House races

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.”

Attorney Ben Quayle (R) will formally enter the race for Rep. John Shadegg's (R-Ariz.) seat on Wednesday.

"I want to go to Washington to stop the expansion of Government into our everyday lives," Quayle said in a statement. "It's time for the next generation to start cleaning up the mess created by the establishment in Washington."

Quayle, who billed himself as a "fourth generation Arizonan," is the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle. He'll join an already crowded GOP primary field.

The primary is August 24.

New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt isn't high on anyone's list of this cycle's vulnerable Democrats but that didn't preclude him from the Democratic National Committee's recent healthcare ad blitz.

The DNC's seven figure national TV ad buy was meant to bolster vulnerable members who voted for the healthcare reform bill. But the spot is also playing in Holt's district and Republicans are calling it a sign of weakness on the part of the six-term incumbent.

"If the Democrats truly felt Holt was safe, they wouldn't be spending this kind of money before the calendar even hits April defending Holt's vote on this awful legislation," said Chris Russell, a spokesman for Republican Scott Sipprelle, who's vying to challenge Holt.

Russell said the DNC spent $73,803 to run the 30-second ad on cable in Monmouth, Middlesex and Mercer counties. A DNC spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the ad buy.

Sipprelle recently released his own TV ad attacking the healthcare bill. "In November, let's hold Rush Holt accountable," he said in the 30-second spot.

Holt's campaign said the bill will "strengthen healthcare."

"FactCheck.org has already cited Wall Street dealmaker Scott Sipprelle's ad as full of distortions.," Sarah Steward, Holt's campaign manager, said in a statement. "Unlike Mr. Sipprelle, Representative Holt takes neither the people he serves, nor the facts, for granted."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) dismissed on Monday some Republicans' use of her likeness to fundraise, saying, "I couldn't care less."

Pelosi shot back at Republican political committees, which have used her name and picture to raise money over the past week, since the House passed healthcare legislation to send to President Barack Obama's desk for signature.

"I couldn't care less," Pelosi said following a speech at a San Francisco Senior Center, where she touted the benefits of the health bill.

"Actually, I should thank them," she quickly added. "It really helps me with my fundraising."

The Republican National Committee (RNC) launched a "Fire Pelosi" campaign on its website since the health bill's passage, which features the speaker in front of a fiery background. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) had also launched a similar campaign in October, and used her name on a series of parody fundraising emails this cycle.

The speaker struck a dismissive pose toward the GOP fundraisers on Monday before returning to Washington to attend Obama's signing of a bill making final fixes to the healthcare bill.

"It's so unimportant to me that I don't have time to think of it," she said. "They tried it in 2006, they tried it in 2008, and it shows their intellectual bankruptcy."

Former Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) is supporting business Bruce O'Donoghue in the GOP race to face Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).

Martinez penned a fundraising appeal for O'Donoghue, which went out Monday morning.

It turns out the recently retired senator coached O'Donoghue on a YMCA basketball team, and the two have seen their paths cross elsewhere since then. Martinez said Republicans must nominate O'Donoghue.

"I don't normally write to ask for your support, but this race is important," Martinez said. "Bruce is the only man to beat Alan Grayson and stop the nonsense coming from Washington these days."

O'Donoghue faces a primary with state Rep. Kurt Kelly and 2008 primary runner-up Todd Long. He also has the backing of former Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings.

The Des Moines Register's Tom Beaumont surmises that Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) faces his toughest reelection ever, and Boswell doesn't sound like he disagrees.

In a lengthy piece today, Beaumont and Boswell liken the congressman's situation to that of former Rep. Neal Smith (D-Iowa), a 36-year incumbent swept out in 1994, only to be replaced by another Democrat -- Boswell -- in 1996.

"I'm not suggesting I can do what he did, but he did a terrific job, and they let him go 16 years ago," Boswell said. "And I think I'm doing a reasonably good job. They may beat me someday, but it's not because I'm going to hand it to them."

Boswell said it would be a mistake for voters to get rid of a congressman they like just because of the national mood. But he faces a tough road.

Despite having the wind at his back in 2006, Boswell defeated state Sen. Jeff Lamberti by just six points. Then last year, against nominal and cash-poor competition, Boswell only outperformed President Obama in his district by two points, taking 56 percent of the vote (Obama took 54).

This year, he faces the prospect of a well-funded challenger in former Iowa State University wrestling coach Jim Gibbons.

Boswell hasn't taken more than 56 percent of the vote since 2000, and he's headed for another close one.

Minnesota state Sen. Tarryl Clark has won the state Democratic party endorsement to face Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

Clark was expected to win the backing and has rounded up much of the establishment support from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. But Dr. Maureen Reed is raising good money and has said she will run against Clark in the August primary.

Whoever wins that primary is expected to be a top Democratic hope for a takeover in November.

Bachmann was reelected in 2008 with plenty of help from a third-party candidate. She was held to less than 50 percent of the vote, but she defeated Democrat El Tinklenberg 46-43.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairman Chris Van Hollen is laying out the welcome mat for Sarah Palin.

In an interview with The Hill on Friday, Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he welcomes Palin to campaign for any and every Republican candidate around the country. The head of Democrats’ effort to keep the House said Palin is marginalizing Republicans who associate with her, which will make it easier for him to hold seats in November.

Palin this week announced her 2010 efforts would focus on 20 House districts, and she is in Arizona today campaigning for her former running mate, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

“We will send her an invitation to campaign in every congressional district on her list,” Van Hollen said with a smile.

Democrats can probably say goodbye to their hopes of winning back former Rep. Mark Foley's (R-Fla.) seat again.

St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft is dropping his bid against Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), according to the Palm Beach Post. Craft hadn't been raising much money, and the district failed to meet the cut when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) recently announced the first round of top targets for its Red to Blue program.

“This is a time of historic proportion,” Craft said in a statement. “We have not had an economic downturn like this since the Great Depression. ... We are now faced with an enormous budget shortfall and a situation that requires the undivided attention from each of our county’s elected officials."

Craft becomes the most recent top Democratic candidate to pack it in. As its 2010 outlook dimmed, the party in late 2009 lost candidates running against Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.), Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) and Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.).

The Florida seat went to Democrats in 2006 after Foley was implicated in a sex scandal involving House pages. His successor, Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), then fell victim to his own sex scandal in late 2008 and was unseated by Rooney.