Hello, You Know Me; I'm a Political Pragmatist

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Thursday February 18, 2010 · 9:37 AM PST

2010/02/18 · 09:37

Hello, you know me; I'm a political pragmatist. I'm the guy or woman who knocked on your door last July, and again in October. You didn't see me in September, but I was the one who stuck some literature for you read between the screen door and the jamb. I hope you took the time to read it.

Sorry I interrupted your dinner last Tuesday, but I was the one who called to make sure we could count on your vote in the primary. When you said yes, we talked about you getting engaged with the campaign--just a few hours a week calling folks, remember? Yeah, we met down at the union hall and we phonebanked together. Will you come down again and help us in general? Those ballot measures are really important, too, you know. Can you bring a friend?

But it was more than that, wasn't it? You told me about the school board race. You said that there were several candidates to stay away from, even though they sounded as though they were strong advocates of public education. We both learned something from each other that night.

GOTV

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Tuesday September 08, 2009 · 5:06 AM PDT

2009/09/08 · 05:06

On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama stood on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, and announced that he was going to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for the office of President of the United States. He was 47 years old, a mere two years removed from the state legislature, and had not completed even the first third of his freshman term in the United States Senate. He spoke then to the obvious question of his inexperience and the presumptuousness--the audacity, even--of his campaign at this time in his career and this nation's history. He also conceded that he had not to that point spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington.

He and his campaign staff knew that the most persistent question his campaign would have to deal with would be that inexperience. After all, if was to win that nomination, he would have to defeat all that Hillary Clinton took from her decade and a half in federal government and all else she brought to contest in terms of knowledge, skill, determination and, perhaps more than anything else, the certainty of a candidacy that would not rest or concede anything until, as her closest advisor said when he was in the fight for his political life "the last dog died."

GOTV

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Wednesday April 29, 2009 · 8:15 AM PDT

2009/04/29 · 08:15

This alert was just recently filed by the AP:

MADRID (AP) — Spain's top investigative magistrate has opened an investigation into the Bush administration over alleged torture of terror suspects at the Guantanamo prison.

Baltasar Garzón's move on Wednesday is separate from a complaint by human rights lawyers that seeks charges against six specific Bush administration officials.

Judge Garzon's action, which is separate from the inquiry requested by human rights lawyers against six Bush Administration officials including John Yoo, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and Douglas Feith, and is said to be premised upon the complaints of four individuals who claim to have been tortured while detained at Guantanamo, one of which is a Spanish citizen, along with two Brits and a Moroccan previously residing in Spain. All were accused of being members of al-Qaida in Spain, though all four were cleared

GOTV

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Tuesday April 28, 2009 · 6:52 PM PDT

2009/04/28 · 18:52

We need an independent special prosecutor to be named by the Attorney General to investigate and, where warranted, prosecute violations of the law as it relates to the detainee program conducted by the United States immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001. A so-called truth commission will, as such things so often do, result in a papering over of criminality by reducing such depraved acts as have been uncovered with absolute certainty to the lexicon of bi-partisan compromise and the necessary dilution that accompanies consensus. Nor are we in any way going to be served by a months-long congressional investigation of the abusive techniques authorized in Washington and employed in Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The police (i.e., the media and the Senate Armed Services Committee) have done their job and have discovered there is sufficient enough probable cause to believe that crimes have been committed, and so it is now for the prosecutor–once he or she is appointed–to assemble a staff of investigators and attorneys to prepare their case, and move forward.

GOTV

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Wednesday January 14, 2009 · 5:23 PM PST

2009/01/14 · 17:23

Look, sorry for the short diary, but this really has to be seen to be believed, and will speak for itself:

GOTV

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Tuesday December 23, 2008 · 10:23 AM PST

2008/12/23 · 10:23

Now that everything has been said, and everyone has said it, allow me to add

GOTV

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Thursday October 16, 2008 · 6:59 PM PDT

2008/10/16 · 18:59

For the past several weeks I wrote diaries imploring Kossacks to help us in the Michigan 9th to raise some funds for Gary Peters' campaign against GOP incumbent, Joe Knollenberg, through the fundraising contest held by People for the American Way's Voters' Alliance Progressive Champions campaign.

To say that these diaries seemingly fell on blind eyes is an understatement. I mean, do you guys have any idea how lonely it feels to be the only one to comment in one's own diary?

Nonetheless, I received the following email today, and it was quite gratifying:

GOTV

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Wednesday October 15, 2008 · 4:05 PM PDT

2008/10/15 · 16:05

Folks, we got us a presidential fundraiser to combat, and we need your help.

Perhaps because the ~~Straight~~ Smear-Talk Express pulled out of Michigan just in time to lose see their polls dive everywhere else, George W. Bush--remember him?--took time out of his destroying your retirement and showed up in Michigan to have what was described as "a lengthy discussion" with our Secretary of State, Terri Lynn Land (who has gubernatorial/congressional asperations), talk with local businessmen and, much to the delight of Joe Knollenberg (MI-09) and Tim Walberg (MI-07), raise a bunch of money for their respective and increasingly tenuous re-election bids.

We did this for Darcy Burner, when Bush went to Washington to raise money for Reichert, so we can do it here, right? We need your help with a counter offensive of fundraising for our candidates, Gary Peters and Mark Schauer.

GOTV

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Tuesday October 14, 2008 · 5:56 PM PDT

2008/10/14 · 17:56

Tomorrow is the last day to raise money and supporters for the PFAW Progressive Champion's contest. Currently, MI-09 Democratic candidate Gary Peters is in second place, roughly $2000 behind Judy Feder from the VA-10, for the $3000 prize from PFAW.

Dkos, we need your help to pull this out. If we can get a wave of $20 donations--just 100 of them, we can pull even. So, will you lend us a hand and get us over the hump?

Here's where:

Here's why:

What do you do when you're challenging an 8-term GOP incumbent in a district where the theretofor unknown '06 challenger gamely lost by only 6 percentage points in spite of raising just over $400,000, thus demonstrating that this race is "top tier"? Well, you go out and recruit a top tier candidate and you raise, so far, upwards of $1.3 million dollars, and you get the DCCC to chip in a huge ad buy.

Poll

9 votes Show Results

I'm curious: Will you only give to a race if it's promoted on the front page?

9 votes Vote Now!

I'm curious: Will you only give to a race if it's promoted on the front page?

Yes

0 votes

9 votes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New Poll: Peters Up 43-40 in MI-09

GOTV

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Thursday October 09, 2008 · 11:30 AM PDT

2008/10/09 · 11:30

If you haven't noticed--and by the number of responses I've been getting, you haven't--we've been reporting here for some time now that the 9th District race in Michigan, where Red-to-Blue candidate Gary Peters is challenging GOP dinosaur Joe Knollenberg (R-GM) would be close and warrant national attention. We also reported where the national publications such as CQ, the Cook Political Report, and SwingState had moved the race from "Leans Republican" to "No Clear Favorite" or "Toss-up."

GOTV

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Wednesday October 08, 2008 · 6:13 PM PDT

2008/10/08 · 18:13

But then, what do you do when the very strength of your candidate causes the GOP incumbent to raise $2.6 million and a national lobbying organization kicks in an ad buy of $530,000?

If you're Gary Peters, you go out and work your ass off to raise more money.

GOTV

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Saturday October 04, 2008 · 6:38 AM PDT

2008/10/04 · 06:38

L. Brooks Patterson, the former prosector and current county executive, has been something of the dean of Republican politics in Oakland County, Michigan for some four decades. He is brash, boisterous and at times belligerent. He's tussled with governors and mayors, and never shrinks from a fight. So it was with some surprise that he has taken on the role of the jilted lover. Of John McCain's decision to pull up stakes from Michigan, Patterson moaned:

"We’re blindsided, along with everybody else in Michigan. I feel like I woke up this morning and there was a note on my pillow."

And he's not alone. Everyone from the Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis to Michigan McCain campaign chairman Chuck Yob have expressed their extreme displeasure over the announcement.

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