House races

Although she was the N.Y. GOP nominee, Scozzafava was never embraced by conservatives and eventually dropped out of the race.

The GOP's efforts to take down Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.) entered a new stage Thursday, with the national Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) adding two candidates in her district to its Young Guns program.

The new members of the program are former Ruth's Chris Steakhouse CEO Craig Miller and Winter Park City Commissioner Karen Diebel. They will both start at the first of three stages of the program, "on the radar."

Miller recently entered the race as a top recruit for the GOP and someone the NRCC hopes can raise plenty of funds for the race. Diebel has been in the race for months but had yet to raise the kind of money the party wanted from a top recruit.

The fact that both were added to the program the day after the end of the first quarter fundraising period ended suggests they turned in strong numbers for the first three months of 2010. No official number are yet available.

Other candidates in the primary, including state Rep. Sandy Adams, have not been added to the program. The primary is Aug. 24.

Some lawmakers are being more selective in their public appearances even though the criticism isn't as fervent as last summer.

The Democratic candidates especially are faced with an unusual choice between backing their president and satisfying the liberal base.

A West Virginia congressional candidate got into some hot water after joking about the dating habits of an opponent’s wife.

Former Republican Party officials are forming a new political fundraising group that could compete with the Republican National Committee, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

American Crossroads, as the group is called, wants to raise $52 million from big Republican donors and corporations with an eye on assisting GOP candidates in the fall midterm elections.

Here is more from the Journal:

It is the latest – and most ambitious – effort by conservatives to create outside campaign groups that can compete with those run by Democrats. Labor unions and Democrats generally outspend Republicans on independent political activities.

In the last few months, Republicans have announced the creation of several outside organizations that plan to raise money from corporations and wealthy conservatives to support Republican candidates. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it plans to spend as much as $50 million on advertising to support pro-business, mostly Republican candidates.

The new American Crossroads organization will be run by former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan and Joanne Davidson, a onetime RNC co-chair. Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie and former White House adviser Karl Rove are informally advising the organization.

The day-to-day operations will be handled by Steven Law, who is leaving a top role at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Republican consultants Jim Dyke will also be involved.

The move comes at a time when several large donors have said they will stop giving money to the RNC. Some donors, who have chafed at the tenure of RNC Chairman Michael Steele, have complained that the party is spending too much on

Those sentiments again rose to the surface this week when it was revealed that the party reimbursed donors for a party at a bondage-themed nightclub in Los Angeles. The RNC has said that Steele had no knowledge of the expenditure and has attempted to shine light on lavish expenditures at the DNC.

American Crossroads' birth also comes after a ruling in a Supreme Court case earlier this year allowed unlimited corporate spending on politics. The leaders of the group say that it was not created as a response to the Citizens United case:

People involved say the new group wasn’t created in response to a recent Supreme Court decision that allows corporations more freedom to spend money on political advertising. Instead, Dyke said, the Republicans decided to start the organization because they “recognized in 2004 that Democrats were using all the tools at their disposal to elect Democrats, something that became even more obvious in the 2006 and 2008 elections.”

He added: “This is not a flash in the pan response to 2010 but something that will be around for cycles.”

Cross-posted to the Briefing Room.

Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) could be a model for other Democratic members who sit in relatively conservative districts.

He made jobs the focus of his reelection announcement Wednesday but didn't shy away from talking about healthcare reform.

Braley co-chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's support program for challengers.

During a visit to Davenport, Braley met with small business leaders at Tri-City Electric where he touted the the New Era Act, which he said "has created opportunities for the next generation of researchers and technicians in biofuels."

In Waterloo, he said the healthcare bill will have a "positive" impact. "I think when people start to fully understand the impact it's going to have on their lives in a positive way, they are going to realize what an important achievement it was," he said.

The two-term member recently told the Ballot Box that there's no single issue that Democrats should run on this cycle. "When I [first] ran, I wasn't a one-issue, one-dimensional candidate," he said.

Braley doesn't face a primary opponent. Four Republicans are vying to challenge him in the general.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.) has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Spratt's doctor told him that he's in the early stages of the degenerative disorder "but the symptoms are mild and the progression is slow," Spratt said in a statement.

"The chief symptom is an occasional tremor in my right hand, which responds to medication and is mostly a nuisance," he said. "The other symptom is in my posture, which is bent a bit, but I hope to correct it with exercise."

He said that his doctor said his health wasn't a reason to decide against running.

“None of these symptoms affects me mentally or physically," Spratt said. "In January, for example, I made a long trek across the world to Afghanistan, with no limits on our itinerary."

Spratt said he disclosed the diagnosis to address "rumors" about his health as he runs for reelection. He said he would seek a 15th term in the House Wednesday.

He noted that last year he had bone spurs on his foot that caused him to hobble and surgery involving his prostate.

“But to dispel any doubt, the problem in no way involved cancer," he said. "This operation was also a success."

Spratt is set to be a pivotal player for the remainder of the 111th Congress. As Budget Committee chairman, he will shepherd the budget resolution in the House this spring. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has named him to the White House fiscal commission, which President Barack Obama has asked to produce a plan to rein in the $12.7 trillion debt.

Spratt said his appointment to the panel was a key factor in running again.

“Right now, the most troubling problem we face is the huge loss of jobs due to the recession,” Spratt said. “But as the economy recovers, we have to make sure that the deficits in our budget recover as well.”

Democrats were hoping he wouldn't retire, as House Republicans have been targeting Spratt's seat for a takeover, and Spratt waited to announce his election plans. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won Spratt's district in the 2008 presidential election, but Spratt easily won re-election that year with 62 percent of the vote. Spratt will face state Sen. Mick Mulvaney (R) in the general election.

Cross-posted to the Briefing Room.

Wayne Parker, the 2008 Republican nominee against then-Democratic Rep. Parker Griffith (Ala.), announced Wednesday that he won't challenge the party-switching congressman in a primary this year.

In making his announcement, Parker did throw his support to another GOP candidate, Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks. But the party avoided what might have been Griffith's most feared Republican primary opponent in Parker.

Parker has run for the seat three times, including twice against former Rep. Bud Cramer (D-Ala.).

He lost to Griffith 51-48 in 2008. Griffith, who has since become a Republican, is still facing some resistance from the GOP establishment in the district, even as national party leaders have embraced him.

Businessman Les Phillip is also running in the GOP primary.

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg said Wednesday that if the 2010 election were held today, his party would be faced with a similar result to its catastrophic 1994 losses.

Greenberg, who was Bill Clinton's pollster in the early 1990s, went on to say that he doesn’t think the current situation will hold over the next seven months, and that he expects things will improve for Democrats.

“We’re on the edge of it, but we’re not there. If the election were now, we’d have a change election, a 1994,” he said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “If the election were now, you would be there.”

But Greenberg also noted a series of differences between now and 1994, including the Republican Party being held in higher regard back then.

Polling shows the GOP brand languishing as low as, and in some cases lower than, the Democratic one.

Greenberg said Republicans already experienced their 1994-like election with the Massachusetts race Sen. Scott Brown (R) won in January, and that things are likely to get better for his party after the passage of healthcare reform.

“We’ll look back on this and say Massachusetts is when 1994 happened,” Greenberg said. “It will be marginally better than it is now, but I don’t think it’s 1994.”

Greenberg and Democratic consultant James Carville were releasing a new Democracy Corps poll that shows Democratic enthusiasm rebounding a little in the aftermath of the healthcare bill.

But Carville and Greenberg said the GOP will almost surely take an enthusiasm advantage into the 2010 election, and Carville worried aloud that the new electorate would be a much better one for the GOP.

Carville noted that the 2008 electorate was about 72 percent white, while the projected 2010 voters are expected to be 76 percent white.

“If you look at intensity questions, they do have more intensity,” Carville said. “The good news after health care is that ours went up. They don’t match, but they went up.”

Greenberg said it is a matter of how close Democratic intensity can get to GOP intensity, but that he doesn’t expect them to match.

“This is a structural, long-term problem,” he said. “There is a very strong, deep homogeneous opposition to the president.”