Swing State Project

« Netroots August Fundraising Push Update #5 | Main | Netroots August Fundraising Push Update #6 (The Weekender) »

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?

Posted by DavidNYC

Needless to say, we've been pretty obsessed with the netroots races around here this week. But I'm told that there actually are other races going on in other parts of the country. What's tickling your fancy lately?

P.S. Check out this pictorial display of dedication. These envelopes currently adorn the dining room table of Kossack Mem in Sommerville. These are the sorts of follow-up requests you typically only get if you've already given to a candidate:

Awesome!

Posted at 04:48 PM in Open Threads | Technorati

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/mt/mt-track-ssp.cgi/2540

Comments

Colorado's Fifth!

Jay Fawcett: Fighting Dem, Gulf War I combat pilot experience, bronze star, university teaching experience, Kos diarist.

vs.

Doug Lamborn: a do-nothing state rep and radical religious fundamentalist who will have Club for Growth and Focus on the Family backing.

Do we really want to let this guy in? This is a 20-year Republican seat and even the retired Joel Hefley doesn't like Doug. Let's not miss out on this chance!

Posted by: Zappatero at August 26, 2006 05:04 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Nancy Skinner in MI-9 against joe knollenberg. This race has kind of been on the back burner, I think a lot of people in the roots were really excited about skinner but didn't actually think she had a shot. I think it's pretty clear from these numbers (internal..) that she does.

Joe Knollenberg (R): 44%
Nancy Skinner (D): 40%
Margin of Error 4.9%

There's a handful of bloggers in her district that blog on michiganliberal.com

Posted by: Jon Koller at August 26, 2006 08:03 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

You democrats can watch the other races if you want. But for republicans there is only ONE race in CT. JOE!

Many republicans say that after winning in November Lieberman is planning to resign to take the position of Secretary of Defense. Afterwards the republican Connecticut governor would appoint a republican to replace Lieberman in the senate.

Lieberman is now calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation and campaigning with republican candidates.

Do us a favor, Dems, and keep watching all the other races. While we come in and swipe your senate seat right out from under you.

Posted by: ClearwaterConservative at August 26, 2006 08:25 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Thanks for the pictoral update David. Mainly because it's great to see the Dr. Gill (with the fishes) front and center!

www.davidgillforcongress.com

Posted by: nada at August 26, 2006 10:06 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Amusing - this is the first time I've seen someone say that we aren't paying ENOUGH attention to CT-Sen.

Posted by: DavidNYC at August 27, 2006 02:21 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Major Tammy Duckworth fightin Dem in IL-06 (retiring "Youthful Indiscretion" Henry Hyde's seat) against Peter Roskam, proud slip and fall personal injury lawyer and IL State Senator. This district has never elected a Dem in it's history yet Tammy is neck and neck with Roskam who views this seat as his birthright.

Lil Petey recently brought in a DC campaign operative by the name of Jason Roe to help with his faltering campaign. Roe is one of the DeLay goons who reportedly strongarmed Repub Rep. Nick Smith during that 3 hour long open vote on the Medicare Part D drug plan in the wee hours of the night. Offered Smith, who was retiring, $100,000 for his son's campaign - whom he hoped to see succeed him in the House - in return for his yes vote. Also offered to primary the kid's butt and make sure his political future crashed before it ever got off the ground if he voted no.

So with this kind of guy on board it's no wonder that Roskam has the NRCC sending out baldfaced lie mailers for him claiming Duckworth wants the government to take all our hard earned money when we die when in fact she's in favor of renewing the estate tax. Teddy Roosevelt fought for the estate tax to keep the robber barons from establishing a permanent aristocracy in this country. There aren't more than 3000 families in the US who'd get nicked by the estate tax and even then they'd have
enough money so they and theirs would never have to work a day in their lives for generations.

Roskam is a radical religious wingnut who fought against not only only public funding for embryonic stem cell research in the IL Sebate but PRIVATE funding too. It'd be really interesting to find out if he believes in evolutionary biology and whether or not it ought to be taught alongside creationism in school science classes.

He wants to privatize Social Security but no word on how he plans to make up the shortfall if we divert money to private accounts.

On Iraq Tammy says it was a mistake, she ought to know, an RPG attack blew her legs off. She's also proposed with Jim Webb VA-Sen. a new Truman Commission to audit DOD expenditures in Iraq and the GWOT. She wants to know why Halliburton is making .80 per sandbag but paying Iraqis a nickel to stuff them. Why does the DOD waste money on Sunday night steak and lobster dinners in Iraq when troops still don't have sufficient armor and equipment? Roskam? He says "stay the course".

Posted by: markg8 at August 27, 2006 10:54 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

NY-29 is really heating up with the MoveOn ads, which Republican incumbent Randy Kuhl is lying about (claiming that they're the libellous, and the like).

This is a great race for three reasons:

(a) Randy Kuhl is colorful, to say the least.
(b) His opponent, Eric Massa, is incredibly energetic and combativie.
(c) Upstate New York is due for a political realignment.

Posted by: TomT at August 27, 2006 01:01 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

OH-1 is a race that people should keep an eye on. Steve Chabot is more vulnerable than people expect, and the base is energized because of Kerry's close loss in 2004.

check out www.takebackcincinnati.com to support John Cranley's campaign against Chabot.

Posted by: RGBlogging at August 27, 2006 04:51 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I think that NH is going to add two Democrats to the Congress this year. Netroots is focusing on the 2nd district, but I'm keeping a watchful eye on the 1st. There are 4 Democrats running in the primary and the winner will take on Jeb Bradley (R). He was a moderate R when he first went to Washington, but has become more conservative. But, I think he was the only Congressman from NE to vote in favor of the so-called protection of marriage amendment, IIRC.

Whoever wins the caucus should get the support of the Netroots, imo. I'd like to see that happen, anyway. Jim Craig is the candidate I'm rooting for now. He floor managed an impeachment of a Judge in the NH Senate, and you know that kind of experience could come in handy should the Dems win back the House in November!

NH is a definite Swingstate this year!

Posted by: leftydem at August 27, 2006 05:40 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Whoops, NY-29 is a netroots race. Sorry -- I didnt' see it in the picture of the tee-shirts there.

Posted by: TomT at August 27, 2006 06:56 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

The NY-19 primary is about two weeks away and we'll finally see who gets to take on Sue Kelly. It's basically a three-way race between Ben Shuldiner, John Hall, and Judy Aydelott. Ben (ben2006.com) has a fantastic, energetic grassroots campaign and is my horse in the race. Most importantly though, Sue has got to go.

Posted by: NYPopulist at August 27, 2006 09:09 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Jon Koller is absolutely right about Nancy Skinner. MI-09 is the race to watch in Michigan.

But also in Michigan...

MI-Gov: Granholm's had some good polling lately, which has gotten attention, but another recent development (besides a great MDP convention speech) was the formation of Republicans for Granholm by a former GOP candidate for Congress. It might not be an earth-shattering development, but then again, maybe Republicans are realizing that their party and Dick DeVos are taking us in the wrong direction. In a close election, this could make a difference.

From the website:

“This was a hard decision,” said Ziegler. “I’m going to disappoint some people in the Republican party. But, those are the extremists in the party who want to block stem-cell research and who turned out of office a good man like Congressman Joe Schwarz (MI-R 7th district).” Ziegler was referring to Congressman Schwarz’s loss to former State Rep. Tim Walberg in the August primary election.

Which brings us to...

MI-07: This is a race that deserves to be close, and Democrats should do everything they can to try to win. It's an uphill battle in a gerrymandered district, but Republican Tim Walberg (Club for Growth and Right to Life sponsored) is too conservative for Alabama, let alone Michigan.

The Democrat is Sharon Renier, a quirky woman but a fair progressive, and much, much better than Tim Walberg.

Posted by: Fitzy D. at August 27, 2006 09:59 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Most of these races sound like worthy endeavors to me-- especially Jay Fawcett's and Eric Massa's. Next Saturday Jay (along with another Colorado Fighting Dem, Bill Winter) are the featured guest bloggers at Firedoglake's Blue America series.

But today I want to call your attention to something less specific than a single district. If you've checked the Blue America ActBlue page in the last couple of days, you may have noticed a new addition. That ain't no candidate's face the second from the top. No, it's the graphic symbol that our sometime art director, Adam, did to represent our "campaign" theme sung by Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher, "Have You Had Enough?"

If you look at the totals, you'll notice that so far our netroots efforts at Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars and DWT have aggregated nearly $170,000 for our candidates. The median donation is around $30. That's what the power of a lot of dedicated, idealistic people can do. Much of that total is due to the concerted efforts we make every weekend at our candidate forums, where our communities come together with a different progressive Democrat each Saturday at 2 PM (est) to hear about the races and ask questions of the candidates. (All are archived here and I would encourage you to read through the exciting, fascinating sessions.)

But something else came out of one of the sessions. We were talking with Larry Kissell (NC-08) when fellow Tar Heel, Tom Maxwell made a contribution and later offered to lend his considerable musical talents to our efforts. Discussion later revealed that he was one of the key songwriters from the late, great Squirrel Nut Zippers. He and his partner in MaxwellMosher, Ken Mosher (another SNZ alum) offered to write and record a song for our campaign to clean up Congress. Another dedicated progressive musician, Rickie Lee Jones, joined them to record the song. All three have written about why they became involved.

Now it's getting played on some radio stations and online and it's working its way around the blogosphere. Mike McIntee, a supporter of one of our favorite candidates, Coleen Rowley (MN-02), has gone ahead and used the song for a little video. You can watch it at that link or at YouTube. It's a hoot.

A John Laesch supporter is doing another one as we speak. A Jerry McNerney supporter who works as a dj is doing a re-mix with soundbytes from Dirty Dick Pombo. We love all that stuff. And Blue America has a plan for a next step too. And that's why we started the PAC. The PAC allows us to raise and spend as much money as we can, not for candidates per se but to get our 30-second spots on the radio. Unlike the full song, the 30-second spots don't say "It's time to throw the rascals out." They are geared towards each specific district and each mentions the local rascal that it's time to throw out, be it Kline in Minnesota, Brown-Waite in Florida, Doolittle in California, Kuhl in New York or Mean Jean Schmidt in Ohio.

The PAC wasn't easy to set up. My bank manager resisted for weeks, actually telling me that the bank didn't want anything to do with-- he said couldn't have anything to do with-- embarrassing President Bush! And there's so much paperwork! But now it's set up and ready to collect and disburse contributions. Do you want to help? Well, the obvious way is to send some dough, either at that link or by check to Blue America, P.O. Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027. But there's something else we need from you.

Because we're an official PAC now, the FEC doesn't allow us to coordinate anything with any of the campaigns. If you live in one of the districts for one of our candidates, we need volunteers who will help us figure out which local radio stations will be most effective. Suggestions and ideas for a grassroots endeavor like this are not just welcome; they are crucial. Meanwhile, send your friends and family and colleagues to our MySpace page to listen to the song and download it and read more about it.

Posted by: DownWithTyranny at August 27, 2006 11:19 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Interested in Oregon Senate and House races! The times they are a'changin!

Posted by: LandUseWatch.com at August 29, 2006 04:36 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

A Sienna poll in NY-20 shows Republican incumbent John Sweeney's reelect number below 50%. It's going to be a close race.

There's plenty of good races in New York, including NY-24 and NY-29.

Posted by: Steve at August 30, 2006 04:54 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment