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.

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.

Every State. Every race. Right here.

This is number 15 in a planned series of 50 entries between now and November, looking at each of the 50 states in terms of every race on that state's ticket--Presidential, Gubernatorial, Senate, House, State legislatures--the whole list of Oscar nominees.  Special attention paid to identifying and promoting the most important contests per state.

California, Part Two (Southern Cal House Districts, and Redistricting plan) continues below the cut.

The Nick Leibham for congress campaign (CA-50) has just wrapped up their week-long series of events honoring Memorial Day, which they called "Bring Our Troops Home Week." A summary of all the events is below the fold. It was my pleasure to join them for the highlight of the week, visiting patients at the VA hospital in La Jolla and delivering gift baskets. (Photo: Nick is center in the suit.)

Senate/Governor Races

NE-Sen: With just a week left until Scott Kleeb's primary, help him raise $20,000 by Friday! mcjoan wrote an excellent piece yesterday on the efforts of Kleeb's primary opponent, ex-Republican businessman Tony Raimondo, to buy this primary with his vast personal fortune. Let's show Raimondo what people power is capable of, and show Kleeb some love!

NC-Sen: Today is primary day in North Carolina, and aside from the presidential race, there are three major statewide races of interest; the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, and the Democratic and Republican primaries for Governor.

In the Senate race, State Senator Kay Hagan looks poised to deliver a convincing victory in her primary. Public Policy Polling shows her leading her closest challenger, Jim Neal, by 30 points, while SUSA shows her ahead by twenty-five.

Assuming she wins, she'll go into the general election as a clear underdog against incumbent Elizabeth Dole. Still, Hagan should be considered one of the strongest second-tier Senate challengers this cycle. Real Clear Politics has an interesting article about this race, comparing Hagan to Jim Webb:

But Hagan has raised an impressive $1.52 million, much of which she has spent on making the primary with Neal a blowout. And trailing by just seven points in public polls is on par with Webb and others from the 2006 cycle; a Democratic poll taken in late June, 2006, showed Webb trailing Allen by a 46%-39% margin, and a Mason-Dixon poll in late July had Allen leading by a whopping 16 points. And Hagan's campaign brags that only Missouri's Claire McCaskill and Ohio's Sherrod Brown have raised more money through the First Quarter of 2006.

As for the North Carolina gubernatorial primaries, Lieutenant Governor has a wide lead over State Treasurer Richard Moore in the Democratic primary, while Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (considered the strongest Republican general-election candidate) faces a tough challenge from State Sen. Fred Smith. I'm hoping that Smith manages to pull off the upset today.

IN-Gov: There's a primary tonight in Indiana, of course, and one of the hottest races here will be the Democratic primary for Governor of Indiana, where architect Jim Schellinger faces former Congresswoman Jill Long Thompson. The winner will get to take on unpopular GOP incumbent Mitch Daniels in what should be one of the closest gubernatorial races of the fall.

Polling has indicated a dead heat in the primary race, and that both candidates are competitive with Daniels. We'll see how things shake out tonight.

House Races

NY-13: Vito Fossella may face jail time for drunk driving, should he be found guilty. It's difficult to say how much of an effect this scandal will have on his chances for reelection. He had already been targeted by the DCCC, his district leans very slightly Democratic, and he has two challengers in the race; attorney Steve Harrison, who gave him his toughest challenge yet in 2006, and New York City Councilman Domenic Recchia, who currently has more cash-on-hand than the incumbent Fossella.

However, one major advantage for Fossella is geographic; his challengers both hail from Brooklyn, while Fossella-and the majority of NY-13 voters-live in Staten Island.

LA-06: The fallout from the Democratic pickup in LA-06 is looking pretty severe for the Republicans. The Hill notes serious infighting in the GOP caucus, following their second humiliating special-election loss in a row, with NRCC chairman Tom Cole lashing out at his Republican brethren:

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) chastised his colleagues Tuesday for not contributing to the GOP candidate in an increasingly crucial Mississippi special election, saying those who have not helped "ought to be ashamed of themselves," Republican sources said.

The harsh admonition from the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was the latest rallying cry from GOP campaigners, who have repeatedly cited a lack of enthusiasm and giving from members. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his colleagues earlier this year that they needed to get off their "dead asses" and raise money for the NRCC.

Boehner and Cole continued that theme Tuesday at a House GOP meeting, asking members to focus on the Mississippi race just days after the party suffered a second loss of the cycle in former Rep. Richard Baker’s (R) conservative Louisiana district.

There had been rumors that Cole would be relieved of his position if the GOP lost the special election in IL-14. Obviously, this has not occurred, but I doubt the GOP caucus is especially happy with Cole's stewardship of the NRCC, and he certainly doesn't seem happy with their contributions.

Cole's biggest mistake may have been to rely on demonizing high-profile national Democrats in this race; the traditional media is already pushing the narrative that that strategy has failed. From Roll Call:

Vulnerable House Democrats, touting their independence in their re-election efforts, might be breathing more easily this week after Republicans failed in their bid to make Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a political albatross.

In the first test-case for the strategy, the special election Louisiana’s 6th district, Democrat Don Cazayoux pulled out a win, making him the first Democrat to hold the seat in 32 years.

Donna Brazile agrees:

While Cazayoux was busy campaigning about helping those still struggling in Louisiana and bringing positive change to Washington, Republicans were trying to win by hook or by crook. National conservative groups, a veritable who’s who of Washington special interests, spent nearly a million dollars trying to brand Cazayoux as an Obama/ Clinton/Pelosi tax-and-spend liberal Democrat. The National Republican Congressional Committee and Freedom’s Watch even brazenly skirted federal campaign finance law by coordinating their attacks.

At the end of the day, they failed, making this race the second time this year that Republicans unsuccessfully tried to hold onto a conservative-leaning House seat by injecting national politics into the race.

Ultimately, the Republicans can scream all they want about Clinton, Obama and Pelosi. It won't disguise the fact that their candidates are bad and their ideas are bad.

CA-50: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has polled this race, and finds surprisingly strong numbers for Democrat Nick Leibham in his quest to unseat Republican Brian Bilbray, who won a relatively close special election in June 2006 against Dem Francine Busby. Bilbray leads Leibham 52% to 34%, but there are several reasons for optimism. Swing State Project's James L. notes:

That's about where you'd expect this race to be at this point.  But looking deeper into the numbers, Democrats have a 43%-39% generic congressional ballot preference advantage here, and a 47%-40% generic presidential advantage.  And after a positive bio is read of both Leibham and Bilbray, the gap closes to 49% Bilbray, 46% Leibham.

Bilbray's re-elects aren't stellar either, with only 42% of voters saying that they will vote to re-elect him, while 39% say that they'll cast their ballots for someone else.

MS-01: The DCCC keeps putting money into this race, with an additional expenditure of $100,000 now increasing the total spent to just shy of $1.4 million. That's insane for an R+10 district.

The Republicans are pulling out the big guns, sending Dick Cheney himself to campaign with Greg Davis. Frankly, I know this is solidly Republican territory, but even so, I'm not sure Cheney's going to help much. For more, check out Cotton Mouth Blog.

WV-02: Kossacks clammyc and thereisnospoon have conducted an exclusive interview with Democratic candidate Anne Barth, as part of an ongoing series of radio interviews with progressive candidates. Check it out!

Update: Check out Swing State Project's terrific list of Competitive House Race Rankings. Seriously, don't miss it.

Race tracker wiki: NE-Sen NC-Sen NC-Gov IN-Gov NY-13 LA-06 CA-50 MS-01

(So I do these every month for Calitics, but it occurs to me that I've never cross-posted it here.  So, um, here.)

Getting this one in under the wire.  On the last day of April, with just over a month to go until the June primaries, and six months to go until Election Day, there's a lot going on all over the state in the Congressional races.  Of the 19 seats in California currently held by Republicans, 17 will be contested in the fall, and some strongly so.  And we now have a full 34 Democrats with the election of Jackie Speier early in the month, and only one of them is a serious challenge.  We also have the first quarter of 2008 fundraising numbers, which will raise some eyebrows.  You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.

A note: I'm mainly getting my numbers on cash-on-hand competitiveness from the Swing State Project.  Fundraising information comes from the FEC.

Here we go...

Dear 50th District Kossacks,

My name is Alexander Christensen, a.k.a. Alex at Choose Our President 2008, and I am a candidate for California 50th District Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

I just wanted to make sure everybody knows about the 50th District Caucus delegate elections to be held this Sunday, April 13 at 2 p.m. The location has now changed to the FMG Meeting Hall at 5720 Oberlin Dr., San Diego, CA 92121, from a previously scheduled meeting place in Solana Beach. (You can double-check this, and probably should before heading out on Sunday, at www.cadem.org.)

(continued below the fold)

Cross posted at Calitics

So as we've established by now, Darrell Issa thinks very little of 9/11 rescue workers and would prefer that the federal government not concern itself with their welfare.  Cause according to him, 9/11 is not and presumably was not a national issue.  We've also established that he has no qualms about throwing federal money around on local pork as long as it benefits him directly.  So the next logical question for me is "oh hey, are there any familiar names that don't mind taking Darrell Issa's money?"  As you may or may not know, Darrell Issa is filthy rich.  So he's spread a lot of money around on Republicans and conservative causes.  So as it turns out, there are quite a lot of Republicans currently running around the Capitol funded in part by Darrell Issa (partial list):

I shared breakfast with Nick Leibham last week and discussed where he stands on a number of issues.  I mostly just lobbed topics and let him talk; this is the relevant transcript edited to be a remotely reasonable length and minus fun stuff like us chatting with the waitress and our occasional divergence into non-relevant shop talk.  Some parts I liked, some parts less so. But here it is.  Note this is a contested primary.

Drawn from CarlsbadDem's diary with permission

Last night Congressman Bilbray hosted a constituent teleforum- a sort of hybrid robocall/conference call.  One of the contributors at Calitics was on the call and caught one of the more honest moments of the Congressman's recent career.  The conversation turned towards a discussion over whether undocumented immigrants perform manual labor that citizens otherwise would not perform.  Congressman Bilbray, needless to say, does not see this as either an excuse or a problem.  All it takes is some good old fashioned American ingenuity to overcome the challenge.  Or, maybe, exactly the opposite.  As closely as blogger CarlsbadDem could get it down:

What those people are really saying is that we aren't producing enough unskilled, poor workers. They're saying that we aren't producing enough poverty in this country. Well, my answer is that the federal government could produce a lot of poverty if it wanted to. We spend billions on education and training. We could create our own.

I am all for running everywhere, and the 50 state strategy.

But neither we nor the Republicans are running everywhere (at least not yet!) In this series, I will look at where we are not running (I am not going to look at where Republicans are not running, as I have no desire to help Republicans, however modestly)

This diary is partly inspired by the great work done by BENAWU.

crossposted to swingstateproject

Let's face it; the chances of a Democratic President, and a larger Democratic congress being elected in November are very, very good. I will not rest on my laurels, and just take that for granted, I will do everything I can do to make sure the Repiglicans do NOT regain any power at all. But because the chances on the national level are quite good, I must then commit myself to the race that is closest to home and that must be won for the benefit of my own sanity and my own stomach, and I am asking anyone here who is my neighbor for their input, their ideas, and perhaps even their willingness to put together a battle plan.

This is a battle that must be won. And our enemy is that smarmy, lying, racist, lobbyist PIECE OF SHIT known as Brian Bilbray.

President Bush has come out in opposition to a plan that would raise the gas tax to help fund infrastructure repair.  Just a week after the bridge collapse in Minnesota, Bush is concerned that members of the Transportation Committee might not be able to put the public's interests above their own personal priorities, saying "I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities."  Really?  Those pesky Democrats are the ones that are struggling with spending priorities?

Since there are so many, let's go through Republicans with questionable spending habits alphabetically by state:

Brian Bilbray (R CA-50) - Has been served a subpoena to testity in US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Now that I'm here in sunny San Diego for good, I'm anxious to meet San Diego Kossacks. Who's here? And who's driving up to LA on Jan 4 to see Clammyc and the LA group? And what's going on for New Years Eve around here? (That last question is important... I've got only a few days to figure out how I am going to avoid counting down to the New Year alone in my apartment.)

I've got a few more questions too. Have you guys had meetups before? Do you have an email group I can join? Are there any liberal conferences or conventions in the area that everyone goes to? Where do liberals in San Diego shop? Does Marc Maron every do standup in San Diego? And why do fucking Republicans keep winning around here?

If you're in the San Diego area, please come say hi!!!

Three new national polls, and polling in 47 individual races, marks the penultimate edition of FTP. In so doing, I will also endeavor to alleviate the hand-wringing that strikes so many folks today (myself included).

Follow me below the fold for the numbers, and the analysis.

This is a placeholder diary for the Election Results Live Blogging project. This Diary will be about CA 04, CA 11, CA 45, CA 50, and CA Gov. Comments have been disabled until Election Day. California Secretary of State information  here.

Results over the flap...

Well, it's been a hell of a ride and we're finishing up the road trip portion of the project as we drive to Las Vegas and the Carter campaign. Over 9,000 miles through rain in Virginia, hail in Indiana, flooding in Texas, snow in Colorado, sleet in Montana, and cloudless blue skies in California. And through it all, we actually managed to capture, sync, edit, render and upload videos of many of our interviews.

For those who may not have been able to view them, follow me below the fold for 8 we've posted.