I got a call this morning from a WNY Congressman who wanted to talk about the health care bill and about the mobs of teabagging nutjobs descending upon the in-district events of Dems across the country. I told him to be ready because they are nuts, they are loud and they are indeed coming.
Check out the pro-life nutters who showed up to heckle the recently cancer diagnosed Senator Chris Dodd. They think he should "treat" his cancer with painkillers and whiskey.
Really.
The first thing i told that caller this morning was "get video."
Senator Chris Dodd was the candidate I was supporting and now he's dropped out of the race. Dodd was not only talking about leadership, he was actually showing the rest of the field how it was done.Time and time again, when real leadership on issues of immense importance was needed, Chris Dodd stepped up. Here he thanks the people of Iowa as well as the netroots and then withdraws from the race with class and grace. Compare this to the 'Joementum!', "three way tie for third place" nonsense from another Connecticut senator four years ago. Chris Dodd, unlike that other senator, leaves the race with his honor and dignity intact.
I guess I'm looking for a new candidate. Who do you think I should support?
(I want to actively encourage you to post your own candidate endorsements. Tell us who you are supporting and make the case. I will post them to the front page. I'll be posting my own shortly. ILJ gets us off to a great start with this eloquent and reasoned argument for John Edwards. - promoted by phillip anderson)
Warning, this is a long post. It's long because supporting a presidential candidate for me is deeply personal. It's not simply deciding which candidate I will pull the lever for in the privacy of a voting booth. Rather I approach the decision as an activist and ask myself: after weighing all the virtues and flaws of the declared candidates on whose behalf am I willing to devote my free time?
In my darker moments I'll ask myself, "Do any of these lying corporatist whores deserve my support? Why bother with any of them?" The ship has long sailed on my days of being a "true believer."
Rudy Giuliani, after being confronted by some fire fighters in Des Moines about his phony 9/11 record, ran away like the awesome tough guy he really is. Unfortunately, there was no press present and there isn't any video. (damn it!) The fire fighters, from the International Association of Fire Fighters, who have endorsed Senator Chris Dodd, tell the pathetic tale:
Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-05) is in Iowa campaigning for Senator Dodd. He tells us why on the flip...
Connecticut Senator, and presidential candidate Chris Dodd will take the floor of the Senate this afternoon to defend our Constitution against the lawlessness of the Bush administration and his corporate cronies, as well as a Democratic Majority Leader seemingly hell bent to pass truly terrible bill before the Christmas break. The fact that Senator Dodd, a member of the majority caucus, who has long signaled that he would put a "hold" on the bill, will have to do undertake the first actual filibuster in 15 years this afternoon, is enough to make one's head spin. This is not what being in the Senate majority was supposed to be about. He won't be alone though. 14 Senators, including our own junior Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, have expressed their support for Dodd's strong stand against this travesty. Senators Kennedy and Feingold have gone as far as to promise to join his filibuster today on the floor of the US Senate.
Senator Clinton has the biggest megaphone in Democratic politics, if not in American public life. She also wants to be our next President. Standing up to protect our Constitution is literally the least she could do to show the nation that, should she actually become our next President, she will take the oath of office, the one that states that a president, "will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States", with a clean conscience. The time for real leadership is now. Today. This very minute. Not January of 2009.
If you'd like to ask Senator Clinton if she will stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law, you can reach her Senate office here:
(202) 228-0282
And while we're at it, will Senators Biden and Obama take a stand as well?
In a preview of Senator Dodd's filibuster this afternoon, he's addressing the Senate at this very moment. It is a powerful, sober and profound speech. You can read the entire text as it was prepared for delivery on the flip. I can't urge you strongly enough to read the whole damn thing.
UPDATE: Video of the entire speech is on the flip as well.
Courtesy of the Chris Dodd campaign, the Talk Clock returns for today's Democratic debate in Iowa, the last debate before the Iowa Caucus on January 3rd.
Yesterday was the filing deadline for candidates wishing to appear on New York's Feb 5th Primary ballot. It appears that all Dems but Gravel and Dodd submitted petitions. Only Clinton and Obama appear to have collected enough signatures in all of New York's CDs to qualify for full slates of delegates statewide.
Here are the totals of pages submitted by candidate:
Hillary Clinton: 4961
Barack Obama: 2872
John Edwards: 1864
Joe Biden: 894
Dennis Kucinich: 563
Bill Richardson: 352
The folks at the Dodd Campaign are rolling out their famous "Talk Clock" again for tonight's Democratic Debate in Las Vegas.
And in a pretty cool and thoroughly geeky new twist, you can actually watch Dodd's campaign staff live from their HQ and even chat with them and others during the debate.
I'm sure many of you are following the debate over a new bill in the Senate that would, among other things, grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies that most likely aided and abetted President Bush's blatantly illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of tens of millions of Americans. Yesterday we heard word that my favorite candidate to replace the "decider" guy, Senator Chris Dodd, was planning to place a "hold" on the bill if it contained that immunity language and that Majority Leader Reid might ignore that hold, something virtually unprecedented.
Are you willing to go to the mat to restore the Constitution?
Just last night, we heard there are plans to disregard Senator Dodd's intention to place a hold on a FISA bill that includes amnesty for telecommunications companies.
That would be a pretty extraordinary move, but Chris Dodd has pledged to stop this horrible bill any way he can.
So if the hold is not honored, he is prepared to go to the Senate floor and filibuster.
Rolling back the Bush Administration assault on the rule of law has been a major focus of Chris Dodd's work in the Senate - and it's also a centerpiece in his campaign for President.
There are FOUR US Senators seeking the Democratic nomination for President. Only ONE of them has shown the guts to stand up say "enough." That's leadership.
Of course, it shouldn't have to be this way. It's dismaying to say the least that Senate Democrats seem so eager to reward lawlessness. That's why Senator Dodd's pledge to "go to the mat" is so inspiring. My good friend Justin Krebs just made this observation over at the Working Assets blog
It would be ironic if in this Senate -- in which the GOP's threat of filibuster has killed major majority-supported bills without them ever actually filibustering -- the first filibuster is mounted by a Democrat.
The other Democrats in the Senate, not just the others running for president, should be following Senator Dodd's lead on this one.
San Francisco: Will you join Sen. Chris Dodd's hold and proposed filibuster on any FISA bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecoms? Thanks for joining us for this chat today, Sen. Biden, and thanks for the leadership you provide the Democratic Party and America.
Last night's debate brought the issue of residual forces in Iraq to the front and center Democratic presidential campaign. The candidates presented their differing views on whether or not they would have all us troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term in office -- 2013 -- six years from now.
Sadly, there was little difference between the "top tier" candidates, as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards all said they will not have ended our involvement in Iraq by 2013.
The top-tier candidates all agreed last night that the Iraq war is only half over--that if elected President, each will continue the U.S. occupation and U.S. combat operations inside Iraq until at 2013. This means that the official Democratic position is now that the Iraq war will be a ten-year war.
Now, I strongly disagree with Feldman that waiting until 2013 is the "official Democratic position." It is only the consensus position held by the three front-running candidates.
It is not Chris Dodd's official position. Nor is it the position of millions of Democrats and anti-war activists who are fighting to end the war today.
Dodd made his stance crystal clear in this exchange with moderator Tim Russert:
Tim Russert: I want to put you on the record. Will you pledge as Commander in Chief that you have all troops out of Iraq by January of 2013?
Last night's debate made it abundantly clear that while there exists a consensus among the "top tier" of Democratic presidential that they won't be committed to end the war by 2013, there is an alternative: Chris Dodd. Dodd is the only candidate who's fighting to pass legislation to cut off funding for the war now while committing to get our troops out of Iraq in his first term in office if he can't succeed legislatively before then.
If you want to end the war in Iraq and if you have been a supporter of Barack Obama, John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton, I'd like to take this opportunity to invite you to join the Dodd Squad. You'll have a candidate who stands with you in your desire about ending the war and you will never, ever have to apologize for him pledging to keep US troops in Iraq for six more years.
I'm still stuck in dead laptop hell and the world keeps on turning. Today is a big day in the US Senate for the restoration of habeas corpus. (I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I just had to actually type those words...) The folks at the Chris Dodd Campaign have Launched a great site called Restore Habeas and it includes this nifty tool that allows citizens to assemble their own whip count on the vote.
Very, very cool.
UPDATE: Just got this via email:
Yesterday, we wrote to you about our Habeas Corpus Restoration Act
which is currently being debated on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
Thanks so much to the thousands of you who have already signed on as
citizen co-sponsors, helping us build momentum for this critical
legislation!
Unfortunately, a number of Republican Senators are once again trying
to block our efforts by threatening to filibuster our amendment.
There's going to be a vote on the bill that could come as soon as
Wednesday -- that's tomorrow -- to try to beat back their filibuster,
and we'll need 60 votes to do it.
Three cheers for Chris Dodd. Dodd will appear on "The Felafel O'Reilly Factor" tomorrow night to defend YearlyKos and the blogsophere in general from the bizarre crusade launched recently by everyone's least favorite perv.
Dem Presidential candidate Chris Dodd has agreed to go on Bill O'Reilly's show to defend YearlyKos against O'Reilly's ongoing assault against the gathering and against DailyKos, Dodd's spokesperson confirmed to Election Central.
The move is significant because it will make Dodd the first Presidential candidate to personally appear on a leading right-wing show for the explicit purpose of defending the liberal blogosphere. It's got to be seen as a sign of the times -- and of current shifts in Democratic politics -- that a Presidential candidate would view such an appearance in defense of Kos' liberal blogging community and the netroots in general as an asset to a Presidential campaign.
Dodd's spokesperson, Hari Sevugan, tells Election Central that the Senator will hit O'Reilly hard for his smear tactic of selecting a few isolated comments out of literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of comments to smear the whole site and the netroots in general.
"Democrats aren't going to be lectured to by Bill O'Reilly about the crudeness of language," Sevugan says. "Senator Dodd will point out O'Reilly's hypocrisy in singling out a handful of these comments and talking about how extreme they are when many of the comments O'Reilly himself has made have been equally extreme and disturbing."
...
That Dodd would see the potential for political gain in such a move is representative of a larger development in Campaign 2008 that we've noted here before: The more and more frequent use by the Dem campaigns of aggressive pushback against right wing media figures, on behalf of themselves and others, to appeal to Dem primary voters in general and the netroots in particular. We've already seen Bill Clinton's on-air criticism of Fox News' Chris Wallace, the Edwards' campaign's repeated attacks on Ann Coulter, and the Dem boycotts of the Fox-sponsored debates.
And now Dodd's appearance on O'Reilly. The Dodd campaign -- like the other campaigns -- has aggressively courted the lib blogosphere, defending YearlyKos early on and signing up with the Reid-Feingold Iraq withdrawal amendment, among other things.
Well done, Senator Dodd.
It really is pretty amazing when you think about it. As my Dark Overlord Markos put it yesterday:
I want to point something else out here, however. Take a look at what's happening. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, a multi-kajillion dollar company, is having to battle us. And they're having to do it as equals. They're a giant, well-financed corporation: we're a damn collection of websites and grassroots groups. We took away their ability to host Democratic presidential debates: they struck back by launching an on-air battle against one of the YearlyKos sponsors.
They've launched themselves into a pathetic tit-for-tat, now choosing to take time out of their busy schedule of lying about the news to making conservatives feel better about themselves in order to start lying about us, because we're finally to the point where we're starting to threaten their abilities to get away with their manipulative, hatemongering crap -- redbaiting, anti-patriotic blubbering that went out of style decades ago among all Americans but the most trembling and fear-driven and bigoted. They're battling us on equal terms because they have to. And by mere virtue of that fact, we're winning.
To think that this movement would have grown so in such a short period of time to the point that we warrant the attention of a MEGACORP like FAUX is pretty stunning. And we are winning. We are winning because people like Chris Dodd, a man who is running for president, fer chrissakes, aren't taking it anymore. They are calling BS on this crap and people are listening. The days where blowhards like Felafel Boy could shoot their mouths off unchecked, where they could bully progressives with no consequences, where they hogged the mic, are over, friends.
Some one asked for more video of New Yorkers here at Take Back America and I'm going to give you some. Of me. Because to day is all about shedding anonymity and all, right? A little while ago, a friend of mine who is working for Chris Dodd's campaign asked me about the state of the Dem primary and I responded with "Why not Dodd?"
Senator Chris Dodd is conducting a live streamed pre debate event and you can see the stream below. As has been mentioned elsewhere, Senator Dodd's campaign really "gets" retail internet politicking and they are doing a hell of a job at local blogger outreach. How can you tell? You can tell by the fact that I'm posting the stream of this event. The feed starts at 2:45 pm EST. Check it out:
One of the coolest developments in web video as of late is a super cool tool called Ustream. It allows just about anyone to stream live video anywhere, anytime. It also allows users to embed that stream just about anywhere.
Today will be remembered as a red letter day in the evolution of Ustream. First, Senator Chris Dodd will be using to speak live from New Hampshire at 10:30 AM EST. I am embedding the stream right here at TAP.
Later, Howie Klein will be using the tool to interview John Laesch and maybe Eric Massa over at Firedoglake. (I'm still trying to figure out if Eric will be live as well.)
OK, I'm sure everyone knows by now my friend Matt is working for Senator Dodd and all, but this really is a great ad. I'm going to be posting lots of ads from all the candidates as they come online much like MYDD's "adwatch" of last year. I'm curious to know what you think about this ad as well as others to be posted later. Me? I think this spot strikes a great tone, one very much in line with what the last year and a half or so of polls have told us about where the American public's mind is as regards President Bush. They are saying "This has gone on long enough. Stand up to this guy. Please."
By the way, I have not chosen a candidate for the primary and this posting, or any future posting of candidate ads should not be construed as an endorsement. OK?
Why do I say this? Well, because Senator Dodd's campaign made a really smart hire last week when they hired a good friend of mine, the very bright and extremely talented Matt Browner Hamlin to work on Dodd's internet/blog/online communications operation. Matt has spent the past couple of years writing all over the nets about politics and activism and recently co-founded the excellent The Right's Field, a site documenting the nuttiness of the 2008 GOP presidential hopefuls. You may also know Matt from his work on one of the best state blogs in the nation, the truly fantastic My Left Nutmeg of Connecticut. You might even know Matt's work at the Huffington Post.
Matt is one of a growing class of political professionals that tend defy the impulse of establishment campaign players to define. Matt, like many of this new crop of campaign pros, is proficient in a number of disciplines that have been historically highly specialized and possesses a number of skills that are literally only months old. Matt brings a hybrid of political and new media skills to the table that few of the established consultant class can match. The Dodd campaign is damn lucky to have him. And today is his first day on the job.
I wanted to tell you about what I'll be doing for the Dodd campaign. As you can tell, we've just launched a redesigned version of ChrisDodd.com. I've joined the campaign to help add content to the site so that Senator Dodd's supporters will know what he and his campaign staff are doing as it's happening. I'll be traveling with Senator Dodd on his campaign trips. My blog posts will aim to give readers a window into the Dodd campaign - what we're doing, where we're going, and what Senator Dodd is talking about.
But my job will go far beyond writing about the campaign. As I travel with Senator Dodd around America, I'll be posting videos from the trail. Lots of video. We're going to be doing exciting things with live streaming web video that will provide viewers an insiders look into what Senator Dodd is doing. This campaign is going to be transparent in real time because we believe that the more people get to know Senator Dodd, the more they will like him.
Good luck, Matt, and all the best to Senator Dodd.
