Candidates playing chicken with deadline

The Feb. 27 qualifying deadline draws near, but several incumbents and potential candidates for 2015 statewide offices are waiting to see who does what before jumping in.

This game of chicken centers around a few main questions. They include:

Who will be the Democratic candidate for governor?

Attorney General Jim Hood, the lone Democratic statewide officeholder, would be the party’s best choice. He’s leaked out some polling to the Cottonmouth blog that says he’s as popular as puppies even with Republicans. But recent talk is that he’s not interested.

For months political chatter had centered around Bill Luckett, Clarksdale mayor and a 2011 gubernatorial candidate, and former longtime Secretary of State Dick Molpus. More recently, both are said to have waived off.

I’ve heard some talk lately about Vicki Slater, a Jackson attorney who toyed with a 2012 run for Congress against Rep. Gregg Harper, being courted to run for governor.

Incumbent Republican Gov. Phil Bryant would be hard — if not impossible — to beat, shy of a Hood challenge.

But the state Democratic Party — whose main focus this year is trying to retake state House and Senate majorities or at least staunch the bleeding — needs somebody to make a strong showing for governor and drive turnout to help those down ticket.

Will Hood run again?

This has been a main question for at least a year — fueled in part by Hood moving back to his north Mississippi home area of Houston, and telecommuting and barely having enough campaign cash to buy some yard signs.

But the general consensus — for what it’s worth —— of late has been that he will run for re-election.

It makes sense, for political strat-egery, for Hood to wait until the last minute to announce. That keeps potential GOP and tea party candidates off balance and, should he bow out, could help a Democrat waiting in the wings. At the least, it creates a bigger buzz when he announces.

Will Auditor Stacey Pickering seek re-election?

This was THE buzz last week among the Room 210 (lobbyists and political operatives) set at the Capitol last week. Talk is that Republican Pickering wants to return to the private sector and might even step down early.

Partly this is driven by Pickering reporting only $27,000 in his campaign coffers.

Pickering has already drawn a Republican challenger, longtime Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler. There’s also much talk about tea party-backed Republican state Sen. Michael Watson of Pascagoula jumping in. Regardless, this GOP primary will be a big one.

What will Delbert Hosemann do?

It’s been no secret incumbent Republican Secretary of State Hosemann has pondered a challenge to Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves. Recent consensus has been that Hosemann will instead seek re-election. But I’m told he still hasn’t told even some of his political confidantes what he’ll do.

A Hosemann lieutenant governor run would cause a big domino effect, and the tea party is watching closely. If he challenges Reeves, tea party candidates would likely jump in both the SOS and lieutenant governor GOP primaries.

What will state Sen. Chris McDaniel do?

McDaniel has been discussed as a candidate for all of the above-mentioned races and then some after his meteoric, though failed, tea party-backed run for U.S. Senate last year.

He could run for attorney general. If Hood stays in and McDaniel were to challenge him, this could help McDaniel mend fences with the GOP establishment. But fence mending doesn’t appear to be McDaniel’s strong suit or goal.

He’s oft-mentioned as a potential GOP primary challenger for his political foe Reeves.

But others believe McDaniel has his heart set on federal office, and might wait a year and challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo.

In a normal state election cycle, most of these questions would have already been answered. But with candidates using the qualifying deadline to try to make others blink first, the evening of Feb. 27 could be quite interesting.

Contact Geoff Pender at (601) 961-7266 or gpender@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @GeoffPender on Twitter.