Rep. John Spratt (D., S.C.) voted for the Democrats’ health-care bill last time. He represents a district that John McCain carried with 53 percent. He’s at 46 percent against two not-terribly-well-known GOP candidates, in what’s shaping up to be a big year for the GOP, in a heavily conservative state.

So if he votes for it again, that’s essentially announcing his retirement, no?

The NRCC contrasts his vote with some actual conservative Democrats:

Rep. Brad Ellsworth, a Democrat, wants to be the next senator from the state of Indiana. He voted for the Democrats’ health-care bill back in November.

One has to wonder if he’s eager to vote “yes” again.

Rasmussen, back in January:

Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats?

16% Strongly favor
21% Somewhat favor
12% Somewhat oppose
48% Strongly oppose
3% Not sure

Archduke Czar Viscount Earl Pasha Baron Hill voted yes, too, and he’s trailing in his reelection bid by 8 percentage points.

On May 22, Hawaii will select a congressman to fill out the remainder of Rep. Neil Abercrombie’s term.

Under the unusual rules, anyone can run, and it is winner take all. Thus, Honolulu councilman Charles Djou, a Republican, has a good shot of winning as Democrats split the vote among former congressman Ed Case and state senator Colleen Hanabusa.

I don’t know about you, but as winter drags on, I’d really like to fly to Hawaii to be a volunteer for Djou.

Wait, I thought traveling around the state and repeating old news was the job of a governor.

An Iowa television station is getting a bit cranky with Gov. Chet Culver, noting that he’s traveling around the state, announcing old projects.

From the site:

But the projects he was promoting have already been announced back in August of 2009. So we asked the governor what was new about this announcement that justified the trip at a time when budget woes continue at the Statehouse. “We’re celebrating the fact that Newton and TPI have come here and created more than five hundred new green collar jobs,” Culver replied, not really answering the question . . . So we wondered whether that same information couldn’t have been conveyed with a statehouse press conference, or by putting it on the state website. That’s when the governor turned away and refused to answer any more questions.

I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact that Culver is trailing by 16 to 20 percentage points to former GOP governor Terry Branstad.

Jon Runyan, the former Philadelphia Eagle and San Diego Charger last seen coming up just short against the New York Jets’ defense in the playoffs, now has an almost clear field for the GOP nomination:

Toms River Councilman Maurice “Mo” Hill today says he will not seek Ocean County Republican Council support to run for Congress in the 3rd District.

Hill, a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, who had been pursuing a bid for the GOP nomination for Congress against U.S. Rep. John Adler.

In a press release, he said he has decided to withdraw and support San Diego Charger’s offensive lineman Jon Runyan of Mount Laurel.

The only remaining GOP candidate in the primary is Joseph Rullo, a solar-energy company executive.

With a lot of House races looking better and better for Republicans, one reader rightfully wonders aloud about the GOP’s momentum peaking too soon.

The economy has to get better sometime, and there’s a chance things will look better in November, right?

A perfectly fair question, but I’m wondering about how much better the public mood could be, at least on the economy. Let’s say the economy goes on a job-creation tear and we reduce unemployment by two whole percentage points by November. That’s still 7.7 percent, still significantly higher than the worst of the Bush years. In other words, even with dramatic improvements, its still going to feel like “hard times” and that doesn’t get into other economic factors — i.e., gas prices, cost of living, housing prices, foreclosures, etc.

Also note that the unemployment rate is hiding, at last count, 1.1 million in the officially “discouraged” category; as these folks get encouraged, and start looking for work, they go into the official rate again…

Remember, the economy has to create 125,000 jobs a month to stay even, and we haven’t come close to that in a long while. This White House’s economic advisers are projecting the creation of 95,000 jobs per month, and said that unemployment would average 10 percent this year. (Hopefully, after getting burned by being too optimistic, these numbers might be a little too pessimistic.)

While anything is possible, I suspect a GOP message that “the Democrats’ policies have failed to effectively respond to the recession” is likely to be extremely resonant in most parts of the country this fall…

UPDATE: A reader adds, “One thing to remember is that the economy (at least employment) would really have to get better by September, not November.  The midterm election will be on November 2, which means that the last pre-election jobs report will be released in early October and will cover the month of September.”

So David Paterson will not seek reelection; a few days ago, the New York Times revealed that Paterson meddled where he had no authority, calling a woman who had taken out a protective order against one of his longtime aides; some said the act came close to meeting the legal definition of attempting to intimidate a witness.

The man Paterson replaced, Democrat Eliot Spitzer, is infamous for hiring prostitutes. The madam who provided him with the prostitutes is running for his office; she also alleges Spitzer was not the only governor who was a client of hers.

This news will probably bump another New York Democratic politician’s troubles out of the headlines; the House Ethics Committee has found that Ways and Means chairman Charles Rangel violated House rules by failing to properly disclose financial details of trips to the Caribbean.

Rangel spent yesterday at the health-care summit, where he spoke along with Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), who is also not seeking reelection, due to lousy poll numbers stemming in part from his sweetheart mortgage and a special “cottage” in Ireland that he undervalued on several years’ worth of financial disclosure forms.

We’re awaiting word from another Democrat, Rep. William Delahunt (D., Mass.), on whether he’ll retire; he’s facing the accusation that as district attorney, he shrugged off the potential threat posed by Alabama campus killer Amy Bishop in his handling of the 1986 shooting death of Bishop’s 18-year-old brother, Seth.

But at least all of this gets John Edwards out of the news.

The common thread here is a twisted sense of entitlement; all of these folks in high office encountered circumstances where the rules and laws that the rest of us have to follow proved inconvenient, too inconvenient to interrupt the important work of these important men.

Yes, the Republicans have their jerks and losers too.  But they operate in an environment where the mainstream media are ready to pounce and expose them. Sometimes the mainstream press gets interested in a Democrat’s misdeeds, as with Paterson; but often, it’s left to the National Enquirer, because everyone who covers John Edwards can just instinctively sense what an ethical, decent, and caring man he is.

Oh, and all of the commercials during the Olympics remind us that Rod Blagojevich is on “The Apprentice.”

The New York Post reports that Gov. David Paterson, Democrat of New York, will not seek election to another term. (I originally said reelection, but it would actually be his first election to the office.)

He had been polling in the teens and the low 20s . . . in the Democratic primary.

UPDATE: A news release that arrived almost simultaneously:

KRISTIN DAVIS, MANHATTAN MADAM TO FORMALLY ANNOUNCE CANDIDACY FOR GOVERNOR AT A PRESS CONFERENCE

Kristin Davis, known as the Manhattan Madam who supplied call girls for Eliot Spitzer when he was Attorney General and Governor, will announce her candidacy for Governor of New York State as an Independent Candidate at 11am on March 1, 2010 . . .

Davis will announce her intention to petition her way onto the ballot and will outline her platform, which includes legalization, regulation and taxation of prostitution and marijuana to generate urgently needed new revenues for New York State and her support for gay marriage.

Perhaps I am a twisted soul, but the vivid visual metaphor in this NRCC ad targeting North Dakota Democrat Rep. Earl Pomeroy amuses me:

Obviously it’s early, but there’s another article in today’s Boston Herald that offers the surprising suggestion that Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick is toast:

“This race is really between Charlie Baker and Tim Cahill,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the poll. “Whoever emerges between the Baker-Cahill race is likely to be the winner.”

Of course, this is a surprising analysis of a poll where Patrick leads, with “33 percent of the vote compared to Republican Baker’s 25 percent and Treasurer Timothy Cahill, running as an independent, close behind with 23 percent.”

But the poll’s other numbers show that Patrick is in a deep, deep hole:

Only 29 percent of likely voters said they thought the governor deserved re-election, compared to 60 percent who wanted to give “someone else” a chance. Equally grim for Patrick is a job approval rating of just 35 percent, and 68 percent who view him as a “weak leader.” Using the sour economy as an excuse won’t fly with voters, the survey shows. Only 22 percent agreed that Patrick is a “victim of the bad economy.”

Before David Axelrod managed Barack Obama, he managed Deval Patrick. Before the senator from Chicago told adoring crowds, “Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” the aspiring governor from Massachusetts told adoring crowds, “Don’t tell me words don’t matter.” In Massachusetts, an electorate selected a charismatic African-American lawyer who made bold, almost-too-good-to-be-true promises to reform government, only to be disappointed by waste, corruption, and a sense that the team around the executive was more interested in the appearance of competence than actual competence.

For obvious reasons, Republicans will want to see how the demo version of Barack Obama performs in a reelection bid once he has an actual record.

I’ve had Rep. Bill Delahunt (D., Mass.) on my retirement watch list for a while, and the Boston Herald spots another key indicator:

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt blew nearly $560,000 in campaign cash last year – much of it on lavish meals and a family-friendly payroll that includes his ex-wife, son-in-law and daughter – stoking speculation the Quincy Democrat is emptying his war chest and won’t seek re-election.

I suspect Charlie Crist flipping to independent would work the wonders for him that switching to the Democrats has done for Arlen Specter. Since December, in poll match-ups with Pat Toomey, Specter has trailed by 4, tied, trailed by 9, trailed by 14, trailed by 9, and trailed by 10.

“I’m leaving the party I’ve spent my entire political career in, based on the high-minded principle that these fools won’t vote for me.”

Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, who switched from the Democratic party to the GOP, has a rough road ahead, too.

UPDATE: I’m a wee bit less inclined to tear apart the National Republican Senatorial Committee than the next rightie, but two of the NRSC’s early picks this cycle have been Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist. Appalling judgment.

At Red County, Chip Hanlon fears the health-care summit is going badly for Republicans, and Quin Hillyer agrees that the GOP participants aren’t being tough enough.

I must be watching a different summit. I could be wrong; maybe I’m bringing too much of my own inclinations and viewing to this; maybe your average swing voter sees all this completely differently.

Of course, your average swing voter isn’t watching this; they’re at work (or, since this is Obama’s economy, looking for work).

There are a lot of flaws in this health-care bill, but I think one of the reasons it’s polling badly – opposition between 46 and 56 percent, support between 31 and 41 – is because it represents a big and unknown change to a public that is wary, and particularly nervous about big, sweeping changes during a time of economic uncertainty. As I’ve noted, Obama and the Democrats made a lot of similarly grandiose promises about the stimulus that haven’t panned out. Their credibility is pretty damaged right now.

The Democrats have a much, much tougher job today: They have to win over skeptics. The Republicans just have to keep pointing out all the flaws and ways it won’t work — cost, limitation of choice, overblown promises of cost containment, tax hikes, the likelihood of higher premiums, etc.; they haven’t even gotten to abortion or illegal-immigrant coverage yet — and give the skeptics enough reason to say, “Yeah, this just isn’t going to work; big, expensive government programs never live up to their promises.”

The Democrats are offering a lot of anecdotes about Baby Jesus, Steny Hoyer’s answering machine, and the teeth of the dead. Obama is at his least persuasive; he keeps ruling GOP arguments out of bounds for one reason or another – don’t hold up a copy of the bill, don’t cite Washington because people are angry at Washington right now, don’t ask for equal time, don’t focus on where we disagree, don’t remind me of what I said as candidate. I don’t think that transforms the skeptics into supporters.

Perhaps John McCain wasn’t the right person to remind Obama of the eight times he promised that all health-care negotiations would be televised on C-SPAN.

But Obama’s response did not hide his irritation about being reminded of his past grandiose promises, and reveals a certain breathtaking cynicism: “We’re not campaigning anymore, John. The election is over.”

I’m sure Obama wanted to paint McCain as bitter about his defeat, but in a way, it just underlines one of my favorite points about Obama: Everything he says sooner or later reaches its expiration date and gets forgotten when it becomes inconvenient.

His response really didn’t have anything substantive about McCain’s legitimate complaints about the process; he just said that he wanted to move on to the policy.

From Team Sabato:

All nine ratings changes this week benefit Republicans, further evidence of the many advantages they face across the country at this time. The Crystal Ball moves five Democratic seats from a “safe” rating onto our list of competitive races: KY-6 (Ben Chandler), MA-10 (Bill Delahunt), OH-13 (Betty Sutton), SC-5 (John Spratt), and VA-9 (Rick Boucher). In addition, two already competitive races for Democrats look even worse than before — IA-3 (Leonard Boswell) and IN-8 (OPEN, Brad Ellsworth) — and two Republican incumbents have improved their reelection prospects — AL-3 (Mike Rogers) and CA-44 (Ken Calvert).

PPP takes a look at some House races in New Mexico, and finds one GOP challenger in good shape to knock off a Democrat incumbent: Steve Pearce “leads [Democrat Harry] Teague 43-41 at this point. Pearce wins over more Democrats (18%) than Teague does Republicans (14%) and also has a 51-41 advantage with independents.”

Maybe it’s just a rough year to be a Democrat named Harry in the West.

In another district, Martin Heinrich “is in pretty solid shape, leading Jon Barela 45-36. He actually trails 44-31 with independents, but picks up basically the same share of the Democratic vote (73%) that Barela does of the Republican vote (74%). In a district with a heavy Democratic lean that’s enough for the early lead.”

Obviously, Pearce is in a good spot. Barela has a tougher road, but I like any GOP candidate who can win the independent vote healthily. It’s a D+5 district, which is a challenge but not that overwhelming.

I wonder if any lawmaker attending the summit will mention public opinion, as shown in the USA Today/Gallup poll today:

Suppose the two sides do not reach agreement on a bill. Would you strongly favor, favor, oppose or strongly oppose Congress passing a healthcare bill similar to the ones proposed by President Obama and the Democrats in the House and Senate?

42% Favor, 49% Oppose

Would you strongly favor, favor, oppose or strongly oppose the Democrats in the senate using a parliamentary procedure that would allow them to avoid a Republican filibuster and pass their healthcare bill by a simple majority vote?

39% Favor, 52% Oppose

Stuart Rothenberg:

If [GOP pollster Bill] McInturff is correct, and I believe he is, Democrats would face an uncomfortable trade-off. They could try to pass a bill they desperately want and one that would please base voters. But in doing so, they would give Republicans more ammunition to use against them, possibly solidifying the GOP’s hold on independents and swing voters.

Failure to pass a health care bill is the single worst outcome possible for Democrats. Unfortunately for party leaders, passing a bill using reconciliation looks like a very close second.

Rothenberg also repeats a point from McInturff that the Louisiana Purchase and Cornhusker Kickback were absolutely toxic to an already skeptical public. This morning I chatted with Ovid Lamontagne, a Republican businessman who’s running for Senate in New Hampshire. He repeated a commonsense observation from a Granite State waitress about those special deals: “Any bill that people have to be bribed into voting for can’t any good.”

Two days ago, I wrote:

I suspect the decline in Obama’s approval rating in the past year — particularly on the economy — has come from Americans who took that leap of faith with the new president and felt like they endured a crash landing. They just don’t trust Obama’s pledges about the effects of legislation anymore, and that’s why no matter how grandiose and appealing the promises surrounding the health-care bill get, the numbers barely budge.

This morning, Nancy Pelosi pledged that passing the health-care bill would create 4 million new jobs, and 400,000 of those would be created almost immediately.

You know, if I was trying to pass a health-care bill, I would try to avoid repeating the exact same promises that were made about the stimulus that didn’t pan out.

The mud offensive against Marco Rubio begins:

U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio charged grocery bills, repairs to the family minivan and purchases from a wine store less than a mile from his West Miami home to the Republican Party of Florida while he was speaker of the Florida House, according to records obtained by the St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald.

Rubio said Wednesday that he paid for all personal expenses billed to an American Express card given to him by the party to use from 2005 to 2008, when he left public office. The rest of the charges, he said, were legitimate party expenses.

Those expenses include a $1,000 charge at Braman Honda in Miami for repairs to the family car in January 2008. Rubio said the minivan was damaged by parking attendants at a political function and that the party agreed to cover half of his insurance deductible. The party also paid $2,976 for him to rent a car in Miami for five weeks.

Rubio said the party allowed him to put personal expenses on the card and the party reviewed his bill monthly.

Interesting to see Charlie Crist trying to score on this topic:

It cost taxpayers about $4,800 for Crist to fly on a state plane to Tampa and Hollywood. In both cities, Crist held ceremonial bill signings for legislation to make it easier for low-income families to get health insurance under the Florida KidCare program, and to expand the role of advocates known as guardians ad litem to protect children’s legal rights.

Crist had actually signed both bills into law earlier in the day in the state Capitol. The ”fly-around,” as it is known, put the issue he was touting, and his image, on newscasts in the state’s two biggest TV markets.

I’m not sure if Rubio used his party AmEx for anything inappropriate, but even if he did, I’d prefer a lawmaker use party money unwisely than taxpayer money unwisely.