Ways to endear yourself to your brand new political party:

Step 1: Make sure that you’re registered in the correct party this time around.
Step 2: Get out and meet the committee members of your new party.  After all, you’ve never carried a petition or joined your local committee before... you’re going to need a lot of help from them.
Step 3: Spend $150,000 on a Washington P.R. firm to go on the offense and then defend your lack of a record against actual activists.
Step 4: Insult the House leadership of your new party in one of your very first quotes to hit the presses.
Step 5: Retract Step 4 and franticly back pedal on your statements.
Step 6: Drop out of the Congressional race.
Step 7: Run for County Executive and prove to your new party that you really are one of them by self funding a difficult race for the sake of the party, not your ego.
Step 8: Become a party hero.

We need to back up these great candidates.

I've got the Election Day Blues because we are going to turn the House Blue, but I have the Election Day Blues because the Senate races are too close to be assured of taking it back as well. I've got the Election Day Blues because many Fighting Dems have a great chance to win their races and help Take America Back, but I've got the Election Day Blues because so many of their races were underfunded, underrated, and under the radar. I've got the Election Day Blues because the mid-term election is a referendum on the policies of this failed administration, but I've got the Election Day Blues because so many Americans have not yet awakened to see their failures, the disasters they created and the heavy burdens they have laid upon our lives.

You can read about the event at CCM (Clark's Blog): Eric and Wes in Manhattan and Gen. Clark's speech at the Eric Massa Fundraiser NYC. You can also Contribute on ActBlue here to help send Eric to Congress.

We have to endure the primaries which pit LOCAL candidates against each other, but now we are seeing this taken to a regional and national level. The DCCC chose the strategy of putting large amounts of cash into a relatively few targeted campaigns. This produced a great deal of strife between Fighting Dem Vets and other Fighting Dems - something that should not have happened. Many of us advocated rather a leveling of the playing field so that candidates in areas where even 5,000 bucks would make a huge difference could benefit from increased funding.

Eric Massa has certainly come a long way. All those sleepless nights wondering where the money was coming from did not go unrewarded. It is a testimony to just plain hard work, undaunted effort, person to person contacts, and the ability to inspire grassroots support on the ground in his district, netroots support on the Internet, state support of the top politicos, and national support from high profile Democrats. Nowhere along the line did Eric get a free run. It has all been earned with dedication and effort combined with his personal charm, keen intellect, and strategic thinking.

It is still a long way to the mid-term election. We cannot rest but must keep up the pace.

U.S. House, Dist. 10 (33.2%)
*Ted Ankrum, D 72.7%
Paul Foreman, D 27.3%

This was a race between two Vietnam Vets (more below the fold).

Brought to you by Fighting-Dems.com

While disagreeing with many aspects of this thoughtful book, Cook makes the following positive comment in the course of his review (see over the fold):

The Commie Conspiracy - the Great Red Scare.

Boy, I'm shaking in my boots about this. The Cold War we won is refought because the Iraq War we lost is dragging us down!

To the trenches! Fight the insidious influence of Pinko Commies running for congress mascarading as Fighting Vets and other red tinged Dem candidates.

Lol!

A Dem Party that is factionalized -- grassroots versus organized leadership, Beltway versus outsiders, political pros versus upcoming novices, vets versus non-vets, liberal versus moderate, red state versus blue state, northeast versus heartland, ideological purity versus political expediency, or any other divisiveness that we are so prone to promulgate -- is a party that is preparing for election suicide. If recent polls are any indication, we have a great opportunity this fall.  We cannot afford to squander that opportunity by getting bogged down in internecine warfare. We have to recognize that the face of the enemy is George Bush and his henchmen, who, in Wes Clark's words in the Dem radio address last night, have led us nowhere. At least he has led us to some place no one wants to be.

We are now less than 36 hours away from the close of the first quarter, at midnight on Friday, March 31.  As you know, this is a crucial time for Congressional challengers to raise the funds that will allow us to move into the spring and summer months fully armed to take on our Republican opponents.

Check out this post at Musgrave Must Go

Bill Winter, a Fighting Dem running for Congress in Colorado has responded to this illegal, or at the very least, completely innappropriate use of the U.S. uniform as a GOP campaign stunt.

Winter has updated his email to Josh as follows:

This is a poor, "red" district (traditionally moderate republican taken over by a freshman neocon) where folks are too poor to fund a candidate successfully. But they can support him! Labor and country Democrat leaders rallied to Eric's support.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

Popular Ohio Democrat Drops Out of Race, and Perhaps Politics
By IAN URBINA

Published: February 14, 2006

Mr. Hackett was the first Iraq war veteran to seek national office, and the decision to steer him away from the Senate race has surprised those who see him as a symbol for Democrats who oppose the war but want to appear strong on national security.

"Alienating Hackett is not just a bad idea for the party, but it also sends a chill through the rest of the 56 or so veterans that we've worked to run for Congress," said Mike Lyon, executive director for the Band of Brothers, a group dedicated to electing Democratic veterans to national office. "Now is a time for Democrats to be courting, not blocking, veterans who want to run."

This is especially significant as February 8th, in Washington, D.C., the Band of Brothers and Sisters, vets running for Congress, will have events in Washington, D.C., and event co-hosted by VetPAC with Wes Clark as one of the sponsors. First up in the morning the vets speak from the mall with Max Cleland. Other activities will include a visit to Arlington National Cemetary. In the evening an historic event will occur with the Salute to the Veterans for a Secure America (VSA) at 6:00PM here: Frederick Douglass Museum & Hall of Fame for Caring Americans 320 A Street, NE, Washington, DC