Senate Agrees to Seat Burris

Illinois Secretary of State has signed all the paperwork for Roland Burris' appointment to the Senate, removing the fig leaf Senate Democrats were using to keep him on hold. Now they will have to seat him. Burris has not yet said whether he will run for election in 2010. If he does, he may suffer the curse of many appointed senators and go down to defeat. If he retires, the Republicans will get their first-so-far open Democratic seat. Anyway you look at it, Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointment of Burris can be compared to a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Effectively, he said to the Democratic party: "Maybe you can impeach me, but I can damage you, too." If he wanted to help the party, he could have appointed a much younger (black) person who has run for office more recently, for example, one of the black representatives, a black state senator, or Dan Seals, who ran for Congress twice and barely missed both times. Instead, he gave the Republicans their best pickup opportunity in 2010.

Voinovich Retires

Sen. George Voinovich announced yesterday that he will retire in 2010, thus creating the fourth open Republican Senate seat. The others are currently held by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO). All four will be Democratic targets. If Gov. Kathleen Sebelius runs for the Kansas Senate seat, all four are probably 50-50, just given the demographics and political histories of the states. Of course, either party could nominate a sure winner or a real turkey in any of the races, but at this point, they all look like tossups (except if Sebelius does not run, whichever Republican is nominated will win in Kansas). Any way you slice this, it is bad news for the Republicans. The only good news for the Republicans so far (besides Burris) is that in 2010, appointed senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) will be up for election. Bennet has never held elective office before but as the incumbent in a state trending blue, he probably has a slight edge unless the Republicans come up with a strong candidate.

There will be an appointment for Hillary Clinton's seat in New York, too, but New York is such a blue state that it is hard to imagine any appointee having trouble in 2010. Caroline Kennedy has huge name recognition and an immense fundraising network, Andrew Cuomo has an almost as famous name in New York and has already won statewide election there, and even Carolyn Maloney, the favorite of many women, is well known, at least downstate.

Lawsuits Abound in Minnesota

Both Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D) have filed lawsuits in Minnesota. A three-judge panel has been appointed by the state Supreme Court to handle the case. One judge was appointed to the bench by a Democratic governor, one by a Republican governor, and one by an independent governor. Coleman has asked for thousands of pages of documents and Franken has asked to be seated now on a provisonal basis. This will be a full-blown court case, with witnesses, site visits, and more. The battle could go on for weeks or months.

Murkowski Leading Palin in Hypothetical Senate Primary

Dittman Research, an Alaska-based Republican polling firm, conducted a poll on a hypothetical Senate primary between incumbent Republican senator Lisa Murkowski and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK). Murkowski leads 57% to 33%. However polling Alaska is notoriously difficult as many pollsters were way off on downticket races this past November and other polls have shown Palin leading Murkowski if she chooses to run. Her term as governor is up in 2010, so Palin would have to give up her job as governor to make a Senate run, which may inhibit her from doing it, especially if a local pollster, who knows the territory well, says she would lose. Normally, governors make stronger presidential candidates than senators, but in her case she might be stronger as a senator as her lack of knowledge of national affairs was widely ridiculed during her Vice Presidential campaign and two years in the Senate would prepare her much better for 2012 than another two years as governor.

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