Welcome to the Thursday edition of your open thread. I’m in Las Vegas right now so my posting may be spotty. I didn’t arrive in Vegas until 11 PM their time and by the time I got my bags, got to the hotel and checked in it was 1 AM. Do you know how hard it is to find food at 1 AM? I thought Vegas was supposed to be an all-night kind of town but apparently not.
There’s a lot of interesting political stories out there right now. Two relate to U.S. Senate races. In Connecticut, Rep. Rob Simmons is throwing his hat back into the ring for the Republican nomination. He is running against WWE executive and millionaire Linda McMahon. He had dropped out and promised to stay out of the race after McMahon was endorsed in the May Republican convention. He must think he has a better shot against Blumenthal but both of them are polling about 15 pts. behind him.
In West Virginia, Democratic Governor Joe Manchin lost his most formidable Republican opponent, Rep. Shelly Moore Capito. He gained some opponents in a Democratic primary, including a 95-year-old former WV Secretary of State Ken Hechler. Hechler worked in the Truman administration as well.