OR-Sen: Twenty Twenties for Jeff Merkley

Done.

Way to go, Jeff! Happy to help, Guru.

youngbuckbear

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by: youngbuckbear @ Wed May 21, 2008 at 16:03:42 PM CDT

Thanks YBB

Much appreciated!

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by: Senate Guru @ Wed May 21, 2008 at 16:20:02 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Hard to find a more deserving candidate

I was lucky enough to intern during the Legislative session and got to watch Speaker Merkley work.  You won't find a better progressive coalition builder out there.

I already tapped out to Jeff in the primary so please people give generously

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by: bdunn @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 14:20:43 PM CDT

OK

I just gave a Jackson for you! Good luck Merkley!

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by: politics64 @ Thu Jun 05, 2008 at 13:51:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

By All Means Give....

It will be very important to Jeff Merkley's campaign that a lot of you out of state folks get behind him financially since there are a whole bunch of us Steve Novick Oregonians who are so infuriated by the attitudes and behavior of many of Speaker Merkley's supporters before, during, and after the election that we're going to be sitting on our hands, our wallets, and our votes.

And I suspect that Senator Schumer will feel the several hundred thousand dollars he has already spent in support of the Speaker in the primary is as good as it's gonna get.

P.S. To be fair, bdunn above has not been one of those people.

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by: LarryMcD @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 14:49:26 PM CDT

Mississippi-B - Wicker v. Musgrove

First off there is a new poll out in Mississippi done by R2K for DailyKos. Results are:

Wicker: 46 (47)
Musgrove: 42 (39)

Results are better than the one R2K conducted a while ago and are within the poll's margin of error.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo...

This compares to the DSCC poll that showed Musgrove ahead by 8.

http://www.dscc.org/news_item?...

It is important to note, however, that in November, in Mississippi, each candidates party affiliation will NOT be on the ballot.  Only their names will be listed.  This is because it is a special election.  This clearly benefits Musgrove, as it benefited Travis Childers in his special election.  The R2K poll did included party affiliation while the DSCC poll did not include party affiliation.  R2K will omit party affiliation next time the poll is conducted.

Another important thing to note is that Musgrove only got 73% of the black vote while 18% were undecided.  With Obama on the ballot with Musgrove, Musgrove should get a far larger share of the black vote and there should be a far larger turnout.  Hopefully Musgrove can get about 90% of the black vote.

The point is, is that Mississippi-B is clearly a toss up and may even be Dem leaning. Cook Political Report's latest senate race ratings confirms this -- they moved Miss-B from lean Rep to toss up.

http://www.cookpolitical.com/r...

Sorry for going off topic Guru.  But, yeah, donate to Merkley (and Musgrove while you are at it!).

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by: Sean @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 22:38:41 PM CDT

Alphabetical again?

In the House race special, the candidates were listed alphabetically. Will that happen in this Senate race special? If so, that's worth a full percentage point right there -- and maybe more than one point.

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by: WoodyinNYC @ Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 18:45:21 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

twenty dollars

I just sent $20 from Indiana......this help make this change.

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by: IndyDem @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 11:09:21 AM CDT

Make it 10 Contributions...

Jeff Merkley (OR-Sen)  $20.00  

I also felt like giving a Twenty to others as well...
Tom Allen (ME-Sen)  $20.00  
Kay Hagan (NC-Sen)  $20.00  
Mark Begich (AK-Sen)  $20.00  

And what the hell, ActBlue needs some loving as well...
ActBlue Federal Tips  $20.00  

I truly believe these four candidates have the ability to take on their GOP opponents in their state and be victorious in November to expand the Democratic Majority in the US Senate (along with Warner-VA, T.Udall-NM, M.Udall-CO, & Shaheen-NH). If those four I just donated to, and the Fantastic Four that are already promising in my mind, win in November, that's a 59-41 DEM majority. And just imagine if say we won Minnesota or Mississippi-B... that's called a super-majority filibuster proof caucus!

I'm excited! I'm more excited about the US Senate races than the presidential and US House combined!

KELL

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by: ryanlkelly @ Sat May 24, 2008 at 11:06:43 AM CDT

Wahoo!

Thanks so much, from all of us here in Oregon.

With a little support and a decent climate, we can take this thing home. Jeff will make such an effective legislator and is a great, committed progressive. It'll be a blast to watch him work in DC -- and to send Gordon Smith BACK to Oregon.

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by: bdupree @ Sat May 24, 2008 at 22:56:07 PM CDT

Expand the map?

You've got 8 candidates now, 8 of 'em. That doesn't expand the map so much as about double it. Maybe you're spreading us a bit too thin here. I'd say Merkley, Hagan, Begich, and Allen will hardly need money from us. Their races are not long shots at all and the DSCC is ready to step in with heavy funding.

I get more excited about a race like Andrew Rice in OK or Larry LaRocco in ID, where our contributions just might help move it up a notch in the rankings. Of course, it's your site, but I'd rather give once a month to one long shot than to give once to every candidate on Chuck Schumer's list.  

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by: WoodyinNYC @ Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 18:55:22 PM CDT

I agree

Many of the candidates on the list are already well financed (Allen) or will be well financed by Schumer (Merkeley, Begich, Hagan).

We should probably be focusing on LaRocco, Rice, Noreiga, and Kleeb.

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by: Sean @ Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 19:56:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I will end up giving to each of those four!

we need to spread the love!

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by: politics64 @ Thu Jun 05, 2008 at 13:53:38 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The Map!!!

I have thought that too.  Places like Maine and Oregon in particular are more about maintaining the map, not particularly expanding it.

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by: sburke72 @ Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 20:38:12 PM CDT

I disagree.

Any state that has a sitting Republican senator, counts as part of the map-expansion.  The presidential level is one thing, but it's the fact that the GOP has its Gordon Smiths and Susan Collinses that keeps us from having the majority we need to pass progressive legislation.  So, expanding the senate map means flipping red seats to blue, whether they're in blue presidential states or red ones.

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by: The Caped Composer @ Mon Jun 02, 2008 at 09:36:44 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Curious notion of expansion

On this site and some others we are used to seeing the races ranked, typically something like Safe Dem, Likely Dem, Lean Dem, Toss-up, Lean Repub, Likely Repub, Safe Repub. The Toss-up and Likely columns get most of the attention and usually most of the money from the DSCC, while the Safe state races get almost no attention or money.

The Map is the map of the contested states. I think many of us viewed the idea of "expanding the Map" to mean moving states to the Likely or Toss-up columns from the Safe column and increasing the number of contested ones. We hope to do this by putting the spotlight on a few races with overlooked potential, and getting the candidates some valuable early outside funding. We hope to also get some mention and attention in the Netroots, in the traditional media, and with the party operatives in D.C. by showing support for these lesser-known races with potential.

We could hope that sending donations to the campaigns of Andrew Rice in Oklahoma or Larry LaRocca in Idaho just might move those races onto the Map of competitive races, out of the column of Safe Repub seats.

Then putting Maine race and Oregon on the list, and then adding the North Carolina race as well -- hey, why not by your definition list every Democratic candidate for every seat held by a Republican? There's 23 of them right? You got 8 on your list already, so you are one third of the way to listing them all.

But now you don't have a spotlight to put on selected races. You have a floodlight on all the races. You can't direct enough money to all 8 of these races to make any splash, and you've lost the sense of discovery and excitement that you had when the list was short and focused.

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by: WoodyinNYC @ Wed Jun 04, 2008 at 22:04:09 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

All of the Democratic Seat except for Landrieu(LA) are safe.

Four Republican Seats are Safe Democratic Pick up
VA-OPEN(Warner)- Senator Elect Mark Warner
NM-OPEN(Domenici)-Senator Elect Tom Udall
NH-(Sununu)- Senator Elect Jeanne Shaheen
CO-OPEN(Allard)- Senator Elect Mark Udall

Republican Seats that are Tossup/Lean collumn
1)Alaska(Stevens)
2)Kentucky(McConnell)
3)Maine(Collins)
4)Minnesota(Coleman)
5)Mississippi(Wicker)
6)North Carolina(Dole)
7)Oregon-(Smith)

The Republican Seats we should target is.
1)Alabama- (Sessions)- Vivian Davis Figures.
2)Georgia-(Chambliss- Jim Martin/Vernon Jones
3)Idaho-(OPEN Craig)- Larry LoRocco
4)Kansas-(Roberts)- Jim Slattery
5)Nebraska-(OPEN-Hagel)-Scott Klebb
6)Oklahoma-(Inhofe)-Andrew Rice
7)Tennessee-(Alexander-Bob Tuke
8)Texas-(Cornyn)-Rick Noriega

In South Carolina- is it enough time to recruit ex Governor  Jim Hodges to challenge Lindsey Graham.  

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by: nkpolitics @ Sat Jun 07, 2008 at 17:50:44 PM CDT

[ Parent ]