Oct 16th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Senator Who?
Not saying these folks are all going to win, but odds are that out of the set {Mark Begich, Ronnie Musgrove, Kay Hagan, Jim Martin} there are going to be some new Senators come January. Does anyone know anything about these people? I’ve poked around their websites and there’s some interesting stuff there, but it’s a limited source of information — any good profiles? I feel like Al Franken and Mark Warner have been covered to death, and I know Jeanne Shaheen’s record from New Hampshire, but these other characters . . . nothing.
45 Responses to “Senator Who?”
Register
RSSLogin
Advertisement
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Books By Matthew Yglesias
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Abortion
Afghanistan
Basketball
Blanche Lincoln
Budget
China
climate
Congress
Crime
DC
Demographics
Economics
Economy
Energy
Environment
EU
Finance
Football
Gender
Health Care
History
Inequality
Infrastructure
International Law
International Relations
Israel
Media
Monetary Policy
National Security
NATO
NBA
Palestine
Political Reform
Public Health
Public Opinion
Race
Regulation
Sarah Palin
Sports
Stimulus
Sweden
taxes
Technology
Trade
transportation
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Contact Matthew Yglesias
Use this form to contact blog author Matthew Yglesias.
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
October 16th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Couldn’t you just interview them?
October 16th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
- Ronnie Musgrove was the bassist in the band REO Speedwagon.
- Kay Hagan is a former porn star.
- Mark Begich is a fictional character from an Ernest Hemmingway novel.
- Jim Martin is an accountant from Marietta, Georgia who invented the styrofoam cup.
Glad to be able to help.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Mark Begich is a man without a college degree who’s father was briefly a senator. He’s running on a campaign of “Give
Anchorage What It Wants.” He’s also the mayor of Anchorage, and his biggest accomplishment was rolling out speed and red light cameras, then quietly removing them after scandal.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
“Not saying these folks are all going to win, but odds are that out of the set {Mark Begich, Ronnie Musgrove, Kay Hagan, Jim Martin} there are going to be some new Senators come January.”
Don’t forget Bruce Lunsford. He’s the one to really be pulling for.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the trifecta on November 4th is for to beat McCain in WV, beat McConnell in the Senate, and beat Shadegg in the House.
Do that, and the GOP will reach a point of capitulation, in market speak…
October 16th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
From Wikipedia:
“In August 2003, Musgrove sent an invitation via state letterhead to display judge Roy Moore’s unconstitutional – as ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court – Ten Commandments monument in the Mississippi Capitol for a week in September. In the letter, Musgrove praised the judge, calling the Ten Commandments “the basis for our legal tradition” and announced that he would call on other governors to display the monument in their state capitols as well. Musgrove further wrote, “It would be my honor to host this monument as a symbol of every Mississippian’s dedication to the fundamental principles of the Ten Commandments.” Even further, Musgrove invoked “our Christian heritage,” condemned “groups like the ACLU,” and said there is “no freedom from religion.” He called the removal of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building a “tragedy”.[8]
In 2001, Musgrove signed legislation requiring the motto “In God We Trust” to be displayed in every public school classroom, as well as the school auditoriums and cafeterias, throughout the state.[9][10]”
This guy might be #60?
October 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
What ak59 said, except, like, not.
Begich is the very popular (soon to be term limited) mayor of Anchorage who is running on a platform of government transparency, mild reform and energy independence (which naturally includes drilling ANWR, which is sort of the Ethanol of Alaska politics – you have to be for it, even if you aren’t).
Having had some (limited) one-on-one interaction with him, I can safely say that he’s wicked smart, perhaps a tad verbose. I have no sense of his foreign police instincts (unlike Palin, he doesn’t think that the Scandinavian cruise ships which dock at the port of Anchorage give him foreign policy chops, but a young Biden is not a terrible comparison, with the biographical edit of subbing a dad dying in a plane crash when he was an adolescent to wife and child dying in a car crash.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
So what’s it like living at the momentary epicenter of American politics, Pooh?
Is it fair recompense for not being able to get NBA League Pass?
October 16th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
from Wikipedia:
“Big” Jim Martin (born James Blanco Martin, on 21 July 1961, in Oakland, California)[1] played lead guitar in EZ-Street, Vicious Hatred, Agents of Misfortune, Recluse, Pigs of Death, and Faith No More from 1983 to 1993 on the albums We Care a Lot, Introduce Yourself, The Real Thing, and Angel Dust.
Ronnie Musgrove was not in REO Speedwagon, but does share a birthday with their keyboardist.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Don’t forget about the Udalls!. Udalls hate being ignored.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Hagan became a state senator in (I think) 1998 and she moved up the ranks really quickly and is now chair of the appropriations committee. Her district is in Greensboro where she is extremely popular. She’s been close with the Democratic leadership in Raleigh, but has managed to stay clean (as a liberal Democrat I hate to admit it, but the Democratic leadership in Raleigh is corrupt as hell). She’s getting the endorsement of every major newspaper in the state. She wasn’t known at all outside of Greensboro when she first ran, so having (seemingly) overcome the name recognition deficit is pretty impressive.
Her uncle was Lawton Chiles, senator then governor of Florida.
Here’s a questionaire she did for her hometown paper (full disclosure, my dad works for that paper, so that’s a shameless plug).
She’s real bright and personable, if more moderate than I’d like. But it’s North Carolina, so what can you do?
October 16th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Hey, how about another Senatorial candidate from Oregon, Jeff Merkley? He definitely merits inclusion on your list, Matt. He’s the Speaker of the Oregon House and led the Democrats into a majority in 2006 for the first time since 1994. The last session has been one of the best in recent memory, and we’re looking forwards to expanding the Democratic trifecta this year…hopefully with Jeff taking his place as our new U.S. Senator.
For the record, he’s currently leading the well-funded and fairly popular Gordon Smith, the incumbent, after being behind for much of the year. He’s a strong candidate and no DLC Dem, but a real progressive. Throw some attention or spare change his way if you can!
-Peace
October 16th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
“Ronnie Musgrove was not in REO Speedwagon”
Forgive the error. He was actually the drummer for the band Rush.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
If you go diving around Daily Kos, they’ve been doing profiles on all of their “Orange to Blue” candidates (all of the senators you listed are in that category). Yeah, I know, it’s kos, but at the very least you get some talking points about each of them.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Jim Martin, the democratic candidate from Georgia, is wonderful. He won the primary in a landslide against a conservative democrat and has been coming on strongly of late in the polls. Cheers to kicking Saxby “Shameless” out of the senate!
October 16th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Since I live in Georgia, I’ll express my surprise at Jim Martin. He’s an actual progressive, the type you virtually never see in the south, with nearly 100% Kos-approved views. Hagan and Merkley are pretty similar. Musgrove and Lunsford are, well, not. They’re the equivalent of Blue Dogs, and Lunsford in particular is an odious character. It’s more of a “beat McConnell” race than trying to elect anyone we actually like.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Jim Martin isn’t the strongest candidate, but Georgia Democratic Politics has been hurting for a few years. The end of the 90s and the early 00s were pretty solid, but Roy Barnes lost to Perdue in 2002 — and Cleland lost to Chambliss and everything was kind of going downhill. In fact in 2002, the only state Dem incumbents to keep his seat were the Attorney General, Thurbert Baker and, I believe, the Interior/Ag guy who was quite old at the time and a veteran of sorts.
In any case, I think a lot of people are pulling for Martin as revenge for Cleland. Here’s a link to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution clip on Martin: http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2008/07/31/senmartin.html
The other important factor in the Martin race was his triumph over Vernon Jones in the primary. My parents vote down there and gave it there all to make sure Jones, a self-described Bush Democrat, didn’t face Chambliss in the general.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Sorry — I’m sure that the Lieutenant Gov at the time won reelection as well; he went on to run against Johnny Isaakson, a long term GA congressman (Repub) for the Senate seat vacated by Zell Miller. Isaakson won, handily. Like I said, Dems in Georgia have been in a bad way for a few years.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Kay Hagan’s likely to win in NC. She has a decent record as a state legislator, and comes from a political family — her uncle is Walkin’ Lawton Chiles, the former Gov. of Florida. Nice summary in the local paper here.
Living in Durham, NC, I was surprised to see that Freedom’s Watch was bothering to work against Hagan at all, esp. since insiders are leaking like sieves that “there’s no point in even counting the votes”, i.e. Hagan is going to win.
We’ve been robocalled and have received mailers (clearly ID’ed in both cases as coming from FW) attacking Hagan as “continuing Jimmy Carter’s disastrous energy policies!”, but I seriously doubt that this is convincing any undecideds/ independents/ lean-Obama voters to vote for Dole.
Dole is a lost cause. She’s been largely a seat-warmer in the Senate, after most North Carolinians thought they were getting a heavyweight for their vote in 2002. It doesn’t help that she’s been documented to have spent less than 2 months each year in the state since being elected. It’s one thing for political junkies to know she’s been a DC resident for the past 40 years, but it’s a bigger problem when rank and file citizens know it too.
Hagan’s only problem as I see it is the ballot. The NC ballot is presented in this order:
1) President
2) Straight-party ticket option
3) Individual partisan races
4) Judges and local initiatives
So each year there is some small percentage of ballots where:
a) someone votes straight party and does not mark their vote for president — results in no vote for pres; or
b) someone votes for pres but neglects the down-ballot races (like Hagan for US Senate).
October 16th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Kay Hagan is a train, mass transit in general, and new urbanist advocate. My sister knows her a little and speaks highly of her.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Begich’s dad was not a Senator (as someone said above)but a Congressman. He died in a plane crash campaigning in Alaska in 1972 along with Hale Boggs who the Democratic Majority leader in the house. Tip O’Neil got the job. Boggs son Tommy Boggs is a hotshot lobbyist in DC. The interesting twist is the Boggs Begich generation 2 reunion in DC, maybe.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
“Kay Hagan is a train”
No, she’s a human. I’ve seen photos to prove it.
Rick Noriega, however, is actually a motorcycle.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Also the guy Begich Sr. was running against in that 72 election was Don Young.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
B,
Don’t forget that Hale Boggs was also the father of Cokie Roberts.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
The Begich family has its roots on Minnesota’s Iron Range (and before that in Croatia). Joe Begich, Mark’s uncle, was a long-time state representative from Eveleth with a district that also covers Virginia and surrounding mining towns, and continues to serve on the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, the oversight body for northeastern Minnesota’s state-sponsored economic development agency Iron Range Resources. Joe politically has always been a notorious hothead but a very solid progressive labor Democrat. Nick who died in the plane crash was Joe’s younger brother.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Petey, for the purposes of League Pass, I live at my mom’s house, and SHE has DirecTV, so it’s all good. Now if I can somehow avoid watching 60+ Atlanta Hawks games this year…
October 16th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
As far as being at the epicenter of American politics, its surreal, to say the least, especially since I know a large number of the players on the legal side of Troopergate. Frex, the independent counsel hired by the personnel board, Petemenous, is very bad news for Palin, because he’s A) a Democrat, and b) a complete prick in the legal sense (he writes a pretty scalding brief if you cross him, to put it mildly).
October 16th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
B,
Nick Begich was a State senator before he became a member of the US House.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
New new urbanism argument can be a really good one for NC. I saw in 2006 a list of the worst urban sprawl areas in the country. #2 was Raleigh/Durham and #3 was Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point. I believe # 4 was Atlanta and #1 was some suburb of Los Angeles.
Anyway, the whole center of NC is a mess of sprawl and traffic, and I’d like to believe that Hagan will bring home some pork to build some kind of transit system to focus development around. They’ve tried it before in Raleigh, but couldn’t get the federal funding.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Not to mention the new junior senators from Illinois and Delaware — it’s probably bad luck to count these chickens now, but anybody have ideas for who those would be?
October 16th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
#29:
Illinois: Why, Bill Ayers, of course, so Obama can better “consult” with him constantly! We on the left loooooooooove Bil Ayers. Haven’t you been reading the wing-o-sphere lately?
Delaware: They should just appoint MBNA and DuPont corporations to the seat and cut out the middleman.
October 16th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
“Not to mention the new junior senators from Illinois and Delaware — it’s probably bad luck to count these chickens now, but anybody have ideas for who those would be?”
Daley has motivation to want Jesse Junior out of the way.
I wonder if Team Obama has the balls to want the optics of giving him the seat? They’d have to think he could win in ‘10 at a very minimum.
One would assume Daley and Team Obama combined would have sway over Blagojevich, but I don’t know the intricacies of the local scene.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Just thank your lucky stars you didn’t end up with Vernon Jordan from Georgia.
December 12th, 2008 at 4:46 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Ted Stevens had a chaotic 85th birthday Tuesday, waiting anxiously to see whether a climactic vote count in Alaska will keep him in Congress long enough for his fellow Republicans to decide whether to expel the
December 12th, 2008 at 4:47 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Ted Stevens had a chaotic 85th birthday Tuesday, waiting anxiously to see whether a climactic vote count in Alaska will keep him in Congress long enough for his fellow Republicans to decide whether to expel the
March 1st, 2009 at 6:27 am
viagra
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
March 1st, 2009 at 7:38 pm
cialis
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:56 am
levitraGreat site. Good info
March 11th, 2009 at 5:12 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 14th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
xanax
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:32 am
tramadol
Incredible site!
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:45 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:28 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Excellent site, It was pleasant to me. viagra
April 14th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog!!
viagra