Photograph by Steven Senne/AP Photo

Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Gabriel Gomez, right, points toward the audience as he takes the stage with his daughters Olivia, 13, left, Antonia, 10, second from left, and wife Sarah, behind, before addressing an audience with a victory speech at a watch party in Cohasset, Mass., on April 30, 2013.

The year was 1976, Gabriel Gomez remembers.

He was playing Little League.

Rep. Ed Markey was first running for Congress in Massachusetts.

Now Gomez, a former Navy SEAL and son of Colombian immigrants, will face Markey in a contest for the former Senate seat of Secretary of State John Kerry.

In a bilingual victory address last night, the Republican who defeated a former federal prosecutor with a good old Boston name of Sullivan and a state representative in their party’s primary spoke of the brief campaign ahead.

The special election is June 25. The Republicans already are on Markey’s case. And Markey is already on Gomez’s:

“In a sign of how seriously the Markey campaign views the upcoming challenge,” Bloomberg’s Annie Linskey reports,  his staff took just four minutes after Gomez was declared the victor to put out a statement accusing him of being “the first domino for the national GOP seeking to take control of the U.S. Senate and enact an extreme agenda.”

Gomez, 47, asked supporters last night to think back to 1976.

“Gerald Ford was president. The Internet did not yet exist,” he said. “Eight-track players were big. Boston’s first album had just come out. The first Rocky movie debuted in theaters.”

“The median price of new homes was$44,000. Our national debt, which today is over 16 Trillion, was not even 1 Trillion. Al Gore had not yet invented the Internet.”

“Einstein famously said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” he said of the 36-year House veteran he will face in June. “Congress has enough politicians. If we keep sending politicians to Washington we will keep getting the same results.”

“If you are looking for a rigid partisan, I’m not your guy,” Gomez said. “If you are looking for a person who will take orders from party leaders, I’m not your guy. If you are looking for someone who refuses to work with the other party, I’m not your guy. If you are looking for someone who will participate in driving our national debt higher, I’m not your guy. If you are looking for an experienced slick talking politician, I’m definitely not your guy.”

“But, if you are looking for a person that will reach across party lines…I’d be honored to have your support. If you are looking for a person who will put principle ahead of politics…join our campaign. If you are looking for a person who believes we can turn this country around and grow our economy…it’s go time.”

In the bluest of blue states, a Republican named Scott Brown succeeded the long-serving and late Ted Kennedy for a time. Brown, who lost last year to the first female senator from the Bay State, Elizabeth Warren, campaigned with a working man’s profile. Gomez will campaign with a service man’s profile (and, oh, a Harvard Business School degree). He supports gay marriage and a path to citizenship for the undocumented.

In 1976, Massachusetts was as Democratic as a state came.

Today, Republican activists like what they see:

congrats to a fresh new face in republican politics @gomezforma. b.globe.com/16kU2hY

— Alex Castellanos (@alexcast) May 1, 2013

Original post is Gabriel Gomez: The Year was 1976 by Political Capital.

Almost 669,000 votes were cast in the Democratic race won by Martha Coakley. By contrast, Scott Brown snagged the Republican nod in a primary that attracted about 165,000 voters. Given that disparity in party affiliation, how could Brown even dream of winning the special election a month later? He did, of course, catching political lightning in a bottle and defeating Coakley, 52 percent to 47 percent.

With John Kerry leaving the Senate to become secretary of state, Massachusetts Democrats have vowed to avoid a repeat of three years ago. Yet their plans to hang onto Kerry’s seat may be complicated by an intra-party skirmish.

A new poll of the state’s Democrats shows that in less than a month, support for the frontrunner, Rep. Ed Markey, has dropped by 9 percentage points while backing for his main challenger, fellow House member Stephen Lynch, has risen by the same amount. With more than two months remaining until the April 30 primary, that’s not a trendline that Markey, who Kerry has endorsed, wants to continue.

Markey had 43 percent in the latest survey, compared with 28 percent for Lynch.

A tightening battle between the two could leave a disspirited losing side that undercuts enthusiasm for the winner. That could be a moot point. With Brown taking a pass on running in the latest race after losing to Elizabeth Warren last November, some Massachusetts political observers are skeptical that any other Republican can gather by next week’s deadline the 10,000 petition signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

State Rep. Dan Winslow, former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and Gabriel Gomez, a former Navy SEAL, are trying to clear that bar. Assuming Republicans are able to field a candidate, the party’s nominee will start out with little statewide name identification and face long odds in the June 25 special election.

Massachusetts voters have seen that scenario before, and responded to it by surprising the nation.

Original post is As Massachusetts Senate Race Gears Up, Will History Repeat Itself? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Tagg Romney gives an interview during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Florida.

Updated at 5: 15 pm EST

Tagg Romney, the eldest son of defeated 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, isn’t ready to join the family political dynasty. At least not yet.

A story in today’s Boston Herald reported that  the younger Romney, 42, was considering running in the Massachusetts special election to replace John Kerry, who gave up his U.S. Senate seat to become secretary of state. The report was nothing more than media speculation, a person familiar with Romney’s thinking told Bloomberg News.

Romney  proved the point with an e-mailed statement late this afternoon:

“I have been humbled by the outreach I received this weekend encouraging me to become a candidate for the U.S. Senate. I love my home state and admit it would be an honor to represent the citizens of our great Commonwealth. However, I am currently committed to my business and to spending as much time as I can with my wife and children. The timing is not right for me, but I am hopeful that the people of Massachusetts will select someone of integrity, vision, and compassion as our next U.S. senator.”

Romney was a frequent surrogate and top strategist on his father’s president campaign. Romney founded and runs Solamere, a Boston-based venture capital firm, and is the father of six children — the youngest of whom are infant twins.

Add to that his father’s less-than-stellar performance last year in the heavily Democratic state of Massachusetts — Mitt Romney lost the state he governed from 2003 to 2007 by 23 percentage points in the 2012 race for the White House — and a Tagg Romney candidacy would seem like an even longer shot.

Annie Linskey contributed reporting. 

Original post is Will He or Won’t He? Tagg Romney Says No to Senate by Political Capital.

Now the Massachusetts Democrat, a  onetime adviser to President Barack Obama on financial issues, has formed a leadership political action committee underscoring that theme.

The Warren-sponsored PAC for a Level Playing Field was created Dec. 20, according to papers filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The leadership PAC can pay for some political expenses including donations to candidates for office. Warren raised about $42 million en route to unseating Republican incumbent Scott Brown on Nov. 6.

Warren is among more than a dozen incoming freshmen who have formed leadership PACs, which were “originally the province of senior House and Senate members” and are now “as ubiquitous as re-election committees, allowing lawmakers to collect additional money from their supporters,” as Bloomberg News reported earlier this month.

Warren will become the state’s senior senator weeks into her tenure with Obama’s nomination of Sen. John Kerry for secretary of state and will serve on the Banking Committee. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick will appoint an interim successor for Kerry, and a special election will be held 145-160 days after his departure from the Senate.

Original post is Elizabeth Warren PAC Seeks to `Level the Playing Field’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Gretchen Ertl/AP Photo

Sen. Scott Brown after voting in Wrentham, Mass., on Nov. 6, 2012.

One defining characteristic of the 2012 election was that nine in 10 members of Congress who wanted new terms on Nov. 6 were successful, even as approval of Congress was at or near record lows.

Scott Brown, a Massachusetts Republican, was the only senator defeated for re-election on Nov. 6, tying a post-World War II record low of just one senator losing in the November general election.

Here are the five times in the 33 election years from 1946 to 2010 in which just one senator was beaten in the general election:

• 2004: Tom Daschle, a three-term South Dakota Democrat, the Senate minority leader and a former majority leader, lost to former Rep. John Thune.

• 1996: Larry Pressler, a three-term South Dakota Republican, fell to Rep. Tim Johnson.

• 1990: Rudy Boschwitz, a two-term Minnesota Republican, was defeated by Paul Wellstone, a political science professor.

• 1966: Paul Douglas, a three-term Illinois Democrat, lost to Chuck Percy, a business executive. (Percy’s son-in-law, Jay Rockefeller, is a Democratic senator from West Virginia.)

• 1960: J. Allen Frear, a two-term Delaware Democrat, was unseated by Gov. Caleb Boggs. (In 1972, Boggs was unseated by a 29-year-old Democratic lawyer named Joe Biden.)

Original post is One-Senator Loss in November Matched Post-World War II Low by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Senator Scott Brown, a Republican from Massachusetts, speaks during an interview at the Capitol building in Washington, in this July 15, 2010 file photo.

So was that a cheerful goodbye or something else?

It’s going-away-speech day on the Senate floor, and so far the one most likely to generate buzz came from defeated Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown,  who told his colleagues that “victory and defeat is temporary.”

Brown, who was unseated by Democrat Elizabeth Warren on Nov. 6, showed how interested he’ll remain in the inner workings of the Senate, talking about preserving minority rights and maintaining the filibuster. “We need to continue to have that vibrant debate,” he said. “To take that away and limit it, I think is a big big mistake.”

It’s not much of a stretch to connect the dots from talk about a Cabinet appointment for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to the possibility of another Senate run for Brown, and the short-timer’s closing remarks will only fuel more speculation.

Brown thanked the people of Massachusetts and said pointedly that this was his “closing floor speech for — this session — in the United States Senate.”

“Depending on what happens and where we go, all of us, we may obviously meet again,” he said, “but I’m looking forward to continuing on with those friendships, with continuing on working with my staff.”

Original post is Scott Brown: `We May… Meet Again’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Charles Pertwee/Bloomberg

Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp., is projected during a news conference at the opening of Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s Marina Bay Sands Resort & Casino in Singapore.

Federal Election Commission reports due last night show a blitz of last-minute super-political action committee action in key Senate and House races. The late investments yielded mixed results.

Less than three weeks before Election Day, a super-PAC backing Virginia Senate candidate George Allen was down to its last couple hundred thousand dollars.

Then, a windfall. Las Vegas casino billionaire — and 2012′s most generous political giver – Sheldon Adelson wired Independence Virginia PAC $1.5 million on Oct. 22. Another Adelson million arrived Nov. 1.

In Massachusetts, the America 360 Committee super-PAC was under similar cash pressure. Again, Adelson came to the rescue, this time with $500,000 to support Sen. Scott Brown’s reelection bid.

Last-minute donors like Adelson show the power of super-PACs, untethered from campaign-finance limits, to harvest and spend big in a race. Those two super-PACs raised about half of all their money just in the two weeks before Election Day.

Both Allen and Brown lost, but probably not for lack of money. Allen’s challenger, Tim Kaine, was a prodigious fundraiser, and Brown’s opponent, Elizabeth Warren, got an assist from a super-PAC called Rethink PAC.

Nearly 90 percent of the $1.4 million that Rethink raised last year came in the door just since Oct. 1, FEC reports show.

Six-figure cash donations and in-kind staff time came from the Massachusetts Teachers Union and Service Employees International Union. Paul Egerman, who founded eScription Inc., and Joseph Alsop, co-founder of Progress Software Corp., each contributed $56,000.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also played late and played big. He formed Independence USA three weeks before Election Day, funding it with $10 million. He is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

The super-PAC spent more than $3.3 million in the California congressional race that pitted Democrat Gloria Negrete McCleod against incumbent Democrat Joe Baca. McLeod won. Bloomberg’s super-PAC didn’t see the same success in Florida, where it spent more than $2.3 million in a failed effort to elect Democrat Val Demings.

Another fall pop-up super-PAC, the Hardworking Americans Committee, focused on trying to unseat Democratic Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow. A rush of $1.2 million in donation in the final two weeks before the election paid for attack ads and phone calls, FEC reports show. Stabenow still won.

Who underwrote the Hardworking Americans’ spending spree with a $1 million?

Adelson again.

Original post is Super-PACs’ Last Gasp: Mixed by Political Capital.

All 16 Democratic senators who sought re-election won new terms.

Five of the six Republican senators on last week’s ballot also prevailed.

The exception was Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who lost to Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren. The Republican list includes Dean Heller of Nevada, who won a full six-year term on Nov. 6 — 18 months after he was appointed to the Senate.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 95.5 by Political Capital.

Republicans Peter Blute and Peter Torkildsen were first elected to Congress in 1992, re-elected in 1994 and then defeated in 1996. Blute lost to Democrat Jim McGovern, and Torkildsen was felled by Democrat John Tierney. Both McGovern and Tierney continue to serve today.

Republicans made a determined effort to unseat Tierney on Nov. 6, though he prevailed by one percentage point over Republican Richard Tisei, a former state senator. Democrats won all nine House seats and also unseated Republican Scott Brown from the Senate.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 18 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

Sen. Scott Brown speaks at a rally in Cumnock Hall at the University of Massachusetts Lowell campus.

The campaign arm of the Senate Republicans sent $2.4 million to the Massachusetts Republican Party to help Sen. Scott Brown fend off a serious from Democrat Elizabeth Warren on Nov. 6.

The transfer by the National Republican Senatorial Committee accounted for 60 percent of the $4.1 million it sent to state parties during that period, according to a Political Capital analysis of campaign finance documents on file with the Senate’s public records office.

The NRSC sent $370,000 to Montana, where Rep. Denny Rehberg is trying to unseat Sen. Jon Tester, and $360,000 to North Dakota to help Rep. Rick Berg in his race against Heidi Heitkamp, a former state attorney general.

The NRSC sent $325,000 to Wisconsin, $305,000 to Nevada, $180,680 to New Mexico and $102,500 to Indiana. Those four states also have Senate races.

Senate campaign committees and candidates file reports on paper because they’re exempt from the electronic filing requirements that have applied to other federal committees and candidates for more than a decade.

Following are some other noteworthy disclosures from Senate candidates in the past few days:

Montana, Wisconsin: Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chairman and chief executive officer of Blackstone Group LP, and his wife donated in the past week to Rehberg in Montana and to former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, who’s running against Representative Tammy Baldwin for an open Senate seat.

Nebraska: Chuck Hagel’s endorsement of Democrat Bob Kerrey today followed  a donation Oct. 30 to Kerrey’s campaign by Hagel’s wife Lilibet.

Actors Tom Hanks, his wife Rita Wilson and Annette Bening donated to Kerrey’s campaign on Oct. 29. Louis Freeh, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, gave $1,000 to Kerrey’s campaign on Oct. 25.

North Dakota: Like Kerrey, Heitkamp is getting from some Hollywood luminaries. Director Judd Apatow, actress Rita Wilson and Barry Meyer, Warner Bros. chairman and CEO, donated to her campaign in the past week.

Nevada: Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp., donated $2,000 yesterday to the campaign of Sen. Dean Heller, a Republican running for a full term against Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley.

Original post is Senate Republicans Send $2.4 Million to Massachusetts in Aid of Brown by Political Capital.