Want to put a bold progressive in Rahm's House seat in the March 3 special election? Here's what you can do.
If you live in DC, join us this Monday evening at Local 16 for a fundraising event for Tom Geoghegan, and meet the candidate himself. There's a high-dollar fundraiser later in the evening, but tickets to this netroots fundraiser event are only $30. Get them here. Facebook invite here.
Not in DC? Read more about Tom and donate at the event's ActBlue page. Every dollar makes a big difference, so please consider giving. (If you buy raffle tickets you can still win, even if you're not at the event.)
Jerome Armstrong noticed something really interesting. "What seems most noticeable about the polling is that Obama didn't start tanking until after he 'denounced' Wright. Why is that?"
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 30% of the nation's Likely Voters believe Barack Obama denounced his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, because he was outraged. Most-58%--say he denounced the Pastor for political convenience. The survey was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday night. Obama made his statements about Wright on Tuesday.
Wright held a mini-media tour last weekend capped by a press conference at the National Press Club on Monday. Only 33% of voters believe that Obama was surprised by the views Wright expressed at Monday's press conference. Fifty-two percent (52%) say he was not surprised.
Fifty-six percent (56%) say it's at least somewhat likely that Obama "shares some of Pastor Wright's controversial views about the United States." That figure includes 26% who say it's Very Likely Obama holds such views. At the other end of the spectrum 24% say it's Not Very Likely that Obama shares such views. Just 11% say it's Not at All Likely.
So voters think that Obama pandered by denouncing Wright, that he was not surprised by Wright's views, and that he probably shares them. This can be fixed, but I bet if you looked at the numbers of denunciations of surrogates in general, it doesn't look good unless it's quick and aggressive or not done at all. Stupid media politics is about being on offense, not defense.
This could be turned around into an attack, and it should be, but it wasn't. And so the controversy is on Wright, not the media or McCain's various controversial associates.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Jerome Armstrong called for a goal of Democrats putting up 80 House Challengers a cycle: http://www.mydd.com/...
With the Democratic take over the House and a net gain of 30 seats, the number of seats available to challenge has shrunk, however. I believe we can still try to get to 80 Districts that can and should be challenged. What is more is that this is symbolic because it places more than a third of the House Republicans in jeopardy and limits there purely safe members to a grow not large enough to sustain a veto. More House seats is important if we wish to see the type of agenda we all want passed, We need both more seats and the political momentum that comes with the perceived mandate. Fortunately we are already blessed with roughly 60 very qualified House Candidates.
Over the Jump, I break down the Four Categories of Republican House Members and their relative number and list the challengers in each category. I will also then break down what the conventional wisdom is currently saying about House Races and where it is important we get out in front of conventional wisdom.
I've been looking forward to reading Matt Bai's book, The Argument, for months now. In the circles I run- which include Democracy Alliance donors, netroots activists, and Clinton administration folks, all of which are central characters in the book- everybody was buzzing about it, and more than a few people were more than a little nervous about what he would have to say.
I have to say, from a pure reading pleasure point of view, it was worth the wait. I feared that it would be one of those books that, since I already knew most of the stories told in it, that it would be pretty boring- one of those books that I had to read to know what nasty thing he said about whom, but not something I would enjoy slogging through. I turned out to be wrong, because Bai is an engaging writer who can be very funny in his writing a lot of the time.
