Category: Democrats

Huge Texas Turnout

Via Markos, First Read reports:

An Obama source emails First Read that the campaign is expecting turnout between 3.6 to 3.8 million in the Texas Democratic primary.

Consider that John Kerry received 2.8 million votes in the Lone Star State in the 2004 general election.

“That’s a lot of ‘new’ Democratic voters,” the Obama source says. “Will be great for Texas Dem Party that’s working to rebuild and only needs to pick up four seats to take back the state house.”

Now, from the looks of things the popular vote in Texas is going to be very close, so these humongous numbers are a credit to both Democratic campaigns.

In 2004, Kerry received 2.8 million votes (38%) while Bush received 4.5 million votes (61%) in Texas. Unless the new million are all former Bush voters, adding one million Democratic voters probably wouldn’t result in a Democratic win of the state. But it will certainly make it close and it will likely force McCain to spend far more money on turning out the Republican vote in Texas than any Republican would like to spend. That is, one million new Texas Democratic voters ought to scare McCain immensely, as it is a big sign that Democrats will be able to challenge for the reddest of red states.

It’s Not a Truck: Democratic Challenge in Alaska

More good news for Democratic Senate prospects in 2008. The Caucus reports:

It looks like Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the most senior Republican in the Senate, may have a serious challenger in November.

Democrat Mark Begich, the popular mayor of Anchorage, has scheduled a news conference this afternoon, where he is expected to announce the formation of an exploratory committee. The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and other top Democrats have been urging Mr. Begich to jump in the race.

Stevens is under investigation by the FBI for corruption and could be indicted at any time – though one would hope, not before this October.

Begich poses a very serious challenge for Stevens. Begich’s campaign is another that can certainly benefit from strong netroots support. I’d hope his campaign goes to great lengths to beat Stevens with corruption charges and if they run an ad that references “a series of tubes,” I’ll probably have to change my pants.

It’s about time we had a Democrat represent Alaska in the Senate, which I’m pretty sure hasn’t happened since Mike Gravel was in office.

Update:

Jonathan Singer brings up some polling on Alaska.

According to a Hays Research in the field in Alaska back in June, 47 percent of Alaskans viewed Begich positively — including 26 percent viewing him very positively — compared with just 18 percent viewing him negatively. Newer non-partisan Research 2000 polling results from December showed largely the same results, with 48 percent rating Begich favorably and just 19 percent rating him unfavorably.

The head-to-heads for Begich, pitting him up against incumbent Republican Senator Ted Stevens, show the Democrat already leading 47 percent to 41 percent (according to that December R2K poll). Why, might you ask, would a key Alaskan figure like Stevens, who has represented the state for well over half of its existence, poll at 41 percent in a named head-to-head against a challenger — albeit a very popular one? Perhaps this story from July explains it.

They Drafted Scott Kleeb

Earlier today, Scott Kleeb announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Nebraska. Kleeb ran a hard-fought race in Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional district in 2006, one of the country’s most conservative CDs. Following a long draft campaign (located at DraftKleeb.com and on Facebook) and frequent rumors that he would enter the race, Kleeb decided to challenge Tony Raimondo for the Democratic nomination. Raimondo was a Republican until he realized he couldn’t beat former Bush administration Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns in the GOP primary and switched over to the Democratic side.

Dave Sund of New Nebraska Network broke the story of Kleeb’s entry into the race last night with the discovery of a relaunched campaign website. Ryan Anderson, also of NNN, followed that with an exclusive interview of Kleeb:

In a wide-ranging interview with NNN, Scott explained his decision to run and offered his thoughts on the battles still to come:

“What was successful about our campaign last time was that it wasn’t just about me, it was about getting people engaged again, getting people to take charge of their democracy.” When he saw the success of DraftKleeb and the continued netroots excitement around a potential campaign “it showed me that what we built last time was for real… if I was going to run, I needed to know that there would be enough shoulders for me to stand on.”

Scott also pointed to the success of Nebraska’s first presidential caucus as a factor in his decision: “What the presidential election did here in Nebraska was remarkable” he said, pointing out that caucus turnout in Nebraska exceeded that in Washington later that day, despite Washington being a more populous and Democratic state. “It was great to have presidential candidates come to Nebraska, to have them learn about Nebraska issues… and we responded in great numbers.”

Asked about his primary opponent Raimondo (who publicly explored a bid for the GOP nomination for months prior to changing parties): “I know Tony and I like Tony, but he will have to face a very fundamental question in this race, which is: ‘why do you think you can beat Mike Johanns as a Democrat when you didn’t think you could beat him as a Republican?‘”

Kleeb’s new campaign website can be viewed here: www.ScottKleeb.com.

One thing of note on Kleeb’s site – he doesn’t have a logo and he’s asking supporters to submit designs, to be voted on by supporters. Kleeb is clearly showing signs that he’s a people-powered candidate.
Another thing that is exciting about Kleeb’s announcement and interview with Ryan Anderson is his repeated recourse to the narratives of change and populist Democrat issues of trade, health care, and combating global warming. Here’s from Anderson’s interview:

“How we did it was by saying, look, we as a country are facing countless problems right now, be it the debt, loss of job, health care, education… and these problems require that we address them in a fundamentally new and different way. We can’t just keep sending the same people back to Washington and expect these issues to get solved.”

And here’s from Kleeb’s announcement on his website:

We confront tremendous challenges: skyrocketing debt and growing budget deficits; rising trade imbalances and falling wages; a global threat of extremism and division with a damaged reputation in the world; and –as if each of those was not enough– we also face the moral test of our lifetime in combating climate change and achieving true energy independence.

We are in this together. These are our challenges. And we must solve them together, as Nebraskans always have.

We can either demand more of ourselves and our leaders, or we can settle for more of the same. We can demand new ideas that uphold our finest and oldest traditions, or we can settle for the same failed old policies. We can stand up, together, and have a say about our future or we can put our future in the same old hands that got us where we are today.

Anyone else reading a bit of Barack Obama meets David Sirota in these words?

The race between Kleeb and Raimondo for the Democratic nomination is going to be a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party. What will we stand for? Corporatist Republican-Lite politics that have never, ever succeeded? Or a people-powered movement that seeks to bring out the best in America to overcome our greatest challenges? I think Democrats of Nebraska will handily choose the latter over the former.

And the general election in Nebraska will likely look similar to the national election for the presidency. Obama vs McCain. Hopefully Kleeb vs Johanns. Change versus more of what we’ve been given the last eight years under Bush. Kleeb will provide an unmistakable alternative to Johanns. This is going to be a very exciting candidacy to watch.

You can donate to Kleeb’s campaign through ActBlue.

And Then There’s The Bad Side

In the last couple days I’ve been able to highlight some very good examples of Democratic candidates for Congress that make me optimistic about the ability of incoming candidates to hinge onto important progressive legislative fights now. Jim Himes and Donna Edwards have set the stage for not only what is good to hear from candidates, but also what Democrats currently in office should be saying.

Given that we’re talking about Democrats, though, it’s not shocking that we now have an example of a Democratic candidate being wrong on the issue and wrong on the message: Kay Hagan, who’s running for the North Carolina Senate nomination. Via Pam Spaulding, Kosh of BlueNC reports on Hagan’s stance on retroactive immunity:

She was asked if she would have voted for, or against, the FISA bill this week which would have granted retroactive immunity to Telcos for felony violations of the current FISA law.

Ms. Hagan explained that she was against Telcos spying on Americans, but that she would have voted FOR the bill, and granted them immunity, but that future law breaking would not be tolerated.

I don’t have text or word for word quotes of what Hagan said and Kosh doesn’t provide them, so I can’t delve too deeply into how problematic her statements are. Kosh goes on to break down why this statement is so flawed, though I’m sure it should be obvious to anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog. There’s nothing that justifies changing the law retroactively to give telecommunications companies a Get Out of Jail Free card. They knew the law and they broke it – and worse, they helped the Bush administration break the law in an area that there is simply no evidence it needed breaking.

I’m not going to speculate on why Hagan is so wrong on this. Hopefully it was a product of not knowing enough about the FISA fight, which is entirely likely for a challenger candidate who’s never served in national office. But it may also be a reflection of Hagan’s politics. For what it’s worth, Kosh reports this on Hagan’s opponent: “For the record, Jim Neal was completely opposed to immunity and would have voted NO on the bill.”

Jim Himes on the Protect America Act

This is a great statement from Jim Himes, challenger in the CT-04 race against Chris Shays. Via email:

“I am very proud of the leadership shown by Democrats yesterday in opposing retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who may have illegally spied on American citizens without a warrant at the Bush Administration’s request. No person or corporation should ever be above the law. Whether these companies broke the law is a matter for the courts to decide, not for Congress, and certainly not for President Bush.

“I’ve never been more proud to be a constituent of Chris Dodd, who has led on this important fight for months in the Senate. I am also proud of so many of our party’s leaders – including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Democratic Caucus Vice Chair John Larson – who stood up for the Constitution yesterday.

“Congress needs to focus on protecting our nation from the serious threats that exist by passing a modernized FISA law that will give our intelligence professionals all the tools they need to effectively fight terrorism. Members of both parties in the House must refuse to play along with the same tired politics of fear and false choices that are still being offered by this president and his allies like Chris Shays.” [Emphasis added]

Himes shows that he has a crystal-clear understanding of why Congress must stand up for the rule of law in this fight. He also is showing that he knows where the fight is and what the terms of the fight are. This is reassuring on the one hand – he’s not a politician and he’s showing real aptitude. On the other hand, it’s depressing that there weren’t more Democrats in the Senate demonstrating this level of moral and political acumen.

Is this a joke?

I hope this is a joke. I mean, it’s sorta funny in the way that people who work in politics night and day, know Rahm Emanuel, and want to have a laugh at his expense might enjoy it.

But then again, it includes some of the biggest names in the Democratic power structure – Carville, Pelosi, Hoyer, Durbin, etc. It is professionally done and is high quality production. The video isn’t attributed to any organization, campaign committee, or creative group. And it was posted to YouTube on an account that was created yesterday.

I guess what I’m really wondering is what makes this an appropriate subject for humor, particularly given Rahm is someone with historic ties to the Clintons and with geographic ties to Obama. He’s someone party elites listen to and at least in the world of Democratic insiders, he’s an incredibly influential person. Lastly, for whatever it’s worth, conservative columnist William Safire floated Rahm as a possible pick for Clinton last October. Safire did that on Meet the Press and it wasn’t done under the auspices of political comedy.

Thoughts?

Update:

I should have looked around a bit more before posting. Lynn Sweet:

Emanuel launched his vice presidential bid –by now you surmise this is a joke, I hope–during a speech at the Washington Press Club Foundation dinner on Wednesday night where he shared the keynoting honors with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

…

And just to run up the score, Emanuel produced a campaign video for this veep drive featuring his family, staffers, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and buddy James Carville.

OK so he made it himself. It’s only funny for insiders and it still strikes me as a bit creepy.