first of all, congratulations to bill foster, our newest member of congress. it will be kind of weird calling him congressman. and congratulations to his staff and all the volunteers who helped elect foster. what a tremendous achievement!
foster's election is vindication of all those who believed that a serious democratic candidate with a great campaign organization could turn il-14 blue. and now we have! it is also vindication for the plan that bill and tom put together, and especially the networking they did to create a solid pool of campaign workers who went out and delivered the vote for foster. this should serve as both proof of what a good campaign can do and an example for the local democratic parties and their future candidates.
it's probably too early to really dissect how bill foster won denny hastert's open seat but we can put some things into context.
You know, it's very kind of bored now to keep us all in the loop by providing Roundup diaries. Of particular interest to me is the race in IL-14, so of course when I came back for a pit stop between trips today and saw that he had posted an IL-14 Roundup #3 diary, I took the time to scan it.
Hmmm. There seems to be very little going on in the Laesch campaign, to hear bored tell it. Could have sworn I heard about more endorsements recently than those bored now mentions in his coverage of the Laesch campaign, which amounts to this:
john laesch woke up to good news this morning: state senator mike noland has endorsed him.
and this:
booman tribune has an old interview of john laesch that now comes up on google search. his campaign continues its periodic campaign updates here and here. laesch's former blogger also talks about Podunk,IL vs. the New Chicago Machine, the laesch youtube page covers his simmons appearance (broken into multiple videos and quentin young's endorsement.
and...
no, I guess that's about it - all the news bored could find the space or time to bring us about Laesch...
I'm Robin Weirauch. I'm running for Congress in the December 11th special election in Ohio's 5th District and I need your support!
When I heard that President Bush had vetoed the bill expanding SCHIP, I couldn't believe it. The State Children's Health Insurance Program helps millions of American children whose families are struggling.
I recently spoke with a single mother from our district that told me she has worked at least two jobs her whole adult life but has never had health insurance through her work. Her daughter has been covered by the SCHIP program since infancy. She told me she wouldn't know what she would do without the program.
Read the rest of the story and see my video message after the jump:
First of all, I apologize for the length of this diary. I started researching this Congressional District and ran into a lot of information, and have apparently tried to include it all here ?
Yahoo News - Fri Sep 14, 8:48 PM ET - Elections set to fill seat of Ohio rep.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - "Gov. Ted Strickland on Friday set Nov. 6 and Dec. 11 as the dates for special primary and general elections to pick a successor to U.S. Rep. Paul Gillmor, a Republican who died earlier this month.
Gillmor died in an apparent fall down the stairs at his suburban Washington apartment.
The 5th District covers all or parts of 16 northwest Ohio counties, stretching from suburban Toledo to northern Ashland County.
The primary on Nov. 6 coincides with this year's general election. The Dec. 11 election will determine the winner, who would face election again in November 2008 to retain the seat.
So far, only two candidates have announced that they will be in the race.
State Rep. Bob Latta, who lost to Gillmor in a 1988 Republican primary by 27 votes, said he will run for the seat. Latta's father, Republican Rep. Delbert Latta, represented the district from 1959 to 1989.
Democrat Robin Weirauch, who works in economic and community research at Bowling Green State University, also will make another bid for the seat. She lost to Gillmor in 2004 and 2006. No Democrat has held the seat since the 1930s."
The Ohio Daily Blog notes that more candidates may join in on the Republican and Democratic side: http://www.ohiodaily...
From everything I have read online it looks like this is a strongly Republican seat and Republicans think they have the district in the bag:
http://rothenbergpol...
"The 5th District gave President Bush over 60% in the 2004 election, and, though Democrats Ted Strickland and Sherrod Brown carried the district in 2006, Republicans start with a significant advantage."
and from the wingnut Human Events: "Will it Be 'Rep. Gillmor II' Or 'Rep. Latta II'?" http://www.humaneven...
Raise New York will take place on Thursday, February 1st at Prey in NYC. The event will also be liveblogged here and at Daily Gotham and DailyKos. There will be photos, audio and video in near real time for those who for whatever reason can't attend in person. It's gonna be a hoot.
What is so exciting about this event for me is that, besides raising some much needed money for Craig Johnson, it represents a real opportunity for partnership building between the progressive net/grassroots and a state Dem Party establishment that hasn't always been so interested in such things. There exists some very real potential for some mending of fences and and some trust building amongst all these groups as they fight for a common goal, namely reforming our joke of a state government.
The very nature of how this event came about is unprecedented as far as I can tell. This has never been done, or done in this way, ever before.
It also represents something potentially very special for the progressive NY blogosphere. It's a demonstration that we can and will work together towards that common goal when we choose to do so. That's never happened before and these new relationships could turn into something pretty freaking amazing. In fact, this may be what I find most exciting.
So please join us for this amazing event! Join us in person or online and let's do all we can to make ol' Joe Bruno's majority one seat more tenuous.
I wanted to share an anecdote from the campaign trail with everyone. In New York's Seventh District, Craig Johnson (D-WFP) is running for an open State Senate seat in a special election set for February 6th.
Last night, while Craig Johnson was rallying supporters and the Working Families Party canvass was knocking on doors and talking to people, Craig's Republican opponent Maureen O'Connell was sitting at home.
"One of Nassau Legis. Craig Johnson's canvassers in the state Senate race ran into Johnson's opponent, Republican County Clerk Maureen O'Connell, after the campaign worker got a little lost Monday evening.
O'Connell had just pulled into a driveway in the East Williston neighborhood when the canvasser, needing directions, approached her. As they talked, the canvasser recognized O'Connell and she realized she was talking to one of her opponent's foot soldiers. They exchanged pleasantries and wished each other luck."
Now, since the WFP is running the canvass, I can give you the inside story straight from the canvasser who talked to her:
"A little after 5:30, I was trying to find an address on my turf and was looking from the sidewalk at a number on one of the houses from the street to determine if it was on my walk list. A woman saw me looking at her house and came out to ask if she could help me.
I recognized her as Maureen O'Connell as soon as she came out because she had an O'Connell lawn sign and I'm friends with one of her former Assembly opponents. I decided to exchange pleasantries, and we each did some campaigning and talked about the situation in Albany. Then she realized I was part of the WFP canvass campaigning for Craig Johnson, and we wished each other good luck and parted ways. I kept canvassing for the rest of the night and she went back inside."
Gonna have to work harder than that to win this race.
It's official. As expected, Nassau county dems nominated County Legislator Craig Johnson to run against County Clerk, Maureen O'Connell in the Feb 6th special election to replace new state Homeland Security chief Michael Balboni.
Craig Johnson, a popular county legislator, was nominated Monday to run for a key state Senate seat being left vacant by Michael Balboni's departure to Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer's administration as chief of homeland security.
...
Jay Jacobs, chairman of the Nassau County Democrats, said Johnson comes to the table with a solid record and base of supporters.
"He knows how to campaign, voters are used to voting for him and he has an excellent record in the Legislature," Jacobs said.
Johnson was elected to the 11th Legislative District in a special election in 2000 after the death of the former legislator, Barbara Johnson, his mother.
He was re-elected to the post in 2001 and 2003. In 2005, he received 73 percent of the votes, Jacobs said.
This one is gonna be a dogfight and there's less than month for these campaigns and the parties to make their case. The stakes are HUGE, especially for the GOP, and their new party chair who has deep roots in the district and will likely pull out all the stops to not only protect the seat, but his own home turf.
