Well it finally happened. The Nader slurs got to me and I'm posting only my second diary since my mental collapse in July (but hey, I've gotten some help and I'm at least halfway to being able to see the world through psychologically healthy eyes :) ). The Presidential Primaries have started already (and this was only one reason that front loading the schedule even more was a bad thing :) ) and some things are apparent. One, Hillary Clinton has some damned devoted defenders and two, Hillary's detractors on the left at least bother to use some facts (albeit ones that can be exaggerated, i.e. she didn't sponsor a anti-flag burning amendment but did sponsor and anti-flag burning law in the past). Well, I'm going to address how this debate is happening and probably tell off certain behaviors (you can't tell off individual posters but the day I can't tell off behavior is the day that you'll need to ban me anyways).
Now I know people know about my personal problems but I thought I'd take a break from getting help for both sets of them (career wise and mental health wise) to bring up something to keep in mind between now and November 2008 because, well, its important damn it.
That being that the stakes are higher than any personal feelings we have toward people (note: personal feelings are not feelings about justice, human rights, the war, and opposition to bigotry, those belong in the category of issue stands which I will be addressing momentarily). People need to keep in mind that their voting decisions should be based pretty much solely on what they think should make this country a better place. More below the fold.
It's been mentioned in a couple of places that the 7th Congressional District in Michigan is going to be up for grabs as it has a first-term incumbent who managed to barely get elected over a poorly funded frequent candidate. Now, in a move that has me a bit excited, there is a fairly well known political figure who has recently declared his candidacy. More below the break...
Following his vicious smearing of Max Cleland to win election to the United States Senate in 2002 people on Daily Kos have been really looking forward to taking out Republican Saxy Chambliss in the 2008 elections. However, we face the obstacles of not faring at all well in the state in 2006 (where we nearly lost 2 Congressional incumbents and had our nominee for Governor get landslid). So it probably bears looking at any and all potential candidates for the election next year.
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.
2007 is the off-year Gubernatorial elections for Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky with the Governorship being the biggest race for each. Now the primary season is already underway in Kentucky with a number of candidates having already declared, while nobody has declared as challengers in Mississippi, and Louisiana is still sorting itself out. In Kentucky the Governor and Lt. Governor run on tickets together in the primary (which will be important in a bit). Now, I don't live in Kentucky but here is what I gather based on blog reports and certain finds among online editions of newspapers on the Governors race in Kentucky heading into 2007:
This is just my overview of the newly elected Democrats from 2006. This is both a listing of all the new people elected Governor/Senator/Representative/State Office Holder as well as my thoughts on each group. Going over the list shows a varied background for the people elected as well as a surprising number of second/third generation politicians.
Well, every one has been posting election prediction threads and I see no reason why I can't get into the act considering I've been hanging around since sometime in 2004 (I think I was pre-Iowa caucus but since I can't access those posts I'm not sure). So, here's a run-down of my thoughts on the election coming up this Tuesday.
It took awhile but here is the final part of my rundown on the Competitive Congressional Seats which, while certain seats dropped from the listings during the running still features Democrats with having more pick-up opportunities than Republican by having 60 Republican targets to the Republican 9 (and that includes John Salazar of Colorado who is a marginal opportunity at best).
The fundraising cash on hand totals are from Opensecrets.org.
I wrote up Part 1 ( http://www.dailykos.com/... ) a couple of weeks ago but work, life, and graduate school got in the way. However, I now have part 2 done which shows both the secondarily competitive races as well as the races that are on the border of being moved up to heavily competitive. I also found one other endangered Democratic held seat in West Virginia's Alan Mollohan. There will be one more part to the competitive Congressional races series showing the last set of seats. Note: All races mentioned in the poll are in Part 3.
There is a lot of talk about what our chances of picking up Congress are in 2006 by people who say we have a good chance and by people who say we have no chance. However, after looking at the races that are competitive and at the races that stand a good chance at being competitive I've found 66 Republican held seats that I would consider being capable of changing in 2006 including a total of 13 open seats. This high number of Republican held seats contrasts with a total of about 8 Democratic held seats. Now the whole list is far too long to detail in one spot and I haven't finished the last portion yet. However, I do have the top tier races (the 18 most likely to change races) and a rundown on the actual/potential Democratic holds (all 8 of them). Many of these seats have Democrats coming out of primaries needing help which would probably go a long way towards taking the US House back. So here is the Top Tier and the Holds for the 74 Competitive Congressional seats. Expect Part II this weekend.
A lot of talk has been occuring about the number of congressional seats that are truly competitive, how effective gerrymandering will be, and whether the Democrats have a chance at taking the US House of Representative in the 2006 elections. The answer is that we do have a chance at taking the House but it may not be a great one. That is because there are currently only about 22 races that I would consider "Most Competitive" (or first-tier) which, while it heavily favors us (currently only Iowa 3, Texas 17, and Illionis 8 are the only Dem held seats on the list) but still requires us to run the field on the rest. On the plus side there are a high numer of "Second Most Competitive" seats that are working towards being in play. Currently, out of 435 US House seats about 62 are either competitive or have the potential to be competitive. So the list as it currently stands is:
There is a diary not too far down about Ohio State Senate races (at http://www.dailykos.com/... ) and I left a comment about State House races in 2006. I think that subject is indepth enough to deserve a diary and I think I've tweaked the initial comment enough that it won't be merely reposting. All the 2004 State representative results are taken from Yellowdog Sammy's 2006 Ohio election listing (http://www.geocities.com/...). All of the references to how the county voted for President were determined by myself using data from the Ohio Secretary of State's office (I can provide a link if you want but last I looked it was revamping for the fall and nothing was available). The conclusions are my own.
A lot of people are optimistic about the Ohio Governor's race but unfortunately some sore losers in Ted Strickland's own party are trying to do their level best to make him lose (and, further, some in the blogosphere who don't know the score seem to think that it's because ODP Chair Redfern and Strickland haven't done their part http://ohio2006elections.blogspot.com/ at the top of the page). The real reason, at least by the most outspoken of the individuals comes from losing their "don't vote" attempt to install their choice as chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. Further, this ignores the many people in these regions who are backing Ted Strickland.
I have been doing rundowns on the primaries for open Congressional seats that are considered safely Dem as I feel that we should be electing our very best for the seats that are almost certain to be ours. Since I have did the last rundown Martin Sabo retired from the 5th district in Minnesota and I discovered that I had neglected to cover the open 13th district in New Jersey. Also, some candidates have announced for the Republicans in the open 2nd district in Hawaii. So, without further adeu, here are the details for the MN 5 and NJ 13:
Besides the Texas 28 race which ends tonight there are a number of other Congressional races in which the Democrat is either very strongly favored or is garuanteed a win. In these races the primary is the most important part for progressives, Democrats, and like minded people. These seats would be Maryland 3 (Ben Cardin leaving to run for Senate), Florida 11 (Jim Davis leaving to run for Governor), New York 11 (Major Owens retiring), Hawaiii 2 (Ed Case running in the Senate primary) and Tennessee 11 (Harold Ford Jr. running for Senate). In these races the primary should be of interest to people here and all 5 races have crowded fields. I realize this is similar to a diary I wrote in December but this covers 2 additional races and the fields in other races seem to be a bit more defined.
