Okay guys. It’s Wednesday. Election day is over, polls have closed, Al has conceded. We all knew this was an uphill battle; we all knew it was a long shot. But you all worked your asses off, and you should be proud. We had more volunteers than we ever expected, and turnout was incredible. We pushed the electorate, and more importantly, we flexed the muscles of the Democratic machine in the fifth district. We got volunteers in the office and on the streets, we got people used to voting Democratic and volunteering for Democrats.
And don’t forget your contribution to the night’s biggest victory — in the country. Jim Webb won, and he won control of the Senate for the Democratic party. He won by just under 8,000 votes, so the work you all did absolutely mattered. Nobody thought George Allen could be stopped six months ago, and he was already sucking up to Iowa — but Jim Webb took him down, and you were part of that.
So what’s next? What are we going to do with a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate? Well, I suppose we raise the minimum wage, fix the prescription drug benefit, save social security, invest in renewable energy, keep jobs in America, and get Iraq on its feet so our troops can get back to hunting the Taleban, or get back to their families.
Be proud of that, and keep working. Congratulations everyone, and thank you.
November 9th, 2006
How are the lines?
Having any problems at the polls?
Machines working properly?
Any poll workers behaving inappropriately?
Any polling places missing signs?
You all have eyes and ears, if there’s anything we should know about as the day goes on, spill it in the comments.
Get Out The Vote!
November 7th, 2006
Polls open in a few hours. I could count them away if I didn’t need to be on the ball tomorrow. The volunteers in the main office have been amazing. They’ve dropped so many flyers, called so many people, knocked on so many doors — I’m amazed by the stacks of walk sheets and call sheets already finished, not to mention the number of empty boxes which once held GOTV flyers. My project is all set, and everyone else seems to have their responsibilities covered. The moment I wake up tomorrow it will be go time. I’ve never been so exhausted and so energized at the same time before.
If you’re not planning to already, come volunteer. In the central part of the district you can contact the Bedford office: (866)353-8809. In the southeast, the South Hill office: (434)253-4293. In the southwest, the Danville office: (866)702-9057. To volunteer in the north, or to contact the central office: (434)220-2434. We’re running the Charlottesville operation out of the Webb office downtown, so if you’d like to volunteer in the city, call (434)295-0046.
I suspect you’ll all be casting your own ballot — how many others can you get to the polls?
November 7th, 2006
This Editorial will appear in the three major military news publications on Monday. It’s pretty stunning, especially considering the source.
Time for Rumsfeld to go
“So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion … it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth.”
That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.
But until recently, the “hard bruising” truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington. One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “mission accomplished,” the insurgency is “in its last throes,” and “back off,” we know what we’re doing, are a few choice examples.
Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.
Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war’s planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it … and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”
Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on “critical” and has been sliding toward “chaos” for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.
But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.
For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don’t show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.
Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.
And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.
Now, the president says he’ll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.
This is a mistake.
It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.
These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.
And although that tradition, and the officers’ deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:
Donald Rumsfeld must go.
Oh, I forgot one last detail: three days.
November 5th, 2006
The President is commander in chief of the armed forces, limiting the powers of the Congress to control of funding and “oversight.” It’s hard to sell voters on the issue of oversight, because many share the GOP understanding of oversight doesn’t sound like much more than peering over the president’s
Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.
And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.
That’s outrageous. With the billions of dollars of fraud and waste identified in Iraq, and the billions more we will save by cleaning up government contracting, we should be tripling Bowen’s staff, not shutting him down. But before I get all judgmental on the Republicans who made this happen and the President who profits so much from it (politically and monetarily) there’s another problem. Democrats didn’t fight this.
The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.
I’m sure that at least one of the Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee objected strongly to the provision, but there’s no reason everyone in the caucus shouldn’t at least have been told which page to read carefully. Maybe they did know about it; maybe those mentioned in the article are just covering for their inaction. But one way or another, Democrats didn’t fight this. I can tell you without even asking them that Al Weed and Jim Webb wouldn’t have let this by without making a big issue out of it.
The next freshman class of Democratic Congressmen and women is going to bring a lot of fight and energy to the capitol. We need leaders like Al Weed and Jim Webb in Congress, and we’ve got four days to send them there. Find an office. Volunteer. Let’s go.
November 4th, 2006
Stu Rothenberg’s final forecast for election day:
The Senate: “While Senate control is in doubt, with Democrats most likely to win from 5 to 7 seats, we do not think the two sides have an equal chance of winning a majority in the Senate. Instead, we believe that state and national dynamics favor Democrats netting six seats and winning control of the United States Senate.”
The House: “Going into the final days before the 2006 midterm elections, we believe the most likely outcome in the House of Representatives is a Democratic gain of 34 to 40 seats, with slightly larger gains not impossible. This would put Democrats at between 237 and 243 seats, if not a handful more, giving them a majority in the next House that is slightly larger than the one the Republicans currently hold. If these numbers are generally correct, we would expect a period of GOP finger-pointing and self-flagellation after the elections, followed by a considerable number of Republican House retirements over the next two years.”
Governors: “With Republican seats like Idaho, Alaska, and Nevada in play for state-specific reasons, and Minnesota vulnerable to a Democratic wave, the ceiling for possible Democratic gains is high. We have narrowed our earlier projection from Democratic gains of 6-10 to 7-9.”
Sounds pretty good. 5 days. Help us make it happen.
November 3rd, 2006
The other day, John Kerry called George W. Bush stupid, but a bunch of Republicans (the President included) took it as an assault on our troops. Here’s Kerry’s response:
“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.
I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.
The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.
Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.”
Keith Olberman put it a little more bluntly: Bush is too stupid to know when someone’s calling him stupid.
Six Days.
November 1st, 2006
Ok, so I’ve been a bit distant recently, and I’d like to apologize for that. School’s been… well, I enjoy 4th year seminars, so I’m taking three. I brought this on myself. Moving on.
We’re on the final leg of the campaign now. Canvassing, lit drops, calls, rustling up the volunteers we haven’t heard from recently, mobilizing the entire campaign network. That network includes everyone who’s ever signed up for the email list or come in to volunteer, and it includes you. We’ve got seven days to reach as many potential voters as possible, and we’re busting our humps till the polls close next week.
Majority Watch polling calls 60 seats in play, with other forecasters in the same ballpark. The thing is, whenever you have 60 seats threatening to flip to the opposition, you’re looking at a wave big enough to make anything possible. Some of the races that look like sure pickups will fall a few points short, but others are going to come out of nowhere, with Democrats competitive in Wyoming and Nebraska — we’ve expanded the playing field so wide that the GOP can’t play defense everywhere.
Virgil Goode has never had a race like this one, and he’s been pulling out all the stops to save his own hide. We’ve got a week to close the gap and put Al over the top, so sign up, call the office (434-220-2434), go knock on doors. We need people in every county and every precinct in the district. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your co-workers. Just get people to the polls, and get them voting Democratic.
October 31st, 2006
I was in class as it was going on, and I won’t have time to watch it all until tomorrow, at which point I’ll have some commentary. But for those of you who did watch, how do you think it went?
I’ve heard Al did very well, showing great command of the issues, and doing a particularly good job in the first half of getting to the heart of difficult issues, breaking through the frames and triangulations that strangle political dialogue, and just talking to the audience.
Please, join in with comments on how you think it went. Did Virgil slip up? Did he show his defensive, guilty side? Did he defend Bush against attacks no one made? Did Al force him to respond to his points and split hairs and avoid the issues? I can’t wait to watch for myself.
For those of you who didn’t catch it live, check it out here. Thanks to WSET for hosting the feed.
[Update]: I guess there’s no feed after all. Oh well.
October 24th, 2006
There is much dispute in ethics and the gay community over whether it is acceptible to “out” gay public figures. One side of the argument is that sexuality shouldn’t be a public issue at all — it’s none of our business — and that sounds pretty reasonable to me. But the other side also sounds pretty reasonable — that when someone uses their public position, as a politician or a pastor or a political operative, to make it a public issue, they lose that claim to privacy. Either way, you’d better be reader to back it up big time.
Well, one of the activists who works in the “uncomfortable truth over comfortable lie” camp just outed Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) because he has, for years, passed moral judgments, and furthered legal restrictions on people who share the very trait he himself has allegedly been hiding from view. I’m not going to get into any of presumably-about-to-be-disputed facts, but you can go read if you’d like them.
I wish I could say that this will only be an issue of hypocrisy, but I don’t want it to turn into a matter of whether we should let gay people into Congress. Hypocrisy alone is enough to hurt this guy bad, what with so many of his votes and his money and his popularity stemming from aggressively anti-gay sources. But virtually every national Republican (Sen. Craig included) has profited by making our private lives into political issues; I won’t feel any sympathy if the attack dogs they trained come back to bite them in the ass.
October 18th, 2006
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