Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?

Did you know there’s an election coming up this week? Yep, on Tuesday, May 15th, the City of Brotherly Love will hold its mayoral primary. I certainly don’t have a dog in this fight, but hey, an election is an election. Swing Staters, is this the only game in town, or are there any other local contests going on this week as well?

As always, you can use this thread to talk about Philly (that’s “wiz wit,” Mr. Kerry), or any other races which strike your fancy.

P.S. Final request: If you haven’t taken the BlogAds reader survey, I’d be grateful if you would. And I promise, this is the last time I’ll ask!

31 thoughts on “Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?”

  1. Has SSP made a purposeful effort to try to avoid talking about the Presidential election or has it just played itself out like that? I just realized that this place never talks about Pres. race and if we do its generally in the context of how it effects a Sen. or House race.

    In terms of actual races, I’m thinking about the Senate in general. It looks like we’ll definitely maintain control of the chamber. If I were to rate Senate seats based on their likelihood of switching parties I think only Landrieu’s seat would be in the top 10. Having said that it only looks like their are 2-5 seats that Dems have a good chance of winning at this moment and their could be another 4-5 if we can get incumbents to retire and/or get good candidates to run.

  2. It’s going to be a whirlwind – the winner will effectively be chosen on Jun 26, and we’ve had no real campaigning yet.

    The public effort by ‘influential’ black politicians like Merv Dymally and Mark Ridley-Thomas to determine one black candidate is not showing any signs of abating, and there are now 3 black candidates in the race.

    Jenny Oropeza thus presumably the front runner, but will she be able to get people to support her.

    Gerrie Schipske has jumped into the race, and it’s kind of interesting.  She’s a Long Beach councilperson who blogs and seems to be really with it on using online tools, and she’s set herself apart as being the anti-big money candidate (in contrast to frontrunners Richardson and Oropeza).  It’s also interesting that Schipske has previously run US House campaigns, and got within a point of knocking off incumbent Republican Steve Horn in 2000 while actually outraising the guy. And she’s openly gay.

    See my blog for my recent posts on the race. 

  3. Monday is the big election between Nathan Petrelli and… the other person.  Petrelli is down about seven points, but some are predicting a landslide win, so it’ll be interesting to see.  Yes, I AM a nerd.

  4. I’m interested in the special election to fill Marty Meehan’s seat in the Massachusetts 5th Congressional.

    Paul Tsongas’ widow, Niki Tsongas, has an early edge because of name recognition.  I understand that a lot of the area’s progressive organizers are backing State Representative James Eldridge.  It’ll be an interesting race to see who can drive up the most votes on election day – September 4th, the Tuesday after Labor Day.

  5. I do not drink regularly, and I notice they ask a lot of questions about alcohol.

  6. Tuesday is also the Mayoral and City Council elections here in Casa Grande, AZ. The biggest issue was settled a couple months ago in the primaries when Mayor Walton got knocked out, but we still have to choose between city council candidates based on things like their stance on whether this one beauty salon can have a giant pink cat statue outside.

  7. DemocracyFest is coming June 9th and 10th near Manchester, New Hampshire. Network with progressives from across the country, gain valuable knowledge about how to take our country back, and socialize with like-minded liberal activists! More information is available at http://www.democracyfest.net

  8. Why no love for GA 10, I don’t think it is much more Republican than OH 2, and people tended to nap on that one as well. Why not win?
    http://www.marlowforcongress.com
    P.S.
    I have no contact contention with the district or the Marlow campaign. I just hate not trying to beat Republicans.

  9. What happened to louisianagirl… I had something I wanted to tell her, and of course, now I never see her. What if I wanted to learn more about Bobby Jindal? 🙂

  10. I am from her district and seriously, the DCCC needs to target her (I’ve heard they already plan on it).  It is a relatively solid Republican district (Bush won it by 15%) but Bachmann is an absolute nut.  She is by the far most crazy Christian religious of anyone in Congress, even surpassing Musgrave saying that she ran because God and her husband told her to.

    There is a GREAT youtube video of her at some church doing a political speech (disgusting I know) and she talks about her ascent to State Senator and it involves going to law school because God told her to.  And then she studied tax law because her husband told her to and then she said, and The Bible says be submissive to your husband so I went into tax law.

    I think if a Democrat were to win here, he/she would be a one-term wonder unless they are a fairly conservative Democrat (Stephanie Herseth style).  Amy Klobuchar, however, won every county in this district except one maybe two and her opponent was this districts Congressmen.

    Man I hope the Democrats field a better opponent who can run a good campaign, Tarly Clark, assistant majority leader in the State Senate may run.  She is too liberal but has great name recognition, but she represents an already liberal area of the district (the only area really) so that doesnt really boost her too much I dont think.  Plus Minnesota Democrats are being stupid in the state legislature and have written legislation with a total of like 10 tax increases  ::sigh::  Not a winning strategy.  So she can get tied to that pretty easily.

    We’ll see, 🙂

    1. That’s honestly one of my favorite things about SSP. I know nothing about Oklahoma or North Carolinan politics, but having people from all over post information on these races that I probably never would have access to. Keep up the great work everyone.

  11. Kay Barnes is in, continuing the trend of credible elected Ds taking a shot at GOP members who haven’t gotten serious challengers in the past.

    1. The Democrats picked up 4 seats in the Senate and the Republicans picked up I think 2 or 3 House seats I could be wrong though.

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