Talking to candidates and staffers at Netroots Nation, you can't possibly miss the sense of optimism. And we as Democrats should be optimistic -- there are races out there that you would never have predicted to be competitive, but here we are, looking at possible victory.

But there's something else, too. Even as longshot races are looking good, people on top-tier races know they can't take anything for granted. In her Senate race in New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen has had consistent leads in polling for months now. But when I talked to her daughter Molly (who is blogging her mother's race), she emphasized that they know they have a fight. They know that, in a rematch of the race that saw the blatant lawbreaking of phone jamming in 2002, they face an opponent who will go somewhere below dirty. So no matter what the polls say, the Shaheen team knows they need to keep fighting every day for this victory.

Talking to Orange to Blue candidate Dan Seals I got the same message: It's not just that he knows he's facing a tough race. It's that he doesn't want to see Democrats screw up. Seals clearly feels the optimism of the year, but also the sense of urgency that this election is so important for the future of the country and the world. The stakes are too high to give anything less than the best.

We can't take anything for granted. And we're lucky to have great candidates who know that and are putting in the hard work to win it.

Race tracker wiki: NH-Sen IL-10

Well, we knew it wouldn't take too long for Mitch McConnell to begin his smearing, and outright lying. Yes, fresh after charging for his time in a supposedly non-profit, Christian bookstore, Mitch McConnell is unleashing his war-chest of dirty money to try and smear the Democratic Senatate candidate in Kentucky, Bruce Lunsford.

Greetings from Austin Texas!

Some of you may recognize my new screen name already, others might need a hint...(most of you know me as "kid oakland" or "k/o.")

I'm here at Netroots Nation in Austin, Texas in my new role working to elect Scott Kleeb for United States Senate in Nebraska. And, yep, this is the handle I'll be using as I tell you about Scott's campaign to give Nebraskans a vote for change this November.

Please add me to your hotlist and read on!

This is not so much a diary as a plea for action. On tuesday (July 22), the Senate Appropriations committee will vote on a supplemental spending bill that will include desperately needed funds for the National Institutes of Health.  

Since 2003, the NIH budget has been held fairly flat. As many more eloquent diarists have written, this is cause for alarm in the biomedical sciences for so many reasons. Students are leaving science, labs are closing, and what few grants that are being funded are often low risk- this impedes progress in many ways.

And yet, people all over the world suffer from diseases such as epilepsy (the one I study), autism (do you know someone whose life has been affected?), Parkinson's disease, substance abuse, mental illness (I know you know someone who needs help), etc

So on tuesday of next week, the Senate appropriations committee will be considering a bill that will increase the NIH budget.

Here is a link to the members of the committee
http://appropriations.senate.gov/....

Please call them and tell them that there is strong support for increasing the budget for the NIH.

Thanks!

Good afternoon, all!

John McCain's not a bad guy, really.  As Republicans go, well, we could easily do worse.  I'm okay with him having a government job, good health care (he needs it, frankly), and a healthy retirement plan.  The good news is that this honorable public servant already has a job - he's a Senator.

Let's keep him there.  I don't want to promote him.  Anybody here think he's done a good enough job to warrant a better office?  New digs are nice and all, but I think he's got a good gig now.

Rasmussen just released its poll results from the Pine Tree State.

I just finished my second panel at Netroots Nation here in Austin, where I was joined by fellow veterans who are running for office this fall. It's been thrilling to meet with Texas voters, grassroots activists, and online organizers who I haven't seen since last year's exciting convention in Chicago. Last night, General Wesley Clark and DNC Chairman Howard Dean gave great speeches and fired up the troops to take our country back. Soon afterwards, over 1000 people celebrated with us at our Netroots Nation Party a few blocks away - it was a great night!

Like last year, I've met hundreds of activists from across the country who are concerned about the direction our country has taken under George W. Bush and John Cornyn's failed leadership. So I'm not sure what John Cornyn was talking about yesterday when his campaign sent out a fundraising email attacking our community, saying that "Rick Noriega and his far left-wing blogger cronies are out of touch with Texas values."

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 7/14-16. Likely voters. MoE 4% (5/12-14 results)

If 2008 election for Congress were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Ethan Berkowitz, the Democrat, and Don Young, the Republican?

If 2008 election for U.S. Senate were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Mark Begich, the Democrat, and Ted Stevens, the Republican?

If the election for President were held today, who would you vote for if the choices were between Barack Obama, the Democrat, and John McCain, the Republican?

Full cross-tabs are below the fold.

It's been two months since the last polls, but the numbers are fairly static, bobbing around well within the margin of error. Obama has lost three points, Begich has lost three points, and Berkowitz has gained one. Of course, even if it's just float within the MoE, it looks nicer when the numbers are trending in our direction. There's no doubt that this Senate race will be particularly tight.

This is a dirt-cheap state to advertise in. The cheapest, or second-cheapest, depending who you ask and how they count it, and the most efficient place to spend your money according to one of Poblano's analysis.

Note, Don Young is facing two challengers in the GOP primary (August 26), so root for the corrupt old bastard over challengers Sean Parnell and Gabrielle LeDoux, and pray that federal investigators don't swoop in with premature indictments before the primary. Be particularly glad that the anti-Young vote is being split in two. Young will need just a plurality to survive.

Democrat Ethan Berkowitz is also facing a primary against Diane Benson, the 2006 nominee. Berkowitz has so dominated the money race (with an 8-1 disparity on CoH) that I've failed to see a reason to include Benson in this polling. That may be a bad call on my part -- the most money doesn't always win. But one other data point has kept me skeptical of her chances: The Benson campaign released a poll last year taken between 10/27-11/2 that showed her trailing 29-21. There's been no subsequent polling released in the race, which doesn't necessarily mean the Benson campaign is hiding bad news (they could be trying to lull Berkowitz to sleep), but still means the only public poll on the race showed her at 21 percent with little money available to help drive those numbers up.

Still, these matchups aren't necessarily the matchups we might see post-primary day, but are the most probable. I hate late primaries.

New Mississippi numbers coming within the next two weeks.

On the web:
Orange to Blue ActBlue Page (Begich is an O2B candidate)
Mark Begich for Senate
Ethan Berkowitz for Congress
Diane Benson for Congress

Race tracker wiki: AK-Sen AK-AL

Dear Friends,

When I heard that we were closing in on our first million dollars raised, I started thinking about all the thousands of Nebraskans who have opened their homes and their hearts to this campaign.  And honestly, I just couldn't think of a way to say "thank you" enough.  So to mark this significant milestone, I've decided to offer a little something special to the donor who pushes us past the million dollar mark.

Please, join our community of supporters and contribute $500, $250, $100, or $25 today.

Overall, John McCain has missed 387 votes (62.6%! missed and only showing up 37.4% of the time) during the current session of Congress (the worst record in this 110th Congress).  John McCain hasn't cast a single vote since April 8, 2008 (during a time when he was sitting pretty as presumptive nominee and Hillary and Obama were still duking it out).  

Now, I know running for President is a full-time job:  To give him a reliable comparison, I compared his activities on days since April 8 when he missed votes but Obama cast one or more votes.  (Showing up for the majority of the votes 56.3% in the 110th Congress, Obama has cast almost 20% more votes than McCain in the 110th -- a truly amazing accomplishment when you consider the length and ardor of the Democratic primary.)

So what was McCain doing on those days since April 8 when Obama showed up to vote and he didn't? See below the fold:

Summer is upon us and the blistering heat of Kentucky's political process is about to kick into full swing. Democrats have incumbents in John Yarmuth and Ben Chandler, and are contesting all but one of the current Republican seats. Now with summer arriving in Kentucky, the fight is on!!

Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008

McSame Sh*it, Different Day McSame AWOL, AGAIN, on another crucial vote.  McSame didn't 'show up' to vote on the original Medicare bill, or the veto over ride, thereby default, 'supporting' Bush's opposition/veto.

Here is what those numbers mean:

Right now we may be in a situation where winning is losing. Big time losing. During a disaster be it earthquake, hurricane or other, there is little or nothing you or anyone else can do except hang on, duck or hide. Economic disasters take years to develop and this one is just beginning.

The stock market crashed in 1929, but it was not until 1933 that the full extent of the economic and consequent social disaster became clear to everyone but the most dogmatic conservatives. Progressives swept the 1932 elections and FDR and the Progressives could do just about anything they wanted to change America from a "top down" system of wealth is power to a "bottom up" system of people power.

Democrats came to power at a time when proper government actions could actually make a difference, a big difference, for the future.

Not so much today. Both the 128/23 numbers and the timing are against us. Today the financial meltdown is just beginning. Realistically there is actually nothing we can do to even slow down the developing economic disaster, much less turn things around. Do we really want to be in charge as this country pays the price for 30+ years of Republican top down worship of wealth and power?

It appears as though Senator Roberts and his campaign have a hard time admitting when they are wrong, but then have no problem leaving the rest of us confused when they correct themselves but make it seem like it was no big deal.  Take for example the fact that Roberts has now made changes to their ad but at first, tried to blame the Kansas Democratic Party for merely pointing out their sloppy operation.

The following is a discussion of Predicting political elections from rapid and unreflective face judgements Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 November 13; 104(46): 17948–17953. Authored by Ballew II C, and Todorov A. and can be found full text here

...participants were presented with the faces of the winner and the runner-up and asked to decide who is more competent. To ensure that competence judgments were based solely on facial appearance and not on prior person knowledge, judgments for races in which the participant recognized any of the faces were excluded.... Asking participants to deliberate and make a good judgment dramatically increased the response times and reduced the predictive accuracy of judgments relative to both judgments made after 250 ms of exposure to the faces and judgments made within a response deadline of 2 s ...competence judgments collected before the elections in 2006 predicted 68.6% of the gubernatorial races and 72.4% of the Senate races ...The findings suggest that rapid, unreflective judgments of competence from faces can affect voting decisions.

More below.

Tonight, the Senate renewed the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR.  The new bill, named in part for our collective hero, Tom Lantos, funds the program through 2013.  This President's tenure has been a disaster, of course, but this is one bright spot.

Over the weekend, video was released showing Stephen Payne, a lobbyists with close ties to the White House, offering direct access to Dick Cheney, Condoleeza RIce, or national security adviser Steven Hadley in exchange for a donation of "a couple hundred thousand" to the Bush library.  There is a bipartisan bill in Congress designed to stop exactly this kind of money-for-access scheme, but it is being blocked from becoming law by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), who says he will only remove his objection if it's amended to take effect after fundraising for the Bush library is finished.

One thing I am sick and tired of is men like Mitch McConnell lecturing us on morals, and Christian values. Who is Mitch McConnell to lecture me on Chirst and his teachings? What makes him think he has earned such a holier-than-thou attitude about anything? I am Christian and a sinner, but Mitch McConnell's actions run contrary to all Christ stood for.