Rep. Vance Mcallister (R-LA) has scheduled a “special press conference” Monday in which he is expected to reveal whether he’ll run for re-election this fall, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

“After surveillance video from last December was leaked in April showing him kissing a married staffer, McAllister announced he would serve out the remainder of his term but not seek re-election. Later, McAllister said he reserved the right to change his mind.”

Update: Roll Call reports McAllister will run for re-election.

As he lay dying in 2012, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) asked Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) to appoint Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI), “a protégée and the daughter of a gas station owner here, to fill his seat. But Mr. Abercrombie, a fellow Democrat, disregarded that deathbed request, choosing his lieutenant governor, Brian Schatz, as the interim senator instead,” the New York Times reports.

“Eighteen months later, the decision to defy one of the most popular politicians in Hawaii history has come back to rock Mr. Abercrombie and the Democratic Party, setting off a backlash that threatens to topple both Mr. Schatz and the governor — who had already been struggling during an occasionally tumultuous first term — in the Democratic primary on Aug. 9.”

Politico: “Hillary Clinton is having a very hard time being rich. After two weeks of verbal gaffes and unflattering headlines, Democratic operatives, political historians and counselors to the nation’s wealthy agree that Clinton’s current strategy — acting like she’s not incredibly rich and made her money the old-fashioned way — is not working and needs to change. Fast.”

Meanwhile, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Annenberg survey finds Clinton “is widely viewed by Democrats as empathetic to average
Americans, but independents are split on whether she can relate to their
problems.”

The New Republic: “Two other factors dovetailed with Clinton’s personal efforts at reconciliation. First was the remarkable overlap between her and Obama’s worldviews, which made them natural allies… The second was Team Obama’s realization that it had enemies, even inside the administration, and they didn’t look much like Hillary Clinton.”

“The logic of Clinton’s rapprochement with the Obama crew also explained her rehabilitation across the rest of the party. Clinton’s willingness to join the Cabinet boosted her favorability rating more than 10 points among Democrats between late 2008 and early 2009. And with the party largely united on everything from tax cuts to entitlements to climate change to health care, there was no ideological rift to come between her and any particular faction.”

Washington Post: “Ever since Dave Brat dethroned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor this month, the political newcomer has vowed to bring together the warring factions of the Republican Party. But a dramatic showdown in a Republican committee meeting in Brat’s congressional district this week shows that Brat — and the party — have a long way to go.”

“Cantor loyalists who still sit on the 7th District Committee outmaneuvered Brat supporters to strip the committee of most of its budget — nearly $400,000. In a savvy bit of parliamentary procedure, they voted to send the money to national GOP organizations based in Washington — leaving empty-handed the conservative activists who planned to use the money to build a get-out-the-vote operation to complement Brat’s fledgling campaign.”

Mississippi U.S. Senate candidate Chris McDaniel (R) “hasn’t given up, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that he’s still looking into voting irregularities in his runoff election against incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R),” Politico reports.

Said McDaniel: “We’ve found more than a thousand examples of that in one county alone widespread irregularities.”

Oklahoma congressional candidate Tim Murray (R) has announced he plans to contest this week’s primary election of Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) saying “it is widely known” that Lucas “is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike,” KFOR reports.

Murray says on his website that Lucas was executed in Ukraine in 2011.

Lucas responded: “Many things have been said about me, said to me during course of my campaigns. This is the first time I’ve ever been accused of being a body double or a robot.”

A new Rasmussen poll in Mississippi finds Sen. Thad Cochran (R) comfortably ahead of challenger Travis Childers (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 46% to 34%.

Sources tell the Jackson Clarion Ledger that Mark Mayfield, vice chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party, has committed suicide.

Mayfield was “one of the three men charged with conspiring with Clayton Kelly to photograph Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-MS) bedridden wife in her nursing home and create a political video against Cochran.”

A new InsiderAdvantage poll in Georgia finds Gov. Nathan Deal (R) leading challenger Jason Carter (D) in the race for governor by seven points, 47% to 40%.