We should find out today whether the Dems’ top candidate to replace the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) will enter the race.
Late Update: Scratch that. Gov. Joe Manchin has decided to delay his announcement until the state’s succession law is cleared up.
Just before the end of qualifying for the U.S. Senate race late this afternoon in Louisiana, a well-known former state Supreme Court justice jumped in to the Republican primary against incumbent David Vitter.
It’s been a long time since I covered Louisiana politics, but if memory serves Chet Traylor was first elected to the court in the 1990s with major, major backing from the state’s biggest business group in an effort to steer the court to the right. It was a hugely expensive race by the standards of the day. We’ll be reporting more on this development, but what it suggests to me is that the business community is abandoning Vitter. And unless things have changed a lot in the dozen years since I moved away, Traylor is going to have access to boatloads of campaign cash for this primary. Read More
Who’ll play those eleven Russian spies in the upcoming movie? We review the possibilities.
I’m awfully surprised that the Feds would want to be predicting something like this, even suggesting it, rather than waiting for good news and announcing it after it actually pans out. But Adm. Thad Allen, chief of the disaster response is now saying that the Gulf Spill could be completely contained as early as Monday.
TPM Reader TS got a chance to give the Pentagon some feedback on DADT:
I didn’t get an invite to take that ridiculous survey but I was invited to send a comment to the DoD Comprehensive Review Working Group. The invitation came with this: “This is a non-confidential Online Inbox. Please do not use your name or the names of others within your comment.”
I was given a 1000-character limit. I am not an eloquent writer but I managed to write the paragraph pasted below. I would argue that it is fairly representative of the feelings of a large majority of the military I am currently working with.
It looks like the pro-Nullification presumptive Republican nominee for Governor in Minnesota is going into damage control mode. But not for saying that Minnesota shouldn’t have to obey any federal laws. He’s back tracking because his plan for getting the state’s economy back on track was to cut the wages of waiters and waitresses by about 2/3 — a move he said would “level playing field [between waiters and employers] so the employers can continue to exist, survive and thrive.” Now he’s going on a listening tour next week to hear from the servers.
I’m actually a little surprised at the relatively optimistic notes from Democrats on my question about how people think the November election will go. Obviously all optimism is relative. At this point I would count optimism from Democrats as a number of House losses that keeps Nancy Pelosi as Speaker next year. So basically fewer than forty seats lost.
Here’s TPM Reader BC’s take … Read More
Okay, we’ve now gotten a copy of the survey the Pentagon is sending out to members of the military on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. See it here.
Self-funding Florida Gov’s candidate says campaign finance law is cramping his millionaire campaign style.
We’re four months out. What do you think is going to happen in the 2010 midterm elections? And why?