Hotline On Call

Former Rep. Mark Schauer is getting his campaign team in place as he prepares to launch a gubernatorial bid in the coming weeks. A Michigan Democratic operative told Hotline Tuesday that Schauer will tap BJ Neidhardt to manage his campaign, reprising his role from Schauer's 2008 congressional bid.

A new poll released Tuesday shows a tight gubernatorial race in Michigan, and shows Democratic Rep. Gary Peters with the early edge in the Senate race.

Rep. Gary Peters has turned to a familiar face to manage his Senate campaign: Julie Petrick, the Democratic strategist who ran his first congressional race in 2008, will take over his statewide bid Tuesday.

After a dismal 2012, there's no "silver bullet" for the Minnesota GOP, says its new chair, Keith Downey. But a 2014 comeback, Downey believes, is still within reach if the weakened party can regain its footing in time to capitalize on a few big opportunities.

Stillwater Mining Company, the largest public corporation in Montana and one of the state's largest employers, announced Monday that former Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer was elected chairman of the company's board. He will help lead a search to replace the company's longtime CEO, Frank McAllister, several weeks after Schweitzer and three other outsiders were elected to the eight-member board in a takeover attempt.

Former lawmakers are helping their children in so many races this year that we might as well dub next Election Day Take Your Kid to Congress Day.

Don't think it's a done deal that Sen. David Vitter will be Louisiana's next governor; he still has to get through Lieutenant Gov. Jay Dardenne. And Dardenne is making moves to show he's ready for a fight.

Former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez on Friday will launch his first television ad of the general election, emphasizing his military background. "I had a calling from an early age to serve my family's adopted country," Gomez says in the spot after introducing himself in Spanish. The ad does not mention Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, Gomez's opponent in the special election to replace Secretary of State John Kerry.

Trailing badly in the polls, New Jersey state Sen. Barbara Buono, the likely Democratic nominee for governor in the fall, is doing her best to link Gov. Chris Christie to the national GOP. “I didn’t think the Republicans could find anybody that was as out of touch with middle class values as, you know, Mitt Romney was,” Buono told Talking Points Memo earlier this month. “But I think they found somebody in Chris Christie.”

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe has taken a slight lead over Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia's gubernatorial race, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday morning. McAuliffe leads Cuccinelli, 43 percent to 38 percent, with 17 percent of voters undecided, a minor boost for McAuliffe, who has been statistically tied with Cuccinelli in each of the university's three polls this year, while other public polling has shown diverging results.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has purchased TV advertising time for the next two weeks with a Minneapolis station, according to filings with the Federal Communications Commission.

Cory Booker is quite popular in Hollywood. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported his week that guests at a recent Los Angeles fundraiser for the Newark Mayor included Steven Spielberg and Bruce Willis. He previously has received contributions from directors Ron Howard and Rob Reiner. But Booker's big-name supporters don't only come from the movie-making business: He's also a hit with athletes.

Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, may not be running for governor of her state, but she's still running against Gov. Neil Abercrombie as she gears up for a 2014 Senate primary.

It must feel good to be drafted to run for office. But it may feel less good to be drafted explicitly as a back-up plan.

Anthony Weiner is still mulling whether to mount a run for mayor of New York this fall, and the former Democratic congressman's latest campaign filings do not indicate any concrete movement in that direction that haven't previously been disclosed.