Sleeper Cell
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee perfected the art of thinking outside the box last year in facing an unfavorable political landscape. It recruited a little-known Democratic House member to run against veteran Sen. Richard Lugar, on the off chance the incumbent would lose in the primary. The committee persuaded a well-liked former state official to run in North Dakota, even though few pundits gave her a chance. And in Massachusetts, the DSCC backed a political novice, Elizabeth Warren, hoping she'd rally the base against popular GOP incumbent Scott Brown. Those long shots paid off. Facing an even tougher political environment in 2014, the committee is nonetheless planning to contest Senate races in deeply conservative Georgia, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Party officials are talking with a surprise recruit in West Virginia: pro-coal lawyer Nick Preservati, who is planning to announce a campaign within the next month. In Georgia, Democrats are eyeing Rep. John Barrow, but even if he doesn't run, they've talked with a few political outsiders who could step in and mount credible campaigns. And while the buzz centers on actress Ashley Judd running in Kentucky, Democrats are quietly looking at other options, believing that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is vulnerable against a more moderate Democrat, such as Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. With the right candidate in West Virginia, a weak GOP opponent in Georgia, and McConnell shaky in Kentucky, all of these races are winnable for Democrats and could force the GOP to worry about its flank.
Josh Kraushaar
He Has No Use for That Tooth Fairy, Either
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, had an unusually large gaggle of reporters chasing after him as he headed into the Tuesday caucus lunches this week. "What have I done wrong? I'm trying to figure this out," he joked. After being pressed on his plans for the budget, Hatch was thrown what should have been a softball question about his birthday plans. (He turned 79 on March 22.) But don't go there. "Oh, I hate birthdays," he said with disdain. "When I was a kid, we were so poor that the neighbor kids had birthday parties and I never did, and I got so I just blotted it out of my mind, and it's carried over even to today. I hate birthdays. Not because I'm getting older. I mean, I admit that." Presents, as you might have guessed, are out. "I don't want anything," Hatch said. But a staffer reminded him that he did receive a present for Christmas from his office that he liked, a statue of a red-tailed hawk. "Oh, yeah. They gave me a statue of a tough old bird, which I had, of course, made very clear in the last election. I'm a tough old bird, you know?"
