Who do you love, and who loves you?
Update (Trent): We thought we’d shake things up a bit this week with a caption contest. This time, see what you can come up with for this photo of Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries Ron Sparks (second from left) and Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright.
Let me pose a different sort of question for this Presidents Day: Tell us about some of your favorite campaigns from the past. These could include stunning upsets where unheralded Dems beat incumbent GOPers against all odds; races where beleaguered but worthy Dems held on against stiff challenges; situations where Team Blue utterly pounded highly-touted opposition; or even moral victories, like narrow losses which set the table for an early retirement or a later win. Bonus points for good stories about campaigns you actually worked on.
Anyhow, however you define it, tell us about some of your favorite campaigns from yester-year, and why these memories still stick with you.
Don’t forget that on 3/4, Texas and Ohio will also hold their congressional primaries, too. Which Lone Star and Buckeye State primaries are on your radar? I’m thinking TX-22, TX-10 and OH-10 for starters. What else?
P.S. Trapper John has a question.
UPDATE: KS-Sen: Dem Greg Orman is out.
Sorry for the inactivity here, folks. I’m currently working on a campaign that is consuming nearly every waking second of my life. But the good news for SSP is that this will all be over in the first week of March. I’ll have more to say on this subject later.
In the meantime, feel free to use this as an open thread to discuss any of the recent retirements (OR-05), announcements (Joe Garcia in FL-25) or presidential caucuses and primaries today (LA, NE, and WA on the Dem side).
Let’s hear it!
Which GOP crumb-bum is going to strap on the golden parachute next?
UPDATE (James Hell): Ding ding ding! It’s Dave Weldon! (FL-15, R+4.1):
Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.) announced Friday that he will retire from Congress at the end of this session, citing a desire to return to his medical practice.
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Weldon, 54, is a seven-term lawmaker who sits on the House Appropriations Committee.
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President Bush won Weldon’s district in 2004 with 57 percent of the vote, compared to 43 percent for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).
P.S. (David): Dan Maffei added to DCCC’s Red-to-Blue list. I’m very glad to see this.
We forgot to do this last week, so here are two weeks’ worth of great diaries:
It’s that time of week.
The first primaries are just a month away! I’m talking, of course, about the Illinois congressional primaries, which feature a marquee matchup between netroots-backed Mark Pera and out-of-touch incumbent Dan Lipinski.
What races are you looking at?
Ton of great diaries this week.
Glacial Erratic updates us on the Republican field in PA-05, where Rep. John Peterson (R) is the latest GOPer to announce his retirement.
Skywrnchsr509 surveys competitive House races in the states with early filing deadlines: Ohio, Texas, Illinois, and Maryland.
Plf515‘s series on House races continues, with looks at MS, KY & WV, MD , and PA.
Fbihop tells us about a move to liberalize ballot access requirements in New Mexico, which could make an already wide-open campaign season even more boisterous.
Some good news on the state level in Mississippi: Mississippiboy passes along word that Democrat Billy McCoy was narrowly re-elected speaker of the MS House over Barbour ally (and DINO) Jeff Smith.
Republicans, Democrats, predictions, results. It’s all yours.
Or will you prove countmippipopolous right?
UPDATE: Wow. Was there a soul alive who called this one for Clinton? This is turning out to be the greatest horserace of all time. I hereby dub it “The Geakness Stakes.”
Best comment ever on SSP?
SSP is my favorite blog because their primary open thread has no comments :-).
I love it. This open thread is a primary-free zone.