MSNBC Meanwhile, back in the Senate Races.
Bush woos Illinois Senate contender
Tight races seen in South Dakota and the Carolinas
By Tom Curry
MSNBC
April 23 Taking a hand at candidate recruitment, President Bush has called former Illinois Republican Gov. Jim Edgar to urge him to run for the state?s open Senate seat next year. The Republicans have fewer Senate seats to defend than the Democrats and appear to have a good chance of at least maintaining their one-seat edge in the Senate. But the Illinois race is likely to be a tough one for the GOP.
REPUBLICAN SEN. Peter Fitzgerald, a wealthy 42-year-old businessman who bucked party leaders during his one term in office and registered low approval ratings in polls, announced last week he would not run again.
?The president has called Governor Edgar and urged him to run for the seat. I think it was yesterday,? White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters Wednesday.
Edgar is the most prominent of the potential Republican Senate candidates in Illinois. Edgar, 56, who was elected governor in 1990 and served two four-year terms, has said he will not decide whether to run for about a month. A spokesman said Edgar ?continues to seriously consider? a Senate bid.
Among Democrats already in the Senate race in Illinois or considering a bid are state Comptroller Dan Hynes, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and Blair Hull, a wealthy businessman.
The starting point for Republican Senate strategists in 2004 is their advantage in having fewer seats to defend: 15 Republican-held seats are up for re-election next year, compared with 19 Democratic-held seats.
The GOP strategists? focus will be on the states that Bush carried in 2000 where Democratic incumbents are running for re-election. Will Fritz Hollings decide to retire after 36 years in the Senate?
Listed roughly in order of how vulnerable the Democratic seats are, here are those 10 states, with Bush?s 2000 vote percentage in parentheses:
[*] Georgia (54.7 percent) : Conservative Democrat Sen. Zell Miller, who has been Bush?s most steadfast ally among Democrats in the Senate, is retiring. Given last year?s GOP sweep in Georgia, this seems a seat the Republicans ought to be able to win. Rep. Johnny Isakson is the front-runner for the GOP nomination; the Democrats are likely to have several contenders, including state Attorney General Thurbert Baker.
[*] South Carolina (56.8 percent): Will Sen. Fritz Hollings decide to call it quits after 36 years in the Senate? If so, Republicans would have a good chance to win his seat. Rep. Jim DeMint is the likely GOP candidate.
[*] South Dakota (60.3 percent): Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle is the man Republicans love to hate. They took particular exception to his eve-of-war comment last month that Bush had ?failed so miserably? at diplomacy that the United States was forced to go to war against Iraq. Daschle may face former Rep. John Thune, who lost in November to Sen. Tim Johnson by only 524 votes.
[*] North Carolina (56 percent): With first-term Sen. John Edwards running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Republicans are salivating at the thought that Edwards might have to adopt liberal positions to woo Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two presidential contests. If he fails to win the presidential nomination and returns to North Carolina to seek a second term, Republicans will pound on him for allegedly being out of touch with North Carolina voters. Republican Rep. Richard Burr is likely to run against Edwards.
[*] Florida (48.8 percent): Like Edwards, Sen. Bob Graham is on a quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican former restaurateur from central Florida, is already running to unseat him, using Graham?s support for the filibuster against Bush judicial nominee Miguel Estrada to try to build support among Latino voters.
[*] Arkansas (51.3 percent): First-term Sen. Blanche Lincoln has pursued a moderate to conservative course in her Senate votes. She was one of 12 Senate Democrats to vote for Bush?s $1.35 trillion tax cut bill in 2001, and she is rated as one of the handful of senators close to the Senate?s ideological center by the nonpartisan National Journal.
[*] Louisiana (52.6 percent): Three-term incumbent Democrat Sen. John Breaux is an institution in Louisiana politics and should be secure.
[*] Nevada (49.5 percent): Like Breaux in Louisiana, Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic whip, has become something of an institution in Nevada politics, but he had a squeaker of a race in 1998, so the right GOP candidate could give him trouble. Rep. Jim Gibbons, a former combat pilot and veteran of the Vietnam War and the first Persian Gulf War, may challenge Reid.
[*] Indiana (56.6 percent): Popular Sen. Evan Bayh seems to be a pretty good bet to win a second term. Bayh?s brand of amiable Democratic conservatism won him two terms as governor, and he has built a middle-of-the-road voting record in the Senate, although the National Journal vote analysis rates him slightly less conservative than Lincoln of Arkansas. Unlike her, he voted against the Bush tax cut in 2001. Republicans voice no optimism about being able to beat Bayh.
[*] North Dakota (60.7 percent): Two-term Sen. Byron Dorgan hasn?t lost an election since 1974.
DEMOCRATS? TARGETS
The Democrats have their own targets of opportunity. Their fate likely rests on the state of the economy when voters go to the polls in November 2004. If there were a double-dip recession and the unemployment rate went above 7 percent, that could lift marginal Democratic candidates to victory.
There may be Democratic opportunities in the three states that Al Gore carried in 2000 where GOP senators are running for re-election or where a GOP-held seat will be open.
Those three states, with Gore?s 2000 vote percentage in parentheses:
[*] Illinois (54.6 percent): Illinois has voted Democratic in the last three presidential races, so the party?s Senate nominee should get help from the top of the ticket.
[*] Pennsylvania (50.6 percent): Sen. Arlen Specter has won four terms in the Senate, the last time with 61 percent of the vote, despite Pennsylvania?s tendency to vote Democratic in presidential races. If there?s a strong Democratic challenger out there, he hasn?t shown his face yet.
[*] Iowa (48.5 percent): Elected to the Senate in 1980, Sen. Chuck Grassley is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and one very shrewd politician. His image as a plain-speaking hog farmer seems appealing in Iowa. In their last three races against him, the Democrats have never managed to get more than a third of the vote.
Then there?s a special case where Democrats may have a once-every-25-years opportunity: Alaska, normally one of the most Republican states. Former Sen. Frank Murkowski was elected governor last fall and appointed his daughter Lisa to replace him in the Senate, sparking charges of nepotism.
Other targets for the Democrats are states that Gore just missed winning in 2000 and that have Republican incumbents who may be a bit wobbly:
[*] New Hampshire: Gore lost New Hampshire by only 7,211 votes, or about 1 percent. If Democrats can mount a strong effort for former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen or another challenger, they would have a chance to defeat Sen. Judd Gregg.
[*] Missouri: This is almost always a tough, competitive state. Sen. Kit Bond is a grizzled veteran who won in 1998 with 53 percent of the vote.
[*] Kentucky: Sen. Jim Bunning won his seat in 1998 by only one percentage point.
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