Two more rats desert the sinking GOP ship

In the last two days, two more GOP Congressmen have announced that they will be retiring. Less than 24 hours after we learned that Rep. Jim Walsh (NY-25) was stepping down after 20 years in congress, Representative Dave Weldon of Florida announced he will not seek reelection.

In both districts the Democrats have very good chances of picking up the seats. Both incumbents barely hung on to their seats in recent election cycles. In 2004 Weldon's district went decisively for Bush, but the incumbent Congressman won with a smaller percentage of the vote against an underfunded opponent.

We are getting closer and closer to occupying the position I have taken for a while now...Fuck the Presidency.

Help Kay Bury Graves!

[UPDATED BELOW]

Missouri is a true swing state - in every one of the seven presidential elections that have occurred in my lifetime, Missouri has gone to the victor. Our eleven electoral votes in 2000 would have spared the entire world the Bush maladministration, and that election hinged on a mere 80,000 votes. The Republicans had those votes because they had the GOTV playbook and we didn't yet have the netroots. We saw the playing field even considerably in 2006. Turns out, people trust us more.

Missouri's federal delegation is as divided as it can be using whole numbers. We have one Senator on each side of the aisle, and we have a 5-4 split in the House, advantage Republicans.

That could change in 2008. In the Missouri Sixth, an honest-to-Galileo swing district in this swing state - the Republican incumbent, Sam Graves, faces a real challenger in Kay Barnes and he is running scared. Kay is lapping him without breaking a sweat on donations from individuals, and he is so desperate he has Dick Cheney coming to Kansas City for a $10,000 a plate fundraiser. He is a dirty campaigner, the money raised will buy a barrage of attack ads.

To counter that obscenity, I want to show support for Kay by raising money for her online. To that end, I established an ActBlue donation page for Her Honor the Mayor. It is in everyones interest to extend the Democratic majorities in the house if we really want to take back our country and restore Democracy and Liberty to the citizenry. If you are able to contribute a couple of bucks, you can do so by clicking here and making a secure on-line donation.

Thanks a bunch!

On this one, you can sign me ---

BG, a daughter of the Sixth whose roots via one grandparent go back farther in Missouri history than the Sixth itself.


UPDATE: It is 7:00 p.m. Yeah, the Chiefs lost, but honestly, I couldn't care less - it's just an excuse to hang out with a couple of my adult children. If my son wants to hang with the 'rents on a Sunday afternoon, I'm not passing it up. This liberal has real family values. As in - I value my family.

Sorry - it's election season. I can't help myself.

I have decided that I am waging a five-dollar donation campaign for Kay this week.

To play along at home, go to the ActBlue donation page and donate $5.08 - the .08 is vote of solidarity for the netroots. We are taking a beating right now by the bleating right in the M$M - because we are a threat to their continued existence as Very Serious People, and they are afraid that we will expose the practitioners of High Broderism as the intellectually dishonest frauds and agenda whores they are. We are a threat because we do not pay homage to the Moustache of Understanding. We are the ones screaming because ObL is still free - so when he rants, they says he sounds like one of us?

What the fuck is that all about?

WHY HAVEN'T YOU FUCKERS CAUGHT HIM YET???

Anyway - I believe it is in everyones best interest to replace loyal Bush Dog Graves with Kay Barnes. We are in a very tenuous time. As no one ever solved a problem by applying even more of the same sort of thinking that got them into trouble in the first place to it, what we need in 2008 is a total reversal. That means strengthening our majorities in the House and in the Senate to make them obstruction-proof. That means at least 60 in the Senate, and preferably 66.

It also means enough Democrats that they can keep the inevitable Democratic president in check. Of the Democratic candidates, Richardson, Kucinich and Gravel are the only ones that are on the record that they will restore our civil liberties.

Nobody else is offering to surrender the powers aWol usurped.

Not Hillary.

Not Barack.

Not even Edwards.

Only Richardson, Kucinich and Gravel.

If we want a liberal approach to return to government to fix the massive fuckups - and we can't elect FDR or Truman - we have to have a solid majority in both houses in order that we can control the presidency, no matter who holds it.

Checks and balances can - and should - be viewed through more than one lens, you know.

Veto proof Democratic majorities in both chambers are the only way we can guarantee the restoration of the Constitution and Bill of Rights; and the Great Writ, Habeas Corpus when the next president takes office. If the next president doesn't undo this damage to your rights and mine, that damage will be permanent.

Since I want the republic the founders gave us, I am supporting Democrats in as many races as possible. In the case of Kay...It's all about home.

I am appealing especially to my blue-state brethren - Please help us take a major step toward the restoration of liberty by supporting her candidacy, and as many other real Democrats as you can afford to help in the fight to take a Republican seat.

Thank You.

Update II: If you have trouble with the ActBlue donation link in the post, try the one in the Left sidebar.

Stay tuned...it's gonna be worth the wait...

This is a very busy time for me. First of all, we are doing some facelift stuff at WTWC. I spent one entire day fighting code to install Blogads (the "Advertising Liberally" folks) on that site. I was the first person to install it after some sort of server issue or upgrade or something. When I finally got the code, I first got typepad. Lets just say that didn't work and leave it at that, because I would need quite a lot of Glenmorangie 18-year-old Scotch, so vicious would be the flashback to htm-hell, if I get into that - and Costco is closed this time of night. We are also adding a custom masthead and some other professional-looking features since we have moved up a rung and are getting linked consistently by "A-list" political blogs. I have sort of morphed into something of an “Editor in Chief” over there (teach me to have an idea and act on it, huh?) Anyway, the responsibilities there have been enough to keep me busy all by themselves.

But it doesn’t stop there – hell that doesn’t even register as a speed bump!

The second thing is a new site that will be rolling out in a few days - I'll have more to say about that in a day or two when it is a wee bit closer - anyway, I have agreed to try my hand at media relations for this noble cause, and as such, I have been applying myself to getting ready for the task soon to be at hand. Since the focus is Missouri politics, specifically getting Missouri Democrats elected, I have been studying up on the importance of my state in the electoral scheme of things. After all, if I'm gonna do this thing, I'm gonna do it right.

It's a strange sensation, to suddenly feel a sense of permanence. (I assume that is what this is.) I have bounced billet to billet to college to college to billet to billet to billet...Then, one day, seven years ago it stopped. We sort of looked at one another and said “What now?” and we came to the last place he called home and I latched on like Ed Sawyer. My husband grew up just blocks from where we now live. He attended elementary through high school walking distance from the front door of our building. Me? I had grandparents who farmed in the MO 6^th but I was only there once or twice a year. I voted there, however, mostly absentee, even after I got married, until I had kids. Then I voted where ever we were stationed – you do that when your kids are in the schools. (Ask Nancy Boyda how that fact worked out for her last November. My claim to punditry fame is calling that race from day one, because I understand the military vote and what motivates it.)

Anyway, I guess this is it. I’m here, and I have been for almost seven years. That is longer than I have ever been one place in my life. (Although we were in Wichita three times and if you go cumulative, KC has a couple of years to go.)

Don't get the wrong idea - this is all perfectly cool with yours truly. Hell, this is where the fight is, and I have family ties going back six generations in this state via one set of grandparents. I even had the foresight to be born a few weeks early while the folks were on leave and visiting my Missouri grandparents.

It was Karma, I tell ya.

Anyway – like I said, I’m here now, and I’m staying here, and I am of the species animalius politicus, When you look at the big picture, where the hell else would a political animal even want to be in 2008?

Missouri has what amounts to a Governor’s Mansion up for grabs, so weak is baby guv. We also have a 5/4 split in the U.S. House with Republicans currently enjoying the majority, but that could change. Missouri also has a Republican Party in turmoil. We are possibly on the verge of a split between the sane and insane branches of the Republican Party. The sane branch is led by former Governor and current Senior Senator Kit Bond, and the insane branch is led by the Blunt/Graves unholy marriage of minions to ideologues. A civil war is brewin in the MOGOP, and I am calling the play by play, what with having intermittently had front row seats for the Kansas Republican Party psychodrama that has unfolded over the last two decades.

With eleven electoral votes, two major cities led by Democratic mayors, an evenly split Senate delegation, a House delegation split as closely as an odd number can be using whole numbers, a Republican governor in trouble and facing a strong Democratic challenger in the states Attorney General (traditionally a springboard to the mansion – and no senate race this cycle – Missouri is crucial. All eyes need to be fixed on us, and Democrats from border to border and coast to coast need to adopt a Missouri Democratic candidate and support them to the best of their ability. (I will be defending this thesis shortly.)

Anyway – That is what I have been up to – I promise I haven’t abdicated – exactly the opposite in fact. We are entering the election season, whether you like it or not. The game is afoot and I came to play.

No, let me rephrase that...I didn’t just come to play – I came to win.

If You Liked Her as the Mayor, You'll LOVE Her in Congress!

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Meet my Beloved Mayor. Her name is Kay Barnes. She will be exiting city hall gracefully after two wildly successful terms in office on May 1, leaving on a high note with a popularity rating that has been phenomenally high all eight years she has been in office. Her success in office is evidenced by the cranes punctuating the skyline, and the revitalized downtown.

She is going to take Sam Graves seat away from him in November 2008, and then KC will have two former mayors in the Congress.

I simply find it a wholly intolerable situation that Sam Graves (R MO 06) has a seat in congress in the first place. The word 'apostasy' seems an understatement when applied to that situation. The man is an embarrassment to Missourians and an offense to decent, thinking people everywhere. He is not our finest offering; that is certain. Since election night 2000, I have been plotting his political demise from the district to the south.

I live and vote in the Missouri 05/State Senate 10. My zip code is the bluest Missouri has to offer. My zip code is literally – and figuratively – as far left as the state goes. I want this blue tint to spread, because we have it pretty damned good, and I think all my fellow residents should be so fortunate. Being a liberal, I want to share, not just hoard the good stuff for myself. In this case the good stuff is responsive and responsible Democrats elected to office. Part of that good stuff I want to share is Kay Barnes.

I always have an eye cast toward future elections. When Kay Barnes sold her Ward Parkway mansion and moved north of the river a couple of years ago, I took note. She moved from the Missouri 05 to the Missouri 06. The 05 is solidly Democratic and currently represented by Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver II – Mayor Barnes predecessor at City Hall. A congressional bid in the 05 after her wildly successful time in the mayors office would have most likely involved a primary challenge to a sitting Democrat. Why would she do that when she could gain a seat for the Democrats and unseat an embarrassing stereotype in the process?

Graves has not had any serious competition since taking his seat. Sarah Jo Shettles earned the endorsement of the KC Star in the 06 midterms, but she garnered less than 40% of the vote.

Kay Barnes would not be such an easy opponent. And with vast personal wealth, she would be able to push back in the media against the Graves slime machine. Prime Graves: His opponent in November, Ms. Shettles, once sold advertising for Omni magazine. Because Bob Guiccioni owned Omni, he charged that she had worked for the porn industry. He is a typical right-wing bully, and his low-rent tactics would wither in the face of a pro like Barnes.

The Missouri 06 is largely rural, covering area from KC North all the way to the Iowa line, and reaching east to within a hundred miles of Illinois. Vast – but empty. The population growth that is happening in the MO-06 is all happening in Kay Barnes neighborhood – or Kansas City North.

She will go into the race with higher name recognition than anyone he has yet faced, perhaps with name recognition higher than Mr. Graves himself. Additionally, there has been very little negative reporting about Kay Barnes in the entire eight years she has been Mayor.

This is the race that will turn Missouri purple, after too-long in the red. It will shift Missouri’s nine-member House delegation to 5 Democrats and 4 Republicans. Our Senate delegation is split, and will be for the foreseeable future (McCaskill, Democrat, just elected in Class I and Kit Bond, Republican, Class III).

The Washington Post agrees with me:

The district's electoral history suggests the potential for real competitiveness. Although President Bush won the 6th relatively easily in 2000 and 2004, Sen. Claire McCaskill showed that the district's voters are willing to vote for the right Democrat. After losing the district by more than 20 points in her 2004 gubernatorial race, McCaskill narrowly carried it in 2006 over incumbent Sen. Jim Talent (R).

The Virginia Tech massacre turned the spotlight last week to gun control, a political hot potato that has been dormant in recent years on the national stage. But cross a presidential campaign with the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and you're going to get a gun debate -- another volatile wedge issue to define the crowded 2008 field.

Mayor Barnes will have credibility on the gun issue – KC has a lot of gun crime, and she and her Mayor Pro Tem Alvin Brooks have been effective on the issue on the local level. Her experience as a mayor of a large, urban area with a gun problem will be an asset, and the events of the last week have primed the long-overdue debate.

One thing is for sure – a farmer in Mercer County that hunts deer, quail and pheasant – and who sends the kids off to one of the state schools at Columbia or Springfield or Maryville or Warrensburg – is not identifying with the image of the V-Tech shooter staring into the camera, brandishing his guns and babbling incoherently. They more likely identify with the parents of the victims. Kay Barnes has dealt with the issue in real-time. Sam Graves has, for the last six years, offered mealy-mouthed platitudes and pablum.