This still needs work...
I'm sure you recall the mock schedule that was being circulated in 2004. I made a few edits, omissions, updates... but I'm sure it can be improved.
Any contributions would be appreciated.
(cross posted at KOS) http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
Sen. Larry Craig has all but dropped any notion of trying to complete his term, and is focused on helping Idaho send a new senator to Washington within a few weeks, his top spokesman said Thursday.
"The most likely scenario, by far, is that by October there will be a new senator from Idaho," Craig spokesman Dan Whiting told the Associated Press.
The only circumstances in which Craig might try to complete his term, Whiting said, would require the overturning by Sept. 30 of his conviction for disorderly conduct in a men's room at the Minneapolis airport, as well as Senate GOP leaders' agreement to restore Craig's committee leaderships posts taken away this week.
Those scenarios are unlikely, Whiting said.
That was a brief comeback. I had hoped he would stick around.
After short-circuiting consideration of votes on some bipartisan proposals on Iraq before the August break, senior Democrats now say they are willing to rethink their push to establish a withdrawal deadline of next spring if doing so will attract the 60 Senate votes needed to prevail.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said, "If we have to make the spring part a goal, rather than something that is binding, and if that is able to produce some additional votes to get us over the filibuster, my own inclination would be to consider that."
Of course, such a plan will neither reduce the number of troops in Iraq, nor result in increased political pressure on Republicans. So I really have no idea what it accomplishes. More on this later.
"Rather than picking up votes, by removing the deadline to get our troops out of Iraq you have lost this Democrat's vote.(…)
"I cannot and will not support any measure that does not have a firm and enforceable deadline to complete the redeployment of combat troops from Iraq. Only then will Congress be able to send a clear message to the President that we are changing course in Iraq, and a message to the Iraqis that they need to get their political house in order.
"I urge my colleagues to join me and declare their opposition to this measure."
Opposition like this makes me feel good, and once again progressives will have to be a swing block that prevents weaker legislation from passing on the first try. However, at the same time, I admit that the way this entire fight is shaping up is making me very depressed, as I really don't know what do to as an organizer, or what the path to victory is.
The New York City-based Transport Workers Union of America endorsed John Edwards on Thursday, saying the former North Carolina senator was the most electable of the Democratic presidential candidates.
Edwards was to be in New York City to accept the endorsement.
There are about 200,000 memebrs of this union, very few of whom live or work in early states.
Democrats Well Ahead In Ohio The latest poll from Quinnipiac shows Clinton and Edwards well ahead of every Republican, and Obama well ahead of Thompson and Romney but tied with Giuliani and McCain. In the primary, Clinton has a three to one advantage. On the Republican side, Giuliani leads Thompson 21%-15%.
New Clinton and Obama Ads
Both focus on "change." Here is Obama:
Here is Clinton:
I think I prefer Clinton's ad, but neither strike me as real standouts. Matt has more on this above.
By now you've heard Larry Craig is thinking of not resigning. That's a big deal. When the conservative machine cuts a public figure's head off, it always stays cut off. And usually they pay the person off to make sure they go into lucrative private practice. So what exactly does Craig have on the GOP establishment, otherwise known as the 'world's biggest closet'?
I'm still assuming Craig's done, as I have a hard time imagining he stays. But wow, this is a breakdown of discipline.
I generally take the last week in August off because it's almost always the second slowest week in national politics (after only the week between Christmas and New Year's Day- and with the early caucuses this year, that week won't be so slow either). But with the Republicans around to entertain us, the last week wasn't so slow. Since I've been gone:
-Alberto Gonzales finally resigned
-Larry Craig resigned after his public restroom escapades were revealed
-The overwhelmingly negative GAO report on Iraq came out
-John Warner decided to retire
-Tony Snow also decided to take off
That's a pretty big week for an October of an election year, let alone the last week in August. And all of it bad news for the Republicans. I guess I should go on vacation more often.
It's always fascinating to be back home in the Midwest when big national news is going on, because that part of the country is the ultimate in low information news, and it's fascinating to see what sinks in and how people back home react to it. The Lincoln Journal-Star and Omaha World-Herald are both terrible papers, and the local TV news is pretty awful as well. High-speed internet is available in Lincoln, but not at all on the family farm, or small towns surrounding it, and people don't tend to check it much for news. People sometimes watch CNN or Fox News to get national news, but as we know, that's not exactly informative coverage.
So which of these big stories got noticed? John Warner got a small page three story, but was hardly noticed or talked about except among my total political junkie friends. Gonzalez resigning was noticed, and people mentioned it, mostly being relieved. The GAO report got a tiny ripple, but people are so used to bad news about Iraq that it didn't receive any comment at all. But the Larry Craig story was very, very big. That combination of scandal, sex and hypocrisy, with a dash of politics mixed in, was irresistible, and everybody and their mother (mine included) talked about it a lot. Good old-fashioned family fun.
The monumental challenges of building a national progressive majority really settle in after weeks like this at home, with a lot of important stories happening but not much notice of the ones that don't involve playing footsie in public restrooms. Having a national broadband policy like the one Matt Stoller and Dick Durbin have been working on in the Legislation 2.0 project would certainly help, but it's going to take a lot more organizing, both in terms of our political organizing and communicating, and in terms of building new strategies for media.
I'd love to know what ideas the OpenLeft.com community has in terms of getting a consistent message out in smaller states and in rural communities.
If Thompson waits until September 6 to formally declare his candidacy, he wouldn't have to disclose any of the cash given to his campaign until January 31 -- after many major contests are over, including the Iowa and Nevada Caucuses, and the New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan and Florida primaries.
Why is he choosing that particular Chick-fil-A to make this announcement? Well, Chick-fil-A is owned by major right-wing donors, South Carolina is a key early state, Bush road has a nice ring to it, and that franchise also is easily accessible from routes 20,.26, and 126. Also, the Chick-fil-A's near the college and universities in Columbia will be swarming with drunk 20 year olds that time of night.
VA-Sen: Awaiting Word From Warner
At 2pm today, John Warner will announce if he is seeking another term in the Senate, or if he is retiring. According to the Examiner, he is retiring. If he does retire, and if Mark Warner runs for the open seat, as has been widely rumored, this would immediately become a top Democratic pickup opportunity. Even without Virginia, Democrats already seem to have at least five other good pickup opportunities in Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine.
ID-Sen: Larry Craig expected to retire soon
To no one's surprise, Larry Craig is receiving a huge amount of pressure to resign, and probably will either today or tomorrow. The homophobic double standard between Vitter and Craig would usually allow me to have some sympathy for Craig, except that the guy is so homophobic himself that I can't be moved to care at all.
I will provide updates in this space when more information is available on Warner's decision.
Update 2: John Warner is retiring. Virginia now has an open seat in the US Senate for 2008. If Mark Warner runs, this becomes a clear Democratic pickup chance.
No one cares that Larry Craig is gay, or even closeted. It's an open secret that there are closeted Senators on both sides of the aisle, and Republican gay staffers are so open in their giant GOP closet that they were even targeted as a 'velvet mafia' by the religious right during the Foley scandal.
What is significant is that Senator Larry Craig is an obvious psychopath, willing to lie about being gay while voting to deny rights to others. It's also significant that Mitt Romney scrubbed Larry Craig out of existence on his web site as if he was never Romney's Senate liaison.
Craig and Romney are part of a larger story of the Republican Party - that they are two faced phonies who have one set of rules for themselves and another set for everyone else. They send the country to war but their kids don't fight. They venerate the market while living on defense contracts and wingnut welfare. To Republicans, everything is projection, and the only sin is getting caught in public.
This is a great time to make that case, to reinforce the narrative that Republicans are big phonies. Instinctively, that's not what Democrats tend to do. Democrats have been mostly silent, with a few exceptions.
For the most part, Democrats studiously avoided involvement with an unfolding Republican scandal.
"We at least ought to hear his side of the story.," said Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said his party stood to gain. "All of these people who (are) holier than thou are now under investigations. ... I think the Republican Party will find itself in a great peril next year," he said.
The public has figured out that Republicans are macho phonies, and that the most homophobic figures in the country are often very gay. See Haggard, Ted. What's missing is drawing the bright line between Republican character flaws, which is about hating yourself and turning that hatred onto innocent people through sadistic policies, and Republican governance. It's a case we should start making in earnest, and the language is there for the taking.
So the opportunists jump into the fray. Pat Toomey, Club for Growth president and BFF of crazy Idaho Rep. Bill Sali took aim yesterday against Idaho's other representative in Congress and fellow Republican, Mike Simpson, one of Idaho's most popular Republicans.
Bill Sali as the Republican nominee would almost immediately make the ID-Sen race competitive, considering that he barely won the ID-01 last year by 5%. Even if this is still a longshot for Democrats, the need to defend Idaho will stretch already thin Republican Senate resources down to the bare bone, allowing us to win seats elsewhere. Larry Larocco for Senate.
"Much of the focus in the primary scheduling fight up to now has been on the Democratic National Committee's moves to penalize Florida by not seating its convention delegates because of the state's decision to move up its primary. But the Republican rules are just as stringent, and the national party said yesterday that it would not hesitate to enforce them."
So, if Republicans are doing exactly the same thing as Democrats, why was the press coverage so much more extreme for Democrats? Over at MyDD, Jerome explains:
Look, no hissy-fit quotes by anonymous disgruntled RNC members, no grandstanding by Rules committee members and no bad PR in Florida…. The Florida Republicans just shrugged and stated the obvious: ""I am confident that all 114 delegates from Florida will be seated," said Jim Greer, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party."
As a party, we Democrats seem very good at turning even minor, procedural disagreements into media-friendly flame wars between local water-cooler tyrants. The primary calendar dispute didn't have to look as bad as it did for us. However, we are Democrats.
KY-Sen: Kentucky AG Stumbo to Challenge McConnell
Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo has formed an exploratory committee to run for Kentucky Senate. Stumbo is not the ideal choice for progressives, given that he was one-half of the ultra-conservative Lunsford ticket in the gubernatorial primary. The progressive bench in Kentucky is not very large, and it seems the better candidates (Beshear, Mongiardo) will be occupying the Governor's mansion instead of the US Senate. Stumbo is, however, the Kentucky AG, which shows he can win statewide. Even if Stumbo doesn't win, this is another major pressure point Democrats can use to win seats elsewhere. Reaching 60 Senate seats might be possible in 2008, if everything goes well and we get candidates for the strong pickup opportunities in New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia.
SD-Sen: Tim Johnson Returns
Speaking of the Senate, Tim Johnson made his first, post-illness public appearance in South Dakota yesterday. You can watch the video of his appearance at Welcomebacktim.com.
"Congress" is an abstract concept that voters never seem to collectively punish. "Democrats" and "Republicans" are abstract concepts that voters seem to punish on a regular basis. Right now, Democrats hold gaping leads on Republicans nationwide, meaning that low congressional approval has not damaged Democratic electoral opportunities. This also means that any campaign urging Democrats to not support the same policies that Republicans support is doing Democrats a favor. Republicans are really unpopular, and Democrats who want to vote like Republicans are committing electoral suicide.
Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon.
On July 17, I sat in the U.S. Senate Gallery - watching as Senators stayed up all night and debated whether we should bring our troops home from Iraq.
Idaho Senator Larry Craig sat all alone. As other Senators debated this life-or-death issue of war, Craig looked down and doodled on a small piece of paper the size of a coffee coaster. He did this for at least a half hour, probably more - meticulously drawing some four-sided object and switching pens from time to time.
It seems to me that a Senator from Idaho should have been engaged by the debate - using every waking minute to think about Blake Stephens, Carrie French, Kelly Morris, James Holtom, Emerson Brand, and others among the Idaho residents who have died in Iraq. But Craig doodled away, oblivious to the realities of this war.
Craig then voted against ending the war. Adding insult to injury, Craig voted earlier against a Democratic plan to give troops one year at home for every year in Iraq.
As Craig comes up for re-election in 2008, I'm curious - is someone who doodles against the troops the best person to represent Idaho in the U.S. Senate?
