Todays primaries in KY and PA featured 5 Fighting Dems in each state.  The vets had a strong showing in PA, but struggled in KY.

First things first:

Happy Mothers Day Karen Marie Otter (CA-52)
The mother of two "remarkable" teenage sons

Today we are surveying two crucial primaries, both on Tuesday, May 16th. You can see more about the 72 fighting dems running here,

We are covering lots of ground today:

1. Fighting Dems Vets who have previously blogged or have been invited to come back and discuss the topics of the week (or anything else the netroots wants to engage them on) in an OPEN FORUM feature we will have over the next few weeks. In addition, the Kentucky Fighting Dem candidates have been invited to join in since their primary on May 16th is coming up soon.

In our honoring of the "Fighting Dem Vets" running to take back Congress, we encounter a goodly number of commissioned officers - men of command, intelligence and skills that can now be of service to their country in yet another theater of combat. Yet we must not allow their high profiles to overshadow a number of non-commissioned officers (technically E-4 and up, but we include all enlisted personnel here) who are also battling to take back the Hill.

There are, in fact, about 30 former enlisted personnel running for office this year. For this reason, the Tribute to Sarges will be divided into several segments and presented on different days over the next month or so, with the second group up today.

Last week we honored the following eight enlisted personnel running for the House of Representatives. Since some of them will be return blogging today, you can read about them here:

Rick Bolaños (TX-23), John Courage (TX-21), Bill Durston (CA-03), Bill Falzett (CA-02), John Laesch (IL-14), Karen Marie Otter (CA-52), Steve Waterworth (IL-18), and Bill Winter (CO-06).

I've just been made aware of Eric Streit's candidacy for a Congressional seat in Kentucky.  I didn't know Eric well, I met him a few times out here in Los Angeles when I was doing stand-up comedy.  I just wanted to post this diary to raise awreness of his campaign, and while I'm not much of a comedy opener any more, to introduce you to another Fighting Dem.

Please stop by his homepage and show some support for another Blue in a Red State!

Just to allay some of the memes appearing on blogs about Fighting Dem Vets, I put together some thoughts and stats on the FDs.

Today on Hardball, Chris Mathews interviewed three Irag War veterans who are running for Congress this year. Two were Republicans and one was a Democrat.

The Republicans mouthed Rovian dear leader talking points and took up most of the time. The impression was that most veterans running for Congress were Republicans who though the war was "smart."

In reality over 60 Fighting Dem veterans are running for Congress and only a small handful, maybe 3 to 5, are Republicans.

Mathews did not even mention the relative numbers. The story made it seem like twice as many were Republicans.

This is a huge story! 63 veterans (and counting) come back and run for Congress because they want to change the direction of this country.

Here are 40 or so of the Fighting Dems at a rally on Capital Hill last Wednesday:

MrLiberal stole some of my thunder and did a Kentucky candidate filing post, but I figured I'd post this anyway since I use a different format than his, and I have a bit more information on some of the candidates.