The Star Press reports that Delaware County (Muncie, IN) has already surpassed expectations with early voting. The 2008 early vote numbers are larger than the 2005 and 2006 elections combined and there is still a week of early voting to go. Monday morning saw a line an hour long at the City/County building. I can only wonder, what if Republicans had not blocked the second early-vote location on Ball State's campus? Would people still be waiting for over an hour in line?
Republican members of the county Election Board voted to block the creation of new voting offices in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago -- traditional Democratic strongholds.
But after consulting state law, the Democratic majority on the board decided it could institute the three early voting locations without GOP support. The Democrats said they will open voting centers in the Circuit Court Clerk's offices in the three cities so people can cast ballots there before the Nov. 4 general election.
Lake County Republican Chairman John Curley said the GOP will "almost certainly" mount a legal challenge to the Democrats' plan to go ahead with the circuit court clerk voting locations.
If Curley's objections stand up in court, the only place to cast an early ballot would be at the government center in Crown Point in what locals call south county.
Wait a minute, isn't south county considered to be a more favorable environment for Republicans?
Make no mistake; this is about keeping Democrat voters away from the polls:
"They're afraid," Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott said. "They're afraid poor people will go to the polls and vote Democratic. And frankly, they should be afraid."
Gary Mayor Rudy Clay:
"We all know what this is about," Clay added. "(Curley) assumes people in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago will vote Democratic. It's politics, and it's sad that he would put that before giving people the ability to cast ballots."
(Bumped from the user diaries. - promoted by Thomas)
CBS asks the question: Who is Sarah Palin? The investigation dives into some of the questions the McCain campaign will not answer. The investigation also exposes several of the issues that have surfaced about the Governor from Alaska. CBS also challenges Palin's "strengths" as told by the Republicans. Worth watching:
Some are beginning to question if Sarah Palin will be dropped from the ticket. She has been missing the past few days.
(This makes up for when CBS did some tricky editing to "correct" McCain's statements a few weeks ago.)
I know that Indiana doesn't have a U.S. Senate race in 2008. But 33 other states do. And anyone following the news over the last year-and-a-half has read about Senate Republicans filibustering anything and everything that moves, breaking the record for filibusters in a two-year Congressional session in less than one year!
It is critical that we expand our majority in the U.S. Senate to reduce this historic rate of Republican obstructionism, so that an Obama administration can proceed with an agenda that helps rather than hinders American progress. I have been following this on my blog, Senate Guru, very closely and have been pushing for us to expand the map of competitive Senate races.
To that end, I have established the Expand the Map! ActBlue page, raising much needed funds for Democratic Senate candidates in uphill but competitive (or very-close-to-competitive) Senate races. Every one of these Democratic Senate candidates who wins her or his race means one less Republican filibustering progressive legislation. And every one of these Democratic Senate candidates has a message that will resonate with voters - all they need are the resources to get their messages out to the electorate and prevent the Republican incumbents from muddying their records.
With Monday night being the deadline for the second fundraising quarter of 2008, it is critical that we get funds in to help these Democratic candidates show strength. So, please, please, please contribute if you can to any of the terrific candidates for Senate on the Expand the Map! ActBlue page. Even though these candidates don't represent your state, if elected, they will defeat the Republican obstructionism that very much impacts you and your state.
(Bumped from the user diaries. - promoted by Thomas)
Inspired by the success of Blue Majority, the Act Blue fundraising page created by authors of Daily Kos, The Swing State Project, and Open Left, I'd like to introduce Northwest Indiana Blue..
It's not a snappy name; I'll give you that. Try as I might, I kept striking out on that one. I'm open to suggestions.
NWI Blue is the Act Blue fundraising page of South Shore Progressive. I guess that you could say that we are trying to use our little corner of the Internet to help bring about some change in the state and in Northwest Indiana.
And without further ado, here are our NWI Blue candidates:
Jill Long Thompson - Governor
Larry Balmer - 5th District State Senator (Charbonneau)
Myron Sutton - 15th District State Representative (Lehe)
Larry Chubb - 4th District State Representative (Soliday)
These candidates were picked because they are facing Republican incumbents and are competing in districts that have been competitive in the past. For example, Myron Sutton tried to unseat Don Lehe in 2006 and lost by only 27 votes. Thankfully he has the courage to try again.
I strongly believe that expanding Democratic control in state government is the most important thing that Indiana Democrats need to do this November. Jill Long Thompson must be our next governor, the near super majority that Republicans enjoy in the State Senate must be broken, and Democrats must expand their razor thin advantage in the State House of Representatives. We could put a stop the reckless policies of the current administration and do some damage to the ability of the Republicans to distract from honest debate with their wedge issues.
How about a contribution today?
Thanks!
Update: I added the names of the Republicans that these candidates will be facing in November.
Looks like a bit of vote suppression by some of Clinton's well-wishers in North Carolina. An outfit called Women's Voices, Women Vote is calling black people in North Carolina with messages that appear designed to sow confusion about registration procedures and deadlines. The organization claims it's an innocent mistake, and perhaps it was, except that they've apparently been caught up in similar controversies in 10 other states. Each time, the response is, "oopsie!"
The non-profit's board members include Clinton supporters such as Joe Goode, a pollster for Bill's 1992 campaign and John Podesta, former Clinton White House chief of staff. The organization claims to organized for the purpose of registering unmarried women to vote. At the very least, the organization seems to make a lot of mistakes for a well-funded outfit chock-full of experienced political operators.
I liked the following from Majikthise on the subject:
One might assume this was an innocent mistake, but the behind the calls turns out to have disseminated inaccurate voter information in multiple states. Page Gardner of Women's Voices Women's Votes says the whole thing was just a misguided attempt to register women voters. Somehow they ended up targeting a fair number of people who were neither women, nor unregistered, and telling them to do things that couldn't possibly help them register. WVWV also forgot to identify itself as the sponsor of these calls. Finally, they forgot to specify whether submitting one's application now would register someone for the primary or the general election, if indeed they weren't registered already.
My name is Betsy Decillis and I am the Finance Director for the Barry Welsh for Congress Campaign. I've got some exciting news!
First off, today is Barry's birthday. He turns 49 years young and I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to send him their well wishes.
Secondly, you can still get Sherri's recipe for Double Chocolate Drop Cookies! Just donate $12.10 in honor of Barry's Birthday here and she will e-mail you the recipe. Thanks to everyone that has donated so far!
According to public, campaign finacning regulations tommorow, November 29th, is the last day to receive matching funds through public financing.
So if you make a contribution tonight or tommorow to Dennis Kucinich, this means that your $50 contribution becomes a $100 contribution, $200 equals $400 ... up to $250.
this is a late edition, due to me in iowa and getting back late sunday afternoon. this week will be back on line, at its usual time, sunday evening. ice.
obama in manning, sc
Debate Schedule
November 15, 2007 - Las Vegas, Nevada
December 10, 2007 - Los Angeles, California
January 6, 2008 - Johnson County, Iowa
January 15, 2008 - Las Vegas, Nevada
January 31, 2008 - California
The DFA Presidential Pulse Poll ends tonight at Midnight Eastern/9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, which only gives us a few hours to cast our votes. So far, over 130,000 votes have been cast, making it the largest presidential poll of progressive activists this year. I am genuinely proud to write that Dennis Kucinich currently leads with over 30% of the vote.
(Bumped from the user diaries. Here's the latest from the Barry Welsh for Congress campaign, which has been hard at working building an infrastructure for their upcoming rematch against Mike Pence in the 6th District. - promoted by Thomas)
CONNERSVILLE, IN - The contentious Fort Wayne, IN mayor's race has been a political flashpoint for Indiana Republicans in this year's municipal election season, with indicted Republican candidate for mayor Matt Kelty faced with wholesale defections from his campaign, lackluster support from his own party members and in a particularly embarrassing moment, withdrawal of the support of Indiana 3rd Congressional District Representative Mark Souder's endorsement.
In contrast to Souder's retracted endorsement, Representative Mike Pence, as he does with President Bush, stands in lock step with Matt Kelty, once again bringing Pence's alignment with politicians of questionable character into the public eye.
Democratic challenger Barry Welsh, the nephew of former Indiana Governor Matt Welsh and a United Methodist Minister on sabbatical to campaign full time in the rematch with Congressman Pence, has dogged Mr. Pence in recent years by raising questions about his choices; from Mr. Pence accepting contributions from and support of disgraced former Speaker of the House Tom Delay, for his fundraising dinners at convicted felon Jack Abramoff's exclusive restaurant Signatures in 2003, and also for his support of such recent scandalous luminaries as Idaho Senator Larry Craig, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, child predator ex-Congressman Mark Foley, and now the indicted Fort Wayne GOP mayoral candidate Matt Kelty who's November trial on felony campaign finance irregularities will soon begin.
September 26, 2007 - Hanover, New Hampshire
October 30, 2007 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
November 15, 2007 - Las Vegas, Nevada
December 10, 2007 - Los Angeles, California
January 6, 2008 - Johnson County, Iowa
January 15, 2008 - Las Vegas, Nevada
January 31, 2008 - California
Update [2007-9-10 0:17:11 by icebergslim]: Dates added for Iowa. Policy speech and Townhall Meetings on Iraq.
(Bumped from the user diaries. - promoted by Thomas)
With all this activity in the 2008 elections recently there has been a rather noticeable hole in the discussions which I mean to shine a light onto with this post. There are a number of campaigns which have announced their formation recently or are anticipated to launch in the near future for several Congressional races around Indiana. Noticeably absent from these discussions is the fact that Julia Carson has not made clear what her plans are for 2008 in the key Democratic stronghold of the 7th District.
There have been rumors of health issues preventing her from running since before her reelection last year and those rumors have persisted. Today, the Swing State Project released its 2008 House Open Seat Watch and Carson's 7th district seat was included on that list with health issues cited as the reasoning for inclusion on the list. A quick Google search of news about Julia Carson results in very few links, mostly quick quotes from her regarding how she voted or intends to vote on a handful of issues, but no substantive discussions of the 08 campaign or her plans for the future.
All logos and trademarks in this site
are property of their respective owner.
The comments are property of their posters, and
all other site content may be used for any purpose
without explicit permission
unless otherwise specified.
