Sen. Dianne Feinstein Gets a Challenger

29 November 2011 |permalink | email article

A Year before the November 2012 election, a Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has emerged. The Sacramento Bee reported it’s Elizabeth Emken, 48, of Danville, a longtime advocate for children with autism who loaned her 2010 campaign for Congress $300,000 but finished last in a four-way primary race. This time, in a guest post on the conservative web site FlashReport which first broke the story, Emken said this time her campaign will be centered on a “broad based group of donors.” The prospect of taking on Feinstein, 78, and her multimillion dollar campaign war chest, is daunting. But her poll numbers, which this year hit an all-time low since she was first elected to the Senate in 1992, convince Republicans she has a shot at winning. Veteran Democratic consultant Bill Carrick downplayed Emken’s chances, noting her poor showing for a House seat in 2010, adding that “it’s hard to imagine she’ll be able to make the transition to a statewide race.”

A Wild GOP Card?

CNBC’s vibrant Rick Santelli, a favorite among many Tea Party types in the wake of his angry on-air comments about government in 2009 that many say helped start the Tea Party movement, is being paged to run for president. Leading the effort is Jeffrey Kahn, a retired businessman and Nevada lawyer. Santelli said he had never considered a candidacy but did not discourage Kahn’s draftSantelliForPresident2012.com effort.

Noted

Bill Clinton told conservative NewsMax on Sunday that he expects Hillary Clinton to pursue a career outside government when she steps down as Secretary of State after the end of President Obama’s first term. But MSNBC host Chris Hayes mocked the Union Leader endorsement of Gingrich, and zapped the former president for speaking about Gingrich: “Bill Clinton and your people…next time you have the instinct to talk to Newsmax, call us up!”…..Some Tea Partiers believe that Karl Rove, a Fox News pundit, is secretly in the Mitt Romney camp.

What They Said

“I think—and this is crazy, but so are we—that Gingrich is going to have a better time in the general election than Mitt Romney…I think it’s going to be Obama’s 99%, and Romney sort of represents the 1%.—Joe McQuaid, publisher of the Manchester Union-Leader which endorsed Gingrich, to Fox News.

“A Gingrich presidency, if such a thing can even be imagined, would be a chaotic catastrophe. A Gingrich candidacy would yield an Obama landslide.”—David Frum, who’s FrumForum suggests “It’s Romney, Huntsman, or Bust”

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