Month: December 2007

Cross-posted at Daily Kos under NMLib 

As many are aware, New Mexico politics has almost always been something of a mixed bag for Democrats.

On the one hand, we have elected and re-elected a very popular governor in Bill Richardson and, by wide margins, consistently re-elected popular United States Senator Jeff Bingaman, as well as electing a solidly progressive congressman in Tom Udall. This is all on top of consistently electing a Democratic state legislature. On the other hand, Republicans have had their share of victories in the state. Pete “Slash, Mine, and Burn” Domenici has been senator since the beginning of Time. They have also elected the wingnut Steve Pearce and the psedo-moderate Heather “the Feather” Wilson.

With Domenici's retirement the entire congressional election (save Bingaman) has turned this state from a single competitive congressional district and presidential swing-state, to being a key battleground in the House, Senate, and Presidential arena giving us a unique opportunity to turn everything on the state and national level in New Mexico blue.

First things first, with Tom Udall the presumptive nominee for the Democrats and Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce competiting in what will likely be a bruising primary things look very good for our prospects in taking Domenici's senate seat. But what about the house seats? Without knowing who will ultimately be the nominees from each party, it become difficult to predict, so I want to speak to the likely impact the Senate race will have (and on who the nominees are). Udall's presence on the Senate race will easily provide a boost for Democrats in all the congressional districts (especially in NM-01 and NM-03), though it might motivate some Republicans in NM-02.

Keeping this in mind, if Pearce and Wilson go nuclear against each other in the primaries, Republicans might be so disgusted with whoever the winner is that they decide not to turn out. Again, depending on who the nominees are in each district, and depending on who the presidential nominees are (many of you already know my presidential preference, so I won't comment on how this works out, but any commenters who want to go into some details on that should feel free to post it). I think the best shot at winning everything in New Mexico is for a bruised and battered Heather Wilson to take on Tom Udall. One of Heather Wilson's strengths in elections has always been her ability to appear to be moderate on a few issues. If Pearce challenges her too much, she'll have to convince the Republican base that she is every bit as much a wing-nut as Pearce, damaging her reputation (which will have consequences in swing cities like Albuquerque. This might also lower Republican turnout in NM-02, which can give an opening to whoever the Democrat is there. Even if we don't win in NM-02, we can force the NRCC to waste what little money they have in a normally safe district for them.

Donate money to NM House Candidates and to Future Senator Tom Udall

(Cross-posted from MyDD)

Disclaimer: I am not a Clinton supporter. This diary is not in support of Hillary Clinton, nor in opposition to Hillary Clinton. In my mind, Hillary, Obama, and Edwards all have a pretty good shot at being president. The reason I am writing about Hillary’s cabinet is that she has more well-established connections than the other two, which makes it easier to speculate who might be in her cabinet.

Who do you think will be in Hillary’s cabinet? My guesses below the fold.

VP: Evan Bayh

Secretary of State: Richard Holbrooke

Treasury: Gene Sperling

Defense: Diane Feinstein

Atty General: Janet Napolitano

Interior: Tom Vilsack

Agriculture: Ron Sparks

Labor: Richard Gephardt

Commerce: Charlene Barshefsky

Energy: Hilda Solis

Transportation: Ed Rendell

Education: Bob Miller

Veteran’s Affairs: Johnnie Wilson

Health and Human Services: Tammy Baldwin

HUD: Ron Dellums

Homeland Security: Bob Kerrey

Chief of Staff: Terry McAuliffe

Trade Rep: George Munoz

EPA: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Director of National Intelligence: Robert Menendez

OMB: Joe Andrew

Drug Czar: Tom Siebel

National Security Advisor: Jane Harnan

Ambassador to the UN: Joe Wilson

Just some vague guesses. This is who I think might be picked, not who I necessarily think should be picked. What do you think?

Candidate filing in Texas closes on January 2; less than a week away and we still have a number of congressional districts with no Democratic candidate!

*** SOME GAPS FILLED BUT MORE CANDIDATES NEEDED ***

Once again go and take a look at the  

2008 Race Tracker Wiki.

Below the fold for details………….

Texas has 32 Congressional House districts. 13 are held by Democrats of which 10 have officially filed as follows: (Note that I have included the Cook PVI scores for each district also.)

TX-09 – D+21,

TX-15 – D+3,

TX-16 – D+9,

TX-17 – R+18,

TX-22 – R+15,

TX-23 – R+4,

TX-27 – R+1,

TX-28 – R+1,

TX-29 – D+8,

TX-30 – D+26,

The following 3 Democratic incumbents haven’t filed yet but are expected to do so.

TX-18 – D+23,

TX-20 – D+8,

TX-25 – D+1,

That leaves 19 Republican held districts and 7 of these have filed candidates:

TX-06 – R+15,

TX-07 – R+16,

TX-10 – R+13,

TX-13 – R+18,

TX-26 – R+12,

TX-31 – R+15,

TX-32 – R+11,

5 further districts have confirmed candidates that are yet to file officially:

TX-03 – R+17,

TX-04 – R+17,

TX-08 – R+20,

TX-11 – R+25,

TX-24 – R+15,

And two further districts have unconfirmed candidates:

TX-05 – R+16,

TX-21 – R+13,

That leaves 5 districts with no candidate!

And here they are:

TX-01 – R+17,

Not a peep of a candidate here!

TX-02 – R+12,

Conrad Allen announced that he was forming an exploratory committee, set up a campaign website (now defunct) and disappeared off the face of the earth.

TX-12 – R+14,

Not a peep of a candidate here!

TX-14 – R+14,

We had a candidate then he switched parties!

(2006 candidate is out.)

TX-19 – R+25,

Not a peep of a candidate here!

Less than a week to go and we need 5 candidates – do you know anyone that could run?

I just read the list of “Target Seats” from the DCCC and I’m not happy.  Has the entire South, except for Florida, slipped right off the map?  Have they learned nothing from 2006, when we picked up far more seats than expected? If we ignore the South by saying “we can’t win down there”, it will become a self fulfilling prophecy. I believe that some of these honest and hardworking young Dems have a chance, but only if we pay attention and give them some support (especially financial support). Take a moment to read what Ben Lodmell has to say in this press release/pledge to supporters.

MOBILE, December 26, 2007 – “This Democrat will not solicit any special interest money in the coming election campaign against the incumbent Republican Congressman Jo Bonner.”

With these words, Ben Lodmell, Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, today vowed not to let big business be a corrupting influence in the 1st Congressional District of Alabama. In a letter to supporters, Lodmell wrote, “The people can trust that my allegiance is to them and only them. They have my word on it.”

 

Lodmell said he is making this pledge because big business has “hijacked” congress. “It’s as plain as the cash in Congressman Jo Bonner’s campaign coffers. You can see it in his voting records,” Lodmell said.

Lodmell described “Bush’s man in Mobile” as “a millionaire many times over who knows the value of a buck and where to get it. Let’s just take a look as his money guzzling Congressional campaign record.” Since his first campaign in 2002, Bonner has collected over $4 million in political contributions, while personally contributing less than 1%. “More than half of the cash raised,” Lodmell said, “came from political action committees, with who knows how much more coming from other special interest groups whose main purpose is making sure they bought the right kind of political action in Congress.

“Worse yet,” Lodmell said, “most of these contribution have gone into funding extremely expensive political advertising and self-promotion campaigns that manipulate the truth beyond recognition.

“Heck, Jo has already collected $365,719 this election cycle and he hasn’t even begun campaigning – or maybe he has, at least as far as collecting special interest money is concerned.”

“And who are the usual suspects that pour dough into Jo’s campaign pockets election cycle after election cycle? ” Lodmell asked. “There’s the oil and gas industry, agriculture, the utilities, insurance, healthcare and tobacco interests, bankers, the timber and transportation industry, and the old reliable defense contractors, just to name a few.

“And what do these purveyors of bad government get for putting Bonner in office and keeping him there? He votes for subsidies and tax incentives that gin up their profitability at public expense. And he votes against limiting business activities that might curtail that profitability, also at the public’s expense.”

Lodmell ended with this admonition to his supporters: “Bonner isn’t the only one playing the money game in Washington. It’s systemic. And as a result, what we have in Washington is government of business, by business and for business. The people no longer matter. Just money.”

Ben Lodmell declared his candidacy for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Congress from the 1st District in August. He describes himself as the people’s representative. “I’m a fiscally responsible pragmatist and an independent-thinker who can bridge the ideological extremes that often get in the way of getting the people’s business done in Congress.”  

 

Paul (aka pacified) is the creator of the SoapBlox blogging platform – ie, the software which powers this site and many others, such as our friends Blue Hampshire, Burnt Orange Report, and many more. Paul is in the midst of working on some new SoapBlox features and is asking users for feature requests. So if you have any, please head over to this thread and fire away.

Also, Paul is taking SoapBlox open source and is looking for Java developers who want to help make this happen. If you are interested in getting involved, check out this thread and also this one.

we’ve had so much fun imagining who spitzer/blago might appoint to the senate should hillary/obama win the presidency, let’s think about who the WORST appointees would be.

Obama’s seat: Oprah.  controversal, unqualified and too much quid pro quo.

Hillary’s: fran dreshure (is that spelled right?)  she’s actually said in us news washington whispers that she wants the seat.

Ok, so here goes.  Andrew Martin is running for Congress as a Democrat in NV-03 against the hand picked selection of Harry Reid and Chris Von Hollen.  People in Nevada do not like to be told to vote for one of Reid’s boys.  They never win.

Martin is so far the superior candidate it is a disgrace that the DCCC did not select him.  Daskas has no experience that leads me to think he would even begin to know how to do a job of a Congressman.  

We need Martin since Andrew Martin knows money.  Who do you want handling money?  Some guy who worked all his life for Reid or the County or someone who is self employed and helps others do the same and actually understands the Federal government.  Look out for Andrew Martin to be the “dark horse” winner in NV-03.  Original thinking is what we need and what Andrew Martin offers, not another Reid “boy” chosen by Democrats in Washington!

The subscription-only Roll Call bagged an interview with DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen last week. Van Hollen explained that the D-Trip has plans (at least, as of now) to target forty Republican-held seats. Frustratingly, Roll Call didn’t reproduce the list online, but did include it in their print edition. Fortunately, were able to snag it from p. 15 of the PDF version on their website (note: this link will probably not point to the proper issue as of Jan. 7th, 2008):

District	Incumbent	Leading Dem Candidate	2006 D %age	2004 Bush %age
AK-AL	Don Young	Ethan Berkowitz	40	61
AZ-01		Ann Kirkpatrick	43	54
AZ-03	John Shadegg	Bob Lord	38	58
CA-04	John Doolittle	Charlie Brown*	46	61
CA-26	David Dreier	Russ Warner	38	55
CA-50	Brian Bilbray	Nick Leibham	44	55
CO-04	Marilyn Musgrave	Betsy Markey	43	58
CT-04	Christopher Shays	Jim Himes	48	46
FL-08	Ric Keller	Competitive primary	46	55
FL-09	Gus Bilirakis	John Dicks	44	57
FL-13	Vern Buchanan	Christine Jennings*	50	56
FL-24	Tom Feeney	Suzanne Kosmas	42	55
ID-01	Bill Sali	Competitive primary	45	69
IL-10	Mark Kirk	Competitive primary	47	47
IL-11		Debbie Halvorson	45	53
IL-14		Bill Foster	40	55
MI-07	Tim Walberg	Mark Schauer	46	54
MI-09	Joe Knollenberg	Gary Peters	46	51
MN-03		Terri Bonoff	35	51
MN-06	Michele Bachmann	Elwyn Tinklenberg	42	57
MO-06	Sam Graves	Kay Barnes	36	57
NC-08	Robin Hayes	Larry Kissell*	50	54
NJ-03		John Adler	41	51
NJ-07		Linda Stender*	48	53
NM-01		Martin Heinrich	50	48
NM-02		Competitive primary	40	58
NV-03	Jon Porter	Robert Daskas	47	50
NY-13	Vito Fossella	Domenic Recchia	43	55
NY-25	Jim Walsh	Dan Maffei*	49	48
NY-26	Tom Reynolds	Jonathan Powers	48	55
NY-29	Randy Kuhl	Eric Massa*	49	56
OH-01	Steve Chabot	Steve Driehaus	48	51
OH-02	Jean Schmidt	Victoria Wulsin	49	64
OH-14	Steven LaTourette	William O’Neill	39	53
OH-15		Mary Jo Kilroy*	50	50
OH-16		John Boccieri	42	54
PA-03	Phil English	Competitive primary	42	53
WA-08	Dave Reichert	Darcy Burner*	49	48
WV-02	Shelley Moore Capito	John Unger	43	57
WY-AL		Gary Trauner*	48	69

* Denotes repeat candidate

There are a number of notable absences on this list, such as PA-06, FL-10 and VA-11. These seats are obviously already on the DCCC’s radar and will likely make it on to “official” lists sometime soon. I’m surprised that they aren’t already, though, as a little prodding might help push crumb-bums like Tom Davis and Bill Young into retirement. Hell, Young already lives in Florida – retirement is just a shuffleboard game away.

And undoubtedly, some districts will slip off this list as time passes. In fact, there’s nothing particularly special about this list except for the fact that six challengers are already (or are about to) receive an influx of DCCC aid. (Brownsox has a good roundup here.) As we all know, inclusion on last year’s various “Red to Blue” lists could mean anything from full-blown establishment support to a mere “attaboy.”

But, food for thought nonetheless. So, who should the DCCC be backing who isn’t on this list? And which races, if any, are you surprised to see here?

Candidate filing in Texas closes on January; a mere week and a bit away and we still have a number of congressional districts with no Democratic candidate!

Once again go and take a look at the  

2008 Race Tracker Wiki.

Below the fold for details………….

Texas has 32 Congressional House districts. 13 are held by Democrats of which 9 have officially filed as follows: (Note that I have included the Cook PVI scores for each district also.)

TX-09 – D+21,

TX-15 – D+3,

TX-16 – D+9,

TX-17 – R+18,

TX-22 – R+15,

TX-23 – R+4,

TX-27 – R+1,

TX-28 – R+1,

TX-29 – D+8,

The following 4 Democratic incumbents haven’t filed yet but are expected to do so.

TX-18 – D+23,

TX-20 – D+8,

TX-25 – D+1,

TX-30 – D+26,

That leaves 19 Republican held districts and 6 of these have filed candidates:

TX-06 – R+15,

TX-07 – R+16,

TX-10 – R+13,

TX-13 – R+18,

TX-26 – R+12,

TX-31 – R+15,

Four further districts have confirmed candidates that are yet to file officially:

TX-03 – R+17,

TX-04 – R+17,

TX-08 – R+20,

TX-32 – R+11,

And two further districts have unconfirmed candidates:

TX-05 – R+16,

TX-11 – R+25,

That leaves seven districts with no candidate!

And here they are:

TX-01 – R+17,

Not a peep of a candidate here!

TX-02 – R+12,

Conrad Allen announced that he was forming an exploratory committee, set up a campaign website (now defunct) and disappeared off the face of the earth.

TX-12 – R+14,

Not a peep of a candidate here!

TX-14 – R+14,

We had a candidate then he switched parties!

(2006 candidate is out.)

TX-19 – R+25,

Not a peep of a candidate here!

TX-21 – R+13,

Not a peep of a candidate here!

TX-24 – R+15,

According to a comment at Daily Kos a real estate mogul Bill Eden has filed. He hasn’t yet filed with the TDP or the FEC.

Less than a month to go and we need 7 candidates – do you know anyone that could run?

You might have noticed that the steady flow of posts here has turned into more of a slow drip in the last week.  Sorry about that.  A lot has happened lately on my side of things in the last couple of weeks: I ended my internship with TPM, I moved a few thousand miles (again), I managed to get a sweet new job, and I’ve been scrambling to finish my Christmas shopping.

So, I think now is as good a time as any to take a break.  We might make a few occasional updates if the mood strikes, but the Swing State Project is officially taking the rest of the year off.

Happy holidays, everyone!

---

Notable User Diaries

Because we forgot to do this last week, we belatedly present the cream of the crop for the week of 12/15 – 12/21:

• Benawu takes stock of Ohio, where the Jan. 4th filing deadline looms. He finds that four GOP-held House seats lack confirmed Democratic challengers. Time’s running out!
• David Kowalski passes along the news that GOP Reps. Mary Bono (CA-45) and Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy (FL-14) (better known as Connie Mack IV) recently married. Will the strains of a maintaining a three-city lifestyle push either Republican into an early retirement? And what might this mean for Dem prospects? David has some thoughts.