Daily Democratic Wire 2-3-2010

George Wenschhof

Today, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with a bipartisan group of Governors at the White House to discuss energy policy.

Yesterday, it was the first Lady's turn in front of the camera as she was interviewed by NBC's Matt Lauer.



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Illinois Democratic primary for Governor extremely close - Incumbent Governor Pat Quinn has declared victory over challenger Dan Hynes who has not conceded. Three Republican candidates for Governor; Bill Brady, Kirk Dillard and Andy McKenna were also within one per cent of each other.

Facing each other for the Senate seat previously held by President Obama will be Democrat Alexi Giannoulas versus Republican Mark Kirk. No huge surprises here other than candidates supported by Tea Party activists did poorly. Time.com has more here.

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Indiana Senator Evan Bayh (D) to face serious opposition - former Indiana Republican Senator Dan Coates announced he will run against Bayh, a moderate some feel may be hurt by the linkage to the Obama administration. Coates served the remainder of Dan Quayle's term when he was elected Vice President and won another term before retiring in 1998. Evan Bayh, after serving two term as governor of Indiana, easily won the Senate seat in 1998. Chris Cillizza's "The Fix" has more here.

Interestingly, in the 1970's while attending undergraduate and graduate school in Indiana, I interviewed Dan Qualye when he was a Representative and Evan Bayh's father Birch Bayh who was a U.S. Senator who had run against Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination for President in 1976.

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Will Republicans win back the Senate? - Republican leaders are beginning to think the impossible after Dan Coates filed to run in Indiana and Representative Mark Kirk won the Republican primary in Illinois. Politico.com has more here.

I say dream on. Both Bayh in Indiana and Giannoulas in Illinois will be favored to win. The democrats currently have 57 Senators with two Independents (Joe Lieberman - Conn. and Bernie Sanders - Vt.) who caucus with them. The Republicans would have to pick up nine seats and then hope they could persuade Lieberman to caucus with them.

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Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) calls for Constitutional Amendment to address recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate funds in campaigns - while this is a serious move, he feels it is necessary to spell out corporations do not have the same benefits of freedom of speech that individuals have. The Boston Globe has more here.

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