TUESDAY’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.
* In case Alaska’s U.S. Senate race couldn’t get weirder, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, after narrowly losing in a GOP primary, may try to get on the ballot through the Alaska Libertarian Party. A decision would have to come fairly quickly — the deadline is a week from tomorrow.
* In Colorado, far-right Senate candidate Ken Buck (R) has announced that he cannot support far-right gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes (R). It appears to be part of a larger Republican effort to get Maes to quit the race.
* For his part, Maes, who won the Republican gubernatorial primary just last month, announced late Friday that he is staying in the race, whether his party likes it or not.
* In the Senate race in the state of Washington, GOP Senate nominee Dino Rossi still hasn’t received an endorsement from Clint Didier, his former primary foe.
* In apparent attempt to make Republicans look completely classless, John Raese’s (R) Senate campaign in West Virginia has a new television ad that’s generating some attention. Raese, desperate to attach Gov. Joe Manchin (D) to President Obama, shows a photo of the two together. The photo, however, was taken at the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s (D) funeral, and the Byrd family isn’t happy about it.
* In Ohio, the latest poll from the Columbus Dispatch shows former Bush budget director Rob Portman (R) and former Rep. John Kasich (R) with double-digit leads in this year’s Senate and gubernatorial races, respectively.
* In New Hampshire’s Republican Senate primary, former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte leads the field, but not by the margins she’d like. A Magellan Strategies poll shows Ayotte with 34% support, followed by former state Board of Education chairman Ovide Lamontagne at 21%. Businessman Bill Binnie is a close third with 17%, followed by businessman Jim Bender with 13%.
* And looking ahead, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R), both of Utah, are having an interesting spat. Hatch claims that Chaffetz pledged not to take on the incumbent senator in 2012, while Chaffetz denies anything of the sort. “I have no idea what he’s thinking about,” Chaffetz said of Hatch.
