Over the past few weeks, our nation has been swept with the shocking revelation from former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan that the Bush White House engaged in conscious deception to lead our country to war with Iraq. After the thousands of American lives lost, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars appropriated, and five plus years spent in Iraq, this latest disclosure underscores the need for change in Washington.
Crossposted at Daily Kos and EENR Blog. I didn't see much discussion of this race, so thought this might be helpful for readers here.
Most of you probably remember me from all of the hard work I put in blogging about Rick Vilello, former candidate for the PA-05 nomination. Well, during that time I also got very sick. So sick that I was unable to go to work and they eventually had to let me go. The good news is that my sickness was apparently an allergic reaction to something in the area, and now that I have left the area, I'm no longer sick. I'm returning to the PA-06 and noticed that there has not been a single diary on our very progressive candidate down there. I would like to rectify that situation. Bear in mind that I do not work for the Bob Roggio campaign, although I do look forward to volunteering for it.
You already know the basics: Travis Childers supports withdrawing our troops from Iraq in 12 to 18 months, a timeframe that every serious analyst acknowledges is safe and reasonable. Large majorities are in favor of withdrawal, so it's especially heartening to see a Democrat in a red district embrace this stance. And it's one of the many reasons we're supporting him.
But a Childers win will reverberate far outside MS-01 when it comes to Iraq. Other potentially vulnerable Democrats in conservative areas will be able to look at this race and conclude that if Childers can succeed in an R+10 district running (at least in part) on Iraq withdrawal, they can, too.
This is crucial because Dems are planning to vote on withdrawal once again this year. I think we know Bush won't budge, but DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen says nuts to that:
"There are some people who would say, 'OK, why are you going through this exercise again, if the president is going to veto this?' We have a responsibility to do everything we can to follow through on the changes we say we want made," Van Hollen said. "I think it is a question of demonstrating where you stand, and what you will do, and continue to push to do, if you are elected in November."
Van Hollen gets it - it's about sending the right message. Childers can help send that message with his own vote, but just as importantly, he can also help make it a lot louder by giving fellow Democrats the courage to take the right stand on Iraq. Remember, only six Democrats hold seats as red or redder than MS-01. A Congressman Childers would offer a whole lot of Dems a whole lot of breathing room.
He said he's amazed more people on the campaign trail haven't asked about a national debt of more than $9 trillion.
"We're spending our money, folks, in Iraq. We need to be spending our money in America.
"We need to help young people get homes. We need to address the mortgage crisis."
By linking withdrawal from Iraq with a populist appeal that addresses deep concerns about the economy, Childers knocks Republicans back on their heels with a one-two punch. This goes right at core GOP weaknesses, and I think it's an approach that can play in many districts.
But all of this only matters, of course, if Childers gets elected - which is why we need to do everything we can to help him. Thanks to the generosity of the Swing State Project community, we've raised an impressive $1,300 so far. That puts us an even $1,000 away from original goal. But we really have very little time here. The election is only two weeks away, and money received by a campaign in the final week is more difficult to deploy strategically.
So I would really like to see us hit our target by Monday, May 5th. Can we add another $200 today? Let's do it for Childers - and for our troops.
Update (James): Actblue seems to be have had a few server issues this morning, although things seem to be working fine now. If you have trouble accessing our fundraising page, please try again a little bit later.
Here in Kentucky's First District, during the failed do-nothing 109th Congress and well before, Exxon Ed Whitfield served as a loving rubber-stamp to every failed policy of Mitch McConnell and George W. Bush. In Iraq, these three managed to send our troops into the wrong country on the wrong mission. Worse than that, they showed the ultimate in disrespect to our troops by sending them there without proper training, planning, and most important for the welfare of our troops, equipment.
As I reflect on the Take Back America 2008 conference, I'm thrilled 21st Century Democrats was a partner organization at the event. We are proud to stand with other great groups like Campaign for America's Future, Progressive Majority, ACORN, People for the American Way, the Center for Progressive Leadership, and many others who are working hard to change the direction of this country from the disastrous policies of George W. Bush.
For me, one of the highlights of the conference was the roll out of "A Responsible Plan To End The War In Iraq" by Darcy Burner, Chellie Pingree and several other Congressional candidates. Darcy explained how a the Bush Administration's top down approach to ending the war in Iraq has failed to stem the violence and that's why she drafted the plan and organized fellow Congressional candidates to take a bottom's up approach by putting forward a plan to end the war.
One of the most important points made during the rollout was the need to change the frame of the conversation about the war from whether the surge is working to what we should be doing to make our country safer. To shift the conversation we need to get more people involved in this debate. We must talk to our neighbors, friends, family - and most importantly to the candidates where we live - and ask them to sign on to the responsible plan to end the war in Iraq.
We in the progressive community have asked for leadership on ending the war, and now have Darcy Burner, Chellie Pingree and several other candidates who have put themselves on the line by not only standing up against the war, but by providing a detailed plan of how the United States can bring our military engagement in Iraq to a responsible end and take steps to restore the checks and balances in our government to make sure we do not make the same mistake again in the future.
(From the diaries. What's your take? - promoted by James L.)
As we all watched in amazement last year, the Blue Wave in 2006 was so strong Republicans almost lost House districts in Wyoming and Idaho - two of the most conservative districts in the country (only 10-20 districts gave Bush a higher percentage of the vote in 2000 or 2004). Not one Democratic seat was lost.
It couldn't get better than that, could it?
Could it?
As the latest Democracy Corps memo puts it, "If Americans have ever been angrier with the state of the country, we have not witnessed it..." And that anger is directed mostly at Republicans.
Now, the numbers - first up, the Master Indicator - the Generic Ballot question. The graph show the net Democratic advantage:
Click to enlarge.
Join me on the flip for a fourteen ways to look at the 2008 House races - and, in some cases, the mood of the country in general.
The Democratic field is cleared for State Senator John Unger (campaign site) to challenge Foleygate/Page Board scandal star and incumbent Wall Street Journal Republican Shelley Capito for West Virginia's Second Congressional District seat.
The Democratic House leadership seems to be lining up behind Unger's bid to unseat the increasingly vulnerable Capito, hopefully giving Unger vital early support in a district the Democratic leadership dreadfully under-invested in the 2006 cycle. Unger has even been honored as one of Rahm Emanuel's "Six Pack", one of only six candidates to whom he has donated so far in this cycle.
It is a very encouraging sign that Monday evening six of the leading House Democrats (including Hoyer, Emanuel, and Van Hollen) will host a big old fundraiser (info) for Unger.
In 2006 Democrats picked most of the low-hanging fruit in regaining the House majority. Seats in which we have a legitimate takeover opportunity are few and far between (and we have several seats we won in 2006 we are going to be hard-pressed to hold and need to offset).
John Unger's campaign in 60-some percent Democratic registration WV-02 offers us a chance to pick the GOP's pockets of a seat which traditionally belongs to us. Read on for the who, how and why.
The House Minority Leader John Boehner said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that the blood shed in Iraq and the billions spent were a "small price." A lot of bloggers pounded Boehner for this and rightfully so, though many missed an important angle: Boehner is the leader of his fellow 200 Republican members of the House of Representatives.
So on Thursday, I called on the Republican members of Nevada's delegation (Jon Porter and Dean Heller) to answer one question: Do they think the death of Nevada's fallen soldiers is a "small price to pay?"
I also asked members of the 50-State blog network to do the same. Thus far five other blogs have done so.
I am particularly excited about this endorsement for several reasons. First, I am from the district, and ever since Jim Walsh originally won the seat by a few hundred votes back when I was a freshman in high school, I have been itching for someone to defeat him. Second, Dan Maffei epitomizes one of my longest-running arguments about the need to run in every district. In 2004, no Democrat ran against Walsh, but in 2006 Dan came within 1% of defeating him. Third, having met Dan Maffei, I can honestly say that there is no member of Congress, or candidate for Congress, with whom I was more personally impressed and within whom I felt more personally comfortable (there are two or three who I feel roughly the same about). When we talked for over two hours over coffee and pizza, it felt like every idea we exchanged about strategy, policy, and life really clicked (like me, he went to local public schools, and hasn't exactly made a fortune working in progressive politics). Dan is a serious, brilliant progressive, who absolutely means more and better Democrats. Please, contribute to Dan today.
Here is a video Dan put together to introduce himself and the district to the readers of Dailykos, MyDD, Open Left and Swing State Project a few days ago:
Now, some of you might ask something to the effect of "wait-he is running against Jim Walsh, the Republican who just said he was now opposed to the Iraq War? Isn't that the sort of Republican behavior we should be encouraging, rather than immediately punishing with a major counter-endorsement?" If you are asking this question, I am glad you did, because even though the Maffei endorsement was decided upon several days before Walsh's announcement, since that time it has revealed the true danger Democrats face in offering up weak, meaningless, "compromise" bills on Iraq. The NY-25 is the first case study of how Democratic weakness in the House on Iraq can allow Republican to potentially blur the difference between the two parties on Iraq, and thus wipe out virtually our entire advantage heading into the 2008 elections.
Here is the situation. Over the past nine months, Jim Walsh has said he was in favor of withdrawal, and then voted a timeline that would actually mandate withdrawal. Even in discussions with local media yesterday, and in calls I made to his staff, he refused to come out in favor of a timetable. Walsh has said that he is in favor of oversight on Iraq, and then voted against oversight. He said he was opposed to the escalation, and then refused to vote against the escalation. In May, he said he was opposed to a blank check for Bush on Iraq, and then voted to give Bush a blank check on Iraq in the capitulation bill. Everything Walsh is saying now, he ha already said before. The key difference is not hat Walsh has changed his opinion, but that Democats in Congress are changing the legislation they are trying to pass through Congress.
Back in the spring, House Democrats forced votes on stiffer legislation that required real oversight and mandated withdrawal. It only received two votes form Republicans, because the many so-called moderate Republicans who are supposedly against Bush's policy in Iraq are not willing to pass binding legislation opposing Bush's policy in Iraq. They are, however, willing to pass meaningless legislation that suggests Bush should change course, but does not actually require him to do so. For example, Walsh is a co-sponsor of the Kirk-Lipinski bill that does not mandate any troop withdrawal whatsoever, but sets it as a "goal." Compromise bills of this sort are in abundance nowadays, and I imagine Walsh will vote for all of them. However, if a bill comes up that actually mandates troops withdrawal, there is still no indication that he would vote for such a bill. Given everything he has said on the matter, I bet he won't vote for mandated troop withdrawal.
This is the crux of the problem progressives face in the 2008 elections. Bad, Bush Dog Democrats are coming up with cover your ass legislation that won't do anything to drawdown our military involvement in Iraq. Instead, the actual impact of these bills will be to allow Bush Dogs and endangered Republicans alike to appear as though they oppose Bush's policies, and thus strengthen all of their hands for re-election. In short, weak Iraq legislation in Congress will help empower Bush Dogs, and help prevent progressives like Maffei from taking over Republican seats. This is the exact opposite of the more and better Democrats refrain that has been traveling around the blogosphere. Weak Iraq legislation will allow Republicans like Walsh to blur their differences on Iraq all over the country, and the result will be fewer, and worse Democrats.
In the first major case study of this kind for the 2008 elections, we can't let this stand. Supporting Dan Maffei means opposing weak, toothless Iraq legislation in Congress. It means taking a stand against a self-defeating Democratic strategy that will not only do nothing to drawdown the Iraq war, but will also go a long way toward wiping out any chance of a second Democratic wave election. It means supporting more and better Democrats, instead of reverting to the pro-war, minority status Democratic Party of 2002-2003.
Contribute to Dan Maffei on Blue Majority. Fight Bush dogs and Republican blurring alike. This lean-Kerry district is going to be a very big race down the road, and a place where a true progressive like Maffei can hold a seat for a long time to come.
Just four Republican members of Congress had the courage late last week to vote for a bill requiring that U.S. troops stationed in Iraq be deployed by next April. Mike McCaul was not among those showing such courage. Instead, he voted to keep taxpayers' sons and daughters mired in the escalating violence while the Baghdad government continues to enjoy its summer-long vacation.
For Central Texans who have been watching Mr. McCaul put his rubber stamp on the White House's failed public policies for the past four years, his vote last week was no surprise.
You already know the basics: Travis Childers supports 
