Politicians Do the Strangest Things - Self Flagellation: Saying that he expected incumbent U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) to engage in personal smear tactics, Republican Senate nominee Bob Kelleher (R-MT) decided to hold a press conference to reveal his worse personal faults. Kelleher, who has run for public office as a Democrats and a Green, says that he dropped out of a Carmelite monastery 18 months before ordination because he couldn't handle a vow of chastity. Since then he has been married and divorced three times. Kelleher says he particularly regrets the way he walked out on his first wife, mother to his six oldest children. "I wanted to have fun," he said. He says he regrets the impact his absences have had on his seven children.
Following his admission, Kelleher took advantage of the media attention to highlight some of his disagreements with Baucus, most of which made him sound more like a Democrat than the Republican he is running as.
"He [Baucus] passed a ($1.6) trillion dollar tax cut for the rich, for billionaires," Kelleher said, referring to tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 pushed by President Bush. "Montana only has one billionaire, Denny Washington. The rest of us out here are poor." Kelleher says some of his concerns are the unemployment rate on Montana's Indian reservations, the disproportionate percentage of Montana's children living at or near poverty, the disparaged wages earned between women and men. Kelleher supports a single-payer government-funded health system similar to Canada's.
In other news, Patty L. Lovaas (R-MT), one of the Republicans who lost to Bob Kelleher in the primary, filed a Declaration of Candidacy and a filling fee to be on the November ballot as an independent candidate. Montana currently bars losing primary candidates from being on the general election ballot and has a March filing deadline for independent candidates. Her only chance of being on the ballot is for a successful outcome in the pending lawsuit file by would-be candidate Steve Kelly (G-MT) and voter Clarice Dreyer. That case was filed on April 8 and it challenges the filing deadline. Lovaas says she is running as an independent because Kelleher is not a "bona fide" Republican.
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It Will Be Different This Time: In her rematch against U.S. Senator John E. Sununu (R-NH), former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) plans to focus of the incumbent's voting record, suggesting that things would have been a lot different if she had been elected six years. "Who voted with this administration 90 percent of the time and got us to where we are today: with $9 trillion in debt, a war in Iraq with no end, a housing crisis, gas prices that are the highest in history, and no energy plan?" Shaheen asks.
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Reaffirming the Right: Both U.S. Representative Samuel B. "Sam" Graves, Jr. (R-MO) and his Democratic opponent Kay Barnes (D-MO) have issued statements supporting the Supreme Court affirmation of an individual right to own guns. Incumbent Republican Graves said, "The Supreme Court made the right decision in standing up for the Constitution and reaffirming the right of Americans to keep and bear arms." Meanwhile Barnes, the former Mayor of Kansas City, said, "I agree with the Supreme Court’s interpretation that an absolute prohibition against gun ownership violates the Second Amendment right for citizens to bear arms."
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Searching for a Staten Island Republican: Republican congressional candidate Jamshad Wyne (R-NY) claims to have collected more than 2,000 signatures to get on the primary ballot, more than the 1250 required. Yet New York Republicans are not ready to embrace the cardiologist because of the fact that he was fined $5,000 and placed on probation for three years in 2003 by the Health Department's Board for Professional Medical Conduct. The board concluded he had practice with negligence on more than one occasion.
Meanwhile Carmine Morano (Ind-NY) is circulating petitions in an effort to get on both the Republican and Independence Party ballots. Former New York state assemblyman Robert Straniere (R-NY), who is a partner in a family hot dog restaurant, has declared his candidacy and is gathering petitions for a July 10 deadline. Straniere no longer lives in the district and is unlikely to garner the support of the Staten Island Republican committee.
While the Republicans are unable to settle on a consensus candidate, Democrat Michael E. McMahon (D-NY) continues to pick up support. AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes announced an early endorsement of the New York City Councilman's congressional candidacy.
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Territory News - A First: The Election Commission for the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands will begin accepting candidacy filings on Monday for the territory's first ever congressional delegate election. Pete A. Tenorio (R-MP), who currently holds the elected position of Washington Resident, will be the Republican nominee. Territorial Senator Luis P. Crisostimo, Jr. (D-MP) and former Senator David M. Cing (D-MP) are competing for the Democratic Party endorsement. (The Democratic Party of the Mariana Islands is not affiliated with the National Democratic Committee but hopes to be by 2009.) There is still no news on whom the Covenant Party, which currently holds the Governor's Mansion on the islands, will support. At least for other candidates are planning independent campaigns: retired judge Juan T. Lizama (I-MP), outgoing Commonwealth Election Commission executive director Gregorio C. "Kilili" Sablan (I-MP), television talk show host John Oliver DLR Gonzales (I-MP), and businessman Patrick M. Calvo (I-MP) who has been accused the police of committing child molestation.
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