Update: Well, this is certainly not the way I hoped to get my first ever diary on the rec list, but thanks to the many CLASSY Obama supporters for your thoughtful comments. Your's is a team I can be a player on. S.L.
I'm a Hillary Clinton supporter. Around here lately I've felt that that makes me a substandard democrat....a triangulator, an ideologically impure progressive. To those of you who hold that opinion....I still disagree strongly with you. But, you win....Barack will get my support from here on out.
Good Morning Fellow Progressives! I'm writing this diary today because I haven't had a good old fashined ass-chewing for a while, and I knew that you would be just the crowd to help me out with that. Not that it will help me, but let me begin by saying that I like Ned Lamont, and I supported Ned Lamont, and I was sad on November 7 when Ned Lamont didn't make it past the finish line first. That being said though, I'm going to do something I don't normally do....I'm going to stand up for the D.C. Democratic establishment a bit.
I, like most of you am thrilled by what a hard time the republican politicians are having lately, and it certainly should be helpful to the Dems in their quest to take back Congress. However, something has been troubling me over the past week, and I'm getting more and more uneasy about it. It is something I watched happen with Dubya twice, but didn't even realize it until it was too late. Kos has said repeatedly, and I whole-heartedly agree, that regardless of how fucking abysmal the republicans are at governing, they are masters of the universe at winning elections. Unfortunately, while the dems are pretty good a governing, they are equally bad at running for office. I believe with everything I've got that if we don't keep up the hard fight in the real world with our people-powered movement, that the "Consultants", those brilliant assholes that have been advising us all the way to defeat the past several elections, will find a way to fuck this up and blow it.
This is a relatively short diary, but I haven't seen this specifically brought up yet. If it has been, my sincerest appologies, because I just didn't see it. I know that the GOP has a group of attorneys in their hip pockets...you know, to argue that torture is constitutional, to try to validate invalid elections, to advise the president on how to break the law without consequence, and now to represent congressional reps who commit federal crimes. And of course, these lawyers have all been well trained by the right-wing noise machine, and they are quite adept at not only defending their clients, but doing so while also spreading the latest GOP talking points. I believe that this press conference today was just as much about spreading a new narative of the Repubs as it was about defending Foley's actions.
This is a short diary, but I wanted to share a new campaign ad that Scott Kleeb just started running in Nebraska's 3rd district. I live in Nevada now and most of my diaries are about Jack Carter, but I moved here from a town in the 3rd district in Nebraska and the fact that we are even competitive at all is astonishing. The most recent data from the FEC (http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/...) show Scott Kleeb leading his republican opponent in this open seat race by $160,000 in cash on hand. I have searched the web and can't find any polling numbers, so if you know of any please point them out in the comments. Cheney made a visit to Nebraska to do a $200 per plate dinner and gave out photos of himself with people for $2100 (most expensive fucking dart board anyone could ever buy).
The last time I wrote about Jack Carter's campaign, an unattractive poll had just been released with Jack getting thumped to the tune of 20 points. Oh, but what a few weeks, a primary win, and a concentrated effort to get Jack in Nevadans' living room, and John Ensigns embarrasing level of rubber-stamp-ed-ness into their minds can do. A new poll released by the Wallstreet Journal and conducted by Zogby (http://online.wsj.com/...) has Jack in a statistical DEAD HEAT!!
I'm sorry to do this, but I'm repeating myself from yesterday. The carter camp is trying to do a big fund-raising push by tomorrow's primary election, and this diary didn't get the kind of traction I hoped it might yesterday, so I'm trying it at a different time of day on a "non-weekend" day. For those of you who read it yesterday, please don't scream and fuss...I wouldn't normally do this. But we need some momentum in $$ & potential volunteers, and after what was accomplished in Conneticut I am now certain that anything is possible. For those of you who follow polls, a recent poll from Mason-Dixon had some less attractive results within the last couple days, but I still feel like this is very competitive and a great opportunity, so please read what I have to say if you haven't already, and consider giving some time or money to Jack Carter's campaign.
I want to just start by saying that I don't work for the Carter campaign, or for any PAC or Democratic Party organization. I'm not experienced with politics, and I am relatively new at blogging. I'm just a 28 year old citizen who started to care a lot more about his government after it was hijacked by the far right wing fringe of the Republican party and they proceded to fundamentally change the America I grew up in. For that reason, I got a lot more involved in politics and want to be a part of changing this country state by state, district by district, and precinct by precinct.
Ever since November 3rd, 2004 I've been pondering why I'm a Democrat. I, probably as many of you, was born of 2 democratic parents, and therefore I adopted their voting habbits. However, in the time since the 2004 election it has become something much more potent and intense than a habbit. And I'm sorry to say that it took someone as damaging to America as George W. Bush, in addition to a little age and maturity to finally understand fully who I am, and why I am that person politically.
Well, organizationally speaking, it appears that John Edwards has picked up some major steam over the past couple months in the race for the 2008 Dem nomination. Before I go on, I should point out that I do like Edwards, and of course would support his candidacy should he get the nod. However, I personally don't rank him at the top of the list of likely candidates, and would prefer someone else.
C-span has been affording me the oportunity lately to hear Joe Biden speak quite a bit because he is one of the few folks who have come out and said he is running for president in '08. I have a range of feelings about Joe Biden including some that are good and others that aren't as good. On the down side, I think he is a grand-stander and tries so hard to be "down to earth" that it doesn't come off particularly authentic. On a petty note, he uses more product in his hair to keep it slicked back than Kathy Lee Gifford. Also, I don't like some of the votes he has cast, and I think he is a true-blue politician....and I get the sense that even though he is attacking Ned Lamont on Jomentum's behalf, he would gladly do a photo-op with Ned as though they are long lost buddies if we send Ned to D.C.
Last night I watched a panel on C-Span promoting the idea of keeping New Hampshire as the first Primary without adding any other early caucuses/primaries to the calendar. I have generally been of the opinion that Iowa & New Hampshire get way too much clout in choosing the nominees, but I have to admit that some good and valid points were raised in the panel discussion and I'm not sure how I feel about it now. What the panel lacked was a group supporting the pros of adding additional early events, so I don't feel I should make up my mind yet. Therefore I thought I present some of the arguments I heard in favor of leaving Iowa and New Hampshire alone and then let you guys tell my why that is a bullshit idea. Then I'll decide what I think about it.
I should start by saying that I am a HUGE Fiengold fan, but I've been giving this a great deal of thought and I'm not sure that Russ or the Dems will be best served in the long term by Having Russ win the nomination in 2008 (although if he does trust me I will be behind him 1000%). I definitely think that America is ready for a new direction, but even when people are ready for change they usually tolerate it better in baby steps. Therefore I think that it is important that we nominate someone who people would feel was leading them forward rather than pushing them. And for that Job I think the unequivacal choice would be Mark Warner.
