Three major stories about three major politicians are developing today: Reports suggest that Lincoln Chaffee has decided to attempt a political comeback in Rhode Island, that Jack Conway will jump in Kentucky’s Senate race and that Arnold Schwarzenegger will not challenge Barbara Boxer.
None of these developments would be surprising, in that conventional wisdom has long made us expect that Conway and Chaffee would run and Schwarzenegger would not. Yet, reports are still too vague to consider these news certain and confirmed.
Kentucky
In what is arguably the least high-profile story, Roll Call is reporting that Kentucky’s Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway has decided to challenge Senator Jim Bunning. Democrats already have a candidate in the race, as Lieutenant Governor Dan Mongiardo announced a run earlier this year, and Conway’s entry would set up a high-stakes primary battle between two statewide officials.
But I am not devoting more space to this information for now: For one, that Conway’s name is circulating is not in and of itself a story since the Attorney General had given strong indications that he would enter the race; second, I will wait for there to be some confirmation before analyzing what the news might mean. (Roll Call bases its article on one anonymous source.)
Rhode Island
With potential Republican candidate Steve Laffey’s exit from the gubernatorial race earlier this month, it looked like Democrats were sure to take back the Governor’s mansion. Lincoln Chaffee’s entry would seriously complicate the picture since he would run as an independent, causing an unpredictable three-way race. We already knew that Chaffee was mulling a run (he said he was considering it “very, very seriously” last week), but a new report on WNRI takes it one step further by suggesting that the former Senator has already decided to run:
A source tells WRNI that he has decided to run for governor in 2010, and will soon begin to assemble a campaign organization.
Yet, the story continues to note that Chaffee’s entourage is refusing to confirm that the former Senator has made up his mind - only that “he is close to reaching” a decision. In other words, the situation is not very different from Chaffee’s comments from last week: We know that he is strongly leaning towards the race, but he has yet to publicly commit. We will analyze the race’s dynamics in more detail when he does. (For now, you can read my write-up in my latest gubernatorial rankings.)
California
One of the cycle’s most awaited decisions concerned Arnold Schwarzenegger: Would he run for Senate in 2010? The significant slide of his poll numbers - along with those of the country’s other Governors - made that question far less consequential, but there is no question that his candidacy would make California’s senatorial race one of the most entertaining of the cycle.
A few days ago, the Governor seemed to open the door to a Senate run, and I tried my best to read the tea leaves. Yet, he abruptly changed course today when he declared that he would described how he was free to make sound but politically dangerous policy decisions without having to think of their electoral implications:
The point was that I am not running for anything, so no one could threaten me, because I’m not running for Senate, I’m not running for Congress, I’m not running for another term as governor.
Schwarzenegger sure sounds like he is closing the door to a Senate run. But here again, I would warn against reading his comments as an attempt to convey a finalized decision. By speaking in the present tense, Schwarzenegger is trying to indicate that he is focused on his job, on the duties of governance, of the need to address California’s budgetary crisis. This is no different than what Schwarzenegger said last week: “I’m concentrating on [all the stuff I'm doing now] and not what I’m going to do next.”
Schwarzenegger wants to reassure voters that his actions will be dictated solely by what is in the best interest of the state - not by what is best for his future. And this does not come to say that he will not run next year: Once I have spent some think trying to improve the California’s situation without considering my own popularity, the Governor might be saying, the time will come to assess my political standing and decide whether I am running for Senate.
S. has been such an incompetent administrator for California, it’s hard to believe people would ever vote for him for Senate if he did run. It’s funny that Gray Davis was pushed out of office for budget deficits, and here we have S., who managed to produce a $40 billion deficit, and no one seems particularly concerned about his political viability. Why is it that the GOP, always the party complaining about budget deficits, is also the party that consistently produces budget deficits when sitting in the executive? Such hypocrisy.