With your support and participation, this new weekly series, Good News Sunday, will evolve into a
one-stop warehouse for all the good things happening at the local level in the Democratic Party.
It's a simple concept. Each Sunday morning, you'll find this diary here between 8:00 and 9:00am (depending on how my Saturday night goes). I'll start you out with some of the good news of the week from my state, Wisconsin - highlighting Democratic successes, positive trends, polls, candidate news, fundraising and GOTV efforts.
The real fun begins with your participation in the comments section. Add the good news going on locally in your neck of the woods - items that may have been overlooked throughout the week. Think of it as "LocalKos," with you as the representative from your area. The theory is that we often get inundated with the "big" national stories, but too seldom are we exposed to the local positives.
I'm dating myself here, but does anyone remember this #1 Anne Murray song from 1983? It's called
A Little Good News. Read the lyrics and find out how little has changed in 23 years.
I rolled out this morning...kids had the morning news show on
Bryant Gumbel was talking about the fighting in Lebanon
Some Senator was squawking about the bad economy
It's gonna get worse, you see
We need a change in policy
There's a local paper rolled up in a rubber band
One more sad story's one more than I can stand
Just once, how I'd like to see the headline say
"Not much to print today
Can't find nothin' bad to say"
Because...
Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD'd, nobody burned a single building down
Nobody fired a shot in anger...nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today
I'll come home this evening...I'll bet that the news will be the same
Somebody takes a hostage...somebody steals a plane
How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair
And how we cleaned up the air...how everybody learned to care
Tell me...
Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today
And in the streets of Ireland all the children had to do was play
And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA
We sure could use a little good news today
So that's the single, simple rule for this new series: good news only. If you feel the need to snark or bitch or rant, please start your own diary or locate the open thread nearest you.
Add links where you can, especially if they connect us to your local papers, local Democratic Party pages, or local candidate sites. Suggest actions where appropriate, because you never know when your good news might inspire a fellow Kossack to hop on your issue or your candidate.
Let's get started with some of the good news from Wisconsin this week.
1. Incumbent Governor Jim Doyle now leads Republican challenger Mark Green by 10 points in a recent poll of 600 likely Wisconsin voters. Previous polls were tighter, but the more people get to know Green, the less they like him.
Doyle's website is here.
2. Even better, Green's candidacy creates a vacancy in Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District, which is gathering momentum as a great pick-up opportunity for Democrats. Fellow Kossack moderate man gave us a great diary yesterday about Democratic candidate Dr. Steve Kagen, and his fight to upset Republican challenger John Gard.
Check out Kagen's website here.
3. Mixed messages this week in a Wisconsin poll regarding the marriage amendment on the ballot this November. While the poll still puts support for the amendment at 48% to the opposition's 40%, 12% of voters are still undecided, leaving plenty of room to make a move. Other polls have put this vote as tight as 1%, as I wrote about here a couple of weeks ago. The best news of all is that money is going to defeat the amendment by a margin of $500 to $1.
Fair Wisconsin's website is here.
4. On Friday, Governor Doyle, along with New Mexico Governor and presidential prospect Bill Richardson announced a $1 million grant to be divided among 8 different Wisconsin companies working on renewable energy. In July, Doyle had laid out a number of energy independence goals for Wisconsin. Among them:
To generate 25 percent of our electricity and 25 percent of our transportation fuel from renewable fuels by 2025.
To capture 10 percent of the market share for the production of renewable energy sources by 2030, helping America kick its addiction to foreign fossil fuels and bringing tens of thousands of new jobs to our citizens. Achieving this goal would bring $13.5 billion annually to Wisconsin's economy by 2030.
To become a national leader in groundbreaking research that will make alternative energies more affordable and available to all - and to turn those discoveries into new, high paying jobs right here in Wisconsin.
To keep up on everything political in Wisconsin, visit the WisPolitics website.
That's a sampling of the good news coming out of Wisconsin this week.
What's going on where you live?
Note: as you add your own good news, also add a tag to the diary, i.e., "Good News California" or "Good News Virginia." That'll make it easier for us locate these items later on.