Swing State Project

In response to David’s request that SSP readers mention some candidates worth supporting before the second quarter ends this weekend, here’s an update on Jim Himes’ campaign in CT-04 – Chris Shays’ district, the last spot of red in the House in all of New England:

There are just under 500 days remaining until Election Day 2008. And I intend to spend every one of those days running a different type of campaign, one that focuses on person-to-person contact and real grassroots participation.

Now is the time to build the foundation of this campaign. And I’m looking to you to help build it. Become a Founding Member of our campaign today, and help us reach our goal of signing up 500 new Founding Members before June 30th.

What will you get for being a “Founding Member” of the campaign? You won’t get any special access or treatment. You’ll get something much more meaningful: the opportunity and responsibility of being one of the first people to join our effort to change the direction of our country and address the real priorities of our district.

Himes’ non-political background is diverse (grew up in Latin America, public schools, Rhodes Scholar, Goldman Sachs VP, now works at an affordable housing nonprofit), he’s already impressive as a candidate at this early stage, and he’s looking to run a different type of campaign in a district that is usually dominated by big media buys.

Shays’ time is finally up in 2008, if the netroots and grassroots starts building the foundation for this campaign now. Contribute or sign up to volunteer and help Jim reach the goal of 500 “founding members” of the campaign before this month is over.

Or sign up for email updates here.

Disclosure: I am currently doing some early volunteer work online for Jim Himes.

When Tom DeLay engineered his redistricting scheme four years ago, he was riding high.  In control of the White House and both houses of Congress, he and his partisan allies thought they could get away with anything, from a war of choice in Iraq to choosing a new representative to roam the halls of Congress for us.

So how’d they do?

Well, Mr. DeLay, the man who once boasted “I am the federal government,” was forced to resign in disgrace.  Iraq, where I spent the past year-and-a-half, is mired in sectarian violence that is costing taxpayers $8 billion per month and untold treasure in the lives we’ve lost.

As for the Congressman bequeathed to us by Mr. DeLay, the news isn’t much better there, either.  Only two of Texas’ 32-member congressional delegation are less effective, according to the latest non-partisan power ranking.  Despite rubberstamping every failed Bush policy for the past four years, he has even less influence than Ted Poe and Pete Sessions.

That’s why I’m running for Congress in Texas’ 10th District – because the last thing we need is more of the same.

I’ve worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.  I’ve seen what happens around the world when Washington exports partisanship instead of American values.  And now I’ve come home to ask you to send me to the source so we can change the course.

I’m ready to lead the way toward positive change.  Together, we can improve national security, move toward energy independence, reduce the national debt, and provide a level playing field for middle-class families.  We can achieve health care coverage for every child.  We can restore our leadership role in the world.

Most of all, we can find a smart way out of Iraq and bring our brave troops home to the heroes’ welcome they have earned.

Please join me and let’s make a fresh start in a new direction.

http://www.dangrantf…

Considering that it’s a state that Gore won (in my book), and that John “The Haunted Tree” Kerry lost by 5 points, Florida’s lopsided congressional delegation of 16 Republicans and 9 Democrats sticks out like a sore thumb on the U.S. electoral map.  (Of course, it was even worse before the victories of Tim Mahoney in FL-16 and Ron Klein in FL-22 last year, at a brutal margin of 18R-7D.)  Chalk it up to tenaciously shrewd gerrymandering by the Florida state legislature.  Five of Florida’s House Democrats are packed in districts that delivered over 65% of their votes to Kerry in 2004, one (FL-11) gave Kerry 58%, one is in marginally Democratic turf (Klein), and two Blue Doggies hold districts that lean GOP on the Presidential level as of late (Allen Boyd and Mahoney, whose districts both delivered 54% their vote to Bush in 2004).  Florida’s Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, have set up shop in a plethora of districts specially created for them–areas that Bush won by margins between 10 and 20 points (of which there are 11).

But as Democrats have proven themselves more adept at holding red turf than Republicans have been at retaining seats in blue districts (Democrats currently hold 62 House districts that Bush won in 2004, while Republicans hold a scant eight that voted for Kerry), so too has their zeal for stepping up the pressure against incumbents in Republican-leading districts.  According to the AP,  DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen has lined up five Republican seats for aggressive challenges in 2008:

For Democrats, the targets are Reps. Vern Buchanan, Ric Keller, Dave Weldon, Tom Feeney and C.W. “Bill” Young.

Here’s the rationale for each:

– Buchanan barely won his District 13 seat in the Sarasota area after spending more than $5 million of his own money on the race. He won by 369 votes. His opponent, Christine Jennings, believes touch-screen voting machines lost thousands of ballots and that she would have won if all votes had been counted.

– Keller promised to leave office after eight years, then decided after the last election to break his vow. He’ll have to use resources in a primary before facing a Democratic opponent. Democrats see signs the District 8 seat that includes the Orlando area could favor one of their candidates, and they’ll make a case that Keller’s voting record doesn’t reflect the interests of his constituents.

– Weldon underperformed at the polls last year when he was re-elected in District 15, which represents the Atlantic coast from Vero Beach north to Cape Canaveral. He was re-elected with 56 percent of the vote, but against a weak Democratic candidate who spent far less money. A stronger, better financed candidate could be a challenge.

– Feeney’s District 24, which stretches from the area north and east of Orlando to Brevard and Volusia counties’ coastline, would normally be considered safely his. But Feeney’s golf trip to Scotland with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff could taint the congressman as Democrats continue to make ethics an issue in 2008.

– Young’s District 10 seat, which represents Pinellas County, is slightly Republican, but trends show the large independent voting bloc favors Democratic candidates. Young also hasn’t been seriously tested in years.

Democrats have already lined up a few ambitious challengers for these districts.  Keller, who won re-election by an underwhelming 53-46 margin against Democrat Charlie Stuart (a DCCC pick whose ability to compete monetarily in the general election was hampered by a competitive primary), will square off either with prosecutor Mike Smith or Sierra Club activist Corbett Kroehler.  But first Keller (who’s breaking his term limit pledge by running again), will have to get through a primary with conservative radio host and attorney Todd Long.  Long caught Keller somewhat off-guard during the first quarter, where he outraised the incumbent by a $40k to $27k margin.

In FL-15, Democrats have recruited Paul Rancatore, a Lt. Col. in the Air Force Reserves and the current “Director for Commercialization of Human Space Flight in the National Security and Space Office” at the Pentagon (that’s a mouthful).  In FL-13, Christine Jennings never ended her campaign against Vern Buchanan, of course, and she’s been raising money at a fast clip to pay for her legal expenses.  Despite her narrow “loss” last year, her race will be as tough to win as the rest of these, given some of Buchanan’s cautious votes in the House.

But it’s perhaps Florida’s 10th district that could be the most exciting of the five.  Unlike the rest of Florida’s Republican delegation, Bill Young holds a true toss-up seat, with a PVI of D+1.1.  Gore won this area by two points, and Kerry lost it by the same margin.  On paper, Young would appear formidable: he’s a 36-year incumbent, and he hasn’t won a re-election with less than 65% of the vote in ages.  But on the other hand: Democrats haven’t really tested his hand.  And given his totally irresponsible handling of the Walter Reed scandal, there’s clearly some rust to be punctured here.  Democrats have yet to line up a strong challenger to either him or the Abramoff-loving Tom Feeney (FL-24), and these will be major tests of Van Hollen’s recruiting prowess.

One final note about the article:

Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, expressed confidence that the party wouldn’t repeat its showing in 2006. He said Mahoney never would have won if it hadn’t been for Foley’s scandal and that Republicans perform better in Florida during presidential elections.

“All these districts will perform more like they normally do in ’08 than they did in ’06. That’s what presidential elections do. The Democrats had their best shot at a lot of these folks in 2006 and either didn’t make it or didn’t pull the trigger. I don’t think they’ll get a second opportunity,” Cole said. “We’re back to normal politics.”

With Iraq spiraling out of control, it’ll never be “normal politics”, Tom.  You should be ashamed of yourself.

The end of the fundraising quarter is this Saturday, June 30th. I know I don’t need to remind Swing State Project readers about how important these deadlines are. But I do want to raise an issue that we didn’t face last cycle – the presidential campaign.

Each passing quarter, more and more media oxygen will get devoted to the presidentials. This quarter may be the last before the political press gets totally devoured by the race for the White House. So I strongly encourage donating to the Democrat (or Democrats) of your choice this week.

If you’re looking for some worthy candidates, you can check out Charlie Brown and Donna Edwards on the Blue Majority fundraising page (formerly the “netroots” page). But there are tons of great people out there. Find someone you like and give a little.

And in comments, if you’re making a donation or thinking about doing so, please tell us who your target might be.

The awareness phase of the campaign to stop global warming has reached a crescendo, which may also be a plateau. With the exception of front groups sponsored by oil companies, it is becoming more and more accepted that we, in fact, are the cause of global warming.

The action phase, however, trails the awareness phase significantly and most troubling of all is the growing belief that someone else is going to be the somebody to actually do something about global warming. Even worse, and most naively of all, that our federal government is going to solve the problem.

A federal bureaucracy and the people within have significant strengths, and they must be part of the solution, but frankly, can we afford to wait for them? When was the last time your local, state or federal government led the charge on anything? Far less something that is so important, so critical and whose solutions will cause hardship to some. In fact, the stronger the actions, the greater the distortions from those affected — it simply is not a solution custom-made for government action.

So who has the power to stop global warming? Who has the power to lead the environmental movement? You do. I do. And every person who reads this does. Not as individuals, true, but as a collection of people, a constituency of those who are willing to do small acts of greenness every single day. A vast movement that can literally change the world if we green our days and our nights and our weekends.

These actions we must ask of ourselves can be as simple as the tried and the true, ‘turn out the lights’ or as cost-effective as changing to energy-efficient lightbulbs. It’s not that the actions are hard, or difficult, or extreme, it’s just that we need to remind each other and ourselves, constantly, of the constant collective good we can do.

The cumulative effect of these actions would be simply astronomical. I have just finished reading a new book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen that outlines over 400 of these simple action items. The Green Book is a marvel because it shows a series of simple steps that are easy to execute and the vast majority save you money while you are helping save the environment.

Here’s an example from the book. If we each bought Fair Trade coffee, which is a good idea for many reasons, for a whole year, we would each save 9,200 square feet of rain forest. If every household in Seattle did this every year, every year, then in a wonderful ying and yang of research, we would save a rain forest the size of Seattle. The destruction of rain forests is one of the factors behind global warming. So there, in a simple action, multiplied thousands of times, is a solution to what is ailing our planet.

As a coffee drinker, this is something I can do. If it’s not your cup of tea, flip through The Green Book and find things you can. That’s the beauty of it. No one has to do everything. Everyone can do something.

The questions are “what can I do about global warming?” and “how can I help the environment?” The answer is plenty. If we do it together.

Well-known Georgia populist firebrand and former state legistlator Wycliffe “Wyc” Orr is seriously considering a run against the incompetent and disgraceful Bush rubber stamp, Saxby Chambliss.

Orr, a north Georgia trial lawyer and military veteran, is well-respected throughout the state and is acknowledged as one of the best stump speakers among all Georgia politicians. A group of activist Georgia Democrats, concerned about the various weaknesses of the current 3 declared candidates, is strongly urging Wyc to run and has launched a “Draft Wyc” organization to support his candidacy.

Get an idea of Wyc’s stump strength in the video on the flip…

Orr, in a recent radio talk show appearance, has called for immediate, no-nonsense withdrawal from Iraq. He is regarded as a strong populist and exudes a persona that reminds one of Alabama’s Ron Sparks.

Read more about Wyc Orr and sign the draft petition here. There are also a number of video’s of Orr’s speeches on the site.

Georgia Democrats badly need an aggressive firebrand populist with great stump skills to challenge Chambliss, and Orr just may be the person to fill that bill. Two of the three declared candidates have major weaknesses, while the third and most viable of the three currently announced candidates lacks experience:

Vernon Jones, DeKalb County Chief Executive, Democrat who allegedly supported Bush in 2004. Long saddled with the reputation of a somewhat hedonistic private life, Jones has more baggage than can be found in the belly of a Boeing 777. He has only raised $18,000 thus far, an indication that he has little support.

Dale Cardwell, former WSB TV investigative reporter, is essentially a right wing Republican masquerading as a Democrat. His positions on various issues range from Republican-talking-point to just-plain- crazy…he wants to abolish the IRS for example. For more on Cardwell, his site is here.

Rand Knight, an environmental scientist, is the most appealing of the currently-declared candidates. A new face on the scene, his positions on issues are very much in sync with progressive Dem values. However, he is inexperienced and a marginal stump speaker. IMO, he is extraordinarily intelligent, but does not seem to have to capacity to communicate in such a way that the average Georgian would understand. His website, which can be found  here, is impressive but the verbiage is just too verbose. A Knight candidacy would be a good thing in that it would help him gain some seasoning as  campaigner, but in the big picture he’s not the right guy to face Chambliss at this time.
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Orr has great potential appeal. He has an impeccable reputation in terms of personal integrity, is a solid populist and life-long Democrat, is a veteran, and kicks ass as a speaker. Keep your eye on Wyc…he just may be the right guy to knock off Chambliss.

Crossposted at Daily Kos.

What have you got?

Sorry for the relative dry spell around SSP lately.  I just started up a new job this week with rather long-ish hours, but I’m still going to work blogging into my schedule.

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Discussion Items:

• MN-06: Dean Barkley, the former interim Senator from Minnesota following the death of Paul Wellstone in 2002, is openly mulling a challenge to wingnut Republican Michele Bachmann.  Barkley, a three-time Senatorial candidate under the Independence Party banner, says that he would only want to run in a two-way race as an independent with tacit DFL support.  Well, Barkley, who played the spoiler in two successive Senate contests MN-06 in 1992 and in the 1994 Senate race, is no Bernie Sanders.  His kind words for a Fred Thompson Presidency are not exactly inspiring, either.
• TN-Sen: DailyKos diarist R o o k has a great piece up commenting on the news that Mike McWherter, son of the popular former Governor Ned McWherter (1987-1995), is considering a run against Republican Lamar! Alexander next year.  I’d like to learn more about a potential McWherter candidacy, but I am heartened to hear that this low-radar race may not be given a pass.
• WY-Sen-B: I don’t know if the phrase “the best of a bad lot” is really appropriate here, because Wyoming’s newest Senator, John Barrasso, seems like just another far-right Coke bottle Republican, fresh from the assembly plant.  Still, it’s hard to fault Freudenthal for not picking an Abramoff crony or a bitter rival in Barrasso’s place.

Anzalone-Liszt, the firm that revealed Robin Hayes’ vulnerability against underdog Democrat Larry Kissell in a surprising poll last May, is back with perhaps the first publicly-leaked House race match-up polls of the 2008 cycle.  And boy, is it a doozy:

Robin Hayes (R-Inc.): 45
Larry Kissell (D): 43

Re-Elect Hayes: 40
Vote For Someone New: 43

Kissell, who came within 329 votes of upsetting the CAFTA-loving Hayes in 2006 despite being outspent by $779k to Hayes’ $2.48 million, won’t be as starved for funds in 2008, if DCCC Chair Rep. Chris Van Hollen has anything to do with it:

We are fully committed to this effort going forward. We think this is a winnable race. We think the fact that we came so close, that Larry came so close last time is a clear indication that Robin Hayes is vulnerable. We think he remains vulnerable. […]

I told Larry, that come next spring when we put together our Red to Blue program, that this race will be on that list from the start and we will continue obviously to work with the campaign going forward.

That was part of a transcript of a conference call between Kissell, Van Hollen, Marc Silverman of Anzalone-Liszt, and potential donors posted on BlueNC.  Also discussed during the call was the broad name recognition gap that Hayes holds over Kissell.  Despite being known to only 34% of voters (compared to 84% for Hayes), Kissell trails the incumbent by a statistically insignificant margin.  Compare Kissell’s 34% recognition to the 19% that Democrat Paul Hodes posted in May 2006 (also his second–and successful–crack at the bat in a House race), and you can see why Kissell is ahead of the curve while still showing a lot of room to grow.  With a boost of new resources, Kissell can introduce himself for the first time to a lot of voters that his underfunded grassroots campaign couldn’t reach last year.  The caveat is, as Markos notes, Hayes will take Kissell’s challenge much more seriously at a much earlier starting point in the cycle.  So expect Uncle Pennybags to dip into his own coffers somewhat heavily.  And expect the NRCC to come packing heat.

BlueNC has much, much more.

Race Tracker: NC-08

Public Policy Polling is out with another poll.  This one is huge, with a lot of results for us to talk about.

But, before I dive into details, check out this quick insert from the Indy Weekly of the Triangle:
 

Our tracking signals indicate that Dole rarely travels to North Carolina, whereas Miller seems to be in perpetual campaign motion there. And Republicans like Dole are out of favor for sticking so close to President Bush, are they not? We thus conclude that Miller would beat Dole like a tympanic skin-a drum, I believe you call it.

Ok, now that I have your attention, to the poll.  This poll (link at bottom) consisted of 800 likely voters pulled from the voter rolls.

First, lets hit on the big and simple numbers.
Bush’s approval in North Carolina is 37%, with 59% Disapproval.

This number has been fairly consistent for a while.  If anything this number is worse than it has been in the past.

Next up is Elizabeth Dole.

This poll has Dole’s approval rating at 48% approval and 40% disapproval.  Her numbers have been fluctuating at around +5%.  She might have grabbed a point or two because she killed the immigration bill (first thing she has accomplished in months), but I think this is just margin of error fluctuations.

Just for kicks PPP did a matchup poll between Dole and each of the Democratic candidates for Governor.  Dole leads Lt Gov Beverly Perdue 46 to 37.  Dole leads Treasurer Richard Moore 45 to 34.

Neither of them will actually run, but its interesting because this is matchup poll #6 where Dole has polled below 50%.

From the other side of the aisle, Right Wing think lie tank Civitas has a poll out showing slightly different results.  I wont link to their poll unless I have to, for the same reason I wouldnt link to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly.  However, I will talk about their results.

I do not trust these results, as they are normally as Republican friendly as possible without the group losing their non-profit status.  However, with that caveat, their poll results are really good for us.  They give Dole the same 48% approval rating, but with an impossibly low 28% disapproval.  They also show 22% with no opinion.  They also polled for Brad Miller, showing him with 14% approval, 10% disapproval, 38% no opinion and 38% dont know his name.  Considering Brad has only been in Congress since 2002, this is not too surprising.  It might be a little low, but is about what I expected his numbers to be.  If he is going to beat Dole it will just be a question of whether he can raise the money needed to get his name in front of people.

With all of those caveats, they polled Dole v Miller, and got 46% Dole 31% Miller.  So, a Republican friendly poll against a guy with 24% name ID, and they still cant give her numbers above 50%.  She is in BIG trouble.

Ok, back to the Public Policy Poll.  They did matchup polling between Hillary, Obama, Edwards and Rudy McRomneyson.

Against Rudy
Giuliani 47% Clinton 43%
Giuliani 46% Obama 42%
Giuliani 45% Edwards 46%

Against Romney
Romney 41% Clinton 47%
Romney 40% Obama 44%
Romney 37% Edwards 51%

Against McCain
McCain 44% Clinton 45%
McCain 45% Obama 44%
McCain 40% Edwards 48%

Against Thompson
Thompson 46% Clinton 43%
Thompson 45% Obama 40%
Thompson 43% Edwards 47%

In the crosstabs, Edwards bleeds off more Republican support than either Obama or Clinton.  But, his real strength is amongst independent voters.  Obama does the worst job of holding onto Democrats, but he is buoyed by his support amongst independents.

What is really interesting is the similarities amongst black voters for all the candidates.  Personally, I think these polls might be even better news for us than seem.  Does anyone really believe that Obama would lose up to 20% of black voters to McCain?  Does anyone really believe that on election day 24% of black voters will choose Rudy over Edwards?

All these Republicans have way too many skeletons for that to happen, meaning you can probably safely add 2-3 points to every Democratic result.

Some other thoughts on cross tabs.
Dole’s support amongst women is still much healthier than her support amongst men.  This is something that can be changed just by focusing on her actual record on “women’s issues”. 

Our numbers amongst younger voters are simply astonishing.
Amongst voters between the ages of 18 and 29:
Edwards leads Romney 64 to 33! 
Obama leads McCain 61 to 33!

There is a lot more to swallow, check out the poll for yourself.  There are 12 pages (PDF) of statistical goodness.

A quick personal note to end the diary.  Thank you to the people who donated to Brad Miller yesterday.  The Draft page raised over a 1000 dollars yesterday with donors from Kentucky to NC, and donations from $20.00 to $1000.08  Thank you a thousand times over to those people who put their money where their mouth is.

The folks over at Tondee’s Tavern are saying that Democrat James Marlow has conceded the race for Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. But if you look at the statement they actually link to, Marlow doesn’t quite do that. Rather, he says:

We will watch as the final official returns come in, and once all of the votes are in, we will make an assessment about whether further action is appropriate.

That’s because state law permits Marlow – who trails Republican Paul Broun by 187 votes in the official count – to seek a recount so long as the margin separating the two is less than 1%. Right now it’s 0.4%, but that number is only likely to increase, given that the few outstanding precincts are almost all in counties which favored Broun. And no matter what the final tally, there’s no reason to believe a recount could make up the difference.

Ultimately, this is a pretty frustrating outcome, given that two other lesser-known Democrats in the race took 8% between them – more than enough to have put Marlow comfortably in second place. Then again, an overall Dem performance of 28.3% is pretty appalling, given that even John Kerry managed to take 35% in this district. (Of course, in a low-turnout special election, this isn’t much of a surprise.) So even if Marlow were to advance to the run-off, it’s difficult to envision any way in which he could win. Repeating that Hackett magic is hard.