Put the Texas Senate race on your radar screen, and open up your wallets (please). Democratic candidate and Afghan war vet, Rick Noriega, is already running a very strong race against the GOP incumbent, John Cornyn, who is one of the nastiest and most right wing Republicans in the Senate (think: Santorum, but dumber).
Cornyn once said that violence against judges is understandable (remember that one?) And Cornyn defended Karl Rove's role in the Valerie Plame affair. Rick Noriega, on the other hand, has a 100% rating from NARAL, is good on gay issues, and more. You can give to Noriega by clicking on the blue box (right).
But what are his chances? Rather incredible, actually.
Last week, two polls came out showing that Noriega had moved to within four points of Cornyn:
1. Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/5-7. Likely voters. MoE 4% (9/24-26/07 results)
Cornyn (R) 48 (51) Noriega (D) 44 (35)
That is nothing short of astounding. And lest anyone worry that it's an outlier, these numbers confirm a Rasmussen poll from earlier this week:
2. Rasmussen. 5/1. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)
It’s time to add United States Senator John Cornyn to the list of potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents in Election 2008. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state find Cornyn leading Democratic state legislator Rick Noriega by just four percentage points, 47% to 43%.
Any incumbent who polls below 50% is considered potentially vulnerable. That is especially true when a little known challenger is so competitive in an early general election match-up.
We can help make Noriega a better known and better funded challenger.
Texas Democrats are energized this year. And, Noriega is the perfect candidate for his state. He’s a native Texan with an impressive career and commitment to public service. Rick is a veteran who has served in the U.S. Army and the Texas National Guard - including a fourteen month tour of duty in Afghanistan. Check out his website.
Rick Noriega is a candidate who can change the political landscape in Texas. Howie Klein interviewed Rick recently, and he is great on the issues you care about. Let's help him do it by clicking on the blue box, above, and donating to Rick's campaign. We've set a generous goal of raising $15,000 this week via the blog. We'll be reminding you throughout the week. And we're done with Rick, we'll hit another race, and so on. Thanks, guys. JOHN
PS By law, you can give a maximum of $2300 to Noriega. But honestly, even 25 or 50 bucks is appreciated. It all adds up.
An open seat in Virginia. John Warner just announced he's retiring.
That smarmy, fake moderate Congressman Tom Davis has wanted this seat for a long time. The right wing conservatives in the GOP will fight him every step of the way. Bring on the GOP fratricide.
Reid is demanding that the Republicans stop filibustering and let the Senate vote on the Reed-Levin amendment concerning Iraq, or he's going to keep them there tomorrow and all tomorrow night debating Iraq.
I would like to inform the Republican leadership and all my colleagues that we have no intention of backing down. If Republicans do not allow a vote on Levin-Reed today or tomorrow, we will work straight through the night on Tuesday. The American people deserve an open and honest debate on this war, and they deserve an up-or-down vote on this amendment to end it.
Given the Republican leadership's decision to block the amendment, we have no choice but to do everything we can in the coming days to highlight Republican obstruction. We do this in hopes of ultimately getting a simple up-or-down vote on this and other important amendments that could change the direction of the war.
Joe Biden can be maddening. But, he does come up with some great lines. And, his statement to Reuters is right on target: "Voters are going to be mad with us until we end the war."
The Senate Democrats have promised there will be a series of votes on Iraq between now and the Fourth of July recess. They need to start delivering on Capitol Hill. The GOPers who let Bush start this war and enabled him along the way are holding up any progress. The Dems. need to roll them:
The new Democratic-led Congress is drawing the ire of voters upset with its failure to quickly deliver on a promise to end the Iraq war.
This is reflected in polls that show Congress -- plagued by partisan bickering mostly about the war -- at one of its lowest approval ratings in a decade. Surveys find only about one in four Americans approves of it.
"I understand their disappointment," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "We raised the bar too high."
In winning control of Congress from President George W. Bush's Republicans last November, Democrats told voters they would move swiftly to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
But they now say voters must understand they need help from Republicans to clear procedural hurdles, override presidential vetoes and force Bush to change course.
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said he explained this recently to anti-war demonstrators. "'We know. We know,'" he quoted them as replying. "But we are so disappointed.'"
Biden, seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, said: "Voters are going to be mad with us until we end the war."
The Senate just overwhelmingly approved the blank check for Bush's war. The Iraq spending bill passed by a vote of 80 - 14 . Maybe now Bush won't be mean to the Democrats.
Significantly, Hillary and Obama voted against the bill per CNN.
It's really not that complicated. Bush's Iraq policy is -- and always has been -- a disaster. But the GOPers in Congress, like Susan Collins (ME), Norm Coleman (MN) and John Sununu (NH) among others, who enabled that failure, are sticking with him. Not only does their recklessness threaten American security, it threatens Republican job security. Reid and Schumer were typically blunt about that prospect:
Democrats know they might lose this month's showdown with President Bush on legislation to pull troops out of Iraq. But with 2008 elections in mind, majority Democrats says it is only a matter of time before they will get their way. Senior Democrats are calculating that if they keep the pressure on, eventually more Republicans will jump ship and challenge the president - or lose their seats to Democratic contenders.
"It's at least my belief that they are going to have to break because they're going to look extinction, some of them, in the eye," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of his Republican colleagues.
Added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.: "We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war."
The irony is that the GOP picked up Senate seats in 2002 because of Bush's build up to the Iraq war. That same batch of GOP Senators who won in 2002 because of Bush and his war are going to lose in 2008 because of Bush and his war.
Historic vote just occurred in the U.S. Senate. By a vote of 50 - 48, the Senate rejected the Cochran amendment to strip out the Iraq troop withdrawal timetable language from the Supplemental appropriation. Bottom line: The Senate just approved withdrawal timetable language for the first time.
It's not perfect. It's still non-binding, but it is a critical vote to change the course of the war. The Senate bill will go to a conference with the House bill that passed last week.
Lieberman and Mark Pryor from Arkansas voted with the Republicans, of course. Oregon's Gordon Smith and Nebraska's Chuck Hagel voted with the Democrats.
The Senate is approaching a vote on an amendment by Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) to remove the language about the timetable for bringing the troops home. The vote will be very close. And, it is a critical vote that start the process of ending this war. Just watched Lieberman give his usual pro-war speech rife with Bush talking points. The Republicans (and Lieberman) have never had a plan for their war -- and their war is a disaster.
Chris Bowers wrote a very good synopsis of the situation in the Senate:
The vote this afternoon is on an amendment to the supplemental that seeks to strip all language regarding timetables and withdrawal from the supplemental. In order to defeat this amendment, and assuming that Gordon Smith and Ben Nelson are on board (which are not terrible assumptions, but are assumptions none the less), right now Democrats need one more vote. The primary targets to acquire this vote are Chuck Hagel, Mark Pryor, and John Warner. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that in the next few hours, those three people will decide whether or not Bush receives a blank check to continue his war indefinitely, or not. All three are up for re-election in 2008.
If this amendment passes, there will still be other amendments in the coming days, and there will also be a conference bill where Pelosi can try and strengthen what the senate eventually passes. Also, even if the already compromised House version of the bill ends up becoming still weaker, progressives will have the opportunity to defeat the conference report on the supplemental down the road. However, make no mistake: if we lose this vote, either a total blank check, or something very close to it, will pass the Senate, which puts us in real danger of a total blank check, or something very close it, arriving on Bush's desk even without a veto showdown.
And no, this isn't what you're already doing. Let me explain.
The House is getting ready to vote today on a resolution critical of Bush's Iraq "surge." This is the same resolution that you, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), are going to try to bring up for debate in the Senate tomorrow, Saturday. If the Republicans continue to filibuster the Senate even debating Bush's surge plan, let alone filibustering a vote on the plan, which is what Senate GOP leaders are hoping happens, then let me humbly propose a Plan B.
In the spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation, forget the Warner resolution, forget the McCain resolution, forget the House resolution. Forget any other Democratic resolutions that are out there. If Republicans and Democrats in the Senate can't agree as to whose resolution should be debated and voted on, fine. There's only one resolution that matters anyway, George Bush's. (Yes, I know he doesn't have a resolution, read on.)
Announce that the Senate is at an impasse, trash the other resolutions (House, Democratic, Republican), and call up Bush's "surge" plan for an up-or-down vote. Senator Reid, introduce your own resolution describing Bush's plan. Don't play any games with the wording of the resolution, simply put Bush's plan in writing in the form a resolution that supports the surge - period. (I'd recommend you use Bush's speech in which he announces the surge plan, and simply quote the President verbatim in the "whereas" sections of the resolution.) Then call for the Senate to debate and vote on whether it supports the president's own plan. Not the Warner resolution, not the House resolution, but the PRESIDENT'S OWN PLAN.
The advantages of this?
1. All other resolutions become extraneous. No one can offer a competing resolution since per se it won't be germane to the surge (well, they can, but they'll look silly). Cutting off money to troops? Not relevant to debating the surge. Withdrawing all troops immediately? Not relevant to debating the surge. It will be clear to the public that anyone who stops the president's resolution from going forward is simply being obstructionist.
2. Any Republican or Democrat who votes to filibuster this resolution will be filibustering a resolution approving of Bush's plan. A marked difference from filibustering a resolution critical of the president. It's one thing for Republicans to argue that a resolution critical of the president emboldens the enemy and hurts the morale of the troops, but how are they going to block a resolution that lauds the plan the commander in chief is currently implementing?
3. With this approach, you look the above-the-fray leader to the American people. You threw partisanship out the window, got rid of the Democratic and Republican plans, and decided to be a straight shooter and give the president's plan the up-or-down vote it deserves. That's something that no American could disagree with. And anyone who stands in the way will be marked as the bad guy.
Now, I suspect that you probably think the current Warner resolution, or even the House resolution, ARE the president's plan. I'd argue that they're not. Those resolutions are critical of Bush's surge. They're critical of the president, albeit well-deserved. In order to give the president and his supporters MORE than a fair shake, simply offer up the president's plan, unfettered by any critical language or other excess verbiage. I'd go so far as to write the resolution using only direct quotes from the president. Make it ALL his language describing the surge and why it's needed.
Then let's see the GOP claim that the debate and vote is unfair when the only thing being debated and voted on is the president's language detailing and praising the president's plan.
