Kos has been exhorting all of us to do what is necessary to crush the Republican Party. Well, it seems that the DCCC has taken up the cause. It has added eight more congressional races to its Red to Blue program. That means eight more deserving candidates will now have the DCCC putting cash into their races. The new districts being targeted are: AL-03, CA-50, IA-04, LA-01, MN-06, NJ-05, SC-01, and TX-10.
What makes this so exciting is that according to the Hill, these races were all considered longshots at the beginning of the year. These longshots are: Larry Joe Doherty in Texas, Becky Greenwald in Iowa, Jim Harlan in Louisiana, Linda Ketner in South Carolina, Nick Leibham in California, Josh Segall in Alabama, Dennis Shulman in New Jersey and El Tinklenberg in Minnesota.
We should all get behind these candidates. Dennis Shulman is running in my home district. He has a great personal story. He became blind at a young age, yet went to college at Brandeis and graduated Magna cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He then went on to get a Ph.D. from Harvard in psychology. In 1997, he founded the National Training Program in Contemporary Psychoanalysis at The National Institute for the Psychotherapies, which he continues to serve. However, that was not enough, in 2003 he became ordained as a Rabbi. He is the associate Rabbi where my parents go to services. He is running against someone who is probably the worst congressman north of the Mason-Dixon line in Scott Garrett. Garrett voted against Hurricane Katrina relief, against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, against the stimulus package because it helped taxpayers and not businesses and is in the pocket of the oil industry. Defeating Garrett would go a long way to making this country a better place. DONATE to Dennis Shulman at his Shulman for Congress website.
Larry Joe Doherty is the former host of television’s "Texas Justice". A successful Houston attorney, he decided to hang up his own shingle when he realized that people had nowhere to turn if the person who wronged them was their own lawyer. A senior partner in the law firm of Doherty, Long and Wagner, Larry Joe specialized in legal malpractice, because, as he explains, "people need to believe that the rule of law applies equally to everyone — and that no one, no matter how powerful, is beyond being held accountable for their actions." Visit his website HERE.
Becky Greenwald has been actively working for agriculture the past 22 years with two respected Iowa-grown seed companies. She joined the Garst Seed Company in 1986 and has been with Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business for the past twelve years, working in various sales and marketing roles in North America and internationally.
Greenwald volunteered her time and passion for sustainable agriculture by serving on the Board of Directors of the Iowa Forage and Grassland Council (IFGC) and was elected IFGC’s President in 1994. Greenwald went on to leadership positions with the American Forage and Grassland Council (AFGC) and was elected President of the national organization in 2000. Greenwald was a contributing editor with The Forage Leader, a publication sent quarterly to approximately 5,000 AFGC members. She was awarded The AFGC Presidential Citation in 2003 and was Vice President and Director of the Forage and Grassland Foundation, Inc. Becky also served on the National Alfalfa Variety Review Board and is a past director of the Iowa Chapter of the National Agri-Marketing Association. You can donate to her campaign at her WEBSITE.
Jim Harlan is very knowledgeable about energy issues. Accordin to his website, Jim began his full time professional career working at the White House Office of Energy Policy and Planning, supporting the development and enactment of legislation to reduce foreign oil imports and improve U.S supplies. He then moved to the newly created Department of Energy’s Policy and Planning Office, working on alternative energy research and development with special emphasis on synthetic fuels from coal and oil shale. The oil price spike of 1979 prompted initiatives to support private industry to build pioneering synthetic fuel plants and Jim supported enactment of the Energy Security Act of 1980. His work in this area led him to achieve his PhD in Public Policy from Harvard and write a book on the rationale and strategy for the major industry-government collaboration required. During the Reagan administration, Jim worked at the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation’s Policy and Planning office to implement the Energy Security Act of 1980. Donate to Jim Harlan HERE.
Linda Ketner has an interesting background and a strong variety of work experiences. According to her website, in 1980, Linda formed KSI Corporation, a firm specializing in leadership and management development. Prior to KSI, Linda was an executive with SmithKline Corporation and the Center for Creative Leadership; the Director of Organization Development for Food Lion, Inc. (the company founded by her father); and a public high school teacher. She has been an adjunct professor at the College of Charleston, in the Sociology and Women's Studies programs teaching Complex Organizations and Leadership. She has worked to provide better housing for people and you can donate to Linda Ketner HERE.
Nick Leibham in California has a great name for his website: www.picknick08.com. Nick is a practicing attorney in San Diego’s North County. Born and raised in Oregon, he attended college in Hawaii, graduating cum laude with a B.A. in Political and Historical Studies. He became a teacher of high school Government and U.S. History. He became a senior Congressional aide to Congressman Gary Ackerman (NY). Donate to Nick Leibham HERE.
Josh Segall is a graduate of Brown University and Alabama Law School. While at Alabama Law School, he started an organization called "Homegrown Alabama" to get the University to buy its food from Alabama farmers. He currently practices law in Montgomery. For more on Josh Segall, feel free to read alpolitics' diary. Donate to Josh Segall HERE.
Elwyn Tinklenberg, 57, received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota at Duluth and attended seminary at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He served as a United Methodist Minister in Blaine, Minnesota from 1977 to 1986. While serving on the city council for 4 years and as Mayor of Blaine from 1987 to 1996, Tinklenberg quickly gained a reputation as an expert in the field of transportation, eventually serving as Governor Jesse Ventura's Commissioner of Transportation from 1999 to 2002. We can donate to El Tinklenberg HERE.
So, now that you have some info, let's throw the Republicans an anvil and get these good people elected.