US Senate

Readers Request: Rob Tornoe's July 4, 2007 cartoon

John Sununu appeared Tuesday on the Mark and Danielle show and said the following:

More from PolitickerME.com:

• Dems take Hoffman challenge to court
• Justice recuses himself from Hoffman case

U.S Senate candidate Jeff Merkley's (D-Portland) tough-on-crime proposal hadn't even been public for 24 hours before Steve Doell, president of Crime Victims United, marched to the front door of his campaign's headquarters on Wednesday with a list of grievances' against Merkley's record on crime. Or, as Doell believes, Merkley's lack of record on crime as speaker in the Oregon State House.

"Your attack on Sen. Smith (R-Pendleton) on the issue of crime rings hollow when you have such a poor record yourself," Doell wrote in a letter he delivered personally to Merkley campaign headquarters at N.W. 23rd and N.W. Lovejoy.

Editors note: This is a daily summary of news about the U.S. Senate race between U.S. Sen. John Sununu (R-Waterville Valley) and former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D-Madbury).

Today in the Senate race it was all about op-eds and speeches.

Jeff Merkley is the star of an ad released Wednesday by the Oregon Democratic Party.

"Something is seriously wrong in Washington D.C," Merkley says in a voice-over at the beginning of the ad, though he may have meant to say something was seriously wrong in Washington D.C, because the issues he refers to happened on Capitol Hill as long as five years go.

The Oregon Farm Bureau, the largest general farm organization in the state, will be backing U.S Senator Gordon Smith (R-Pendleton) in his bid for re-election.

Superior Court Justice Joseph M. Jabar has recused himself from hearing a case involving the U.S. Senate race because of ties to a fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Tom Allen (D-Portland).

John Knutson, chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, is appealing a recent decision by the Secretary of State's office to take independent U.S. Senate candidate Herb Hoffman off the ballot. Knutson and the party had challenged the validity of some of the signatures on Hoffman's nominating petitions.

The case is under the jurisdiction of Kennebec County Superior Court, and was originally assigned to Jabar. Walker said Jabar was considering recusing himself from the case because his wife had held a fundraiser for Allen, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Bangor).

Courthouse officials, unable to say why, said Jabar had already declined the case and another judge has yet to be assigned.

Sources say the case will likely be taken up Thursday or Friday. Hoffman said Wednesday that if it does not come out in his favor, he will appeal to the Maine Supreme Court.

While Kentucky may be focusing on this year's U.S. Senate competition between incumbent U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) and businessman Bruce Lunsford (D-Louisville), one candidate is already gearing up for a shot at a Senate seat in 2010.

Former U.S. Customs agent and self-proclaimed "national security whistleblower" Darlene Fitzgerald announced on Tuesday that she will run for the seat of U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Southgate) a Democrat in the next federal election cycle in the Bluegrass state.

"I am going to be one less person in Washington who can neither be bought off or bullied," Fitzgerald told PolitickerKY.com.

Fitzgerald enters the political fray spending several years pushing for "whistleblower" protections for federal government employees.

While I'm curious whether my colleague Andy Smith's next Granite State Poll will confirm recent Rasmussen and ARG polls, another number buried deep in the crosstabs may prove of more lasting value.

"Party ID," or the way that respondents identify themselves to pollsters, will give us an early indication of whether 2008 could be a "correction election," in which New Hampshire voters move back toward the Republicans after a big Democratic year; or whether voters simply pick up where they left off in November 2006.