Swing State Project

Go to the website for the House Government Reform Committee (now chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman). Click the link in the top-right corner for “Minority Office.” What do you get?

No comment necessary.

( – promoted by DavidNYC)

Last week, David took a look at the “Swing States” for 2008, adding:

Now, as you know, I’m a big believer in the fifty-state strategy, but as you also know, these things take time. As much as I’d like to believe we’ll see an expanded playing field in the next presidential race, I think we all realize that Howard Dean’s plan is the work of many years.

I agree, and it’s important to put our resources where they have the best chance of affecting the outcome, but at the same time, we don’t know how the picture will look, who our nominee will be, who their nominee will be, etc. Speculation is fun, and I’m no stranger to it. But the question that came to me, a resident of a deep-red state, when looking at the playing field, and realizing that the playing field David put out there is probably broader than the playing field we’ll see in 2008, was: What can we do to change it? How can the netroots do what we do best – making races competitive – in 2008? Can we do it in a Presidential race?

Of the 31 states George W. Bush won in 2004, he won 9 of them by less than 10%. Those states total 97 electoral votes. Those are states that we can, conceivably, win in 2008. If we flip 18 or more electoral votes from 2004, we have a majority. But playing offense is our strength, and being ambitious is a luxury we have that the campaign does not.

Of course, there’s only so much we can do on our own. But we can lay the groundwork, build up local successes, do whatever we can do to help elect Democrats in 2008. Maybe, in the process, we can make some of these states competitive on a Presidential level, and force the Republicans to play defense.

So, I’m just kicking some thoughts around here: If you live in a state that went for Bush in 2004, what races, if any, can we focus on? Are there potential Democratic candidates you think could bring the state you live in into play? Are there potential Republican candidates that could? Also, what are the prominent blogs in your state or district?

I think we need to make sure that 2006 was only the beginning. We have an opportunity to elect Democrats all across the country in 2008, we should take advantage.

States Won By Bush in ’04 (swing states in italics, electoral votes and approval rating in parentheses):
Alabama (9) 62.5% (45%)
Alaska (3) 61% (43%)
Arizona (10) 54.8% (41%)
Arkansas (6) 54.3% (38%)
Colorado (9) 51.7% (41%)
Florida (27) 52.1% (42%)
Georgia (15) 58% (45%)
Idaho (4) 68.4% (55%)
Indiana (11) 60% (40%)
Iowa (7) 49.9%(38%)
Kansas (6) 62% (45%)
Kentucky (8) 59.6% (40%)
Louisiana (9) 56.7% (47%)
Mississippi (6) 59% (45%)
Missouri (11) 53.3% (34%)
Montana (3) 59.1% (45%)
Nebraska (5)* 65.9% (46%) – There’s a quirk in Nebraska’s election law that awards electoral votes by Congressional District. NE-02 went 61-38% for Bush in 2004. In 2006, Republican Lee Terry won the district 55-45%, after a 61-36% victory in ’04. Maine is the only other state with this sort of law. The rest of the states are “winner take all.”
Nevada (5) 50.5% (37%)
New Mexico (5) 49.8% (34%)
North Carolina (15) 56% (43%)
North Dakota (3) 62.9% (47%)
Ohio (20) 50.8% (34%)
Oklahoma (7) 65.6% (43%)
South Carolina (8) 57.9% (41%)
South Dakota (3) 59.9% (42%)
Tennessee (11) 56.8% (41%)
Texas (34) 61.1% (41%)
Utah (5) 71.5% (55%)
Virginia (13) 53.7% (44%)
West Virginia (5) 56.1% (40%)
Wyoming (3) 68.9% (49%)

My goal here is simply to get some input from everyone: what can we do in the “red” states? Some of these states, particularly the ones Bush won by less than 10%, are states we can and should win on a Presidential level. Some of these states, clearly, would take an absolute disaster by the Republicans to win. So my question is obviously not limited to the Presidential race, although it’s a big part of the equation. We had a few states in 2006 that weren’t able to capitalize on the wave. We had a few states (like Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho) that made significant progress but still couldn’t have much tangible success. What should be our strategy? Is it too soon to start talking about expanding the playing field?

Crossposted at Daily Kos and MyDD

(So the election is one month from today. I think this one is going to consume a lot of my interest. – promoted by DavidNYC)

Adapted from a post at the albany project

According to Newsday, the special election to replace outgoing state Senator Michael Balboni will take place on Feb 6th. The GOP has chosen Nassau County Clerk and former Assemby Member Maureen O’Connell and the dems will choose a candidate on Monday.

It’s interesting to me that Tom DiNapoli, who was often mentioned as being the candidate with the right of first refusal in this race, isn’t being mentioned in media reports at all anymore. I guess he really does want to be Comptroller. As for the other dem hopefuls, Newsday lists them thusly:

Jacobs said he will head a screening committee that Saturday will interview four Democrats seeking the party’s nomination: legislators Roger Corbin of Westbury and Craig Johnson of Port Washington; East Williston activist Matthew Cuomo, nephew of former Gov. Mario Cuomo and cousin of state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo; and North Hempstead Town Clerk Michelle Schimel.

The screening committee will submit its recommendation to the executive committee Monday night, Jacobs said.

Everything I’ve heard in the past two weeks points to Nassau County legislator Craig Johnson as being the new favorite. Johnson seems to be a pretty progressive candidate. (here is his  official site and campaign site)

Over at the albany project, guest blogger and all around bad ass Scott in NJ has some more relevant details about the state of the players and district.

Republicans have nominated Nassau County Clerk Maureen O’Connell, who reportedly has the Independence and Conservative lines as well.  The Democrats will pick their candidate on Monday; Nassau County Legislator Craig Johnson is the front-runner for that nomination.  Johnson has run on the WFP line in the past and he will probably get row E against O’Connell.  Insiders suggest that the parties could spend up to $4 million on the race.

As of December, the Senate Republican Campaign Committee had $580,490.96 on hand; the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee had $143,166.31.  O’Connell can expect substantial support from the Nassau County Republican Committee, which has $1,359,471.43 on hand.  The County Democrats spent all of their cash on the 2006 campaign.

Tom Suozzi had $560,190.76 left over after his primary run, but he might have spread some of that money out among ’06 general election candidates.  FWIW, Johnson supported Spitzer over Suozzi in ’06.  Spitzer-Paterson 2006 still had $5,529,993.05 in the coffers after the general election.

Democrats hold a 38-35 registration edge in the district.

Looks like we’re gettin’ it on a month from today. As soon as the dems pick their candidate we’ll be covering that as well.

  By now, anyone who hasn’t lived in a cave these past years knows the critical importance that global climate change will have in trends toward more violent weather patterns and storms of significant risk to our vital National Security.
  Despite best estimates for our ability to counter the climate shifts expected of future decades, implementing sound environmental policy with plans and processes that mitigate this threat, being prepared to deal with the inevitable pending disasters will be of vital concern as we enter the twenty-first century.
  As we look to those who would lead our United States as our next President, it should be obvious to all how important it will be to have someone in the Oval Office that understands not only the risks that we face with these changing environmental conditions, but how to best prepare to face them.

  Please take a moment to review the following interview (And YouTube Video) with Wes Clark about the failures of Katrina response  and some steps involved to prepare ourselves in the future.

Nick Ballasy: With hurricane Katrina. How do you feel about the Bush administration’s response? Was it appropriate? Would you have done something totally different? Or..

Wes Clark: Well, there are a lot of things wrong with this and there’s plenty of fault finding at every level.

  One of the things that happened, of course, that everybody knows about is the Federal Emergency Management Agency was slipped into the Department of Homeland Security and the focus was on terrorism, not on responding to natural disasters. So that was a distraction.

  Another thing is, a lot of the key people were taken out of the Federal Emergency Management Agency because these were professional people and it became part of the political spoils. They put guys like Michael Brown, I’m sure he’s a decent guy, I don’t know him personally, but he had no experience for this kind of thing. It wasn’t like he was a, you know, big business leader who knew how to make things happen. He was a lawyer. And I like lawyers, but, unless you’ve run a big organization in a crisis, a disaster like Katrina is a tough.. It’s a tough learning experience and he didn’t do very well. And by the way, the guy over him, Michael Chertoff, he’s another lawyer who’s never, you know Federal Prosecuter, but he’d never actually had his hands on the wheel of a big organization. It’s about how you communicate, how you task, how you review, how you follow up, how you set suspenses and deadlines. It’s a whole lot of things that somebody in the military, for example, I mean, I’ve learned it throughout a thirty-four year career. I know how to do that kind of thing. James Lee Witt, down there helping the Governor of Louisiana, he learned it. He was a disaster manager in Arkansas before he ran the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

  So there’s that problem.

  Then we had a problem in the Pentagon too. We used to support the disasters out of the Pentagon. Let’s face it, I mean, the only real resources that can flow around are military resources. Federal Emergency Management Agency doesn’t have a fleet of helicopters standing by. It doesn’t have a thousand trucks, you know, with food that’s all loaded up to run in for every disaster. It tasks the military.

  Now, we used to have something that was inside the Pentagon called the director of military support. It was run by the Secretary of the Army. But, organizational politics got in the way. Nobody could understand why the Army got to do all this disaster relief but the National Military Command Center, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense, they didn’t. So people got jealous of the Secretary of the Army because nominally, he works for the Secretary of Defense, but in the case of a disaster he was working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And he was responding to the President. This made the Secretary of Defense feel like, “Uh, maybe I’m like, you know, I’m not needed here”. So, you know, any good bureaucratic warrior would tell you that you should take control of everything. So they took control of the domestic support agency, they folded it into the National Military Command Center and then, naturally, what’s the National Military Command Center, well, they’re fighting two wars. They’re fighting a war in Afghanistan and they’re fighting a war in Iraq and then you’re coming to them and saying “Hey, don’t forget that hurricane.” “Uh, yeah yeah, we’ll get to it right away, ok, and Sir by the way, there’s a hurricane coming.” “Yeah ok, well can you, The Secretary’s got an important meeting, can you come back and see him, you know, in a couple of hours.”

  It’s not the same kind of responsiveness as if you have the Federal Emergency Management Agency connected directly to it’s own response cell in the Pentagon.

  So those were some of the organizational mistakes, and leadership mistakes and.. choices. But when you get right down to it, to make something like this work you have to do a lot of rehearsal. People have to think through the problem. Somebody has to say “Well, gee we’re gonna have eighty thousand people with no transportation. Uh, let’s see eighty thousand, now, how many per bus? What’s our planning figure per bus? Forty. Forty, if you can get a big bus, forty. Ok, so let’s see, forty into eighty thousand. You need two thousand buses? Uh, but, uh, what’s the readiness rate on buses? Well, like one in ten won’t work. And one in ten might break down, how far they gotta go? I dunno, where we gonna put the refugees?”. So then you start, you know, trying to work your way backwards through this thing. Turns out you might need three thousand buses, with three thousand five hundred drivers, with extra tanker trucks, refueling stations because, what if it’s the middle of the night and the bus is out in the middle of Louisiana, you know, it gets, drove a hundred and fifty miles down, drove a hundred and fifty miles back, it’s got a two hundred mile range. It needs more fuel. So somebody has to think of all this, and to plan it. “Ok, what community, you got twenty buses, you got fifty buses, you got a hundred buses but you’re three hundred miles away.” So, I mean all that had to have been worked out. Where’re they gonna meet the buses? What neighborhood? What roads are gonna be flooded? Somebody has to do all that. None of that was done.

  And then, when you ask for the buses, you know you’ve gotta have a sort of sequence ok. You ask for the buses and then somebody has to call each community. Do you know who to call? Who do you call? School board? Mayor? Chief of Police? Fire Department? “Um, ok but the Mayor’s office is closed.” Got a home number for the Mayor? And then, how bout the bus driver? How do you get the bus driver at two AM? And what percentage of them no longer have the same phone number that they had when they signed up for work five years ago? You know? Have you ever tried it? So, when you sort of work all through this thing it’s like.. It’s like doing line dancing. I don’t know if.. you ever do line dancing? My wife and I went out one time, this guy says, “Hey you’ve gotta learn this.” He’s big into country western music. He says, “You gotta learn this line dancing.” My wife got to the ninety second step, and she said, “I quit!” She said, “Any dance that’s got ninety-two steps, I’m not doing!” And, to make this kind of stuff work, you gotta go though a hundred and ninety-two steps. And they’ve gotta be thought out. Somebody’s got to be responsible for it, and, as soon as they come back and tell you the, you know, “We tried, we missed ten percent of the buses. Cause we couldn’t, you know these were the ones that..”. Somebody’s got to follow up and say, “Ok, get so and so on the phone, drive from this town to that town. Go to the parking lot for the buses. Get me backup drivers. I want National Guard. Break the padlock. Get into the buses. Start the buses.” You know, and, how are you going to do that with people who’ve never done it before?

  Now, one more thing that’s worth talking about on Katrina of course, is, the National Guard leadership. Most of them were in Iraq. Both Mississippi and Louisiana have what they call an enhanced infantry brigade. And this brigade has the command and control apparatus. Usually it’s the major, let’s call it in technical terms, the maneuver arm for the state. So if you’ve got heavy lifting to be done, they’re going to do it. And they’re not the engineers that have bulldozers. They’re not the signal corps that has all the wire laying capability. And they’re not the aviators that have all the helicopters. But, these are the people that, if you want to organize something, they’re the people who do the organization and planning. They were in Iraq. Some of them had already participated in planning for disaster like this. So, somebody would’ve said, “Oh yeah, the bus problem! Yeah! Ok, remember when we did that in the exercise two years ago? How we..” You know..

  But they weren’t there.

YouTube Link..

“On the Issues” with Nick Ballasy – nickballasy.com

Sorry for the quiet spell around here lately.  I’m on vacation until the 8th (but no vacation is complete without internet access to the Swing State Project, of course) and David has been busy ringing in the New Year and the new Democratic Congress in Washington, DC.  Did anyone have a chance to make it to the MCCXXIII Netroots reception?  Or did you get made fun of by your significant other for watching C-SPAN all afternoon, like me?

New Year, New Resolution, New Commitment to Making a Difference.  This is my first diary I have ever written on a major progressive blog.  I may not live in a Swing State (Illinois), but I certainly live in a Swing District, IL-10.  It is my intention to work deligently to see the seat currently occupied by Mark Kirk move to the Democratic column in 2008.

I was happy to see democratic avenger’s diary on The Ten House Candidates Who Should Run Again, which listed Dan Seals of IL-10 as #6. I really believe had the DCCC put the money it used in Tammy Duckworth’s campaign instead into Dan Seals race with Mark Kirk, we might have another seat in the house.  But that is water under the bridge and it is time to press foward.

Part of my plan is to write a weekly diary on Mark Kirk’s voting record and legislation sponsorship, exposing him as a faux-moderate, neocon-in-hiding GOP congressman.  Other diaries will include IL 10th District news, examination of the district political trends, etc.

Mark Kirk’s record as a legislator is marginal at best.  As a member of the majority party in 109th Congress and holding the position of assistant majority whip, Mark Kirk sponsored 32 pieces of legislation according to his THOMAS, 31 died in committee. The one item that passed was an amendment to an emergency appropriations bill to increase the funding for the DEA by $9.2MM. 

Some record of achievement.  You would think that he was living the life of a congressman in the minority party.  Let’s see what happens in the 110th Congress.  Hopefully, two years from now, we be celebrating the swearing in of Dan Seals to represent the 10th district of Illinois.

One Man With Courage Makes A Majority – Andrew Jackson

ARG, Nevada, Dec. 19-23, MoE +/- 4%, 600 likely Democratic Caucus goers (545 Democrats and 55 no party).

Clinton 37%
Obama 12%
Kerry 9%
Edwards 8%
Clark 4%
Dodd 2%
Gravel 1%
Kucinich 1%
Richardson 1%
Vilsack 1%
Biden 1%
Undecided 23%

No one’s campaigned in Nevada yet, but so far it looks like Richardson has yet to display any regional appeal here. It’s tough enough to accurately identify caucus goers in Iowa, a larger state with top significance – Nevada caucus polling should probably be taken with a grain of salt. I have no other recent poll for this state to compare with.

Note that Nevada still has a mucher higher proportion of undecideds than Iowa. So far, though, Hillary is the one to beat in Nevada by more than 3 to 1 over any other challenger. Out of the 4 states polled by ARG in this batch, this is Edwards’ worst performance and Kerry’s best. It’s also Clark’s best, which isn’t saying much. Obama places second, but has a lot of work cut out for him here. Vilsack is not credible outside Iowa.

GOP numbers,:

Giuliani 31%
McCain 25%
Gingrich 22%
Romney 4%
Undecided 18%
(Less than one percent chose Thompson, Pataki, Hunter, Huckabee, Hagel, Gillmore, or Brownback)

Best state for Giuliani and Gingrich. Worst state for McCain and Romney.

Cross Posted at Daily Kos and MyDD

Fact #1: Despite twelve listed candidates, a majority of the Netroots want Al Gore to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2008.

Fact #2: Al Gore is on the record as saying he has little interest in running, but has said “I haven’t completely ruled it out.”

Fact #3: There has been little effort to draft Al Gore.

This is largely an extension of PsiFighter37’s diary where he points out that there is little unified effort to draft Gore to run.  I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t wholeheartedly agree with him.

The best recent example of a successful draft movement has to be Jim Webb – Webb entered the race and won the primary largely because of the guaranteed support he knew he was going to get if he chose to run.  I was one of the many who pledged to volunteer for the campaign should he run, and sure enough, I trekked down to Virginia on Election Day to help get out the vote in Arlington.

I strongly believe that Al will run if a lot of ordinary people want him to.  As PsiFighter37 points out, there is no single draft that has gained noticeable traction, but DraftGore.com seems to have, by a considerable margin, the most signatures thus far at about 17,100.  I propose we make this the “official” draft for Al Gore supporters.  This means more than just signing – it means emailing and spreading the word to all of your Democratic (and non Democratic) friends.  With about 400,000 visits every day to Daily Kos alone, there is no reason we cannot pump that number into six digits in little to no time.

After writing this diary, I am going to contact Draft Gore and ask that they personally deliver the petitions to Al on behalf of all of us that support him.  If they cannot or will not do so, I will ask them if I can deliver them myself.  But 17,100 is not enough folks – lets get that number up to 50,000 by the end of today…I have never asked that one of my diaries be recommended, but if you want Al Gore to run and represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, you’ll do more than just vote for him in a Daily Kos Fantasy Poll.  A draft movement is necessary and it needs to start NOW!

Another thing that you can do is donate to the Draft Gore ActBlue page.  Remember: the number of donors is far more important than the total money raised.  Al wants to see that he has supporters, not how rich his supporters are.  And your money will not be wasted should he choose not to run: if that happens – and we all hope that it doesn’t – the funds will be to the DNC.

Please get involved.  If you care about the future of our country, you need to join me and the 17,100 others in drafting Al.

Note: I am in no way affiliated with the Draft Gore website or organization.

Research 2000, Iowa, 12/18-12/20, MoE +/-5%, 400 Democratic Caucus Voters:

Obama 22%
Edwards 22%
Vilsack 12%
Clinton 10%
Gore 7%
Kerry 5%
Clark 4%
Kucinich 4%
Bayh 1%
Richardson 1%
Biden 1%
Undecided 11%

ARG, Dec. 19-23, MoE +/-4%, 600 likely Democratic Caucus goers (528 Democrats, 72 no party)

Clinton 31%
Edwards 20%
Vilsack 17%
Obama 10%
Kucinich 5%
Dodd 2%
Kerry 2%
Biden 2%
Gravel 1%
Clark 1%
Richardson 1%
Undecided 8%

Can anyone make any sense of this? These polls were conducted around the same time. OK, side by side comparison time.

Candidates in R2K but not ARG poll:
Gore, Bayh (total 8%)

Candidates in ARG but not R2K:
Dodd, Gravel (total 3%)

Edwards avg: 21%
Clinton avg: 20.5%
Obama avg: 16%
Vilsack avg: 14%
Kucinich avg: 4.5%
Kerry avg: 3.5%
Clark avg: 2.5%
Biden avg: 1.5%
Richardson avg: 1%
Undecided avg: 9.5%

They say that averages are more meaningful than individual polls, but seriously, wtf? There’s a 21 point difference in Hillary’s numbers. The average is outside the MoE for both polls. There’s a 12 point difference in Obama’s numbers. Both are cases of 4th vs. 1st (or tied for 1st).

Oh, but the real cherry comes from R2K – Head to Head numbers!

Obama 42, McCain 39
Obama 43, Giuliani 38
Obama 43, Romney 28

Edwards 42, McCain 39
Edwards 42, Giuliani 38
Edwards 41, Romney 29

McCain 43, Clinton 37
Giuliani 39, Clinton 35
Clinton 40, Romney 30

Of course, the R2K poll seems rather unfavorable to Hillary, so maybe she could beat McCain and Giuliani in Iowa too. I have yet to see a poll demonstrating that, though.

On the GOP side, R2K has McCain by 1%, ARG has Giuliani by 2%.

Next Diary: Nevada (1 poll, ARG)

A few weeks ago, we discussed a few of the swearing-in parties for the 110th Congress in Washington, DC on Jan. 4th.  If you’re going to be in the area, add another one to your list: the first Netroots Swearing-In Party!  Here’s the lowdown:

WHAT:
  Netroots Swearing-In Party

WHERE:
  MCCXXIII, 1223 Connecticut Ave NW, DC
  Dupont Circle metro stop, south exit
  http://www.1223dc.co…

WHEN:
  Thursday, January 4
  9PM ’til Midnight
  Champagne toast at 10PM (Courtesy of the New Organizing Institute)

The host committee will include Moveon.org‘s Tom Matzzie, Roz Lemieux of the New Organizing Institute, Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller of MyDD, Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), Harry Reid aide Ari Rabin-Havt, and the Swing State Project’s very own DavidNYC.

If you can make it out, stop by and join in on some good conversations and plenty of champagne!

UPDATE (David): If you’re looking for other events to attend, check out this handy PDF I’ve compiled. Just one warning: Some of these events may be very private/very exclusive/require donations/require RSVPs, etc. So if you aren’t sure, please call the campaign or organization in question.