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American Idol Clay Aiken considering run for U.S. House in North Carolina
Aiken, a gay rights activist who finished second in the popular singing contest in 2003, is reportedly considering a run against GOP U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers.
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
RALEIGH, North Carolina (CFP) — American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken is reportedly considering making a bid for North Carolina’s 2nd District U.S. House seat in 2014.
American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken
Two Democratic sources familiar with Aiken’s plans told the Washington Blade newspaper that Aiken has been in discussions with Democratic campaign operatives about a race against incumbent U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers, a second-term Republican.
Aiken, 35, a Raleigh native, has not publicly confirmed that he plans to run in the 2nd District, which takes in part of the city Raleigh and suburban areas to the south and east.
Two Democrats are already running in the 2nd District — Houston Barnes, an attorney from Durham, and former State Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco.
Ellmers, a former nurse who was elected in the Republican wave of 2010, is facing a primary challenge from Frank Roche, a conservative radio talk show host.
Armed with an endorsement from Sarah Palin, Ellmers won the seat in 2010 by less than 1,500 votes over the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Bob Etheridge, after a recount.
However, after Republicans took control of the state legislature, the 2nd District’s lines were redrawn to make it more Republican. Mitt Romney carried the district with 57 percent of the vote in 2012, so Democrats will likely have an uphill battle to flip the seat in 2014.
Republican operative Ed Gillespie eyeing Virginia U.S. Senate race
Gillespie, a former Republican National Commitee chief and aide to President George W. Bush, may take on Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitcs.com editor
NORFOLK, Virginia (CFP) — Ed Gillespie, a high-level Washington GOP political operative, is considering running for the U.S. Senate seat in Virginia now held by Democrat Mark Warner.
Ed Gillespie
Gillespie, speaking to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper January 5 after meeting with Republican activists in Norfolk, said he has concluded that Warner can be beaten and will decide whether to run by early February.
“I have concluded it is a winnable race,” Gillespie said.
Should Gillespie run, it would set up a classic establishment-versus-Tea Party struggle within Republican ranks in the Old Dominion. Two former miltary officers, Howie Lind of McClean and Shak Hill of Centreville, are already in the race, running as outsiders and playing for Tea Party support.
Also, Virginia Republicans select their candidates through a convention, rather than a primary. That could level the playing field for an outsider candidate who can develop a strong cadre of supporters to turn out at the convention, which will be held in June in Roanoke.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner
Whoever wins the GOP nomination will face the formidable Warner, a former governor who already has more $7 million in cash on hand for the 2014 race — a huge head start over any of the Republicans in the field.
Both The Rothenberg Political Report and Cook Political Report classify Warner’s seat as safely in Democratic hands.
Gillespie told the Virginian-Pilot that he thinks Warner is vulnerable because he has voted with President Obama “97 percent of the time.”
However, Virginia is no longer reliably Republican as it once was. Obama carried the state twice, and GOP candidates lost all three statewide races in 2013.
Although he has never sought office before, Gillespie, 52, is the connsumate Washington insider. He was a communications strategist in Bush’s winning campaign in 2000 and went on to chair the Republican National Committee. In 2007, he became a counselor in the Bush White House.
In April 2012, after Mitt Romney was finally able to claim the Republican presidential nomination, Gillespie signed on as a senior adviser to the Romney campaign.
Gillespie also has a long association with Karl Rove, the Bush political consigliere who has frequently drawn the ire of the party’s Tea Party wing. He helped Rove create Crossroads GPS, the super-PAC that has backed establishment candidates facing Tea Party insurgencies.
Analysis: Arkansas voters enter the silly season with Senate ads
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor and his challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, are both airing warm-and-fuzzy ads that insult the intelligence of Arkansans
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
The good news for local television viewers in Arkansas is that after months of snippy attack ads, U.S. Senator Mark Pryor and his GOP challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, have finally started going positive in their Senate duel.
The bad news? Both campaigns have started with a couple of peculiar spots that say very little about either man — but much about how little regard their campaign managers seem to have for the intelligence of Arkansans.
Let’s start with Cotton. Just before Christmas, he aired an ad featuring a moving testimonial from, of all people, his mother.
Really? An endorsement from your mother? I would assume that even my momma, God rest her soul, would say nice things about me if someone pointed a television camera in her direction. But would that tell voters anything about my qualifications to be a U.S. senator? I doubt it.
Cotton’s mother seems like a perfectly delightful lady. But unless she’s endorsing Pryor, her views on the Senate race aren’t particularly illuminating, although I will concede the warm-and-fuzzy Yuletide ads were an improvement over the Pryor-bashing we all saw in previous months.
Not to be outdone in the banality department, Pryor went up with an ad in which he tells voters across the Natural State that the Bible is his “North Star.”
That seems a rather peculiar mixture of religion and astronomy. But it is what he says next that takes the ad straight over into strange: “The Bible teaches us no one has all the answers. Only God does. And neither political party is always right.”
I must have missed that day in Sunday school when we studied what Holy Scripture has to say about political parties. Then again, Senator Pryor is a Southern Baptist, and I’m not, so maybe something has simply been lost in translation.
But does the Bible really teach us that no one has all the answers? Actually, it usually teaches the opposite; namely, that the answers are to be found from the people within its covers, if one looks hard enough. For God’s sake, a Southern Baptist ought to at least know that.
I suppose the senator’s political handlers thought this ad would burnish his Christian bona fides in a state where such things matter. But anyone who stops to think for a minute what he actually said, as opposed to the ad’s atmospherics, will realize how silly it is.
I’m sure Senator Pryor is a good Christian, and I’m sure Tom Cotton’s momma really loves him a whole, big bunch. Why the voters of Arkansas should care about either of those things, though, is a mystery.
Gentlemen, let us have substance!
Senate Conservatives Fund pours $1.7 million into three Southern Senate races
Anti-establishment group funds GOP primary insurgents in Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
Kentucky Senate challenger Matt Bevin
WASHINGTON (CFP) — The Senate Conservatives Fund is proving itself once again to be a signficant thorn in the side of the GOP establishment, announcing that it has poured more than $1.7 million into insurgent U.S. Senate campaigns in three Southern states.
The biggest recipient of the fund’s largesse has been Matt Bevin, a Louisville businessman challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. He has received almost $986,000, counting both direct contributions and independent expenditures made on his behalf.
In Mississippi, State Senator Chris McDaniel, who is challenging the incumbent, Senator Thad Cochran, has received nearly $516,000. In Louisiana, Rob Maness, one of three Republicans seeking to oust Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, has received $241,000.
Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, is running against U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, who has GOP establishment support both in Washington and Louisiana.
In announcing the fund’s expenditures January 3, SCF Executive Director Matt Hoskins said “it shows how determined people are to elect true conservative leaders who will stand up to the big spenders in both parties.”
The SCF, founded in 2008 by former Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, has drawn the ire of Republican leaders in Washington by backing primary challengers to sitting senators and supporting Tea Party-allied candidates against candidates considered more mainstream.
In the 2014 cycle, the fund has put a particular bullseye on McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate. However, despite nearly $1 million in fund support, McConnell still holds a huge fundraising advantage over Bevin, reporting nearly $10 million in cash on hand at the end of September.
Cochran, however, holds a much less formidable advantage over McDaniel, with a mere $800,000 on hand at the end of September. He didn’t announce that he was seeking re-election until early December.
In Louisiana, Cassidy had almost $3.5 million on hand at the end of September. McDaniel, who only entered the race in October, has not yet reported any fundraising figures to the Federal Elections Commission.
Louisiana U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu hit with new anti-Obamacare ad
Also, State Rep. Paul Hollis joins the race against Landrieu
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu
NEW ORLEANS (CFP) — An anti-Obamacare group is launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign criticizing U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and two other Democratic senators over President Obama’s claim that everyone who had health insurance would be able to keep it.
Obama’s assertion was characterized as the “lie of the year” by Politifact, a nonpartisan group that monitors political claims.
The anti-Landrieu ad, funded by Americans for Prosperity, shows footage of her on the floor of the Senate stating that people can “keep their current plan.” It also shows an exchange between Landrieu and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in which she says she has no regrets about her vote in favor of Obamacare.
“We’re putting pressure on senators who repeated that lie and doubled down on Obamacare, even as it became obvious that the law was hurting millions of Americans,” said AFP President Tim Phillips in a statement
Meanwhile, Landrieu, who is running for her fourth term in the Senate, has drawn a third GOP challenger, State Rep. Paul Hollis of Covington, who has filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission and plans to make a formal announcement in January.
Two other Republicans are also running, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy from Baton Rouge and Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel from Madisonville.
Cassidy is the favored candidate of much of the Republican leadership, both in Washington and Louisiana. Maness is aiming for Tea Party support by positioning himself as the only “constitutional conservative” in the race.
To drive home his criticism of Cassidy as being too much like the incumbent, Maness’s Web site shows pictures of Landrieu, Cassidy and himself, with the captions “Mary,” “Mary,” and “Quite Contrary.”
In Louisiana, all of the candidates, regardless of party, run against each other in a single primary. If no candidate gets a majority, then the top two candidates face each other in a runoff.
In 2008, when she faced a single Republican, Landrieu won without a runoff. But she was forced into runoffs in both 1996 and 2002, when there were multiple Republicans and other Democrats in the race.
Here is the Americans for Prosperity ad against Landrieu:
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