Tuesday's Starting Lineup

Good Tuesday morning. Are we allowed to cheer for Alex Ovechkin again? We have a little Olympic jet lag.

Here's today's Starting Lineup, previewing the people who will matter in politics today:

ORGANIZED LABOR: They are a major part of the Dem coalition, but labor unions haven't gotten their pound of flesh over the last year. EFCA, also called "card check" by opponents, never went anywhere, and some wondered if it ever would, even with a Dem super-majority (remember, Sen. Arlen Specter even said his party switch wouldn't change his outlook on the bill). Now, in Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), labor has an opportunity to remind Dems of their importance to the movement.

The AFL-CIO and other labor groups have pledged $3M in independent expenditures on behalf of AR LG Bill Halter (D), who announced yesterday he will challenge Lincoln in a Dem primary. Add that to liberal groups upset over Lincoln's waffling on health care reform -- as of this morning, ActBlue and MoveOn.org had raised nearly $750K for Halter's barely day-old campaign -- and Lincoln has a real fight on her hands.

This is by no means a shattering of the Dem coalition, but occasionally the party's parts have to remind the sum they exist, too. While GOPers lick their chops in anticipation of a bitter primary that further weakens the nation's worst-positioned incumbent, Dems are hoping the challenge either makes Lincoln stronger than she is now or that they get rid of a weak incumbent.

One thing is for sure: Lincoln will use the challenge to solidify her moderate credentials. "Outside special interest groups from both political extremes are plotting to gain control of this Senate seat representing Arkansans," she said yesterday as she filed to run for re-election. "I know this because I'm the rope in their tug of war. I've resisted the extremes all my life and I'm not going to stop fighting for what I believe in."

TX GOV. RICK PERRY: The question is no longer whether Perry will come out ahead in today's primary, it's by how much. If Perry wins more than 50% of the vote in his race against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and local party chair Debra Medina (R), he will avoid an Apr. 13 runoff. If he comes in under the halfway mark, he'll likely face Hutchison in a 6-week sprint to the finish.

One sign Hutchison, at least, believes a runoff is near: She's cut back on her last-minute advertising in order to conserve money. But Hutchison's biggest problem isn't money, it's the ability to move the race in her direction. From the beginning, Perry has hammered her as a DC insider, and her back-and-forth over whether to resign her seat and when has only made matters worse. Hutchison's focus on the Trans-Texas Corridor, an unpopular project Perry has backed, isn't working. In a runoff, she'll need to find a new avenue of attack and make the race about Rick Perry, not about Perry backers' nickname for her -- Kay Bailout Hutchison.

Most political observers say Perry's victory is not a case of if, but of when. Dems are so convinced they will face Perry in the fall that ex-Houston Mayor Bill White (D), the party's likely nominee, is already lambasting Perry while calling Hutchison a mainstream conservative, as he did in an interview last week with Hotline OnCall. Whether White can peel off some of Hutchison's voters, who make up the more moderate part of the GOP base in TX, will determine whether Perry gets another 4 years.

THE DEM ESTABLISHMENT: Outwardly, the party has had a rocky first few months of the year, but internally, Dems are beginning to flex the organizational muscle that helped Pres. Obama get elected. Organizing for America, the offshoot of Obama's campaign now run through the DNC, has a full-page ad running in USA Today this morning touting the nearly 9M volunteer hours that members have pledged to incumbents in Congress who vote for health care reform.

And even the party committees have strong indicators of future success: The DCCC has much more money in the bank than the NRCC, while the DSCC has a smaller cash advantage over the NRSC (Of the 4, only the NRCC has less CoH than the RNC). Candidates are being urged to define their opponents early, and if they do, they have an opening to keep their jobs even if the landscape looks terrible. And Senate GOPers need to run the table to take back the upper chamber; that's unlikely to happen, given recent polling.

All is not well for Dems, and the GOP stands to pick up dozens of seats this year (the GOV landscape is even worse for Dems). But the GOP shouldn't pop the champagne corks just yet -- Nov. is a long way away, and Dems have used structural advantages to their benefit in the past. If they can do it again, the party may not lose as many seats as the GOP hopes they will.