AP – John Carney of Delaware is a rarity in a campaign season of foreboding for Democrats, a practicing politician with a strong chance of winning a Republican-held seat in Congress. Not that Carney is interested in attaching any national significance to his race.

AP – Popular Gov. Joe Manchin won the Democratic nomination Saturday and will face GOP primary winner and wealthy businessman John Raese in the race to fill the Senate seat vacated by the late Robert C. Byrd.

AP – Five years after Hurricane Katrina’s wrath, President Barack Obama sought to reassure disaster-weary Gulf Coast residents Sunday that he would not abandon their cause. “My administration is going to stand with you, and fight alongside you, until the job is done,” Obama said to cheers at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded by the storm.

AP – Ignoring Republican complaints about wasteful federal spending, Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln is reminding voters — in dollars — of what’s she’s done for Arkansas during nearly 16 years in Washington.

CQPolitics.com – Republican Joe Miller is locked in a close primary in the Senate race in Alaska, but he sounded much like a general election candidate in a television appearance Sunday, discussing his stances on Social Security and federal funding for Alaska.

CQPolitics.com – Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I) on Sunday again declined to reveal which political party he would caucus with if he wins the state’s three-way Senate race this November, while also clarifying his position on the new health care overhaul and his opposition to same-sex marriage.

AP – If Democrats had doubts about the voter unrest that threatens to rob them of their majority in Congress, they needed only look from the Capitol this weekend to the opposite end of the National Mall.

The Daily Beast – However much Republicans like former RNC chair Ken Mehlman want to embrace gay rights, the party’s rank-and-file won’t for years to come.

Politico – He also backs down from his previous characterization of Obama as a racist.

Politico – It’s the kind of thing, analysts say, that could only happen in Alaska. But is that really the case?