Dem primaries

Sen. Blanche Lincoln's (D-Ark.) campaign dinged labor groups on Friday for supporting her primary challenger, Ark. Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.

Lincoln campaign manager Steve Patterson lashed out at labor groups, which quickly got behind Halter this week after he announced a primary bid to unseat the centrist Lincoln.

"If we want to talk about misleading advertising, we might look at Bill's first ad," Patterson told TalkBusiness.  "It puts a football in his hands and highlights his humble roots when in fact, he's a multimillionaire who somehow talked labor unions into paying off a half million dollar campaign debt to himself with the union dues of their members so he can run for higher office."

Lincoln had been seen as a key swing vote on some top priorities of labor in the past year and a half, including stimulus and jobs packages, healthcare reform, and on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card check").

A former campaign staffer for Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) is speaking out, and it doesn't bode well for Sestak.

Michael Jones writes on his blog that he was paid a stipend that wound up equalling less than $2 per hour for the number of hours he was working. After a month, he says, the campaign asked him to relocate to Philadelphia. He said he asked for a salary and was rejected.

Here is the post, in full:

The Pennsylvania senate race is getting heated, especially after Sen. Arlen Specter lobbed a bomb at challenger Joe Sestak over how much he pays his staffers. Sestak, a congressman from suburban Philadelphia, fought to increase the minimum wage in 2007, yet story after story is coming out about how he paid 10 of his 16 campaign staffers less than the required $7.25 an hour. And I was one of them.

While spending only one month on the campaign, I was paid a total of $550. Hardly enough money for anyone to live on, but I figured it would be a good opportunity to broaden my skills and build my resume while looking for a job. Before accepting the offer, I calculated the hourly wage and found that I would earn $3.18 per hour. What's more, you rarely work just 40 hours per week in a campaign, so in actuality, I was making roughly $1.60 per hour. That's insanity. And it's partly the reason why many good political minds have left his campaign.

After that first month in October, the campaign wanted me to move east to work out of their Philadelphia headquarters. That would be nearly impossible with my life and a house rooted in suburban Pittsburgh. So I countered with a substantial, but fair, salary offer that I thought equaled my level of experience. They flatly rejected it. I flatly quit.

Some say Specter's claim shows he is bankrupt of good policy debates, but I think this argument is very important. How can the Democratic Party nominate a person like Sestak for U.S. Senate when he doesn't even abide by the laws he helped form? I don't have an ax to grind with Sestak, but I would advise him to pay his people what they're worth or expect a blowout in the May primary.

UPDATE: Sestak responds: "Mike is a good guy. We enjoyed working with him, and wish him the very best."

Minnesota is officially moving its primary ahead one month, from Sept. 14 to Aug. 10.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) was set to sign the change into law on Wednsday morning. The change was made in order to give overseas absentee voters enough time to get their ballots in.

The key race in the state this year is the open governor's contest, with vast fields of candidates seeking their party's nomination on either side.

As for congressional races, the move could help Democrats recover earlier from a tough primary to face Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). In that race, state Sen. Tarryl Clark and former University of Minnesota Regent Maureen Reed are both raising big money.

Houston Mayor Bill White has won the Democratic nomination for governor of Texas.

White led businessman Farouk Shami 76 percent to 12 percent with 2.3 percent of precincts reporting and plenty of early voting tabulated. He has been declared the winner.

He will face the winner of the GOP contest between Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry leads 53-30 with early voting and just more than 2 percent of precincts reporting.

Perry must get 50 percent-plus-one to avoid a runoff on April 13.

White has given Democrats hope of winning the elusive Texas governorship. The DGA recently contributed $500,000 to his campaign in a sign of it's enthusiasm.

If Democrats can win a few seats this cycle, they may gain at least a couple opponents of the filibuster.

Some Democratic Senate candidates are calling for an end to filibusters, in light of Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-Ky.) controversial hold on an unemployment benefits extension.

Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher said in an e-mail to supporters today: "The filibuster is doing more harm than good. Stand with me in support of ending it today — it's time we put an end to paralysis in Washington and started solving problems again."

In Colorado, Sen. Michael Bennet's (D-Colo.) primary opponent, Andrew Romanoff, also came out in favor of abolishing the maneuver today.

"We don't have a filibuster in Colorado. We don't talk bills to death; it just sometimes sounds that way," Romanoff said. "The Senate of the United States would do well to follow the lesson of the Colorado legislature and take up-or-down votes on bills rather than delaying progress on important issues like these."

Former North Carolina state Sen. Cal Cunningham, who is running for Sen. Richard Burr's (R-N.C.) seat, came out against the filibuster two weeks ago.

"Enough is enough. We cannot let a small minority in the Senate continue holding up health care reform -- and countless other initiatives supported by the American people and a majority of Senators," he said.

All three men face primary opponents.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) led former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) 50-19 before he dropped out of the race Monday, according to a new Marist poll.

The poll shows Ford would have faced a steep climb, but it also shows Gillibrand's campaign was off to a good start in their primary.

The last Marist poll, from one month ago, showed Gillibrand with a considerably smaller lead -- 44-27 -- meaning that the offensive against Ford was paying dividends on both ends, bringing Gilliband up and bringing Ford down.

It is the first time Gillibrand has cracked 50 percent in a primary poll.

In the general election, she is also over 50 percent against Mort Zuckerman and declared GOP candidate Bruce Blakeman. She leads Zuckerman 59-26 and Blakeman 58-28 in a pair of general election matchups.

Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) isn't going without some parting shots.

In a New York Times op-ed explaining his decision not to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in a primary, Ford says Democratic leaders just don't get it:

When it was reported two months ago that I was thinking seriously about running for the United States Senate from New York, Democratic Party insiders started their own campaign to bully me out of the race — just as they had done with Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Steve Israel and others.

But as I traveled around New York, I began to understand why the party bosses felt the need to use such heavy-handed tactics: They’re nervous. New Yorkers are clamoring for change. Our political system — so bogged down in partisan fighting — is sapping the morale of New Yorkers and preventing government at every level from fulfilling its duty.

The cruel twist, of course, is that the party bosses who tried to intimidate me so that I wouldn’t even think about running against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who had been appointed to the seat by Gov. David A. Paterson, are the same people responsible for putting Democratic control of the Senate at risk.

...

Voting for health care legislation that imposes billions in new taxes on New Yorkers and restricts federal financing for abortions is not good for the people of this state. Voting against critical funds necessary to ensure the survival of the financial services industry — the economic backbone of this state — is not good for the people of New York.

...

Yet the party has been too slow to change. The effects of its lack of flexibility have been clear in a series of worrisome political events: Ted Kennedy’s “safe” Senate seat was lost to a Republican; Evan Bayh of Indiana and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota announced they weren’t running for re-election; Senate seats held by Democrats in Wisconsin and Delaware now seem to be in jeopardy; New York’s state government faces even more controversy and challenge.

MoveOn.org could become the Democrats' 2010 version of the Tea Party movement.

The liberal advocacy group is providing early backing to Sen. Blanche Lincoln's (D-Ark.) primary challenger and could support other upstart progressive candidates, according to Justin Ruben, MoveOn.org's executive director.

Meanwhile, dozens of Tea Party-backed candidates are vying against traditional Republicans in GOP primaries around the country. Ruben said that frustration with Washington's leadership isn't confined to the right side of the political spectrum.

"There is a huge well of frustration among our members across the country about some Democrats who seem to forget their constituents and remember only their corporate campaign contributors," he said. "I think that frustration is looking for outlets."

Ruben said the group is member-driven and as such the grassroots vote on which candidates to support.

"Where we have a place where you have incumbents who are really not representing their constituents, we think it's great for voters to have a choice. And if our members in that area come forward and say, 'we want to support someone else,' that's typically what's gotten us into the race," he said.

He added, "that presents a ton of opportunities across the country for enterprising candidates."

In the meantime, he called the outpouring of support for Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D-Ark.)  "unprecedented."

More than 90 percent of the groups' 20,000 Arkansas members approved backing Halter's primary challenge, Ruben said. "I think the 92 percent vote tells you that people are quite passionate about this."

Now, the group is encouraging its members to donate to Halter's campaign. "If we want to see a successful primary challenge, we all to have to help out," he said.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs assured Monday that the president will be supporting Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) in her primary.

Lincoln found out Monday morning that she will face Lt. Gov. Bill Halter for her party's nomination.

"We support Sen. Lincoln as an incumbent senator, yes," Gibbs said when asked if the White House would approach the primary as it has other incumbents.

Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) says Lt. Gov. Bill Halter's newly launched primary with Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) could actually help the incumbent.

Amidst the chaos of filing for the Arkansas Senate race on Monday, Boozman said in a brief interview with The Ballot Box that he was pressing forward as before.

"I don’t know that it really affects my race," he said. "But it certainly has thrown a kink into things. A tough primary forces people to get organized and helps them in that regard."

Boozman said his own newly launched campaign has been going better than he could have anticipated. He's also locked in a primary, with state Sen. Gilbert Baker and a wide field of GOP candidates.

He promised an exciting election year.

"People like you will be writing books about this one," he said.