(Bumped. – promoted by James L.)
Q: How bad do you think it’s gonna be?
A: Pretty goddamn bad. Probably all the other Families will line up against us. That’s alright – this thing’s gotta happen every five years or so – ten years – helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one. You know you got to stop them at the beginning, like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich, They should never’ve let him get away with that. They were just asking for big trouble.
Saturday Night Discussion Items (James):
- Florida: Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, with a single stroke, made his state more politically competitive for Democrats by restoring the voting rights of an estimated 515,000 felons who have committed “less serious” (nonviolent) crimes. Salon’s Farhad Manjoo gives the implications:
The ex-cons belong to traditionally Democratic demographics — many are African-American, and many are poor. If they’re allowed to vote, they’ll likely go to the polls at lower rates than everyone else; Uggen and Manza’s work suggests felons turn out to vote at about the half the general turnout rate in any given election. But in a state as closely divided politically as Florida, that could still make all the difference. In the past several decades, say Uggen and Manza, at least two Senate races in Florida would have gone to Democrats instead of Republicans had felons had the right to vote. Buddy McKay would have beaten Connie Mack in 1988, and Betty Castor would have beaten Mel Martinez in 2004. And, of course, the 2000 presidential election would have gone to Al Gore. Uggen and Manza’s research suggests Gore might have picked up 60,000 votes from felons.
- NY-25: Dan Maffei rides again.
- OR-Sen: Will he or won’t he? The Draft DeFazio for Senate campaign kicks into high gear.
- CT-05: Freshman Rep. Chris Murphy is hitting the ground running, raising $420,000 in the first quarter of 2007, according to a DCCC e-mail. Numbers like those this early in the cycle should make his potential Republican challengers pause.
- NM-02: New Mexico FBIHOP takes a look at the potential challengers to Republican Rep. Steve Pearce in this R+5.7 district.
Steve Marchand diaried at Blue Hampshire and took the questions he got really seriously, it seemed. That’s always a nice sign.
Former Common Cause President Chellie Pingree has officially entered the race to succeed Tom Allen (ME-01), who is expected to run for Senate against Susan Collins. Here’s her Huffington Post interview.
These are Democratic candidates in MA-05 in the special election to succeed Marty Meehan, who is resigning. The primary will be held in September.
I really think he could do it this time. I hope the DCCC and others work on this race a lot sooner than they started in 06.
With some luck, quality candidates and get-lots-of-people-involved campaigning in the next three cycles and an aggressive remap after the 2010 Census, I can see Dems having a 13-5 (or greater) advantage in the Land of Lincoln.
Why does do we assume felons are more Democratic? Is there a study?
Will the majority of felons even vote?
in fact, that is almost as much as Huckabee brought in for his presidential race. That is enough to make any challenger’s heart sink.
Picking up the votes of felons seems like a funny thing to brag about.