DNC Targets Legislative Races
One of the coolest things about McCain pulling out of MI is that it’ll put more state legislative races in play (we currently have a narrow majority in the state house, and should expand that majority this year).
But apparently MI’s not the only state where Democrats may pick up state seats.
The Democratic National Committee is waging a last minute injection of as much as $20 million into state legislative races in key states, hoping to take advantage of Democratic momentum this cycle.
A senior Democrat familiar with the conversations said: "We are looking at options, races, where we can be helpful, as we did in 2006. This is the time when some races pop."
DNC chairman Howard Dean has made it a priority to help Democrats win down the ballot, so that if Obama wins the presidency, Democrats will have a larger majority in Congress. But with states planning to redistrict their congressional boundaries in 2010, control of state legislative chambers is all the more important, people close to Dean said.
In 2006, a last minute injection of $35 million from the DNC into House, Senate and state legislative races helped the party gain eight state legislative chambers.
This year, having plucked the low-hanging fruit, Democrats have set their sights on tougher pulls, like New York’s state senate. "It’s the biggest toss-up on the map," says Matt Compton, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.Other targets for Democrats include: Ohio, Wisconsin, Delaware and the Texas House, where Democrats are five seats away from the majority; the Obama campaign has added organizers to help them.
Very cool. Nice to see Rove’s permanent Republican majority go up in flames from top to bottom.
The Texas House races are a big deal. We need to undo the crappy mid-cycle DeLay redistricting.
Marcy – Wow – this is such good news. This is the way to “grow your own” from the ground up. I’m so glad to see it. And….Digg is open.
Athens Ohio City Council member Debbie Phillips running for the 92nd Ohio House District against Republican Jill Thompson has been getting lots of help from Ohio Governor Strickland (used to be our Congressman) who has come to town quite a bit to support Debbie and condemn the attack ads being used by the Thompson campaign.
Yesterday in Athens Senator Biden and Senator Sherrod Brown also condemned
below the belt strategies and stood in support of Debbie. Lots of support
coming Debbie’s way from the heavier hitters.
She might be an interesting guest at FDL’s campaign push blogs
http://www.athensnews.com/news…..e-candida/
http://www.athensnews.com/news…..-legislat/
http://www.democracyforamerica…..esentative
Yup. And state legislations is where new laws get tested and tried.
Not to mention re-districting. Not an endorsement of gerrymandering by any means, but at least with the Democrats in charge the Rethugs can’t do a replay of things like the DeLay re-districting in Texas.
EW – I heard that Bush was in Michigan yesterday to help raise money for Walberg and Knollenberg at chez DeVos – any idea if it was successful?
I’m sure it was successful. Just picking DeVos’ pocket will net you millions.
Yep, and they’ll throw in a year’s supply of Amway products…
I hear that Obama wants to tax and expropriate all the Joe Amways making over $250,000 a year trying to sell paper towels to their former friends. The Republicans keep trying to convince the media that certain monsters exist, like hordes of fraudulent Democratic brown voters, or tax-weary plumbers that make over $250K a year, or Democratic feminists that roam hospital wards killing viable 8 month premature babies. But then again the guys who said they had Bigfoot in their freezer got 15 minutes on CNN…..
How cool was that? A rubber gorilla suit… awesome.
Nope. DeVos is a business man after all. For the Amway goods you’ve got to join his cult.
Ohio secretary of state ordered to verify voter registration against other records
“Plaintiffs assert, and the court agrees, that it is hard to imagine a public interest more compelling than safeguarding the legitimacy of the election of the president of the United States,” Smith wrote in his ruling.
http://blog.cleveland.com/open…..t_v_1.html
The hypocrisy is suffocating. Where were these Republican judges in 2000 and 2004? Selective “safeguarding” of voters rights and votes is rampant
in the Republican party
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http://blog.cleveland.com/open…..les_oh.htm
Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett accused Brunner of pursuing a partisan agenda and said, “Her delay in providing this matching system leaves little time for election officials to act on questionable registrations.”
Bennett said Brunner was destroying the public’s trust in Ohio’s elections system.
“Her shameful actions to disenfranchise Republican absentee voters, block the transparency of early voting and refuse the proper verification of newly registered voters have rightfully damaged her credibility as a nonpartisan election administrator,” he said. l
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http://blog.cleveland.com/pdex….._stat.html
October 14, 2008
COLUMBUS — Statement of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner regarding an ‘en banc’ (full court) review of the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturning a Sixth Circuit three-judge panel’s October 10, 2008, stay of Judge George Smith’s TRO regarding HAVA matching for new or revised Ohio voter registrations since January 1, 2008.
In directing Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections today to thoroughly review and investigate specific allegations of voter registration fraud, illegal voting, or voter suppression, I announced plans to further improve the statewide voter registration database, so as to be prepared for a possible adverse decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals en banc such has occurred this evening. On Friday, October 10, 2008, three-judge panel stayed Judge George C. Smith’s temporary restraining order requiring that the Secretary of State modify the statewide voter registration database to provide lists or searches based on nonmatching data from state and federal databases.”
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Last night on “Countdown” Rachel Maddow said the Republicans could shave off 200,ooo votes this way in Ohio.
Ot listening to Democracy Now. Anyone hear about the arrest outside of the debate last night? Iraqi war Vet protesting.. almost trampled by police o
horses. The testimonies of many Iraqi vets in front of the Senate was completely ignored by the MSM this past winter. Ignoring these Vets outside of the debate is just more of the same. What War?
As John McCain and Barack Obama prepared to face off in their third and final debate last night, outside the gates of Hofstra University, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, backed by hundreds of demonstrators, protested at the campus gates.
At least 15 people were arrested–including at least five members of IVAW–on charges of disorderly conduct. Nassau County police on horseback trampled one member of IVAW, Nick Morgan, a veteran who served in Iraq for about a year. His condition is unknown.
The protest was organized by IVAW members Matthis Chiroux and Kris Goldsmith. Last week, Chiroux sent a letter to CBS debate moderator Bob Scheiffer spelling out the demands of IVAW and demanding that at least two veterans be allowed entry into the debate to ask Senators Obama and McCain one question each. He did not receive a response.
Voices from the IVAW Debate, produced by Matt Hegedus and Richard Sackett.
http://www.democracynow.org/20….._debate_in
In 1968, in Grosvenor Square in London, at the front of the US Embassy, was a large unruly anti-Vietnam war crowd.
The police were mounted (on horses) for crowd control This was anticipated by the organizers of the event, who had procures very effective anti-mounted police devices.
The devices? Bags of marbles emptied onto the road surface. The horses become frightened and uncontrollable by the riders.
And no, I was not there, I watched it on TV. And having owned and ridden horses for years, this is just bad, rally bad for if the horse should fall it could break its leg and have to be put down.
Crown control is best done by police on foot with riot shields (looks a lot like roman phalanx).
Watching the Vets outside of the Debate on Democracy Now is a must. Chilling. The crowd shouted “let them in”. No mention of this on the MSM.
very cool indeed
rove has proven time and again, he is even more inept, more the moron then bush.
He took a party majority that really did look like it would last a generation and he layed that party to waste, so much so they might even have to change names and allegiences if they want to ever see power again
Is it possible to be more the moron then bush and not be considered slow?
I don’t think so, in any event, I do think rove is “slow”
Let me provide a bit of perspective regarding the NYS Senate races. I am a union president, a registered Republican (old style from the 60’s), have lobbied NYS legislators dozens of times and work for SUNY, the public university system in NYS. I have lived through five different gov’s (four Dems and one Rebublican) and many budget crises. The one Republican gov finally got it and supported, sort of, SUNY at the end of his tenure. The only Dem gov who got it, regarding SUNY, was Spitzer but we all know what happened to him. Throughout all this, the only group that stood up for PUBLIC higher education were the Republicans in the NYS Senate. It is important to know that NYS Republicans are essentially an upstate group. And, there has always been a tension between upstate (north of the Hudson River) and downstate (NYC, its suburbs and Long Island) regarding where the emphasis ought to be. Hillary, for all her faults, did focus on upstate. My own NYS senator is as sleazy as they get but he does understand that public higher education is something that needs to be preserved. Beat me up if you wish, but blindly arguing for a ‘permanent Democratic majority’ is as stupid as the argument for a ‘permanent Republican majority.’
Yeah, but Bruno is so badly wounded at this point….
Not going to beat you up.
What we need is a system that retains more competitiveness in it–no gerrymandering. We’re going to want Dems to have to compete to keep their jobs, otherwise they’ll get just as corrupt as the Republican party has.
I agree completely
You will get very little, to no, flak from any here when it comes to folks that want to fund, encourage and otherwise promote excellence in public education.
Absolutely.
FWIW, how else are all those Green Technologies going to be invented…? Some of that engineering, to say nothing of chemistry and other more technical fields, really benefit from people with a lot of knowledge.
And more support for voc tech and community colleges as people retrain. Those seem to pay a lot of social and economic dividends over time.
You mean Joe the Plumber isn’t the solution? Go figure.
One of NY’s sacrifiical lamb candidates is within striking distance of taking down a decades long GOP incumbent for a state senate seat.
So, in addition to the races we were actually TRYING to win, we may win some others.
SHWEEET!
Overbaked Cookie cuts back in anger at Waxman that put her in oven.