In last year's elections Progressives everywhere gave their time, money and passion to do several things to change this country for the better. One of them was to take over the White House with a historical new and inspirational candidate. Another was to hold our newly won majorities in the House of Representatives. Lastly, we fought to give our leaders in the Senate a fillibuster-proof majority and end their slide towards becoming an American version of the "House of Lords".
(what a whole lot of us were doin' one year ago today... :D - promoted by poligirl)
A year ago tonight, nearly 240,000 Iowans spent a couple of hours in overcrowded rooms during the Democratic precinct caucuses.
Thousands of others came to freezing cold Iowa to knock on doors or make phone calls for their presidential candidate in late December and early January.
Share any memories you have about caucusing or volunteering in this thread.
After the jump I re-posted my account of what happened at my own caucus. I was a precinct captain for Edwards.
I do most of my writing at the Iowa progressive community blog Bleeding Heartland.
Last year at this time I was scrambling to make as many phone calls and knock on as many doors as I could before the Iowa caucuses on January 3.
This week I had a little more time to reflect on the year that just ended.
After the jump I've linked to Bleeding Heartland highlights in 2008. Most of the links relate to Iowa politics, but some also covered issues or strategy of national importance.
I only linked to a few posts about the presidential race. I'll do a review of Bleeding Heartland's 2008 presidential election coverage later this month.
Well, I guess now we know why Mitch McConnell was so in favor of the banking bailout. Not only did the banks profit from hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts, it seems they may have paved the way for Mitchie Boy's re-election. Well they say birds of a feather flock together...
(Go Jim Martin - our Progressive Blue Bake Sale candidate for the GA-Sen! - promoted by poligirl)
This is a quick reminder that the runoff election for U.S. Senate in Georgia will be on December 2, and there are many ways you can help Democrat Jim Martin beat Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
Depending on how the recount in Minnesota turns out, which won't be resolved for a few weeks, Martin could be the key to getting Democrats to that magic filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
First, let me say that the case for electing Jim Martin to the U.S. Senate from my birth state of Georgia is strong and positive. He has lived in Georgia his entire life, except for his tour of duty in Vietnam -- so he knows the people of and issues important to Georgia. From his days as a young legal aid attorney to his 18 years in the state legislature to his service to the state as the head of the Georgia Dept. of Human Resources, Martin has lived his values and stood for the people of Georgia. His agenda, from his prescient discussions of the looming foreclosure crisis during his 2006 run for Lt. Governor to his current list of critical issues, is in synch with Georgians and the new administration of Pres.-elect Obama. Jim Martin will make an excellent U.S. Senator.
Today, on Veterans Day, I want to make the case for supporting Jim Martin in the Georgia run-off against incumbent Saxby Chambliss from the perspective of our veterans.
I'm going to cut straight to the chase: we need all hands on deck for Jim Martin and we need all hands RIGHT NOW!!
On Tuesday, December 2, Georgia holds a run-off election between Jim Martin (D) and Saxby Chambliss (Incumbent-R) for the U.S. Senate. That's good; from the Merkley campaign, we've already talked about how hard it is to unseat an incumbent and the same holds true in this case. So getting to the run-off is a very good thing. But, and it is a HUGE but, turn-out for a run-off election is always way way way down from the original election.
The only way we're going to put Jim Martin in the Senate this year (and get rid of Chambliss, more on that in a minute), is a massive GOTV drive.
Barack Obama won Oregon easily, in the biggest victory any Democrat has had here since who knows when. He won the popular vote here 57%-41%, with nearly 990,000 votes to Jon McCain's nearly 709,000 votes. Consider that Al Gore only won the state by 6,500 votes, and John Kerry by about 68,000. Obama won 12 of Oregon's 36 counties, an impressive feat, as John Kerry and Al Gore both only won 8. The counties which Gore Kerry, and Obama all won include Multnomah, which is home to Portland and parts of it's metro area, Lane, which is home to the Eugene-Springfield metro area and the University of Oregon, Benton, which is home to Oregon's tenth largest city, Corvallis, and Oregon State University, as well as several coastal counties which are traditionally Democratic, and Hood River County, home to Hood River, a town known for outdoorsy tourism (Kerry windsurfed there in 2004, IIRC). Also, they all won Washington County, which used to be a Republican stronghold a couple decades ago, but has recently flipped in the last few cycles. Washington County is a county dominated by Portland's western and southwestern suburbs (Beaverton, Tigard, Wilsonville) and several exurbs and other towns (Sherwood, Hillsboro).
Obama's added counties include Clackamas County (where I grew up), which has been fairly conservative recently, though fairly close in many elections. Clackamas COunty includes most of Portland's southeastern and southern suburbs (West Linn, Gladstone, Lake Oswego, Wilsonville) and several exurbs and other towns (Canby, Estacada). Gore and Kerry each lost by 1%, but Obama won it 55-44%. He also won Tillamook County, a somewhat more conservative coastal county, home to a big dairy co-op (IIRC), which Gore lost by 13 votes and Kerry by 253, but Obama carried it 54-44%. He also won Marion County, home to the capital, Salem, as well as several other towns, like Silverton and Woodburn. It is a fairly conservative county traditionally, and it was notable that Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski narrowly carried it in his re-election bid in 2006. Finally, Obama's final and perhaps most significant pick-up was Wasco County, home to The Dalles. What's significant about this victory was that this county which hugs the Columbia Gorge is east of the Cascade Mountain Range, making it the only county east of the Cascades carried by a Democratic presidential candidate in many years.
But it didn't stop there. Obama came within 310 votes of carrying Deschutes County, another county in Eastern Oregon, and home to the rapidly growing Bend-Redmond area. He came within 150 votes of winning Jackson County in Southern Oregon, home to the very liberal Ashland, and the much more conservative Medford and their environs. He came within 600 and 250 votes in Yamhill and Polk Counties, respectively, which are both among the most conservative counties in the Willamette valley. He came within 1,000 votes in Coos County (where my family is from), a county on the southern coast which used to be Democratic when it was an important center for exporting lumber, but more recently has trended the wrong way.
Senator-elect Jeff Merkley met with some members of the netroots this afternoon for a brief conversation. Before we had the chance to congratulate him, he was thanking us.
The netroots world was critical to my winning. ... I knew the enormous difficulty of taking on and defeating an incumbent. It was no small challenge, and the netroots got out the word on the feasibility and the viability of this race. ... You leveraged my voice with yours and brought resources and energy.
The results of the election are just sinking in for Jeff Merkley, the task before him is huge, the opportunities many. But this most progressive Senator since Paul Wellstone took the time to reach out with thanks and encouragement to those of us who supported him and broke through the corporate media for him as he too made history Tuesday.
The AP called it just a few minutes ago for Barack Obama in North Carolina! This extends President Elect Obama's Electoral Votes to 364, a wonderful landsliding number if I must say!
