Last week, Senator Russ Feingold’s team called us with great news.  They are sending our campaign a trained campaign staffer as a part of their Patriot Fund Corp program.  The good news didn’t stop there, Senator Feingold also added me to his Progressive Patriots Fund contest, along with only eight other Democratic candidates.

I cannot tell you how honored and appreciative I am.

And not a moment too soon for Wyoming voters who have been subjected to one damned ugly Republican battle. There are four names on the Republican primary ballot today, but the battle is between just two of them: Mark Gordon, a rancher and businessman, and Cynthia Lummis, former state representative and state treasurer.

The going got ugly in the race months ago, when an anonymous flier started circulating around the state that detailed Gordon's past contributions to Democratic candidates and his past membership on the board of the Sierra Club. A follow up flier released by the Lummis campaign echoes the charge.

Lummis' flier notes Gordon was a board member of the Sierra Club and describes the group as a "left-wing environmental organization" that opposed a coal-fired power plant in the Gillette area.

"As a member of the Sierra Club board, Mark Gordon helped them! Just what kind of Republican is he?" read the Lummis flier.

Not to be outdone, Gordon has gone on tv with his own nasty ad.

"When you find yourself in a hole, you stop digging," says the voice over the image of the digging girl, whose blond hair resembles Lummis'. "Career politicians like Cynthia Lummis just don't get it. She voted to increase taxes on gasoline, supported raising taxes to balance the state budget and opposed tax relief for veterans.

"Cynthia Lummis will dig a deeper hole, not get us out of the one we're already in."

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Orange to Blue candidate Gary Trauner is unopposed, and he's kept up his grassroots, retail campaign. He's just completed a state-wide trip, having gone to all 23 county fairs. He's likely to see some dividend from this very ugly Republican battle.

Oliver Walter, Arts and Sciences dean at the University of Wyoming and a political science professor, said the ultimate beneficiary of the negative Republican campaigning might be neither Gordon nor Lummis, but Gary Trauner.

"The more contention, the greater chance he has," Walter said Tuesday.

Professor Walter isn't the only one who thinks so. The editorial board of the Casper Star-Tribune seems to be really wanting to root for the Republicans in November, but can't help saying

At a time when the economy is in a downturn, the country still doesn't have a national energy policy, and we're mired in a war in Iraq, aren't there more relevant issues to discuss?....

[W]e'd like to remind both candidates that it's their party's nomination they're seeking, and Republicans already have their work cut out for them in the general election. Democrat Gary Trauner, who lost to incumbent Rep. Barbara Cubin by only about 1,000 votes in 2006, doesn't face any opposition in this year's primary. He's effectively been running for the office for four years, and he has built a solid campaign network.

Trauner also has an advantage over his eventual GOP opponent: He'll be a member of the majority party in the House. A freshman in the minority party won't be operating from a position of strength.

Gary has a lot of advantages over his eventual GOP opponent. Whether it's Gordon or Lummis (or maybe one of two the dark horses on the ballot who benefit from the Lummis/Gordon death spiral) Trauner faces in November, he's got a strong grassroots army and the fundraising to show for it.

Gary Trauner, Democratic candidate for U.S. House, has raised more than $1 million so far in the election cycle and will carry more than $660,000 into the general election.... Trauner said the totals show his message is resonating with Wyoming voters.

"The grassroots is excited about my race," he said. "We have orders of magnitude more Wyoming contributors than the entire other side combined, so clearly people believe in what we are trying to do."...

Republican candidate Cynthia Lummis infused her campaign with an additional $50,000 in personal funds Aug. 4, after filing her pre-primary campaign finance report. Lummis detailed the donation in an addendum to that report. Lummis raised about $110,000 in the last month, including her own contributions, and about $480,000 for the election cycle. She carries about $220,000 into the final week of the race for the Republican nomination....

Republican Mark Gordon of Buffalo kicked an additional $60,000 into his campaign Wednesday, according to an addendum filed with the Federal Election Commission, bringing his total contributions to his campaign to almost $1.1 million. Gordon has raised about $1.2 million and is carrying a little less than $200,000 into the final week of the primary....

Actually, that "raised" figure for Gordon should be clarified--he has self-funded to the tune of more than $1 million in this primary, and Lummis about $67K. So if you can judge enthusiasm in Wyoming by where the people are putting their money, Trauner is in good shape for November. That, combined with the baseline poll Research 2000 conducted in May, means that Dick Cheney's old seat could most definitely be in danger of turning Blue.

Thomas Mills Communications provides an interesting look at the NY-26 race in the Off to the Races section of TMCcampaigns.com

Cross-posted from DMIBlog

Today the Drum Major Institute (DMI -- where I'm director of research) released its first annual Survey on the Middle Class and Public Policy.  The nationwide poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group, aimed to learn how those Americans who see themselves as middle class (the vast majority of us, it turns out) think about the direction of the country, public policy ideas that could improve the nation, and their relationship with their own elected representatives. What we found were middle-class households filled with "fearful families": Americans worried about the present, pessimistic about the future, but not nearly so divided on issues of public policy as the typical media reports of a country divided by red and blue might lead us to believe. In fact, there’s broad bipartisan support for a range of progressive policies.

It was two years ago this week, eight years after Robin Hayes first took office, that Hayes told Fox News he'd made no mistakes in Congress.

Host Beth Troutman: "Is there anything from over the past few years that you would have done differently? That you are maybe the least proud of? If anything?"

Rep. Robin Hayes: "Hard, as I can't think of anything honestly, right off hand."

As we reminded him last cycle, the working families of North Carolina's 8th District may have some suggestions.

Disability Rights Advocates has been conducting an investigation into VA hospital access.

While their investigation is being targeted on the Veterans Care issue with the below recent report we can see that the Military Care issue, i.e. Walter Reed and More, is still having the same problems that finally came forward through great investigative reporting and shouldn't have existed nor still exist as to care for the returning active duty Military Personal especially from these theaters of occupations.

There it is again!  McCain questions Obama's judgment.  It was a  drum beat on NPR today.  It is ridiculous.  George Lakoff must be screaming about it and I am unable to resist  ranting here!  How does he question Obama's judgment?   John McCain is promising that he can bring us victory!  Yup, for the first time in world history if we elect this man he will bring us victory in the occupation of another country!  He did not tell us what that meant.  Incidentally, he framed it as a "war".  But GWB declared the war over some years ago.  We are into an occupation.  Just a while ago we had an increase in our occupying forces.  The people who said the war was over some time ago called this increase in troop levels a "surge".  Today John McCain said that Obama lacks judgment because he still fails to acknowledge the success of the surge.  These are the front lines of the framing wars and Lakoff has warned us about them.  It seems that the warning that we can only lose the debate by accepting their framing still needs to be understood.  Look below the break and let's try again.

Equal Pay for Equal Work!

It should be a right.
It should be a given.

(It was guaranteed by the equal pay law under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.)

However, apparently much of Congress has failed to get the Memo,
(They did get the "nod and a wink" from the "corporate wing" of Supreme Court, however ...)

While Darcy Burner is unopposed in her primary election tomorrow, the race will still provide a bit of a preview for November. Washington state has adopted a ridiculous "top-two" primary system, with every candidate listed on the ballot and their party "preference" indicated rather than a real party identification. The top two vote getters from tomorrow's primary will advance on to the general election--in most cases there isn't any question who will be the top two, so the outcome is pretty much already determined. Like I said, ridiculous.

And not particularly popular, with very poor turnout expected, given the lack of suspense. So far, only about 27% of ballots have been returned (Washington has high absentee/mail-in voter participation). Despite the low turnout projected, the primary could still provide a bit of a preview of November.

To that end, getting the vote out for Darcy Burner tomorrow is the campaign's top priority. So folks in Western Washington, if you can help out by volunteering to work on GOTV, contact the Burner campaign to pitch in. And don't forget to vote. Even if it is a silly primary system, it's all we got.

Campaign Receiving Important Endorsements:

As we move into the fall campaign season, the McCracken for Congress campaign is receiving several important endorsements.   Earlier this month we were honored to receive the endorsement from the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.   This is a key endorsement from an organization that is a leader in supporting the rights of the working people, not only in the 5th district, but in Pennsylvania and across the nation.

If any of the framers of the Constitution were alive today they would be horrified about the bloated and mutated executive branch. The POTUS was supposed to be a relatively weak figurehead that was a remnant of the British royalty.  The Constitution was ratified at a time when the British Parliament was increasingly gaining power over the royalty.  The way the constitution is written one can presume that the framers were proposing a hybrid of the British Parliamentary system and replacing a weakening royalty figurehead with the POTUS .  If we are to make any inference about the importance of the POTUS and the executive branch one should review a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

Virginia continues to be a key state in setting the political tone in America. I have believed since 2004 that Virginia is a state that can be slowly turned blue. The elections of 2005 and 2006 support my belief. This year the trend continues as we may well easily win the VA Senate race, and Barack Obama is consistently tied with McCain in this once safe-red state. But the House races also interest me, both because of our chances of winning a few, but also because the Dem candidates seem to be a particularly good bunch. I think we have a shot at winning VA-11, VA-10 and VA-2, and, with a little more effort, maybe even VA-5. And in each case the Democratic Candidate offers experience that America definitely needs after 8 years of Bush mismanagement. Let me give you a rundown of these four candidates. For all of them you can help by donating through my Virginia Act Blue Site or by volunteering through their websites.

Bill Sali just makes it far too easy for us.

In a meeting in his Capitol Hill office, Sali reportedly told a candidate for Idaho’s House of Representatives, Byron Yankey, that there "‘could be up to 40 barrels of oil‘ in a single tree." Yankey wrote on his campaign blog:

Congressman Sali informed us that a solution to the high price of gasoline was to make petroleum from "all those trees in our forests." ... He continued by saying there "could be up to 40 barrels of oil" in a single tree.

Sali made a similar comment in 2006:

"Forty percent of the mass of every tree in the forest is crude oil," he said. Going after that, he said, "could put Idaho in the oil business for the first time."

Carrying on the grand tradition of "Congressman" Helen Chenoweth, who famously declared Idaho's wild salmon couldn't be endangered because there was plenty of canned salmon to be found at the grocery store. Not to mention Ronald Reagan. Maybe they're on to something, maybe the oil is where all that pollution the trees cause is coming from.

Please, Idaho, make all us expats proud. Dump Sali, give us Minnick.

Update: Sali's spokesman (unclear whether he's wearing his congressional or campaign hat) gives a sort of denial to TPM:

"I wasn't there," spokesman Wayne Hoffman told Election Central, "but I can assure you he didn't say there's 40 barrels of oil in a tree."

It's been noted that Sali said something virtually identical in 2006, when he was quoted by the Spokane Spokesman-Review saying that "Forty percent of the mass of every tree in the forest is crude oil."

Hoffman told us that the 2006 quote was "out of context."

How he can be so certain of something that occurred when he wasn't present is unclear, but that's his story.

Good news: Pressure from Rep. Waxman to enforce Dr. Kaye Whitley's subpoena to testify on how the DOD is preventing and responding to incidents of sexual assault in the military have paid off: after first blocking her from attending a House committee's hearing, the Pentagon is allowing Whitley to testify. Bad news: the DOD continues to ignore a very specific responsibility they have been tasked with in order to fully address this issue.

I expect that people find it hard to deal with emotionally sensitive issues. I may even expect that many people would want to shield themselves from it.

But I won't tolerate elected and appointed officials who run and hide when they not only have the power to do something about it, they have the explicit responsibility of doing something about it.

Bill Sali, the gift that just keeps on giving.

First, despite repeated efforts, he just can't get the hang of FEC reports, and it's not just the Idaho bloggers having fun with it. Now Comedy Central has joined in, describing Sali's difficulty with that "Strange Magic Typewriter" that is causing so much confusion.

Sali's office has apparently had financial disclosure problems since for a while now. Since at least 2005. But, you know, they always have really good excuses...

   * Couldn't figure out how to make the smiley face with the parenthesis

   * Tried to upload FEC report through Facebook, but it was down

   * Office network was inflicted by some sort of porn spam/virus

   * Dog was home sick and spilled coffee on the hard drive

   * Madden '09 just released

Add to Sali's inability to just make that damned computer work the little issue that arose today. Turns out that neither his campaign NOR his congressional district office are in the district he, you know, represents.

But it gets even better. This weekend, the Idaho Press Tribune editorialized the myriad ways in which Sali's whole operation is a bit of a trainweck, honing in particularly on the fact that the "mastermind" behind Bill Sali, his campaign spokesman, also happens to be his congressional spokesman.

The dual employ of Hoffman as an official spokesman for Sali’s congressional office and as his campaign spokesman is unusual and inappropriate.

Hoffman says he can keep his jobs separate by using different phones and stepping out of the congressman’s office to deal with campaign-related calls.

It’s a shell game. The truth is, if he’s handling campaign matters, he’s not available at that time to answer questions in his official capacity as a spokesman for the office. Sali’s decision to let Hoffman wear two hats essentially means that taxpayers pay for his campaign press secretary and he doesn’t have to cover another salary out of his campaign coffers.

These issues raise questions about the management of the congressman’s office, his decision-making ability and even his ethics. In order to have Idahoans’ trust, he needs to get his operation in order.

To which Hoffman replied:

"They took the entire matter out of context in my mind, and I worked for the Press-Tribune for four years," he said. "It borders on libel."

I don't think that word "libel" means what Hoffman thinks it means. Neither does the Idaho Press Tribune, one of the state's most staunchly conservative papers. They're so worked up about it, they decided to do something drastic:

We've wanted to start up an editors' blog for quite some time, but it's always been pushed to the back burner. Not any more. This is our official launch, and you can thank Wayne Hoffman for that.

When you've got pundits and bloggers, locally and nationally, bantering about your paper, and you've got a seasoned public relations person who cries "libel," it's time to speak up.

I suspect we're going to be seeing quite a bit more scrutiny of Sali in at least one Idaho paper now. Maybe there can also be a bit of scrutiny fro the House ethics committee, because it seems like Sali and Hoffman don't have too solid a grasp on that whole ethics rule the Congress has about congressional employees conducting campaign business. Not that the "rules" mean anything to Sali and Hoffman. But at least they're good for a joke or two this election season. It's just too bad Idaho has to be stuck with them.

HR-676 is the United States National Health Insurance Act (or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act) sponsored by John Conyers and co-sponsered by some 91 congresspeople in the House. It is the so-called single payer  bill supported by CNA/NNOC, PNHP, Health for Now and endorsed by many unions and other civic organizations.

But what does it actually say?

nyceve, me, and many others have diaried about with much linky goodness, but not everybody clicks through. So below, here it is in all it's cut-n-paste glory from Rep. Conyers house website and the "thomas.loc" house website.

Let us take time to know what it is we are supporting.

 I suppose I should have been clued in when I saw your melting, dewy-eyed smile as George Bush was speaking on the occasion of your ascent to the House Speakership. His facetious praise of your father, and his almost comically insincere congratulations to you, seemed to have you on the verge of bipartisan orgasm. But, like you, I allowed my emotions to interfere with my critical thinking.

I may get some hits for this diary, but it is heartfelt and sincere, and since it shares a heartfelt and sincere position with Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org, I feel good about it. I want to urge my fellow progressives to pull all stops out for Diane Benson, running for Congress in Alaska. Of all the candidates I have ever met, she is quite possibly the best. But precisely because she is from a working class, Native American background and has not been a part of the political game, she is the longshot, grassroots candidate. But from the point of view of the working class, our soldiers, and veterans, she is one of the best candidates to come around in a very, very long time. If Diane Benson is the next Representative from Alaska, America will have a great deal to be proud of.