"I am saddened that my friend, Governor Crist, has decided to leave the Republican Party. Our friendship runs deep, but my commitment to the principles of the Republican Party runs deeper," LeMieux said in a statement. "I cannot walk down the path he has chosen."
Florida Sen. George LeMieux, who managed Gov. Charlie Crist's 2006 campaign and won appointment to the Senate from Crist last year, confirmed Friday that he will not support his former boss's independent campaign for the Senate.
"I am saddened that my friend, Governor Crist, has decided to leave the Republican Party. Our friendship runs deep, but my commitment to the principles of the Republican Party runs deeper," LeMieux said in a statement. "I cannot walk down the path he has chosen."
0 Comments
Sen. Blanche Lincoln and her Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, both took a civil tone in the first debate of their hotly contested Arkansas Senate primary. While Halter and Lincoln traded a few shots over the health care bill and Wall Street reform, their face-off was broken up by the presence of a third candidate, businessman D.C. Morrison, whose conservative views on issues including taxes, border security and global warming didn’t mesh with typical Democratic positions. The Stormy Daniels clouds have passed for Republican Sen. David Vitter. The adult film star who had threatened a campaign against the Louisiana legislator announced Thursday she wouldn't run for Senate in her native state.
"I am not running for the US Senate for the same reason that so many dedicated patriots do not run – I can't afford it," Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said in a statement. South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis's Republican primary opponent is running his first television ad - a 30-second spot that never mentions the incumbent congressman by name. Trey Gowdy, the Spartanburg County solicitor, introduces himself as "a prosecutor, not a politician," and says the district needs a representative who will fight the Obama administration and "not apologize for it." Gowdy is one of four Republicans running against Inglis, who has drawn conservative criticism at home since voting against the Iraq troop surge and voicing interest in measures to address global warming.
Republicans Bill Flores and Quico Canseco won congressional runoffs Tuesday, giving the GOP well-heeled challengers in two potentially competitive Texas seats this fall.
Flores, a wealthy former oil executive, defeated businessman Rob Curnock 64 percent to 36 percent and will face Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards in November. Canseco, who beat former CIA officer William Hurd 53 percent to 47 percent, will face Democratic Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. Kansas state Rep. Kevin Yoder is hoping for a triumph of novelty over experience in the GOP primary in his state’s 3rd Congressional District.
Yoder is one of eight Republicans vying for his party’s nomination in the district currently represented by retiring Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore. Two of Yoder’s chief rivals in the race – former state Sen. Nick Jordan and former state Rep. Patricia Lightner – have already run for Moore’s seat, but Yoder doesn’t think that’s an asset this year. Physician Ron Kirkland loaned $250,000 to his campaign for the open House seat in Tennessee's 8th Congressional District last quarter, swelling his campaign coffers to near-parity with those of his chief GOP primary opponent, Stephen Fincher. Kirkland raised an impressive $607,000 in the first three months of the year, in addition to the loan, and had $780,000 on hand to Fincher's $820,000. Kirkland and Fincher are competing with Shelby County Commissioner George Flinn for the right to take on Democratic state Sen. Roy Herron in the district being vacated by retiring Democrat John Tanner. Herron has more than a million dollars on hand.
The Service Employees International Union is laying the groundwork to create a new political party in North Carolina to field candidates who would be more supportive of labor interests than some in the state’s current Democratic delegation.
About 100 canvassers have been trying to collect the requisite signatures for the past two weeks to gain ballot access for the new party, which would be called North Carolina First. SEIU spokeswoman Lori Lodes said their primary focus was to officially register the party, but noted that the union was beginning conversations with possible candidates who could run under the party’s banner. Former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes ended last quarter with $2.8 million in the bank for his comeback bid for governor of Georgia. After raising $900,000 in the first three months in the year, Barnes has more cash on hand than any other candidate in the race and has some $2.2 million more than his closest Democratic primary rival, state Attorney General Thurbert Baker. On the GOP side, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine had $2 million in the bank despite raising just $75,000 for the quarter due to the state ban on officials fundraising during the legislative session. Former GOP Rep. Nathan Deal raised $200,000 and had just under $800,000 stockpiled, former Secretary of State Karen Handel raised $400,000 and had $600,00 on hand and state Senate President Eric Johnson added $700,000 to his coffers and brought his reserve total to $1.7 million. A newly announced GOP candidate, Ray Boyd, has pledged to spend $2 million of his own money in the race.
Sen. John McCain faces his own competitive primary, but the Arizona Republican isn’t worried about taking time out of his own campaign schedule to stump Tuesday for Carly Fiorina, one of his top advisers from his 2008 presidential run. The former Hewlett Packard CEO is now running for Senate in California, but she’s trailing former Rep. Tom Campbell in the Republican primary as they vie to challenge Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer this fall. McCain will appear with Fiorina at an employee town hall at Affinity Medical Technologies in Irvine to discuss the economy and health care and will also hold fundraisers for Fiorina in Los Angeles and Orange County. A McCain adviser told POLITICO the senator’s jaunt to the neighboring state won’t take him off the trail long: He’s been in Arizona campaigning all last week in the wake of his own primary challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, and he’ll be back in the state Thursday.
|
Jessica TaylorNon-partisan political analyst Archives
January 2013
Categories |