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GOP Rep. Bill Young’s death creates a scramble for Florida House seat
Democrats hope to flip seat from a district President Obama carried
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics editor
CLEARWATER, Florida (CFP) – The death of Republican icon Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young of Florida has opened up a Tampa Bay-area district, giving Democrats one of their best prospects of flipping a seat anywhere in the South.
A slew of Republican and Democratic candidates are considering the race to replace Young, who died October 18 at the age of 82. His death will necessitate a special election to fill the remainder of his current term, with a second election to follow in 2014.
Under Florida law, Republican Governor Rick Scott will decide when the special election will take place. He has not yet set a date.
The late U.S. Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young
Young’s 13th House District is one of just three districts in the South held by Republicans that President Barack Obama carried in 2012. The other two are Virginia’s 2nd District, held by Rep. Scott Rigell, and Florida’s 27th District, held by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
After Young announced his retirement just days before he died, two candidates – Democrat Jessica Ehrlich, who ran unsuccessfully against Young in 2012, and Republican Nick Zoller, a political consultant – said they would run in 2014.
In the wake of Young’s death, other candidates have stayed on the sidelines out of respect for the veteran congressman, who had represented the Saint Petersburg area in Congress since 1970.
Zoller told the SaintPetersBlog that he while he still planned to run in 2014, he would not run in the special election, suggesting that Young’s widow, Beverly, be elected to finish his term. Young’s son, Bill Young II, has also been mentioned as a possible Republican candidate to replace his late father.
Alex Sink
Much of the speculation on the Democratic side has centered around Alex Sink, Florida’s former chief financial officer, who narrowly lost a race for governor in 2010 to Scott.
Earlier this year, Sink decided against a rematch with Scott but has told local media that she is interested in running in the 13th District. However, Sink does not live in Pinellas County, where the district in located. She lives in neighboring Hillsborough County, and it is unclear whether ambitious Pinellas Democrats would allow her to parachute in without a fight.
GOP challenger Tom Cotton fires first salvo against Mark Pryor in Arkansas Senate race
Cotton puts up attack ad going after Pryor over Obamacare’s special exemptions for congressional staffers
(See ad below)
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (CFP) — The first attack ad of the 2014 Arkansas Senate race features an goose frolicking around the Capitol, coupled with a very prominent coupling of President Obama with incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, who is seeking Pryor’s seat, began airing an ad this week entitled “What’s Good for the Goose” that links Senator Pryor’s 2009 vote in favor of Obamacare to the administration’s decision to exempt congressional staffers from getting coverage under the new health care law.
The ad features text saying that Pryor “voted to make you live under Obamacare,” then mentions the exemption, which it terms “special subsidies for Mark Pryor.” It ends with the tagline, “Pryor with Obama, voting against Arkansans,” under side-by-side pictures of the senator and president.
In a statement, Pryor’s campaign dismissed Cotton’s broadside as “frivolous and false.” But the senator has so far not aired a rebuttal ad.
Pryor did vote for Obamacare. However, the exemption that keeps congressional staffers from being forced into the new health care exchanges was initiated by the Obama administration, not Congress, although lawmakers lobbied for the change.
Republicans in the House, including Cotton, have been trying to overturn the administration’s decision with legislation. The Democratic leadership in the Senate has refused to bring up the measure for a vote.
Cotton’s new ad comes amid the government shutdown. House Republicans, with his support, have tied a funding measure to repeal or delay of Obamacare. But over in the Senate, Pryor and the rest of the Democratic caucus have refused to go along.
Pryor’s campaign has blasted Cotton for what it called his “irresponsible cheerleading” for the shutdown.
Gwen Graham, daughter of former Democratic Senator Bob Graham, runs for House seat in Florida
Graham is challenging two-term GOP Rep. Steve Southerland in a district Democrats think they can flip in 2014
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CFP) — Possessing one of the most storied names in Florida politics and Washington media circles, Democrat Gwen Graham has launched a bid for a GOP-held House seat in northern Florida that’s a prime target for Democrats in 2014.
Gwen Graham
Graham, 50, is the daughter of former U.S. Senator Bob Graham, who was also elected Florida’s governor during a political career that spanned nearly four decades. She is also a member of the Graham family that for decades owned the Washington Post. (The Post’s legendary publisher, Katherine Graham, was Gwen Graham’s aunt by marriage.)
She is seeking the 2nd District seat now held by Rep. Steve Southerland, 47, who was a Panama City funeral director with no political experience when he defeated incumbent Democrat Allen Boyd in the Tea Party wave of 2010.
The district sprawls across 17 counties in the Big Bend area of the Florida Panhandle, including Panama City and part of Tallahassee.
Mitt Romney carried the district with 52 percent of the vote in 2012. However, this district is perhaps the last “yellow dog” Democratic district left in Florida – the type of place where Graham’s father always ran strong — with a majority of its voters registered as Democrats.
Southerland held the seat with just 53 percent of the vote in 2012, giving Democrats hope that they can flip the seat in the 2014 cycle.
Graham, who has never sought political office before, is billing herself as “an independent voice standing up for North Florida.” Not surprisingly, in a district with large numbers of federal workers and military families, she has hammered Southerland over the government shutdown, even calling on him to donate his salary to charity during the standoff.
“Like so many in Washington, Congressman Southerland has forgotten that Congress exists to solve problems, not be an arena for political sport,” she said.
Rep. Steve Southerland
For his part, Southerland has defended the Republican strategy of trying to tie government funding to repeal of Obamacare. He was co-author of a measure that would have delayed implementation for Obamacare for a year in return for a funding measure.
“I have heard the people of North and Northwest Florida loud and clear,” Southerland said. “They don’t want an interruption in the vital services they expect from their government, but they do want to delay Obamacare.”
Southerland is already getting heavy-duty help in his re-election, with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor appearing at a fundraiser for him in August.
One key question for Graham is whether she will face a primary challenge from former State Senator Alfred Lawson, who nearly toppled Boyd in a primary in 2010 and won the party’s nomination for the seat over a more conservative Democrat in 2012.
The racial makeup of the district would be a key in a primary. Nearly 25 percent of the 2nd Districts residents are black, which means black voters will make up a sizeable portion of the Democratic electorate. Lawson is black; Graham is white.
Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis launches campaign for governor of Texas
Davis, who gained national attention for leading a filibuster against abortion restrictions, will likely face off against GOP Attorney General Greg Abbott.
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
FORT WORTH, Texas (CFP) – Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis has launched a bid for Texas governor, hoping to ride notoriety from her filibuster against new abortion restrictions last summer all the way to the Lone Star State’s top office.
Davis, 50, kicked off her campaign at a high school in suburban Fort Worth. But despite her very public association with the issue of abortion, she did not mention the a-word during her opening announcement.
Instead, Davis chose a populist focus on fulfilling what she called “the promise of Texas,” including improving education and battling big-money interests in state politics.
“Real leaders know that real problems deserve real solutions,” Davis said. “That’s the approach I brought to Austin, and that’s what I’ll do as your next governor.”
Davis, a single mother who worked her way through college and then Harvard Law School, also said that “Texas deserves a leader who understands that making education a priority creates good jobs for Texans.”
Texas State Senator Wendy Davis
With no other major Democrat yet in the race, she is seen as the most likely opponent for the expected Republican nominee, Attorney General Greg Abbott. The incumbent, Governor Rick Perry, is retiring after 14 years in office.
Given that no Democrat has won a statewide race since 1994, Abbott starts the race as the prohibitive favorite. He also currently has a more than 20-to-1 advantage in fundraising over Davis, although her national profile will probably enable her to narrow that gap.
However, a poll released October 2 by the Texas Lyceum, a non-partisan public interest group, showed Abbott leading Davis by only an eight-point margin, 29 percent to 21 percent, with half of Texas voters saying they’re still undecided. (The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percent.)
While Abbott’s lead is slight, the poll also showed that 55 percent of Texans approved of Perry’s job performance and 62 percent thought the state’s economy was better than the national economy — both figures that bode well for the GOP nominee.
Davis, who represents a Fort Worth-area district, is best known nationally for leading a more than 11-hour filibuster last June that delayed efforts by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature to pass a anti-abortion bill.
The bill would have prohibited bill abortions after 20 weeks, required abortion clinics to meet the same requirements as outpatient surgery centers and forced abortion doctors to get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Her filibuster ran out the clock on a special legislative session called by Perry. He promptly called another special session – which cost Texas taxpayers $800,000 – and the legislature passed the abortion restrictions, which are now being challenged in court.
Republicans who supported the measures said they were an effort to protect the health of women getting abortions at clinics and to protect unborn children past the fifth month of pregnancy. But Texas abortion clinics and their Democratic allies assailed the new rules, claiming that they would force many clinics to close and make abortions harder to obtain.
Candidates for Virginia governor square off in debate
McLEAN, Virginia (CFP) — With polls showing a tight race, the two men who want to be the next governor of Virginia, Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe, squared off in their second debate on September 25.
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