Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* AFSCME, NEA, and SEIU are launching a new ad blitz, hoping to influence the debt-reduction talks currently underway. The six-figure ad buy will air in five states — Alaska, Colorado, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Virginia — hoping to influence key lawmakers. Here’s the spot set to air in Virginia.
* Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) first event in Iowa over the weekend brought out 700 Republicans, which is a pretty good turnout given that we’re still more than three years away from the Iowa caucuses.
* Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) failed in his bid for a second term, but Georgia GOP chairwoman Sue Everhart wants the right-wing lawmaker to move to the Peach State and try again.
* In Virginia, a recent Quinnipiac poll found that if Sen. Mark Warner (D) wants to run for governor — a job he held from 2002 to 2006 — he’d be the overwhelming favorite. The poll shows him leading Lt. Bill Gov. Bolling (R) and state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) by 20 and 18 points, respectively.
* Of course, Warner isn’t interested in heading back to Richmond, and former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe appears to be the leading Democrat in Virginia’s 2013 gubernatorial race. McAuliffe’s lead over the likely GOP candidates in the Quinnipiac poll is much narrower. * Rasmussen Reports is still trying to explain why its polls were so wrong in 2012. Gallup, which has traditionally enjoyed a better reputation, is struggling even more to defend its mistakes after analyses found Gallup to be one of the least-accurate pollsters of the year. * Don’t be too surprised if Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) runs for a third term, despite her state’s two-term limit. (She inherited her first term when Janet Napolitano joined the Obama administration cabinet in 2009.) * And in Alabama, Roy Moore was forced from the bench in disgrace several years ago after ignoring court rulings he didn’t like, but this year, he was nevertheless re-elected as the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
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