Democrats are favored to hold on to Rep. Gabby Giffords’ seat in the Arizona special election today, where former aide Ron Barber (who was wounded himself that fateful day in Tuscon) is taking up her mantle.
Republicans are starting to feel better about Mitt Romney’s chances after a couple of tough weeks for the White House.
Matt Bai has a profile of Bob Kerrey and his nostalgic bid for his old Nebraska Senate seat in the New York Times Magazine, which includes this fun moment:
Walking into the tiny airport in Kearney, Kerrey was greeted by Sue Parsons, a former civics teacher. “I want to ask you what we do about Social Security,” she said as he extended his hand. “I mean, it sounds like it’s in the tank, and I’m 58.”
“Your Social Security’s fine,” Kerrey assured her.
“But what about my son?”
“Oh, he’s screwed,” Kerrey said. Then he asked where the cookies were.
When I interviewed Kerrey a few months ago, I, too, was struck by his insistence that the bipartisan Senate partnerships of the ‘90s are still possible today.
Mark Halperin notes that Romney’s new bus tour includes his home state of Michigan, which Obama won big in 2008 and was assumed to have largely in the bag in the wake of the successful auto bailout (and Romney’s opposition to it).
And Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is out with another tough TV ad on Romney’s tenure as governor of Massachusetts, this one hitting him for the state’s debt troubles:
What else is happening?
