DISCLOSURE: Before I begin, a little disclosure. First off, I'm a former Clinton supporter; now I'm an Obama supporter, as of June 4th. Second, I'm a Jew and I support our government's support of the State of Israel. Third, like millions of Jews in the U.S. and Israel, I'm strongly against the Israeli government's hardline approach as far as its dealings with the Arab community--and the Palestinian issues in general--are concerned. Fourth, my father-in-law, who passed away in 2005, ran the Mideast desk of the U.S. Army's Defense Logistics Command during the Yom Kippur War. As a result of that--as you'll read in more detail below--he was very much on the front line of Operation Nickel Grass in 1973. So, please be clear here when I say I am in favor of our country's ongoing support of Israel as far as military materiel assistance is concerned.

Following the break is a complete roundup and ranking of Ohio races for the U.S. House of Representatives. I have separated them into Republican-held and Democratic-held seats and divided each into tiers. Within each tier they are ranked in order of likelihood of changing parties.

Democrats were very successful in 2006 in winning a U.S. Senate seat, four out of five statewide offices, and a net gain of seven seats in the Ohio House of Representatives, but  the U.S. House races were a relative disappointment. The party gained only one seat and watched two promising races end in narrow losses after recounts. In this cycle Ohio has three open GOP seats and perhaps four or five races altogether that already look very promising, with another two or three that could be added to that list. The DCCC has already added three races to their "Red to Blue" program and is likely to take an interest in at least two more. In other words, Ohio is once again a critical congressional battleground.

Aside from the well-publicized presidential primaries this week, Texas and Ohio also held primaries to determine their slates of Congressional candidates for November. In addition, Louisiana held two primary elections yesterday to determine candidates for the May 3 special elections in the 1st and 6th Congressional Districts.

There's some exciting news.

LA-06: Good news and bad news here. The bad news is that we face a runoff for the nomination in the special election to fill Richard Baker's seat, between State Reps Don Cazayoux and Michael Jackson. The good news, however, is that the Republicans face a runoff too, as their frontrunner, former State Rep. Woody Jenkins (who nearly won a U.S. Senate seat in 1996) will face off against fellow Republican Laurinda Calongne.

OH-02: It's going to be Schmidt vs. Wulsin Round II, as our beloved Mean Jean fended off a primary challenge from state Rep. Tom Brinkman (whom she also beat in 2005). Democrat Vic Wulsin, who lost so narrowly last year, also beat a primary challenger.

Schmidt will lose her seat eventually, either to a Dem or a fellow Republican. On our side, we're set up as well for victory here as we possibly could be.

OH-10: Kucinich returns! He managed to figure out how to raise funds when it looked as though his seat was in danger, and he easily beat back a challenge from Cleveland City Councilor Joe Cimperman. Dennis should cruise to reelection in the fall, of course.

OH-16: On the Republican side, State Sen. Kirk Schuring won a close 47-42 victory over Ashland County Commissioner Matt Miller. Schuring can look forward to a slugfest in this swing district against Democratic State Sen. John Boccieri.

OH-18: Charlie Cook has moved this race to "Likely Democratic" since the Republican primary, won by former state Agriculture Director Fred Dailey. Democratic incumbent Rep. Zack Space's fundraising has dwarfed Dailey's, and he is looking pretty safe for someone who was at the top of the GOP's target list not long ago.

TX-04: Glenn Melancon, whose name should be somewhat familiar here, earned another shot at Republican Ralph Hall.

TX-10: My favorite off-the-wall sleeper House race, if I have one, is TX-10. Republican Michael McCaul received just 55% in 2006 against underfunded Democrat Ted Ankrum. The Democratic primary ended with Larry Joe Doherty, an attorney and judge on the TV courtroom series "Texas Justice", defeating international affairs, foreign policy consultant, and netroots favorite Dan Grant. I'm sad to see Grant lose, but I am excited to start taking the fight to Mike McCaul.

TX-22: It's a runoff! Rep. Nick Lampson must be leaping for joy, as his Republican opponents Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Pete Olson get to duke it out for a little while longer, while Lampson gets to quietly serve the good people of the 22nd, and continue stockpiling money.

Sekula-Gibbs picked up 45% in the primary, so she has to be considered the frontrunner for the nomination (which is fine by me: Lampson beat her once already in 2006). I think it's great that she'll be the nominee, though I had kinda hoped for Slim Trim Dean Hrbacek and Pasadena Mayor John Manlove.

TX-23: Another embarrassment for the NRCC: their handpicked self-funder, Francisco "Quico" Canseco lost to a Republican with actual grassroots support (and votes), Bexar County Commissioner Lyle Larson.

Larson will face Democratic Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, who has a clear fundraising advantage. It's a reddish district, but Rodriguez should still be favored (especially considering the remarkable excitement on the Democratic side in Texas.

I've previously posted on the Illinois and Maryland Congressional candidates where the filing deadlines have passed.  I hope to post the listing of Texas candidates in a few days.  I've left out any comments on the candidates so as not to bias any opinions.  I will make comments as a comment though.

As a certified political junkie, I actually have the filing deadlines for each state on my calendar. Yesterday, Ohio's filing deadline came and went. Unlike Texas, which saw nine of their 32 incumbents wind up unopposed (including, unfortunately, six of their Republican incumbents), it is a full field of candidates in Ohio.

Furthermore, there are some interesting primary elections which will kick off the Buckeye State campaign season early in March.

Follow me past the jump for the list and the analysis.

Just when the GOP is starting to catch some small breaks in the Senate, the situation in the House is rapidly deteriorating. As many had predicted, a growing number of Republican representatives do not find the prospect of life in the minority appealing and are calling it quits. Unfortunately for Republicans, a large majority of them represent competitive districts. The latest retirement were particularly shocking because they were completely unexpected -- especially Rep. Ferguson's in NJ-07. Democrats have golden opportunities to pick-up all of these seats, especially if the environment continues to favor them. But this also means Republicans will be forced to play defense and will not be able to contest that many Democratic-held seats, no matter how vulnerable they might be.

The full ratings are available here, at Campaign Diaries.

Senate Republicans have not been doing well for a while now. But the GOP's disarray is now extending to the House! The series of Republicans congressmen (Pryce, Hastert, LaHood, Peckering, ...) declaring their intention to retire in August started the wave of bad news, but this past week shows the GOP's House problems go much deeper than these open seats.

Read full analysis here,  on Campaign Diaries.

President Bush has come out in opposition to a plan that would raise the gas tax to help fund infrastructure repair.  Just a week after the bridge collapse in Minnesota, Bush is concerned that members of the Transportation Committee might not be able to put the public's interests above their own personal priorities, saying "I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities."  Really?  Those pesky Democrats are the ones that are struggling with spending priorities?

Since there are so many, let's go through Republicans with questionable spending habits alphabetically by state:

Republicans are already out with a swiftboat style attack on Freshman Democrat Zach Space of OH-18.  They are attacking him for allegedly switching his vote from Yes to No on a ridiculous Republican motion to recommit that they tried to attatch to the Farm Bill saying that illigal immigrants cannot recieve any employment services.  

As with my challenger rundown, I am listing the races alphabetically and not by turnover chance. The reason is that some races are shaping up, with announced candidates, and others are still big question marks.

Any races without at least one announced challenger are ignored for now.

Let us begin. Turn to page Below the Fold in your hymnals...

In the weeks before quarterly report deadlines, I'm used to seeing some crazy things happen. Last year, while working on the Kissell campaign, we did something counter-intutitive by spending as much of our money as possible, ending up with $88.94 one time and $35.33 the next time. We raised a good bit of money that way, almost as much as we got from showing the netroots how hard we were working or from the time Larry sold gas for $1.22 a gallon. It payed off - we came within 329 votes.

Now, the DCCC has come up with an idea of their own, to help us keep winning on the playing field that we expanded: they're matching donations made to the D-trip this week 2 to 1. If you haven't made up your mind on the presidential race, or you're still waiting on Al Gore or Wes Clark, your $25 can become $75 if you give before April. We can protect great new Reps like Jason Altmire (PA-04), Nancy Boyda (KS-02), Heath Shuler (NC-11), and Zack Space (OH-18) while paving the way for Larry and the Kissells of 2008 to keep the gains we've made for our country.

Yes, it's very early, but hey, we live in the age of perpetual campaigning, so let's jump on it.

I am ranking my list of House 2008 Defense (the top 25 at least): vulnerable freshmen, or vulnerable long-time incumbents. Since we only know for sure so far of one open seat (CO-02), I am not including open seats.

Read below the fold!

The Hill published an article highlighting some of the fundraising efforts of freshmen Democrats in the House.  Apparently, many are doing quite well.  David Loebsack (IA-02) has raised about $71,000.  Kirsten Gillebrand (NY-20) has raised $65,000 in PAC money alone.  Earl Perlmutter (CO-07) has raised $79,000.  Charlie Wilson (OH-06) has raised $34,000.  Paul Hodes has raised $35,000.  Jason Altmire (PA-04) and Patrick Murphy (PA-08) have both raised $50,000 in PAC money alone.  Zack Space (OH-18) and Steven Kagen (WI-08) have both raised $35,000 in PAC money.

As far as simple financial numbers go, this is good news.  All of these candidates are vulnerable to some degree.  So, if all of these House members are already off to good starts, they may be able to force out potentially strong challenges early on.

More over the flip...

The Republicans are already regrouping to try to take back the House of Representatives from the Democrats (as Kos's recent Front Page entry indicates) and there are 18 Seats that are likely to be heavily targeted by the Republicans (enough to take back the House) in 2008.

They aren’t even sworn in yet, and the handicappers are ready to write their political obituaries.  So goes life in Washington, I suppose.  And, truth be told, here on Daily Kos, too. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post  on his The Fix blog:

Yes, we know it's way early to be talking about House races -- heck the winners in last month's midterms haven't even been sworn into the 110th Congress yet. But politics never stops. Like it or not, incumbents are already preparing campaigns for 2008 and challengers are getting geared up.

Those words will echo in my brain for eternity.

I was making Calls for Change earlier this evening. We in the Cleveland office were fortunate to be calling on behalf of Zack Space, running in OH-18.

So I was told that the Calls for Change phone lists are supposed to be made up of traditionally progressive voters who are less likely to go to the polls during non-presidential elections.

But little did I know a fervent Republican would answer the phone when I called his house...

^{Xposted at ePluribus Media}

This is one of three diaries covering Ohio races. The other diaries cover OH-Sen and OH-01, OH-02, OH-06, OH-15. Here is a link back to the master diary. Every campaign may also be readily accessed from Tomtech's Campaign Locator. An overall live aggregate of all races may be followed at Jotter's Complete Results. An asterisk after the candidate name indicates an incumbent officeholder.

OH-Gov - 94% reporting
Ted Strickland (D)	2,166,757	60%
Ken Blackwell (R)	1,355,536	37%

OH-SoS - 87% reporting
Jennifer Brunner (D)	1,711,055	54%
Greg Hartmann (R)	1,319,735	41%

OH-04 - 100% reporting
Richard Siferd (D)	83,929	40%
Robert Jordan (R)	126,821	60%

Bob Ney pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements three weeks ago, on October 13. He is still representing Ohio's 18th district in Congress. How is it that Dennis Hastert has been allowed to get away with arguing he takes ethical matters seriously (the Foley affair) when he allows a confessed criminal to retain his seat and continue collecting his paycheck at taxpayer expense?  More below.