Following days of legislative wrangling over the process to succeed the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), state lawmakers in West Virginia still haven't reached an agreement as Gov. Manchin's special session has devolved into partisan finger-pointing.

Lawmakers appeared on the cusp of a deal Monday. Manchin originally had a news conference with state Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin (D) and House Speaker Richard Thompson (D) planned for mid-afternoon Monday. That was postponed and then rescheduled for Tuesday after the governor's office said "discussions regarding the process are still taking place."

Manchin was working to strike a deal with state lawmakers throughout the day Monday.The Charleston Gazette reported that the governor made a rare appearance in the statehouse to work Republican lawmakers.

If the legislature can't reach agreement it would leave the governor's office in the same position as more than a week ago when it called a special session. Manchin is worried that without final action from the state legislature, a special election will be open to legal challenges, despite the fact that the state attorney general’s office has said Manchin has the authority to call one.

Over the past few days, lawmakers have argued the governor's bill gave too much power to West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant to control timelines for the special election.

Republicans are still pushing to declare the special an election legally separate from the general election in November. That change would essentially allow Rep. Shelly Moore Capito (R) to run for reelection to the House and in a special election for Senate.

Sarah Palin has added New Hampshire Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte (R) to her list of "mama grizzlies."

The former Alaska governor announced in a Facebook posting Monday that she's backing Ayotte.

"Kelly is the strongest commonsense conservative who can win in the fall," Palin wrote. "I knew I liked her when I met her earlier this year, and I know this Granite Grizzly will represent New Hampshire with distinction in Washington."

A short time later the Ayotte campaign released a statement from her saying she was "honored" to have Palin’s support.

Palin "is a reformer in every sense of the word, and she has always stood firm for the conservative principles of low taxes, less spending and personal responsibility," Ayotte said. "I'm running for Senate to put our fiscal house in order and to get our country moving in the right direction again, and I'm honored to have her support."

In other Senate races, Palin's endorsement has been a mixed blessing for Republican candidates. In California, for instance, Sen. Barbara Boxer's (D-Calif.) campaign has repeatedly cited Palin's backing of Republican Carly Fiorina as evidence she's too conservative for the Democratic-leaning state.

Financial services lobbyists are holding a Washington fundraiser this week for Ohio House candidate Steve Stivers.

The Republican's bid to unseat Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio) is one of the most competitive races in the country. It pits Stivers, a former bank lobbyist, against Kilroy, a freshman member who has campaigned, in part, on her work to overhaul financial regulations.

The Wednesday lunch fundraiser is with Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, to raise money for Stivers. Gold level donors are suggested to make a $5,000 political action committee donation. Silver level donors are suggested to give $2,000 in PAC money or $1,000 personal. And bronze level donors are suggested to give $1,000 in PAC money or $500 in personal money.

The fundraiser invitation was circulated by the Financial Services Roundtable.

Stivers raised $533,000 in the last quarter and has $1.25 million in cash on hand. Kilroy raised $230,000 in the last quarter and has $934,000 in cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Kilroy was one of two freshman House Democrats appointed to a 43-member conference of lawmakers finalizing the financial regulatory bill, one of the party's highest domestic priorities. Kilroy has campaigned hard against Stivers as "part of a culture" of deregulation that led to the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, the Stivers campaign has criticized Kilroy for holding fundraisers during the conference committee proceedings. Stivers has pulled in more campaign cash than Kilroy from financial services interests.

"We were critical of the connection between Congresswoman Kilroy’s selection to the Fin-Reg conference committee and the fundraiser that went to PAC’s, noting her committee assignment on Financial Services, one day later," said a Stivers spokesman. "Congresswoman Kilroy’s fundraising activity was out-of-step with the canceled fundraisers during Fin-Reg conference committee activity by Chairman Frank and ranking member Bachus, and it was out of step with the precedent established by the Office of Congressional Ethics investigation of eight members who held fundraisers in close proximity to the first House Fin-Reg vote.

"Steve Stivers is not a member of Congress and has no issue regarding conflict of interest. Moreover, he is not acting outside the accepted norms of Congress, as the Kilroy fundraiser clearly did," the spokesman said.

--Updated at 4:32 p.m.

South Carolina Senate candidate Alvin Greene’s first speech Sunday lasted just longer than six minutes and, in a first for his so-called campaign, he managed to not make a major gaffe. 

The unemployed military veteran, who won the Democratic primary June 8 despite not holding a single campaign event, survived a challenge to his primary victory from state lawmaker Vic Rawl. Greene faces Sen. Jim DeMint (R) in the fall.  

Speaking before a local NAACP chapter Sunday, Greene hit on the economy and education but made no mention of his recent idea to create jobs by manufacturing dolls in his image.   

More from the Associated Press:

There were platitudes familiar to anyone who has heard a stump speech. 

“Let’s get South Carolina and America back to work and let’s move South Carolina forward,” said Greene, one of about a dozen lines that got applause from the several hundred folks crammed into a sweltering junior high gymnasium. 

While singing and speeches by others slowly unfolded before Greene took the podium, the candidate occasionally fidgeted, wiped his brow and intently studied a black spiral notebook where he apparently wrote his remarks. The speech had very few of the long pauses that have marked his unprepared conversations with reporters. 

Greene rattled off national job loss statistics, and he said the state needs to put more people to work adding more lanes to hurricane evacuation routes. 

On education, he mentioned South Carolina’s dismal rankings in standardized tests. 

Greene did not take questions and avoided reporters after the event.

Democrats want to capitalize on the Senate debate over extending jobless benefits by portraying Republicans as “out of touch.”

“Senate Republicans and Republican Senate candidates are nearly united in their opposition to extending unemployment benefits even as their leadership calls for extending the George Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans without paying for them,” Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement. 

Menendez reiterated Democrats’ belief that November’s vote will be about a “choice” between their party and “Republicans who want to return to the failed George Bush economic policies of the past.” 

“When Republicans prefer unpaid tax cuts for the richest Americans over helping those who need it most, they make that choice crystal clear for voters,” he said.

The DSCC blasted releases hitting Republican Senate candidates in Missouri, Kentucky, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada, Arkansas, California, Indiana, Wisconsin and Washington state for being “out of touch” for opposing the extension.

Several GOP Senate candidates have already been tripped up by this issue. Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R), for instance, tried to appear hawkish on the deficit by opposing the extension but sounded callous for portraying the unemployed as “spoiled.”

Whatever bipartisan spirit may have existed in West Virginia following the death last month of Sen. Byrd has vanished.

A new Mason-Dixon poll shows freshman Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) in a dead heat with Republican challenger Joe Heck. Titus leads 42 percent to 40 percent, with 9 percent still undecided. 

Among unaffiliated voters, the two are tied at 39 percent. The survey polled 400 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5 percentage points.

Titus is one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s top targets in 2010, but has one early advantage — she reported more than $1.2 million cash on hand at the end of the second quarter. Heck reported just under $350,000.   

Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), the mother of a disgraced former Detroit mayor, finds herself trailing her primary opponent, according to a new poll Monday.

Kilpatrick, the seven-term lawmaker from Detroit, trails state Sen. Hansen Clarke 38 percent to 30 in a primary battle for Michigan's 13th congressional district.

If the Democratic primary were held today, 38.1 percent of the district's voters would choose Clarke and 30 percent would vote for Kilpatrick, while another 20.3 percent were undecided, according to a new Detroit News/WDIV poll.

The poll shows struggles for a second straight cycle for Kilpatrick, the mother of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D), who resigned two years ago and was convicted and jailed on corruption charges.

The former Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman was almost unseated in a 2008 primary challenge as well, when critics made her passionate defense of her son a key issue in the contest. She held off former state Rep. Mary Water and state Sen. Martha Scott in a divided primary field, but fell well short of winning a majority of the primary field.

Though a number of other candidates have entered 2010's contest to unseat Kilpatrick, they drew only a combined 9.5 percent in support from voters in the Detroit district.

The primary election will be held Aug. 3. The poll, conducted by Glengariff Group from July 14-15, has a 4.9 percent margin of error.

Over the weekend, The Philadelphia Inquirer took a lengthy look at Pennsylvania Senate candidate and former Rep. Pat Toomey's (R) outreach to centrist Republicans.

Toomey faces Rep. Joe Sestak (D) in the fall. Sestak ran to the left of Sen. Arlen Specter (D) when he defeated him in a May primary.

Toomey has a fundraiser planned with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and has a former Specter hand connecting him with GOP centrists in D.C.

From the Inquirer:

When he was president of the free-market advocacy group Club for Growth, Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey was the most fearsome RINO hunter in the land. He sought the defeat of GOP incumbents deemed soft on the Club's drive for lower taxes and smaller government - often termed Republicans in Name Only by the right.

Now, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine - lampooned as "Comrade of the Month" by the Club in 2009 for her pro-stimulus vote--is coming to Philadelphia to raise money for the staunchly conservative Toomey, a sign that his campaign's effort to court moderates is paying dividends.

Collins will headline a $1,000-a-plate luncheon for Toomey's Pennsylvania Senate campaign Aug. 2 at the Union League.

"Pat Toomey gets the fact that he needs to work with a lot of folks, that there doesn't need to be unanimity on all issues in the party," said Washington lobbyist David Urban, an influential GOP moderate and a host of the event.

Urban was Sen. Arlen Specter's chief of staff from 1997 to 2002, when the outgoing Pennsylvania senator was still a Republican. He stayed loyal when Specter became a Democrat last year, and he returned to the GOP fold after Specter lost the May 18 primary to Rep. Joe Sestak.

Urban is helping to connect Toomey with moderate Republicans in the capital and from the Specter camp. He calls Toomey "more of a fiscal conservative than a social conservative."

Meanwhile, a new Rasmussen poll out Monday gives Toomey a 45 percent-to-38 percent lead over Sestak.

Despite any attempt to move to the middle, Democrats note that Toomey's record in Congress was anything but centrist on social issues or just about anything else, and they plan to hit him on that record through the fall.

Toomey's camp is betting that the focus on government spending and deficits makes Pennsylvania's more Democratic electorate less of a climb for the Republican in November.