Given what happened yesterday, I feel it's important I repost my earlier diary on who are the GOOD Democratic challengers when it comes to FISA. I'll try to corral all their statements into this diary, so you can see who the "good guys" are.
First, let's start off with the current House and Senate members who voted against this bill. (For the Senate, I'm only including those who voted against cloture yesterday for the bill.) They do deserve credit, as it's their jobs on the line.
Follow me below the fold to see the dozens of Democratic challengers who are standing up for the Constitution, and are against this FISA bill and retroactive immunity.
Yes, I've just succumbed to the latest nag to help raise the number of donors to 1000. Because even though the keyboard I'm sitting behind is a heck of a ways from New York, I have a vested interest.
Like you, I want more and better Democrats. But I also want to do my bit to help counter the crap I found oozing from these sneaky bastards when I Googled his name for more info:
Dan Maffei has been running around Central New York as a perennial political candidate for the last 2 1/2 years. This blog is dedicated to tracking his moves and revealing the facts behind his "I want to play politician" shenanigans.
Fighting the slime is motivation enough. But follow me over the flip and I'll tell you the real reason this New York race is personal for this Oregonian.
In the last couple days, there have been several posts across the blogosphere citing what various candidates running for Congress have said on FISA and retroactive immunity for the telecoms. But so far, it's been all over the map. I'll try to corral all their statements into this diary, so you can see who the "good guys" are.
First, let's start off with the current House and Senate members who voted against this bill. They do deserve credit, as it's their jobs on the line.
Follow me below the fold to see the dozens of Democratic challengers who are standing up for the Constitution, and are against this FISA bill and retroactive immunity.
Republicans are having a heck of a time finding someone to run for the NY-25 House seat being vacated by the retiring Jim Walsh.
Walsh, who narrowly beat Dan Maffei in 2006 and later told the Syracuse press that he was "disappointed in the people of Syracuse," announced he was retiring earlier this year.
That's what Democrat Dan Maffei told about 15 members of our local Syracuse chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program this afternoon in a discussion on Medicare-for-All. He spent an hour and a half today with us at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Read on for more.
Blue Majority candidate Dan Maffei's lone Republican candidate has just dropped out. I'd say this is good news, but the Republican dropped out after suffering a mini-stroke, and there's nothing good about that.
Regardless, it does put Republicans in a serious bind, leaving retiring Republican Rep. Jim Walsh's competitive open seat without a candidate. The filing deadline is July 17, so the GOP still has plenty of time to find someone to lose against Maffei. But their top possibilities have all begged off. No serious Republican wants to run in this toxic environment, and especially not in an indigo Blue state like New York in a presidential year.
But here's what we can do to improve the chances that Maffei faces no serious competitor this year -- head over to our Blue Majority and drop some coin into his kitty. The bigger his Q1 numbers, the less likely that any serious Republican will decide to tackle him head-on.
Guys, this election cycle isn't over. But we can help nail this seat down THIS WEEK. So let's put this one away.
There is something very wrong with the New York Republican Party and they are in danger of being wiped out in November. It does not help that, according to the Syracuse Post-Standard, Republican Peter Cappuccilli will not run for the Congressional seat being vacated by Jim Walsh (hat tip to Albany Project).
Today, Democratic Congressional Candidates Eric Massa (NY-29), Dan Maffei (NY-25) and I, Jon Powers (NY-26), toured a non-profit organization in Rochester, NY called the Veterans Outreach Center. This innovative Center helps soldiers adjust to everyday life upon returning from war and gives veterans a resource to help them learn about the benefits they have earned. It is places like these that are filling the void left by Washington’s inaction.
When seats opened in OH-15 and NJ-07 earlier in the year, Republicans moved quickly to recruit strong candidates - and failed, again and again. In OH-15, several candidates said no before someone twisted the arm of one of the first to drop out, and he got back in. In NJ-07, it took just a day for the top 3 potential contenders to say no thanks. That's in addition to having trouble finding challengers in seats like NY-19. Not many Republicans want to jeopardize their current lives in futile House runs, it seems.
Meanwhile, when Republican incumbent Jim Walsh announced he would be retiring from NY-25, Democrats already had a good challenger against him. The DCCC quickly added Dan Maffei - already a Blue Majority candidate - to their Red to Blue list, signaling their recognition that he is a strong candidate. Which he is, having lost by just two points in 2006, and having raised more than half a million dollars in 2007.
So who's the NRCC going to get to challenge Maffei in 2008? Not Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, until now considered their top recruitment prospect. He's announced that he likes his current job just fine and won't be running. Here's hoping he's not the only one - can NY-25 outstrip OH-15 and NJ-07 in Republican recruiting failures?
There's all kinds of terrific horserace news coming in, and our chances of substantially increasing our House majority are looking better every day. A quick roundup:
--First the biggest news, in FL-15: Florida Republican Dave Weldon will not be seeking reelection. On top of that, we have a strong candidate poised to enter the race in former Brevard County Commissioner Nancy Higgs, who steered the commission during the 2004 hurricane.
Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.) announced Friday that he will retire from Congress at the end of this session, citing a desire to return to his medical practice.
"I want to thank my wife Nancy and my kids for all the support over these many years, as well as my staff and the people who supported my re-election efforts. It is a very big undertaking to run and successfully serve, and I would never have been able to do it were it not for the generous help of so many fine people," Weldon said in a statement.
Weldon, 54, is a seven-term lawmaker who sits on the House Appropriations Committee.
Weldon is the 22nd GOP incumbent to announce that they will not seek reelection in 2008.
Six-term incumbent Weldon won with just 56% of the vote against an underfunded challenger in 2006, so the prospect of an open-seat race here is very exciting. The district is relatively Republican with a PVI of R+4.1, but it is an open seat, and we expect this to be a Democratic year. Bush won with 54% and 57% here in 2000 and 2004.
Rumored Republican candidates include State Senators Bill Posey and Mike Haridopolos.
--In addition to FL-15, we can now put two additional Florida seats (these ones based in the Miami area) on the map for 2008: the 18th District and the 25th District. Following hot on the heels of the recent entry of Raul Martinez into the race in Florida's 21st district to face Republican Lincoln Diaz-Balart, we have two more serious candidates jumping in to take on Miami-area Republicans.
In the 18th District, businesswoman Annette Taddeo, founder of a language services company, will take on incumbent Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; and in the 25th District, Miami-Dade County party chairman Joe Garcia, also director of NDN's Hispanic Strategy Center and formerly Chairman of the Florida Public Services Commission, will run against Lincoln Diaz-Balart's brother Mario.
Garcia's potential entry has been rumored for months, and it's exciting to see him finally getting in the race. With his service as Miami-Dade party chair, he's a high-profile name with a good deal of influence in the district, and he has a national profile from working with NDN. The 25th District is more favorable territory for Democrats than the 21st is: it has a PVI of 4.4, Bush drew 56% in 2004 and 55% in 2000. Diaz-Balart drew the district for himself, in fact, when he served in the Florida House.
--Up in New York's 25th, following the retirement of Republican incumbent Jim Walsh, Democratic standard-bearer and Blue Majority candidate Dan Maffei has been added to the DCCC's Red To Blue program. This is most excellent news, as the DCCC's backing of Maffei should preclude any stuffy old Albany pols from jumping into the race, and will spare us the pain of an ugly primary. Also, it tells potential GOP candidates to think twice about running in this Democratic district, as we'll have a single strong candidate with establishment support. And finally, it's wonderful that the DCCC sees the same things in Dan Maffei that we see.
--Finally, up in New York's 29th District, Republican Randy Kuhl, who barely hung on to defeat Eric Massa last year and faces him again, has apparently not decided whether to run for reelection. I guess his highly deceptive flyers haven't been doing the trick.
Major shocker, and genuinely terrific news for Democrats: Republican Jim Walsh, who narrowly squeaked by Democratic challenger (and current Blue Majority candidate) Dan Maffei, 51-49, in 2006, will retire according to the Politico's blog, The Crypt:
Republican Rep. Jim Walsh of New York is expected to announce his retirement soon, according to a GOP aide familiar with the decision, giving Democrats another pick-up opportunity following a wave of Republican retirements this cycle.
The veteran appropriator had a tough reelection fight in 2006 and was expected to face another challenge in the fall.
If this does in fact occur, it will make Walsh the 21st Republican representative not to seek reelection in 2008. Worse luck for the GOP: New York's 25th is naturally Democratic turf, though not overwhelmingly. Kerry won the Syracuse-based district 50-48, and Gore won fairly handily, 51-45. NY-25 is currently the fifth-bluest district in the country held by a Republican, judging by its PVI of D+3.4.
This race was already expected to be one of the most competitive in the country, and if Walsh retires, it will zoom to the top of the list of the hottest races in the nation.
Currently, our only declared candidate is Maffei, a young (born on the Fourth of July, 1968) former reporter, Press Secretary for Bill Bradley, and staffer to Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Charles Rangel. As mentioned, Maffei ran an excellent race in 2006, losing by less than four thousand votes to Walsh despite being outspent nearly 2-1. Prior to Maffei's run, some had considered Walsh unbeatable, but Maffei's underdog candidacy came very close to taking him out.
Maffei is a solidly progressive Democrat, (and, as mentioned, Blue Majority candidate). As of the September 30 FEC filings, he had over $300,000 cash-on-hand, giving him a considerable head start on any other Syracuse Democrats who may be interested in this race (and given the district's Democratic bent, there will doubtless be a few), but nevertheless, please feel free to throw some love Maffei's way.
I have to say that I certainly did not see this coming; Republican retirements have been coming in fairly steadily over the last year, but this one seemed to come out of left field. This is an exceptionally bad district for the GOP to lose an incumbent, and that loss will put additional strain on the beleaguered NRCC.
All in all, surprising and excellent news for Democrats everywhere.
Here's a question for Kossacks- if you could go to a backyard barbeque with a Kossack-backed Congressional candidate or fly to a major city to join thousands of other supporters to cheer on Hillary Clinton, John Edwards or Barack Obama, what would you do?
No really, before that knee-jerk reaction of "I'd support Clinton/Edwards/Obama", what would you do? Would you pay for a plane ticket and buy those $1000 tix to stand in a ballroom with hundreds of other wannabe insiders to wait to get a glimpse and maybe say hi to one of the "Big Three" Democratic Presidential candidates?
That's the very real question that Kossacks need to answer as we go forward this campaign season. For a community that is dedicated to electing Democrats, are we going to try to improve on our results in the 2006 elections? Or are we content to post diary after diary of gossip, speculation and campaign regurgitation?
Because those diaries will keep us from doing anything to keep the Democratic wave going in the next election.
Clinton, Edwards and Obama supporters, you've all heard the complaints. You suck, your candidate sucks, and because of all of you, this community sucks.
Well, it's true. All of the pie fights, hit diaries, and the "Iowa/NH/Planet Earth loves my candidate" diaries are keeping us from doing what we said we were here to do - Elect Democrats.
For every diary rec'd about Obama in Iowa, Hillary being swiftboated or Edwards being ignored by the MSM, there is a diary about an election that slides off the list barely noticed.
So what is my f'ing problem and why should you care? Because regardless of which candidate gets elected, they are nothing without Democratic legislative support behind them; support they won't have unless we get the right local, state, and federal candidates elected.
So I have a challenge for Clinton/Edwards/Obama supporters who want to have their debates and still support Democratic ideals right after the jump...
My local paper-The Syracuse Post Standard has written an extremely credulous editorial crediting Jim Walsh with "breaking" with Mr. Bush on the war in Iraq. If you are so inclined you can read this editorial here.
I'm really not sure how The P/S came to this conclusion.
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.
Rep. Jim Walsh's break with the White House on the war, diaried yesterday here, was obviously not an overnight decision but had been planned for some time, with his trip to Iraq over the weekend obviously just a formality. The headline on today's Syracuse Post-Standard is My Iraq Journal, by Jim Walsh, in which the nine-term Congressman lays out in full detail (perhaps deeply annoying and disingenuous, to Democrats) his rationale.
Walsh, of course, is facing a second serious challenge for his seat from Dan Maffei in NY-25, so his political reasons for doing this are pretty transparent. The guy desperately wants to keep his job. However, this article is worth reading only because it shows how the mind of a rank-and-file Republican works, and also probably reflects the attitudes of many Americans who initially supported the war.
Howie Klein and his Blue America has been so important in identifying progressive candidates, leading the netroots-fueled 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress and the fight to expand the progressive majority in 2008.
Today, he wrote about and then liveblogged with Dan Maffei, who came out of no where to take on and come within 1.5% of defeating a 20-year Republican incumbent who wasn't even challenged in '04 -- all without much DCCC attention. In a blue district won by Gore and Kerry, Dan's is a top pickup opportunity in 2006, and a race that we can help win.
