“A day after Anthony Weiner acknowledged that he continued sending lewd messages to women even after he resigned from Congress, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he hadn’t used prostitutes after his own downfall in 2008,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Said Spitzer: “Absolutely not. And we’re done answering those questions.”

“The racy online conversations now convulsing Anthony D. Weiner’s campaign for mayor began with an angry Facebook message,” the New York Times reports.

“Not long after Mr. Weiner resigned from Congress, the 22-year-old woman reached out to express her disappointment in him. Mr. Weiner responded and, within a week, their exchanges veered from politics to sex, with the pair trading dozens of explicit photographs.”

The account “fit his longstanding pattern. In rapid and reckless fashion, he sought to transform informal conversations with female fans into graphically sexually exchanges, frequently laced with lewd language and bawdy images.”

A new Field Poll in California finds that a majority of Californians, 51% to 33%, approve of the job done by Gov. Jerry Brown (D).

The survey “also finds that a 43% to 38% plurality of the overall electorate, and a 57% to 22% majority of Democrats, are inclined to support Brown in a re-election bid should he run for another term.”

Jonathan Martin looks at the chapter on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) flirtation with running for president in Dan Balz’s Collision 2012 noting that the author “relies on Mr. Christie to essentially narrate the tale, which the governor, a man of considerable ego, clearly relishes.”

“But Mr. Christie’s recounting of his role in 2012 also offers a reminder of his high — some would say excessive — self-regard, and why some in Mr. Romney’s campaign were so uneasy about possibly putting him on the Republican ticket last year. It is hardly unusual for a politician to have an outsized ego, but Mr. Christie lacks the masking subtlety possessed by many in his business.”

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli (R) “once suggested that
society would benefit from enforcing anti-adultery laws,” Politico reports.

“Speaking to
Richmond’s Style Weekly magazine back in 2008, Cuccinelli defended laws
criminalizing extramarital sex, saying that such restrictions ‘ought to
stay on the books.’ “Frankly it wouldn’t hurt to enforce them more,”
Cuccinelli is quoted saying. The magazine paraphrased Cuccinelli drawing
a comparison to ‘perjury inasmuch as the occasional prosecution or two
would get people thinking twice.'”

A new MassINC poll in Massachusetts shows that Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) leads former Sen. Scott Brown (R) in a possible 2014 race, 43% to 38%.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) isn’t waiting for primary challenger Matt Bevin (R) to formally launch his campaign today. He’s already got a negative ad running.

[Read more…]

“I would have taken back the pond scum comment.”

— Failed Massachusetts Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez (R), in an interview with WBUR, reflecting on his campaign against Ed Markey (D), adding “I let my emotions get the better of me.”