Elections

www.unitedforpeace.org

"I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign."

Last March, the ever-outspoken Molly Ivins wrote that she was fed up with "every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch" in Washington DC. Denouncing the sparseness of antiwar candidates, she proclaimed, "This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one. It is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass."

By DAVID LIGHTMAN, http://www.courant.com

WASHINGTON -- It's one thing to be the darling of the liberal bloggers; it's another to pull bodies into a room.

Ned Lamont did that Wednesday as 350 progressive activists crammed a hotel meeting room to witness the Senate challenger's first big national appearance.

After basking in three standing ovations before, during and after his nine-minute speech Wednesday, Lamont was asked by his new-found fans to pose for pictures.

www.unitedforpeace.org

Last March, the ever-outspoken Molly Ivins wrote that she was fed up with "every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch" in Washington DC. Denouncing the sparseness of antiwar candidates, she proclaimed, "This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one. It is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass."

By Frederic J. Frommer, Associated Press

Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), a potential 2008 presidential candidate, received a raucous, enthusiastic greeting Wednesday from a liberal group as he criticized President Bush for the Iraq war and a secretive domestic wiretapping program.

The same crowd had booed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the presumed 2008 front-runner, a day earlier for opposing a set date for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Liberal group puts spotlight on Iraq
By George E. Condon Jr., COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON – Even as President Bush and Republicans celebrated some rare good news from Iraq this week, Democrat's divisions on the war were on display with the front-runner for the 2008 presidential nomination getting booed and some of her challengers fighting to establish themselves as the true champions of the anti-war wing of the party.

By Norman Solomon

Two years from now, Hillary Clinton might be pleased to hear the kind
of boos and antiwar chants that greeted her in mid-June when she spoke at
the annual Take Back America conference of Democratic activists and argued
against a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. But so much of politics is
about timing. And right now, Clinton is facing a serious problem of
premature triangulation.

By Paul Quintanilla

When a new administration finally arrives (if we have a new administration in 2009) it will have a hell of a job reversing the national mood and overall national psyche. That is, if it wants to.

As a rule, new administrations offers some continuance. President Reagan, however, was an exception. He purposefully lunged the country toward the far right. He had a powerful and growing base. And now Bush and his neocon philosophs and business associates have taken the country a step further. There is even speculation today that we may have actually tipped, or are about to tip, into an American form of fascism. Some form of a nativist corporate oligarchy which pretty much runs the show. And it does so with a great deal of fear driven compliance from the American people. George Bush should feel completely at home in such a world.

By Rep. Major R. Owens, www.huffingtonpost.com

One negative reaction to "Where Bush Leads In the Polls: The Donocracy," my commentary two weeks ago, was a warning that any money-centered movement risks immediate corruption. Outright pilfering is not feared; it is the power broker role that must be assumed by any entity dispensing funds to worthy candidates. There is fear of a new set of Donor Barons on the left. If the small contributors behave similarly to the passive shareholders of Wall Street corporations this is certainly a legitimate concern. But the campaign budgets of Progressive Advocates are not as complex as the stock market. And the simple arithmetic of political giving does not require investment bankers and hedge funds. Let the process start with the statistics of the constituent population of each congressional district.

RICHMOND -- James Webb, who worked for President Reagan and later became an outspoken critic of Republican leadership, decisively won Virginia's Democratic Party primary for a seat in the U.S. Senate Tuesday.

Webb, 60, defeated former technology lobbyist Harris Miller and won the right to challenge formidable Republican incumbent Sen. George Allen in the Nov. 7 general election. Allen, a former governor, is considering a 2008 presidential campaign and already has raised $11.6 million for his Senate re-election bid.

By Jonathan Tasini
http://www.huffingtonpost.com

I don't know whether to be appalled or just saddened by the blatant act of censorship and strong-armed tactics employed by the so-called progressives of the Campaign for America's Future--tactics that we would deplore if they were used by Republican political operatives.

Yesterday, a few hearty real progressive souls--those not seduced by the need to cater to the powerful--tried to exercise something progressives talk about all the time: free speech.

By David Swanson

Eli Pariser introduced Russ Feingold this morning, who was cheered with "Run, Russ, Run!" as he arrived, and who received four standing ovations just during the introduction and many, many more during his speech. When Pariser mentioned Feingold's vote against the Patriot Act, his vote against the war, and his plan to end the war, the crowd rose and cheered.

Peace Activists at Hillary Clinton's Speech Try to Take Back "Take Back America"
By MEDEA BENJAMIN

The Take Back America conference, an annual event held in Washington DC this year from June 12-14, is supposed to be a venue for prominent progressives to gather and debate the major issues of our day. Their aim is to "provide the nation with new vision, new ideas and new energy." But choosing New York Senator and probable presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as a keynote speaker and then stifling dissent against her pro-war position hardly seems the stuff of a new vision for America.

By JOHN MACHACEK, http://www.thejournalnews.com

WASHINGTON — While she has built a campaign war chest with significant support from small donors, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has found that help also comes from unlikely places far removed from grass-roots America.

In December, New York City investment banker Jeffrey Volk, a lifelong conservative Republican who worked in the Nixon White House, rounded up some of his like-minded friends to raise more than $100,000 for Clinton at a Scarsdale home.

By William Hughes

Baltimore, MD - On Saturday afternoon, June 10, 2006, Ralph Nader, a 3rd Party candidate for the presidency in 2004, spoke at a political rally, held in a conference room at the U. of Baltimore’s Langsdale Library. (1) The primary purpose of the affair was to boost the candidacy of Kevin Zeese, who is running as an Independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. In 2004, Zeese served as Nader’s press secretary. (2)

TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press

LA CROSSE, Wis. - A trio of Democrats hoping to win northeastern Wisconsin's open congressional seat blasted Washington politics during speeches at the party's state convention Saturday, accusing Republicans of attacking Americans' quality of life and calling for an end to the war in Iraq.

Steve Kagen, Nancy Nusbaum and Jamie Wall will face off in a Democratic primary in September for the 8th Congressional District seat.

Senator gets rousing reception at convention
By David Callender, http://www.madison.com

LA CROSSE -- Wisconsin Democrats will need to do more than tap popular discontent with President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress if they want to win this fall's elections, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold told a cheering audience at the state Democratic Party Convention on Friday.

Democrats will not win "if we play it safe," said Feingold, who has staked out some of the boldest positions in the U.S. Senate by voting against the war in Iraq, calling for a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops there and proposing that lawmakers censure the president for his domestic spying programs.

By Steve Moyer

Republicans believe in good and evil. They know they are doing evil and that's why they refuse to honestly investigate anything. Nancy Pelosi, the presumptive leader of the Democrats, has said that Democrats should NOT pursue impeachment. But she's missing the point. The Republicans KNOW they have been doing evil. The Democrats seem to think good and evil are secondary to polls, popular opinion, and political strategy.

By David Swanson

A new study by Stan Greenberg and James Carville of Democracy Corps reports on polling and makes recommendations to Democratic Congressional candidates, including this:

"As a starting point, challengers must continue to nationalize the elections around Bush and whether to continue Bush’s direction. That is where the desire for change is growing the most: the percentage who strongly support going in a significantly different direction rather than continuing Bush’s has risen to 55 percent, the highest level ever in our polling. Clearly, the public is losing confidence in Bush on every indicator with just 38 percent now viewing him favorably on a personal level and only 21 percent strongly approving of his performance in office, both new lows.

www.democracynow.org

[Tasini and Winograd speak up for impeachment. Lamont uses the fear-of-Cheney excuse to wimp out.]

The 2006 mid-term elections are just five months away. In the Senate, close to three-dozen seats are up for grabs, while all 435 seats are open in the House. Democrats hope growing public discontent with the Bush administration will help them win control of Congress from the Republicans. But some of this year's most heated races won't just come down to Republicans vs. Democrats - or Independents - in November. Rather, in primaries this week and continuing through the summer, some of the country's closely-watched races will pit Democrats - against Democrats. And there's one main issue that's creating the fault line: the war in Iraq.

By David Swanson

Nominal leader of the Democrats in Congress Nancy Pelosi, following talking points produced by the Republican National Committee, recently told her fellow Dems to keep impeachment off the table. This past weekend, the Democratic Parties in Maine, New Hampshire, and (on Memorial Day weekend) Hawaii passed resolutions demanding impeachment. This, of course, raises the question: Whose table is it, Nancy?

BY STEVEN THOMMA, Knight Ridder Newspapers

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Anti-war and anti-Bush fervor is growing among rank and file Democrats, threatening to pull the party to the left and creating a rift between increasingly belligerent activists and the party's leaders in Washington.

Many outside-the-Beltway Democrats want the party to turn forcefully against the war in Iraq and to investigate, censure or even impeach President Bush should the party win control of Congress this fall.