The California Legislature approved a bill last week to extend voter registration privileges to 17-year-old citizens. If signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bill would help put California youth on the road to a lifetime of democratic participation.
Granholm's remarks on the rescue came after her announcement that state tax breaks for 20 business projects will net the state $2.3 billion in new investments.
That will ultimately produce 7,400 new jobs, directly and indirectly, according to the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC).
Among the ventures is a company that makes wind turbines and a firm that will make a lightweight bus that gets three times the gas mileage of conventional buses.
Such a vision might transform manufacturing in the midwest and bring new prosperity to the long suffering rust belt... Except that this initiatives is very close to failing, if... if... (more over the break)
This is the second in a series of Grassroots Reports we will be providing over the final few weeks of the campaign to let the blogosphere know what 21st Century Democrats is doing in several key battleground states. This week we're focusing on Michigan where Democrats continue to build momentum. Recently, John McCain was forced to pull out of the Wolverine State in a move that will benefit not only Barack Obama, but Democrats all down the ticket - including our endorsed candidates Gary Peters, Mark Schauer and Andy Meisner.
21st Century Democrats has focused the majority of our resources in the important swing district of Oakland County. We've had organizers on the ground there for months and the polls have started to show voters moving in the Democrats' favor with Barack Obama now leading John McCain in the county by 6%. While this is a good sign, we must keep fighting hard until all the votes are counted on November 4th.
In Michigan's 9th Congressional District (which includes Oakland County), Gary Peters is running ahead of incumbent Republican Rep. Joe Knollenberg. Recent polling has shown Peters up by as much as 9 points, and he is 'banking' a lot of support in preparation for a strong get-out-the-vote effort. The campaign has already identified over 55,000 'yes' votes for Gary! Things are also looking good in the 7th Congressional District where Mark Schauer is consistently polling 7-10 points ahead of his opponent, Rep. Tim Walberg.
Andy Meisner, our endorsed candidate for Oakland County Treasurer, is running a truly impressive field operation as he tries to move to a new post after three successful terms in the state legislature. 21st Century Democrats' organizers have helped the Meisner Campaign contact 34,143 voters and make 7,886 IDs. The numbers are looking very good with 7,886 voters identified as a '1s' or '2s' (meaning they will likely vote for Andy) against only 463 people who said they would probably vote for his opponent.
The prospects for a big Democratic victory in Michigan are strong, but we can't let McCain's withdrawal make us complacent. As Peter's Republican opponent's campaign manager said, "our voter turnout operation is knocking on doors to get people to show up on Election Day." These Republicans understand the value of knocking doors and turning out the vote - and so do we! I hope you will support our efforts in Michigan and around the country.
Our first state report (on Montana) can be found here.
Afraid that they will lose this election, Republicans have turned ACORN into the boogie man. They are making baseless claims that ACORN is perpetuating voter fraud due to its voter registration activities.
In fact, the Republican National Committee's chief lawyer has labeled ACORN a "quasi-criminal organization," and McCain's campaign has launched ads accusing the group of "massive voter fraud" and bullying banks into making risky home loans. McCain's camp is also trying to link Democratic Sen. Barack Obama to ACORN. Last night, McCain said, "ACORN is destroying the fabric of democracy."
Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
Monday marked the last day to register to vote before November's presidential election in many states and the conclusion to one of the nation's largest nonpartisan voter registration drives in history. Helping more than 1.3 million of the America's underrepresented young, low-income and minority citizens register to vote, Project Vote and its voter registration drive partner, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), have played a leading role this election cycle in changing the face of the electorate to represent all Americans.
So McCain will have no more mail, TV, or staff in Michigan, though the Republican independent expenditures arm will still be running a campaign on his behalf. Larry Kissell is leading by 11 points in his North Carolina district, just one more data point this crisis has been great for Democrats (something Lieberman echoes in lauding the passage of the bailout as good for McCain). The polling lead for Obama has expanded, but now, if the economy settles down, the race can tighten up again. Jointly pushing this bailout could take the economic crisis off the table, and bring back Wright and the nonsense of the conventions.
Meanwhile, what we're learning about this crisis, in a terrifically reported article by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Diana B. Henriques, Edmund L. Andrews and Joe Nocera, is pretty awful. One thing that confused me is how small dollar donors and ordinary people thought this was a travesty, but elites and wealthy progressives were absolutely panicked and crazed that it had to go through. This article clears that right up; the crisis was essentially a bank run by hedge fund managers and billionaires. One way to think about investment banks is as basically banks where rich people and companies put billions of dollars; when the Fed let Lehman fail, billions of dollars in those accounts were frozen. If you are someone with tens of millions of dollars, some of your money at Lehman was inaccessible, and it was supposed to be liquid. Hence, panic. This panic was directly Bernanke/Paulson's fault for letting Lehman go under after bailing out Bear Stearns and AIG.
Last week, we finished surveying the lay of the land out West. This week, we begin to turn our attention to the Midwest. Yes, that's right. The Midwest looks to be once again a crucial battleground to win both the White House and Congress. And with just six weeks left until election day, we'd like to talk about the state of the races in America's Heartland.
Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
Partisan political operatives in Michigan are taking voter caging operations to depths that would surprise even the most cynical observers of American elections. If their plans are put into action, thousands of Michigan foreclosure victims may find that they will not only have lost their homes this year, but also their vote.
The national trend from Pollster.com shows Obama ahead by 2.4%, although that will probably eke up slightly with the addition of the new Gallup numbers (Rasmussen's numbers from tomorrow, not today, will be added into the average).
With a new poll yesterday, McCain's advantage in Missouri has grown to 2.8%, both in the four-poll average an in the regression trend line. In Michigan, where there was also a new poll yesterday, Obama's advantage has dropped to 3.2% in the four-poll average, and 5.4% in the regression trendline.
The state of the campaign continues to hover between a statistically significant Obama lead, and a statistically insignificant Obama lead. A complete, 50-state survey of the four-poll averages can be found at my Presidential Forecast, and a complete survey of regression trendlines can be found at Pollster.com.
As a result of gians made in the 2006 elections, the path to the White House now leads entirely through blue states. If one adds Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico to the states Kerry won in the 2004 election, there is now an easy, non-Ohio, non-Florida path to victory for Democrats. The new, natural governing map now looks like this:
"Easy" Or "Firewall" Map: Obama 273--265 McCain
This is the easy path to victory, and it requires neither Ohio nor Florida. Here are some worthwhile facts about these twenty-two states, plus D.C.:
Democrats control both branches in 20 of the 22 state legislatures: In every state except Michigan and Pennsylvania, Democrats control both branches of the state legislature.
Democrats control a majority of 22 of the 23 congressional delegations (note: some errors follow--update below): If the members of the House and Senate are combined, Democrats control the majority of congressional delegations in every single one of these states except Michigan, where Democrats trail by only an eight to nine margin.
Obama leads in all 23 states: Obama currently leads by 5.5% or more in all 23 jurisdictions, except in Colorado where he leads by 4.0%. I has been more than a month since even a single poll has shown McCain either ahead or tied in any of these states. The last was a poll Michigan, on May 27th. Since hat time, three Michigan polls have shown Obama ahead by 3%, 6%, and 9% respectively.
Democratic dominance in three new states: In Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico, Democrats hold the trifecta--both branches of the state legislature and the Governorship. Democrats have picked up four of the fifteen seats in the U.S. House in these three states over the last four years, and are poised to pickup even more this time (NM-01 is a particularly strong pickup). Democrats picked up a U.S. Senate seat in Colorado in 2004, and are set to pick up tow more Senate seats this year, with the Udalls poised for a Colorado and New Mexico sweep.
In other words, thanks to large local gains in the 2006 elections, Democrats now completely dominate local politics in enough non-southern states to win the Electoral College. There are now enough "naturally" Democratic states in order to win the White House.
Unlike Gore and Kerry in 2000 and 2004, Obama does not have to go through Republican states in order to win the Presidency. He doesn't have to win Ohio, and he doesn't have to win Florida. Basically, all he has to do is hold states where, other than Michigan, Democrats have been completely dominant lately. If we lose this election, it will be because we lost at least one blue state, and picked up no red states. As such, we now win unless something abnormal happens. The Presidency is now ours for the taking.
Update: Oh yeah, Republicans still technically control the New York State Senate, for at least another couple of months. I forgot that Bruno's retirement didn't automatically and immediately hand over control. Also, Democrats do control the Michigan State House, while Republicans control the Delaware and Wisconsin State Houses. See it all here. Democrats have two of three (Sate House, State Senate and Governor) in all of the blue states listed above.
The Democrats have plenty of strong VP picks this cycle. Amongst those who get a lot of blogosphere attention I'm particularly partial to Sherrod Brown, Brian Schweitzer, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Kathleen Sebelius and Bill Richardson.
Nevertheless, the blogosphere doesn't make the decision. And we have less influence than the media. The conventional wisdom in the media is that Obama needs to pick a moderate elder statesman with defence and foreign policy credentials. A lotofpeople seem to be backing Sam Nunn.
This would be a truly appalling choice. He's been good on nuclear non-proliferation issues and is no doubt a dab hand at negotiating with banana republic despots, but he's terrible on economic issues and routinely favoured regressive social policies.
He supported the Iraq war and he mulled an independent run this year. The only saving grace is that he's too old to run as Obama's successor.
Thankfully such a choice appears unlikely at present. Obama's decision to interview Patty Murray suggests that he's not fooled by the beltway consensus that Unity 08 was a great idea.
Nevertheless, there's still an outside chance that Nunn, or similar wastes of space like former Indiana congressmen Lee Hamilton and Tim Roemer. And even if that doesn't happen, this kind of media discourse pushes the Overton window leftward, so figures like Feingold are not perceived as remotely plausible candidates.
After any close election, not only will there be a sense of frustration and anguish among the supporters of the losing candidate, but there will also be a significant amount of feeling that the result was somehow unfair or unjust. The 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination campaign will be no different in this regard, as there are already numerous narratives from the Clinton campaign and Clinton supporters that Senator Hillary Clinton was, in some fashion, robbed of the nomination.
However, while there are at least six narratives of this type, none of them hold up to closer scrutiny. I examine, and debunk, each of these six arguments in the extended entry.
Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
In light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold Indiana's voter ID law, the state-by-state battle to pass similar legislation has escalated with politicians seeking partisan gain furiously pushing laws that hinder access to the ballot. However, lawmakers seeking to dismantle barriers to electoral participation are just as committed to election integrity and protecting the voting rights of potentially millions of voters by calling out voter ID laws as "sheer political posturing." Meanwhile, positive measures to increase participation through Election Day Registration (EDR) are gaining ground in several states even as Iowa prepares to test-drive its new EDR law in the June 3 primary.
I had promised myself that I wasn't going to write about the Democratic presidential nomination campaign anymore, or at least that I wouldn't write about it as an unresolved, ongoing process anymore. However, with very few new general election polls after the holiday weekend, what's one more for old time's sake?
Anyway, in advance of the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting this Saturday, DNC lawyers have issued an advisory opinion that the DNC is required to strip Michigan and Florida of at least half their delegates. Assuming for a moment that Florida and Michigan are seated with half delegations based on the results of the January 22nd primaries, we are presented with the following delegate chart:
* = Florida pledged delegates currently split 105 Clinton, 69 Obama, and 11 Edwards, based on the results of the January primary and two Edwards pledged delegates flipping to Obama. Superdelegate totals in the state currently stand at 8 Clinton, 5 Obama, and 13 uncommitted.
** = Michigan pledged delegates current split 73 Clinton, 22 Obama, and 33 uncommitted, based on the results of the January primary and April district conventions. Superdelegates totals in the state currently stand at 7 Clinton, 5 Obama, and 17 uncommitted.
This leads to a grand total of Obama 2,078.5, Clinton 1,919.5, Edwards 12.5, and 222.5 uncommitted. Obama would be 38 delegates away from officially clinching at this point, and Obama + Edwards would be 25.5 away from officially clinching. If reports of Obama banking three dozen or so superdelegates in order to officially clinch on June 4th or June 5th are accurate, then Obama will comfortably clinch before the June 14th Michigan state convention.
So, barring something truly shocking, Obama will reach the magic number no later than next Thursday. The nomination campaign, and all major federal primaries will be over. From that point, we will have exactly five months to come together, crush Republicans, and build the enormous trifecta.
Kos and Chait both quickly noticed Hillary Rodham Clinton's outrageous (morally, intellectually, politically) argument today that to not allow her to go back on her word on Florida and Michigan (she originally agreed that the two states would not count) so her delegate margin could get reduced (she'd still be prohibitively in second place) is similar to the denial of the right to the vote to women, and of civil rights to blacks in the South in the 60s.
This mostly speaks for itself. What is truly unfortunate (for her, her followers) is that many journalists, party activists, and rank-and-file Dems liked her OK but just preferred Obama (more progressive, etc.) before the primary. Now, with such ridiculous pandering (and intellectually vacuous reasoning and hypocrisy and maniacal fear-mongering) she has truly become a political monster, a figure unlikable (not for her being a woman or being "shrill" or any of those other euhpemisms for sexism) because she is simply intolerably, cynically corrupt and destructive.
She is a pox on the Democratic Party, on progressive values (including feminism), and on our country's future. I hope she is pushed out (not just rejected as VP, but truly pushed out of the party leadership) and shown the error of her ways.
I've been trying to contact Aaron Myers of the DNCC all day to find out what's going on with the blog credentials, but surprisingly, he's not answering his phone. He did put up a diary on Dailykos in which he seemed to suggest that state parties had no role in the process. Here's what he wrote.
We didn't hand off this project to state party officials, as was rumored. The DNCC published a list of requirements, we read applications, and we looked at lots of blogs.
As it turns out, I did talk to Matt Jerzyk of the credentialed blog Rhode Island Future, and he had a conversation with state party executive director Tim Grilo about the blog credentialing process. He asked about the process of credentialing bloggers. Grilo said that the DNCC called and asked for the party's input about each blog that applied, and the Rhode Island Democratic Party was told directly that their input would be valued and would be involved in the decision-making process about who to credential. Grilo said that the party was not given veto power but he did get the strong sense that their input would be a valuable part of the credentialing process.
In broad strokes, Jerzyk outlined for me, what this means is that there was no veto power by state parties and the decision resided with the Democratic National Convention Committee, but yes, state parties had input and yes state parties could give negative information about blogs they didn't like.
Marc Ambinder picked up a letter from 21 progressive state bloggers frustrated with the selection process. I wrote about this on Sunday and Monday, pointing to the credentialing of a state party friendly blog in Michigan over one that has higher levels of influence and accomplishment but had been critical of the state party. It now appears that the blogger given credentials works for the Governor of the state, though I can't confirm that since she won't return my email (I have put the question to her in her comment thread).
The issue here is simple, and doesn't have to do with any specific bloggers given or not given credentials. State parties are clearly using blog credentials to reward bloggers they think support them best. In some cases, in most actually, they are willing to reward critics. In some states, though, particularly New Jersey and New York, it's possible that the decision cut out progressive activists because they are willing to speak out about problems within the party. Leaving progressive bloggers out of the convention is a financial and political penalty for these small businesses, many of which will now shy away from being independent and progressive out of fear of retribution.
This is a problem.
Update: Ok, apparently it's common knowledge that Cathleen Carrigan is an employee of Governor Granholm. That is absurd. Simply absurd. An employee of the most powerful politician in the state was given convention credentials over a larger progressive blog. This is just ridiculous. Granholm can get her employees credentials, she doesn't need to take them from independent progressive activists.
Update again: Carrigan is not an employee of Granholm, but is an employee of the Michigan Democratic Party. This is a distinction without a difference. I do find it frustrating that Carrigan refuses to answer my questions and then mewls on about being persecuted and misrepresented. I am perfectly willing to issue corrections and sought her response before printing anything about her employment status.
I worked in New Jersey during Jon Corzine's gubernatorial campaign in 2005, and one of the (few) joys of that campaign was seeing BlueJersey start up and grow into an incredible resource for progressives. The blog led a groundbreaking TV and internet campaign for marriage equality in the state, and Juan Melli, the proprietor, was dubbed 'Politician of the Year' by PoliticsNJ, the insider outlet in the state. Local blogs serve as activist hubs for progressives, 'grasstops' that can move message and organize influentials within a state community. Oftentimes the number of insiders is strikingly small - only about 1000 - in a state, and these blogs are the only progressive media that can influence them.
It was with pride then that the Democratic National Convention Committee announced that every state would have credentials issued for state blogs. These state blogs help Democrats get elected, stay in power, and push progressive policies. At the same time, these blogs ruffle feathers, whether it was Raising Kaine complaining about the field campaign of Tim Kaine or primary fights taking place on various state blogs. I worked at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, and credentialed the first set of bloggers to attend a national political convention. I remember fighting internally for progressive blogs to get the credentials, not conservative of neutral blogs. Since it was a Democratic convention the DNCC should prioritize Democrats (the others could go through the neutral media queue). That logic holds today; the convention is a giant media, organizing, and networking event, so Democrats should get to go and gear up for the general election.
It's a bit disturbing to hear what's going on, then, with a few of the credentials. Pam's House Blend has a discussion going on about which blogs were credentialled at the Democratic National Convention. Mostly the choices were good, but four states in particular raise questions: Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, and Michigan.
This is the final nomination at a glance post that I intend to make. Tomorrow, the 2008 Presidential Election Forecast, which I will update just about every day between now and November, will replace it
The Democratic nomination campaign is over, and there is no need to keep a running, updated count anymore. Massive pro-Obama superdelegate movement, combined with the John Edwards endorsement, were the final straws. At this point, Obama now holds a commanding lead, even if Florida and Michigan are seated exactly as the Clinton campaign hopes they are.
* Two Edwards delegates in Florida have now indicated they will support Obama
Even if Michigan and Florida are seated based entirely on the results of the January "primaries," which is extremely unlikely, then Obama leads by 135 delegates even without the remaining 25 Edwards delegates and 19 Michigan uncommitted delegates added to his total. There is simply no longer any path for Clinton to reach the nomination. This is probably why Obama is poised to declare victory on Tuesday night:
Senator Barack Obama has chosen to spend Tuesday night not in Kentucky or Oregon, the two states that will be holding their primaries that day, or even at his home in Chicago. Instead, Mr. Obama's staff announced on Saturday, he will be returning to Iowa, where he won the Democratic caucuses way back in January and has at least two good reasons to revisit now.
Much more than nostalgia seems to have motivated that decision. If things continue to go as well for Mr. Obama this week as they have so far this month, with a romp in North Carolina, a strong showing in Indiana and daily growth in his support among party superdelegates, he could actually end up with enough pledged delegates to proclaim, without fear of contradiction, that he is now the Democratic nominee for president.
They should change the "could" to "will" in that article. As a result, it will be exciting to live blog Tuesday's returns. Here are a few more notes on the end of the nomination at a glance series:
On Tuesday night, Obama will also be able to secure victory in a metric that has long been important to me: the popular vote. Even if Michigan and Florida are included in measures of popular participation, notions to which I am actually quite open because no other delegate selection events were made available to the residents of those two states, about 260,000 more participants in Democratic delegate selection events preferred Obama to Clinton. While the uncommitted vote in Michigan and lack of popular totals in four caucus states make a final count impossible, exit polls and voter turnout estimates among those groups provide conclusive, incontrovertible evidence that more participants in Democratic delegate selection events supported Obama than Clinton. This metric might not matter to you, but it even with all the imperfections in the process it does matter to me, and I am very glad that our presumptive nominee will finish ahead in this category. (See here and here for more information on this.)
Biggest Upset Ever. The enormity of Obama's accomplishment should not be underestimated. He succeeded where Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart and Bill Bradley failed: defeating a candidate with overwhelming institutional support to win the Democratic nomination. Going into this campaign, the Hillary Clinton had fifteen years of power building at her back, and Obama was able to edge her out in only fifteen months.
Best Nomination Campaign, Ever: The three nomination campaigns I remember when I was growing up were 1984, 1988 and 1992, all of which were lengthy, unpredictable contests with numerous twists and turns. The next three Democratic contests, 1996, 2000 and 2004 were incredibly weak and boring by comparison. For quite some time, I have longed for a campaign when everyone got to have their say, not just Iowa and New Hampshire. I longed for a real contest over who would lead the Democratic Party, and even though the ideological component of this campaign was mainly identity-based, we finally got another one of those. As a blogger and a political junkie, I wanted few things more than to be able to become a leading expert on delegates and delegate counting. Over the last four months, I have relished that role about as much as I have ever enjoyed anything as a blogger. Truly wonderful.
Don't look now, but the Broward County Democrats down here in the Sunshine state has just fired the first broadside of the general election and saying they scored a direct hit is an understatement. Led by their fiery Chair Mitch Ceasar, they have put together a video that crystallizes the issues of state GOP voter suppression and irregularities that defines their brand and takes advantage of the new election law mandating statewide ballot paper trails.
