MONDAY’S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP…. Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.
* Rep. Henry Brown (R) of South Carolina will announce today that he will not seek re-election in November. Brown, who won a closer-than-expected contest in 2008, was facing a tough primary challenge from Carroll Campbell III. Republicans expect to keep the seat in GOP hands, though it’s one more open-seat campaign for the party to deal with.
* Chris Cillizza notes the context of the Brown announcement: “The decision by South Carolina Rep. Henry Brown to retire brings Republican retirements to 14, a number that, if it continues to rise in the coming months, could curtail the expected GOP gains in the House in November.”
* The National Republican Congressional Committee is having some trouble raising money, in part because “tightfisted Republican incumbents” haven’t chipped in the way they’re expected to.
* Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee will formally kick off his gubernatorial campaign in Rhode Island today. Though Chafee served on the Hill as a Republican, he will reportedly run this year as an independent.
* Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) apparently has a new book coming out in March, and will kick off a book tour in Iowa in March. The location is probably not an accident.
