FL-13 Fallout Watch: Two Democratic House candidates drop out this week.

(H/T: AoSHQ) The two were Mike Parrish in PA-06 (Lean Republican) and Buffie McFadyen in CO-0[3] (Safe Republican). Of the two, obviously Parrish is the more disappointing news for Democrats… but it’s interesting to note that ‘R+5’ is apparently enough to be effectively out of the realm of possibility for Democrats this cycle anyway.  I remember a time when it was not, and that time was 2006 and 2008.

I know, I know, it’s vaguely minor news and everything.  But if you’re wondering why people are making certain assumptions about the 2014 election cycle, it’s because of stories like these.  You look at who is running, who is retiring, who is staying out of races, who is jumping in… money, too, of course, but money tends to get cancelled out by other money.  In the end, the people running are the biggest part of this picture.  To mangle Machiavelli… gold may not get you good candidates, but good candidates can always get you gold. Continue reading FL-13 Fallout Watch: Two Democratic House candidates drop out this week.

NRCC outrecruits DCCC with female candidates.

Way to bury the ledes there, WaPo.

I suppose that I should be nicer. After all, the Washington Post bothered to actually report that there has been a heavy surge in female recruitment by the GOP this cycle (H/T: The New Ledger):

Nearly two years after Sarah Palin became the Republican Party’s first female nominee for vice president, record numbers of Republican women are running for House seats, driving the overall count of women running for both the House and the Senate to a new high.

The surge in female candidates has taken place largely under the radar. The previous high came in 1992, the “Year of the Woman” that pushed the percentage of women in Congress into the double digits for the first time. That year, 222 women filed to run for the House and 29 for Senate contests.

So far this year, 239 women are candidates for the House and 31 for the Senate, according to data from the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.

Continue reading NRCC outrecruits DCCC with female candidates.