirk in Illinois.”

As chairman of the DSCC, Menendez has been rocked by a series of setbacks: the out-of-the-blue retirement announcement from Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.); Monday’s news that Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden won’t run for the seat previously held by his father, Vice President Joe Biden; and Republican Scott Brown’s stunning win last week in the race for the late Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat.

Menendez has escaped much of the blame for the Massachusetts massacre, and he plainly hopes to keep it that way. In his memo, he suggests the way to avoid similar losses in the future is to do what Democratic candidate Martha Coakley didn’t: frame the Republican contender early and track any shifting positions by video or other means.

Unlike his predecessor, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Menendez had maintained a fairly low profile running the DSCC. But that changed in the immediate aftermath of Massachusetts.

Menendez spoke last week at a private Democratic Caucus meeting, where he urged all his party’s candidates to “run scared.” In a series of interviews with reporters, the New Jersey Democrat said that he has ordered a top-down review of all candidates’ campaigns to ensure they are properly calibrated to the “volatile” electorate. And over the weekend, he appeared on two Sunday political talk shows to mount a vigorous defense of the Democratic stewardship of Washington — and a counterattack against the GOP.

The jury is still out on Menendez’s tenure, which will be measured by his committee’s fundraising prowess, where it devotes its resources and time, its ability to recruit top-tier candidates and, ultimately, its success at preventing an electoral bloodbath in November.

In an interview, Menendez said he knew this cycle would be “tough and challenging” and that maintaining 60 seats is a lot harder than getting them.

“It’s not buying the car that’s tough; it’s maintaining it,” Menendez said. “But maintaining is not as attractive as buying it.”

In a sense, Menendez has been a victim of bad timing. Schumer, who was chairman for two cycles, was able to tap into an energized Democratic base that was eager to rebuke George W. Bush; as a result, he helped turn a 10-seat deficit in 2005 into an 18-seat advantage after the 2008 elections.

And Schumer benefited from what Republicans acknowledge was weaker competition at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which was run at the time by then-Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, followed by Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. The new NRSC chairman, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, is seen as much more aggressive and as a better fundraiser than were his two predecessors.

Under Schumer, the DSCC trounced the NRSC in fundraising. But while the DSCC still maintains an advantage, the fundraising margin has tightened under Menendez as the DSCC competes for cash with a more aggressive Democratic National Committee and against an NRSC buoyed by an energized GOP base.

“We’re going to absolutely have the resources to engage an aggressive campaign wherever we decide to get engaged,” Menendez said. He also said that, in most of the Senate races, Democratic candidates are holding a cash advantage over GOP candidates.

While a veteran campaign strategist complained Monday that the DSCC has been “monumentally unimpressive” under Menendez, Schumer said in an interview that Senate Democrats believe Menendez has done an “outstanding job under very difficult circumstances.”

And other Democrats, too, are sympathetic.

“The White House can spin [the Massachusetts race] any way they want,” said one senior Democratic senator up for reelection, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But this was about Obama and health care. This was not about Bob Menendez and the committee.”

Despite the Dorgan setback, DSCC officials say Menendez has had success in keeping most of his incumbents from retiring. And they point out that Menendez helped Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd decide to drop out of an uphill bid for reelection this year — a decision that has given Democrats a better shot at keeping the seat in their column.

But there’s a long road ahead. In addition to the serious risk of losing the Delaware and North Dakota seats, Democrats face the possibility of losing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s seat in Nevada and Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s seat in Arkansas. At the same time, Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania appear highly vulnerable, and Obama’s former seat in Illinois looks ripe for a GOP takeover.

Democrats still have a shot at four seats opened up by GOP retirements: in Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio. And they have an outside shot at knocking off Republican Sen. Richard Burr in North Carolina. But the DSCC suffered a setback last year when it couldn’t get a top-tier recruit to take on Burr in North Carolina. Party officials also were disappointed that the DSCC couldn’t attract Florida’s chief financial officer, Alex Sink, to run for the Senate in that state.

Menendez has had some recruiting successes, including Rep. Charlie Melancon, who gives the party a shot at taking out Republican Sen. David Vitter in Louisiana.

But if Democrats suffer a bloodbath and can’t pick up the open GOP seats, Menendez will almost certainly suffer the brunt of the blame.

“He’s got the worst hand to play of any DSCC chairman, ever,” said Democratic strategist Steve Murphy, who is advising several Democratic Senate candidates this cycle. “His job is to minimize losses in this economic environment. The notion that Democrats pick up seats or even hold what we have is not realistic.”



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Sources: Politico, Google Maps

Bob Etheridge Decides Not To Run Against Burr...Its Burr Again In 2010!

Congressman Bob Etheridge Passes


Congressman Bob Etheridge said Friday that he would not challenge Republican Sen. Richard Burr next year, despite a concerted effort by the national Democratic Party to coax him into the race.

The decision is another setback for the Democrats, who earlier this year failed to entice Attorney General Roy Cooper into the race, Rob Christensen reports. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has turned its attention to former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, an Iraq War veteran from Lexington, who had spent several months exploring a Senate bid, before announcing Monday that he would not be a candidate.

Etheridge, a veteran Congressman, former superintendent of public instruction, former legislator and former Harnett County commissioner, is one of the Tar Heel Democratic Party's proven commodities. Etheridge said he looked at the Senate race strongly this time but in the end, "I just decided not to do it."

UPDATE:

National Republican Senatorial Campaign spokesman Colin Reed said Etheridge's decision leaves a big hole in the Democrats' recruiting class and shows that Democrats "on the ground in North Carolina have a much different view of this race than party officials in Washington."

"I think it is a winnable seat," Etheridge said. "I really do believe that. I think Richard burr has not voted (the right way on) some of the issues on job creation and health care and you go right on down the list."

But Etheridge noted that he was the first North Carolinian to serve on the influential House Ways and Means Committee in more than 50 years and felt as though he had "unfinished business in the House."

He said he would not endorse anyone in the Democratic Senate primary which will be held next May. The announced candidates are Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Chapel Hill attorney Kenneth Lewis. Also looking at the race are Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy and former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker.



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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Under The Dome, National Republican Senatorial Campaign, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Richard Burr's 2010 Win Appears To Be A Done Deal...Democrats Are In Trouble!

GOP gloats over Cal Cunningham decision


The National Republican Senatorial Committee is doing a little victory dance over former state Sen. Cal Cunningham's decision not to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr next year.

By the GOP's count (which looks an awful lot like a list compiled by Dome), Cunningham is the 10th Democrat who has looked at the Senate race and decided to take a pass, Rob Christensen reports. Here is the Republican's list: Attorney General Roy Cooper, Rep. Heath Shuler, Rep. Mike McIntyre, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker, state Rep. Grier Martin, state Rep. Tricia Cotham, former state Treasurer Richard Moore, and state Sen. Malcolm Graham.

"Once again," said Republican spokesman Colin Reed, "the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and national Democrats have suffered a serious setback in their efforts to land a top-tier candidate in North Carolina."

Likely disagreeing with that sentiment are the two announced Democrats, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Durham lawyer Kenneth Lewis. U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge and Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy are looking at the race.

Update: Also disagreeing with Reed was DSCC communications director Eric Schultz.

"Aside from Senator John Ensign, Senator Burr has the lowest approval rating of any Republican in the United States Senate. That’s because he’s beholden to the special interests in Washington. He will face a formidable opponent next November."







Cal Cunningham no longer quacks


Cal Cunningham's poll numbers didn't move much during the period where he was exploring a bid for U.S. Senate.

Cunningham, a Lexington lawyer, was the non-candidate candidate, who appeared at events and quietly looked at a run against Republican Sen. Richard Burr, giving Dome plenty of chances to use duck similes. Now, Dome must put away the quacks because Cunningham is out.

It's likely that his decision had something to do with whatever it is U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge will decide about the race.

It's also helpful to note that Cunningham had the same level of support against Burr in October than he did in February. Public Policy Polling noted in February that Burr was leading Cunningham 46 to 27. In October, the pollster pulled the same percentages. Pollster.com, which averages and analyzes polling data, showed that Cunningham's support over time was only slightly better than a flat line.

And for the record, Pollster.com shows declared candidate Kenneth Lewis with an average of 29.1 percent to Burr's 44.5. It's notable that Lewis and Cunningham, two unknowns, were getting similar numbers suggesting that polling results in their cases are more about Burr's level of support.

Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, also a declared candidate, has 31.2 percent to Burr's 43.9 percent, according to Pollster.com's analysis. And Etheridge has 34.7 percent to 43.3 percent for Burr.



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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Under The Dome, Senate.gov, National Republican Senatorial Committee, Youtube, Google Maps