Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's (D-S.D.) office says she will vote 'no' on the health care bill, even as former top Obama aide Steve Hildebrand threatens her with a primary challenge.
Her office office said she will not bow to pressure.
"There's been pretty constant and strong pressure here for a
while. We feel it every day," deputy chief of staff Russ Levsen told the Rapid City Journal. "That's part of being in the majority and being one of 39
House Democrats to vote against the health care bill last
November."
Hildebrand has threatened to primary Herseth Sandlin if her vote sinks the bill or comes close to it. It looks like the vote will be close either way, so the ball's in his court now.
Hildebrand did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The real loser in Tuesday’s Colorado caucuses wasn’t Sen. Bennet. It was Sen. Bennett.
Sen. Michael Bennet’s (D-Colo.) 50-41 loss to Democratic rival Andrew Romanoff shows what an activist-driven process can do to an incumbent in this environment.
And in neighboring Utah, the other party’s activists have the ability to unseat Sen. Robert Bennett (R) in about seven weeks.
People in general are mad at Washington, and that goes triple for the activist base. Yes, Bennet is an appointee who has no real connection to that activist base, but he is still a sitting United States senator. And nearly six in 10 activists voted against him Tuesday in what amounted to a party-sanctioned straw poll that will help determine positioning on the ballot.
Those who voted for Romanoff were hardly voting for a liberal lion in the make of past caucus winners; in fact, it’s been tough to discern many real differences between Bennet and Romanoff. Romanoff, it seems, benefited from his years of involvement in the party and his positioning as the outsider candidate.
Given that, it seems more than reasonable that a group of ultra-conservative Utah Republicans could vote out their Bennett – a man who has inflamed the base with his bailout vote and healthcare proposal.
And unfortunately for that Bennett, the choice of those activists could be binding.
In Utah’s GOP nomination convention, the field of candidates is winnowed down to two through a multi-ballot process. Once it gets there, a candidate can win the party’s nomination outright by taking at least 60 percent of the vote.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) has "turned her back" on working voters in Arkansas, the head of the state AFL-CIO said Wednesday.
Responding to a new ad from the senator in which she condemns labor groups, the AFL-CIO fired back at the senator for having taken money from groups representing workers, only to turn around and attack those groups.
“Lincoln has ignored the interests of working people in Arkansas too many times. It's easy for her to try to paint opponents as outsiders, but working class voters in Arkansas can see as well as anybody that she has turned her back on us," Arkansas AFL-CIO President Alan Hughes said in a statement.
Labor groups have backed state Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in a Democratic primary challenge to Lincoln after she'd backed off support for elements of healthcare reform, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card check"), and other top priorities by labor.
The AFL-CIO is quick to not that while it's true that Arkansans might not typically be huge union supporters, the group felt they couldn't let Lincoln's remarks go unchallenged.
“Only someone who has become a career politician in Washington DC could spend ten years asking for our support, take hundreds of thousands of dollars from blue collar workers, then turn around and attack us as ‘outsiders’ because we wouldn’t help her this time around," Hughes responded Wednesday. "That’s not the values people in Arkansas believe in.”
The AFL-CIO hopes to paint Lincoln as a consummate "flip-flopping" Washington politician, pointing to their own occasional donations and endorsements to Lincoln despite an inconsistent career record on issues the union has deemed important.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) fell to former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff in Tuesday night's precinct caucuses, raising new hope for Romanoff's campaign in their primary.
National Democrats, who are supporting Bennet, worked hard to lower expectations in advance of the caucuses, which basically function like straw poll of activists. In the end, Romanoff's 51-42 victory was substantial but not overwhelming.
Another establishment favorite could be headed for a loss on the GOP side, with former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton falling narrowly to Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck.
This post has been updated. AP is reporting that Buck has beat Norton, but official results from the state GOP show him leading her 37.86 percent to 37.74 percent with 6 percent of precincts still to come.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) says House Democratic leaders should hold an up-or-down vote on the Senate health care bill and not use the "self-executing rule."
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) is up with his first TV ad, on the eve of the all-important precinct caucuses in Colorado.
This is probably the first time many Coloradoans have seen or heard Bennet, so don't underestimate the importance of this ad.
Bennet has often been accused of a lack of charisma. This ad doesn't do much to fight the perception, but it does lay out some of the appointee's ethics proposals.
So does Steve Hildebrand really think he is going to challenge Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) in a primary?
At first glance, it seems like a political move by an Obama deputy national campaign manager to get Herseth Sandlin on-board with the healthcare bill.
In threatening the bid, Hildebrand even said he will base his decision on her vote.
"I want to see how she votes on health care," Hildebrand told CNN. "If the
vote is very, very close and we lose it or come close to losing it, I
will take a seriously (sic) look at challenging her."
Hildebrand, a South Dakota native, also tells CNN that he would only accept money from inside South Dakota, capping donations at $100. He said he hasn't spoken with former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) or Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) about the idea.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) lashed out at organized labor in a new ad for having backed her Democratic primary opponent.
Lincoln, in her latest ad, targeted unions for having run ads on behalf of Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D), who's challenging Lincoln in a primary race from her left.
Lincoln specifically responded to an ad accusing her of not working for Arkansans.
"That ad is paid for by a bunch of Washington, D.C. unions," she says in her response. "And they're right -- I'm not working for them; I work for you."
Labor groups have pledged to support Halter in the primary race, the winner of which will likely face a tough GOP challenger this fall. Lincoln, for her part, has not enjoyed the warmest relationship with organized labor after she'd been skittish on moving forward with some elements of healthcare legislation, and had been cool toward supporting the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card check").
National Democrats want you to know that, even if Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) loses in Colorado's precinct caucucses today, everything is going to be OK.
Bennet supporters are legitimately concerned that Andrew Romanoff might turn a strong performance today into some momentum on the campaign trail. They'd also like to point out that, even if he does win, such victories haven't meant much in the past.
The DSCC points out that Mike Miles (who?) defeated Ken Salazar in 2004 and that Tom Strickland lost at the cacuses as well. It is also sending around press clippings that set the expectations high for Romanoff.
We'll see tonight whether this is really the turning point some think it will be. But I'll say it again: whatever pressure might have been on either side tonight was mitigated, at least somewhat, by that PPP poll Monday showing a close race. It looks like we may have a real primary regardless of the caucus results.
Cal Cunningham, the hand-picked DSCC candidate to face Sen. Richard Burr
(R-N.C.), appears to be closing the gap in his primary.
A new Public Policy Polling (D) survey shows the former state senator and
Iraq veteran within four points of Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who
leads 20-16. Attorney Kenneth Lewis is at 11 percent.
A month ago, the same pollster had Marshall up 29-12. Marshall's campaign
released a poll this week that showed her leading 31-5, but the poll was conducted in February, so it appears Cunningham has gained ground since then.
Cunningham suffers from a lack of name ID and has been stuck in the
single-digits in most polling on the race. But Marshall's candidacy does nothing for national Democrats, who fought hard to recruit another candidate for the race.
Marshall has struggled to raise money for the race, so it will be tough for her to hold a lead if things get close. There's also the matter of whether the DSCC needs to get involved (like it did on behalf of now-Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley in his 2008 primary) to get its preferred candidate through the primary.
(Side note: PPP did a poll for Marshall's campaign this cycle, but the last two
polls were both conducted independently.
UPDATE: I should have also noted that PPP president Dean Debnam has contributed to Cunningham's campaign. PPP is a Democratic-leaning firm based in North Carolina, so these ties aren't out-of-the-blue. But they should be noted.)
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