Wall Street Journal, Estate-Tax Rises Again as Issue on Trail:

A move to end the estate-tax is luring new adherents in the 2010 midterm campaign, turning permanent repeal into a negotiating stance for future congressional wrangling over taxes.

More than 250 current congressional candidates, mostly Republicans, have signed a pledge this year to support elimination of the tax, according to the advocacy group sponsoring the effort. The signers include 53 incumbents and more than half of Republicans running for House and Senate. During the 2008 elections, when the group first began seeking supporters, only 30 candidates signed up. …

President Barack Obama favors returning the estate tax to 2009 levels, which saw a 45% rate and $3.5 million exemption. Republican leaders in the Senate, a body key to any resolution on the tax issue, are lining up behind a plan drawn up by Sens. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) and Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.) that would impose a 35% top rate and a $5 million exemption.

Of the 260 candidates for the Nov. 2 elections who have signed the pledge to eliminate the tax, 253 are Republicans, and two are Democrats, according the American Family Business Institute, the advocacy group behind it.