"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope." -Robert F. Kennedy
Running for Congress as a full time school teacher with a family is not easy. In fact, I count on your support and inspiration more than you know. Because this election for North Carolina's 8th District is so important, and you are so important to me, I thought I'd share one decision I made earlier this week I hope will help bring us to victory in November.
For almost a decade I have been tracking Jack Abramoff and the Culture of Corruption and since I became uid 9214, I’ve written about that work here on Daily Kos. For years, I have been writing about the many ways that John McCain covered-up the Abramoff Scandal.
I could write about how the Obama campaign is taking that fight to Curveball John:
There is more to that story and more reasons why McCain should worry about Jack, but I doubt it would break through the waves of panic shaking the netroots.
Yikes! The polls have tightened. Well, what did you expect?
Take a deep breath. Get a backbone. FOCUS.
It’s time to call out the summer supporters and sunshine campaigners.
Ashwin Madia blog day has generated a lot of posts from those of us in the lefty blogosphere. The candidate himself even got into the act. He posted at The Hill. Yow!
There’s a word in Washington for a taxpayer-funded endeavor that grows without limits, busts every budget projection, and which Members of Congress are loathe to confront.
The word is Iraq.
Today, the Republican Party announced that the loudest defender of status quo policies on Iraq, Senator Joe Lieberman, will be a prominent speaker at the Republican National Convention in my home state of Minnesota. Senator Lieberman and I do have one thing in common. We’ve both changed political parties. I left the Republican Party in 2002 after it replaced “balance our budget” with “borrow and spend” and after we started a war without a plan for success; a war we did not need.
(The Hill)
Here's a list. I hope it's comprehensive, but I'm sure I missed someone. Remember, it's not malevolence, just incompetence.
I first met Paul Tonko outside the first candidate’s forum in late March, shortly before he announced his candidacy for Congress in New York’s 21st Congressional District. I was hanging out after the debate had ended, determined to not only get back on the blogs to cover the event unlike any mainstream media outlet, but also because I’d had a crazy idea: why not set up some extensive interviews with the candidates as well?
For a college student wearing long hair, a scruffy beard, and a Bob Marley tee-shirt, I can see where the candidates might have seen me as going out on a limb. After I asked Paul Tonko, a 20-plus-year veteran of the Assembly who’s name is synonymous with the politics of the Capital Region, I wondered myself just what I’d gotten myself into.
The rest of the Soundpolitic Interview with Paul Tonko is below the fold as it appeared originally on The Albany Project.
It is no big secret that we need real solutions to our energy crises. We need to end our dependence on oil from nations that hate us. Our energy costs are skyrocketing and Americans need real relief, not failed solutions. We could be creating millions of new clean-energy jobs, and we need to deal with the emerging climate crises.
NC-Sen: Another day, another steaming stack of stupid emanating from the smiling empty seat that is the very senior Senator from the great state of North Carolina.
Responding to criticism from her rather perceptive Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, that Sen. Dole spends remarkably little time in the state she purports to represent, Liddy had this to offer.
After her speech, Dole said she’s spent lots of time in North Carolina lately.
"Lately", eh? Senator, it would have been nice if you'd paid a modicum of attention to the state at, you know, some point in the last 35 years, when not running for the Senate.
But one can't have everything, I suppose.
Dole said she also supports drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, where drilling would have a small footprint that wouldn’t harm much wildlife.
"Even the caribou like to snuggle up to the pipeline," she said.
Indeed. Every caribou I have interviewed in the past six months has expressed his support for banging a big fat honking pipeline through his home, so as to give him warmth and comfort as he sleeps.
Would there was oil in New York City, so that I, too, could snuggle up next to a pipeline as I lay me down to sleep. I think some pipeline would look great in my apartment. Really tie the room together, you know.
The overall goal must be to cut reliance on foreign oil imported from nations run by the likes of Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin, she said.
"A lot of that comes from people who don’t necessarily like us," Dole said.
Gee, it might help if our foreign policy had not been an outright fiasco of late, Liddy. And whose fault is that, anyway?
Amid Liddy's laments about gas price, by the way, she has given a boatload in tax breaks to Big Oil. Naturally, MoveOn is all over this:
AK-Sen: A hearing was held this morning in federal court in Washington, DC, to determine whether indicted Senator Ted Stevens would get to move his trial back to his home turf of Alaska.
Meanwhile, the Anchorage Daily News notes the role of new media in affecting public opinion on the Stevens scandal, to the point where new media are a screening point for potential jurors in the Stevens case:
Several joint questions seek to find out if potential jurors are political active or read about politics, especially the insider Capitol Hill publications. Do they listen to talk radio, read political blogs or go to Internet forums? The government, in particular, wants to know if they read the conservative Drudge Report or the liberal Huffington Post online.
Apparently, even Bush's Justice Department thinks reading Daily Kos is OK.
NH-Sen: Jeanne Shaheen is cooking with gas, as she seeks to unseat incumbent Republican John Sununu. Per Rasmussen:
Shaheen (D) 51 (50)
Sununu (R) 40 (45)
Ras' 3-poll average puts the race at 51-41, while Pollster's average has it at Shaheen 52.6%, Sununu 42%.
Shaheen's double-digit lead has remained remarkably consistent this cycle, and she has proven to be a formidable candidate.
House Races
OH-15: Here's the first ad of this cycle from Democratic candidate Mary Jo Kilroy, as she seeks to take the open seat she nearly won in 2006 against incumbent Deborah Pryce.
MN-03: The Minnesota blogs have named this "Ashwin Madia Blog Day", in honor of a fine progressive candidate (and Netroots Nation attendee) in Minnesota's Third District.
If you'd like to learn more about Madia's candidacy on Madia Day, check out MN Blue or MN Publius.
WY-AL: As we noted last night, Wyoming's Republican State Treasurer Cynthia Lummis has won her primary in the state's at-large district.
The Hotline thought her primary opponent, Mark Gordon, was the more formidable of the two:
The party's been searching for a way to stem the growing Dem tide in the region, and a return to its libertarian roots may be the answer. In addition, his profile as a rancher seems to be a better match against '06 nominee Gary Trauner (D) than ex-Treas. Cynthia Lummis (R), with her years of gov't service, can provide.
The most recent Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos shows Trauner leading Lummis, 44% to 41%.
WI-08: Meanwhile, Republican John Gard is still feeding the debunked myth (perhaps we should just start calling it an outright lie) that China is drilling off the coast of Cuba).
NY-25, NY-26, NY-29: Today is the pre-primary filing deadline for New York House candidates. We have no more than three terrific New Yorkers on the Orange to Blue list, and here's a golden opportunity to help them finish the pre-primary period with a bang. They are Jon Powers in NY-26, Eric Massa in NY-29, and Dan Maffei in NY-25.
Please head to the Orange to Blue ActBlue Page and give them a little (or a lot!) of love, as they head towards election day.
One of my favorite blogs, DownWithTyranny has just informed me that today is Ashwin Madia Blog Day. Ashwin Madia is running for the Jim Ramstad seat in MN-03.
New York has a pre-primary filing deadline for candidates tonight -- and wouldn't you know, the Orange to Blue list has three New York candidates on it: Dan Maffei, Eric Massa, and Jon Powers.
Maffei's fundraising has been dominating his Republican opponent for this open seat. But Massa and Powers face tough opponents. In the primary, Powers faces Jack Davis, a self-funding multi-millionaire who's engaged in a string of dirty campaign tactics and who on the issues is exactly the kind of Democrat we don't want to see elected. Meanwhile, for the general election, Massa faces Shotgun Randy Kuhl -- and if a Republican incumbent who's threatened his wife with a shotgun doesn't make you want to win, I don't know what will.
Powers' need is immediate: He faces a so-called Democratic opponent with bottomless pockets and a willingness to sink to the bottom of the slime pit in campaigning. We do not want Jack Davis in the House at all, let alone with a (D) next to his name.
As for Massa, he doesn't just face a Republican incumbent, he's being advertised against by Freedom's Watch. They've been on the radio in the district for a while, and a couple weeks ago the DCCC made an answering buy -- but Massa's campaign recently heard that Freedom's Watch is inquiring about buying TV time. Massa will need a lot of help to be able to answer Freedom's Watch].
These candidates are true friends of the netroots. They attend Netroots Nation, they post diaries here -- but more importantly, they're with us on the issues. We couldn't do better than to put Maffei, Massa, and Powers in Congress.
If you have a few dollars to spare, today is a great time to give since tonight's filing gives these candidates another chance to show big donors and the DCCC that they're doing what it takes and deserve further support.
She died of Brain Aneurysm in Cleveland. She was 58. She was swerving on the highway and the police officer tried to guide her to the side of the road. She was rushed to the hospital yesterday and died today (or did she?). News report are conflicting but ..................................................................................
So sad. She was a good Democrat. However, her district is heavily Democratic and should stay in Dem hands in November.
She could have been a good Supreme Court candidate.
Update: Although the news said she is in critical condition, she is actually on life support with minimal brain activities. That means she died but they haven't withdrawn the tubes yet. I am adding this section drawing from my experience of the death of a family member of the same condition in 2005. SHE HAS DIED FOR SURE.
Cleveland-area congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones had a massive aneurysm last night and is on life support. It does not look good.
Please send up some thoughts and prayers to her and her family.
She is Ohio's first African-American woman to be elected to Congress and has served Cleveland's east side for 10 years. She is also one of Hillary Clinton's most trusted supporters.
Let's hope she pulls through.
UPDATE (12:14 pm EDT) : Officials were to update her condition at noon. At least one local news station, WOIO Channel 19, is reporting that the situation is grim and life support will be removed this afternoon.
UPDATE II (12:22 pm EDT): From WKYC Channel 3:
According to police, officers stopped her car late last night in the 2300 block of Lee Road in Cleveland Heights. Tubb Jones was reportedly found unconscious behind the wheel. Upon reaching the vehicle the officer found the driver, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, to be in obvious medical distress and called for an ambulance.
UPDATE III (2:05 pm) : The congresswoman has died. A terrible day.
UPDATE IV (2:34 pm) : The congresswoman remains in critical condition. Reports of her death were erroneous. Please pray for her and her family.
Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) was found unconscious behind the wheel of a moving car yesterday and is now in the hospital. Link to Politico from this morning:
Almost every Tuesday is primary day somewhere, it seems, and today Wyoming and Washington state get the honors.
The most hotly contested primary race of interest is the Republican race in Wyoming's at-large U.S. House district, where Republican Barbara Cubin's retirement has created an exciting open-seat race.
Orange to Blue Democrat Gary Trauner is the Democratic nominee, while four Republicans (two of them serious candidates) squared off for the nomination.
The GOP nomination, which was contested primarily between wealthy rancher Mark Gordon and Wyoming State Treasurer Cynthia Lummis, has apparently gone Lummis' way. She won by 9 points, 46% to 37%.
That's just fine for Trauner, as he won't have to face Gordon's self-funding capabilities ($1 million of his $1.2 million raised was out of pocket), nor his favorable profile (seems to be a good fit for Wyoming, as a rancher).
Lummis has won statewide office before, it is true. But she also has a longstanding feud with popular Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal, which may spur the Governor to campaign harder for Trauner this cycle than he did during Trauner's narrow 2006 loss.
As mcjoan noted earlier, this was an exceptionally ugly primary, and there may well be bad blood between Lummis' supporters, and Gordon's, for several months. Also, both GOP candidates have dumped their financial resources into this race, while Trauner, running unopposed, sits on a nice nest egg of $660,000.
Meanwhile, it is also primary day in Washington State, and the inaugural primary for their "top two" system. This is somewhat similar to Louisiana's old "jungle primary" in that the top two finishers advance to the general, regardless of party. However, unlike the jungle primary, you can't win the whole thing by getting 50% on election day; it is a real primary election.
There are no real competitive primaries at the federal level in Washington state this time out, so this is essentially a beauty contest for general-election candidates. Turnout is expected to be high for a primary in Washington, due to their mail-in ballot system. As such, some were touting the Washington primaries as a preview of the general election matchups between Governor Christine Gregoire and her Republican opponent Dino Rossi, and between Republican Rep. Dave Reichert and his opponent, Orange to Blue Democrat Darcy Burner.
If they are previews of the general, however, we haven't learned anything we didn't know before; both election are going to be very close.
Gregoire is currently edging Rossi, 48% to 46%. She will likely finish the night with a slim lead as well.
Meanwhile, Burner trails Reichert, 47% to 44%, as of last note. However, the total Democratic vote in WA-08 currently exceeds 50%, which is good news.
Given the vagaries of the mail-in system, it's unlikely that results will be official until tomorrow or even Thursday. So good night to you all; we will post the percentages for WA-Gov and WA-08 as soon as we can.
Update: It's now 9 AM Eastern, and well under 50% of precincts are in, both statewide and in WA-08. This may take a while.
The 11 p.m. news just reported that a little while ago, the police right here in Cleveland Heights attempted to stop a speeding car, and found my congresswoman, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, unconscious at the wheel.
The south is known as a Republican stronghold in the last few years after long Democratic traditions, and Democrats are once again standing up to fight for the South. NC and VA are springing up to be swing-states, and Democrats are fighting all over the South for House and Senate seats.
NC-Sen: Kay Hagan is out with her second TV ad of the cycle:
Hagan is trying to close a relatively narrow gap between herself and incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Polling was tight prior to Dole's June ad blitz, and has seemed to trend slightly up for Hagan in recent weeks as she herself has hit the airwaves. Another positive bio ad such as this one should help the state Senator improve her statewide profile as the general election heats up.
CO-Sen: The DSCC can't get enough of "big oil" ads, it seems. Here's their latest, against Colorado Senate candidate Bob Schaffer:
Meanwhile, the infamous Freedom's Watch is taking to the airwaves themselves, attacking Schaffer's Democratic opponent, Rep. Mark Udall.
Freedom’s Watch, a conservative advocacy group, launched ads Tuesday in Colorado hitting the Democratic Senate nominee, Rep. Mark Udall, for missing a key vote last month on energy policy to attend a fundraiser back home.
The 30-second ad, with amusing graphics and whimsical music, shows gasoline prices rising as a narrator refers to the Congressman as "Skip Udall."
Tim Pearson, deputy communications director for Freedom’s Watch, said the ad buy was "substantial," though he declined to provide specifics. It is airing in the Denver, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction media markets.
The IE buys are only going to get bigger and more frequent over the next few months, on both sides.
AK-Sen: Guess what! Ted Stevens thinks he's above the law!
In 1989, Congress amended the Ethics In Government Act of 1978 to require members of Congress to file financial disclosure reports including income and honoraria exceeding $200. The bill gave the Attorney General the authority to take action against anyone who falsifies the financial disclosure report. Stevens joined the rest of the Senate in a voice vote in favor of the legislation.
Either he's forgotten about this law he supported...or he just doesn't care, now that it's applied to him. As he is trying to get his case thrown out of court:
Last week, lawyers for Senator Ted Stevens filed several motions asserting that Senators are above the law and deserve special treatment. Specifically, the defense explained that since the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch, they cannot investigate Stevens or interview his staff since they are part of the legislative branch. Stevens’ attorneys went as far to say that only Congress can discipline a Senator who violates the law by lying on the financial disclosure forms. However, Stevens voted for the legislation which established the financial disclosure forms. In essence, Stevens’ defense is that legislation he supported is now unconstitutional, and therefore the case should be dismissed.
This is not altogether surprising really. If Stevens had any respect for the rule of law, he wouldn't be in this nasty situation to begin with.
ME-Sen: Down East has a new article on the state of the Maine Senate race. In general, it's a sober analysis of what looks to be a pretty tough, though viable, race for Democratic Rep. Tom Allen, who faces off against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins.
Allen starts at a disadvantage in name recognition, polling and money (though the DSCC has committed a great deal of money to this race, which should even the financial playing field somewhat). That said, Allen is quoted one major advantage: his ground game.
The grassroots is the only area where Allen has an undisputed edge in this race. The Democratic Party has 29 offices open across the state, with more opening every week, and has a dedicated and energized volunteer base, due in part to the excitement caused by Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The Republican Party has just four offices and many fewer volunteers.
The Democrats are working on registering thousands of new voters and making sure they get to the polls, an effort that could shift the political landscape in the Senate race. However, with less competitive races in Maine for president and for the other congressional seats, which democrats will likely win, Maine's ticket-splitting voters may choose to make Collins the one Republican they support. In the latest poll, 29% of Democratic voters abandoned Allen.
It's likely that there will be at least a decent number of ticket splitters this fall in Maine, but
House Races
FL-24: Republican Rep. Tom Feeney must be awfully nervous about his electoral prospects against former Democratic state Rep. Suzanne Kosmas.
Because Feeney has paid for robocalls across the district in support of Kosmas' primary opponent, fellow Democrat and 2006 loser Clint Curtis.
The third-term lawmaker from Oviedo -– who defeated Curtis in 2006 -– has paid for "tens of thousands" of robo-calls to Democratic voters on behalf of Curtis, who is running again for the House District 24 seat, this time as an underdog in the Democratic primary against former state lawmaker Suzanne Kosmas.
In calls to Central Florida residents, a volunteer for the Feeney campaign lauds Curtis and calls him the "only Democrat taking on Tom Feeney that has consistently opposed the war in Iraq." At the end of the call, the female volunteer said the calls were "paid for by Tom Feeney for Congress."
This isn't the first time that Feeney has tried to help a challenger. In a release sent a few weeks ago, Feeney touted independent candidate Gaurav Bhola as "the only candidate talking sense" at a candidate debate that Feeney never attended.
A clip of the robo call was provided by the Kosmas campaign. Paul Dunn, her campaign manager, called it one of Feeney’s "dirty tricks" and said it was proof that Feeney fears Kosmas, who has more money on hand than the incumbent.
Yes, I think it's safe to say that Feeney's running scared. Given that he's mucking about in Democratic primaries, you know.
Fortunately, given Curtis' bankroll of $7,000, it's highly unlikely Feeney will get his wish.
TX-07: Democrat Michael Skelly's newest ad:
OH-02: Daredevil Jean Schmidt's latest scandal: she and her sisters own a multi-million dollar property in Cincinnati, via their late father's real estate company, on which they pay all of $95 per year in property taxes.
For how come? Because they grow a few thousand dollars' worth of soybeans on the property. The property isn't primarily used as farmland...but naming it as such saves them a boatload, it seems:
The Schmidt campaign vehemently denies any wrongdoing (they do pretty much everything vehemently, in fact), and legally, they're almost certainly covered. Still, as the video notes, it sure doesn't look good.
NY-26: Finally, the first ad from Orange to Blue candidate Jon Powers:
Today the Drum Major Institute (DMI -- where I'm director of research) released its first annual Survey on the Middle Class and Public Policy. The nationwide poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group, aimed to learn how those Americans who see themselves as middle class (the vast majority of us, it turns out) think about the direction of the country, public policy ideas that could improve the nation, and their relationship with their own elected representatives. What we found were middle-class households filled with "fearful families": Americans worried about the present, pessimistic about the future, but not nearly so divided on issues of public policy as the typical media reports of a country divided by red and blue might lead us to believe. In fact, there’s broad bipartisan support for a range of progressive policies.
