PunditPending

Here is an update on some 2010 Midterm primaries:

PA-12 — Hafer Drops Out: Former State Treasurer and Auditor General Barbara Hafer is dropping her bid to succeed the late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), leaving a mostly clear Democratic path to November for Mark Critz — whom state party leaders already nominated for the May 18 special election. Hafer announced her bid one week after Murtha’s death in early February. However, party leaders preferred Critz, a former Murtha aide.

GA-7 — No Ralph Reed: Former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed announced this morning he will not be running for the open seat in Georgia’s 7th District. Reed drove up speculation in the last day that he would run by announcing a forthcoming announcement. It did, however, draw attention to his work founding the Faith and Freedom Coalition — which he said will work to register “an estimated one million new faith-based voters and make tens of millions of voter contacts” in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

MI-1– Stupak Gets Primaried: Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is now most well known for leading the charge of pro-life Democrats to include stricter abortion language in the stalled health care reform legislation. Because of this, a Democratic activist named Connie Saltonstall, who is a former Charlevoix County commissioner, has announced she’s challenging him in the primary. “It’s his willingness to not have health care pass over his abortion position that has people like me upset,” Saltonstall said. Stupak represents the Upper Peninsula and 16 of the state’s northernmost counties on the Lower Peninsula.

OH-10 — Kucinich Gets Kos Warning: Liberal Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-Ohio) opposition to the health care bill because it doesn’t go far enough could earn him a Netroots-backed primary challenge, according to DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas. “I don’t think he gets a pass,” Moulitsas said last night on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” “I don’t care what his excuse is.” Moulitsas, who called the reform bill “a good first step,” compared Kucinich unfavorably to Ralph Nader, who “paved the way for eight years of George Bush” by running against Democrats in presidential elections.

I, for one, am still chewing over Mr. Beck’s apology.

UPDATE: Via the Feed, Greg has video of the one mildly-amusing portion of the interview. Two words: tickle fight.

Friday night on Real Time, Bill Maher, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and I discussed Move Your Money. Andrew liked the idea, but worried that it might cause a run on the too-big-to-fail banks. It won’t. But it’s clear from what’s happening in Washington that we need a citizens’ intervention to reform our financial institutions. Creating a de facto Glass-Steagall by separating our government-guaranteed deposits from the casino/investment side of the banking industry is a great start. More people are reaching the same conclusion. A new poll found that 9 percent of Americans have already moved their money out of a big bank as a protest. And the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to require any bank doing business with the city to reinvest in the community. It’s about time citizens and local governments inject some much-needed competition into our increasingly oligarchic banking system.

The nationwide furor around gay marriage has eclipsed at least temporarily the health crisis that continues to plague gay men. At the same time that we heard wedding bells and pledges of life-long fidelity from gay men in Massachusetts and elsewhere, we have soaring rates of HIV in homosexual men. One almost feels guilty bringing up the subject of sexual responsibility at a time when the gay community is waging a pitched battle to secure the right to marry. But ironically, gay marriage — and the values any sanctioned marriage encourages — may be one of the single most successful ways to promote safer sex.

In the past, most everything in gay sub-culture revolved around being single and available. Long-term couples often felt like they were on the outside looking in. Slick advertising for circuit parties where men “party” for days on end became the order of the day. There was little room for marital bliss in this picture. And while the yearning for committed relationships and love often burns as brightly in gay men as in anyone else, it didn’t have a lot of support. No gay wedding magazines or announcements in the newspapers. Meanwhile, many gay men became conditioned to see becoming HIV positive as a natural right of passage of gay life.

Suddenly everything seems different. It is hip to be gay and be married. In 2004, Massachusetts — the state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation — paved the way, and despite fear and protestations, the Commonwealth somehow survived. In the heart of the homeland, Iowa followed, joined last year by Connecticut. California also took a step closer to this goal, which resulted court rulings and the landmark federal court case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger currently before the 9th circuit court.

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