Blue Catablog

Mark Warner's PAC, Forward Together, is running an online poll to see who will get their next donations. The top ten vote-getters will each receive $5000 from the PAC for their campaigns.

This was my ballot:




Please sign up (it is free) and place your own votes, and especially support Eric Massa, Chris Carney and Dan Seals.

Last night I attended a House Party for Democratic Candidate Angie Paccione, who is running against Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District. Angie shared with us the results of her new poll and the results were extremely encouraging. The poll shows that 51% of voters in Colorado’s 4th CD believe it is “time for someone new,” and just 34% are firm in their belief that Musgrave should be reelected.

In a head-to-head match-up, Musgrave gets 37% to Angie’s 36% – Basically a toss-up. This is especially interesting since Musgrave has sent out 9 mailings over the past couple of years while Angie has yet to use paid communications. Once voters hear Angie’s bio and compare it to Musgrave’s bio, Angie is up by 5 points. This is definitely a winnable district for Angie and the Democrats.

At the event last night, Angie explained her strategy for winning the district that covers all of Colorado’s eastern border plus areas north and east of Denver. She is engaging the entire district, including a “Tent Tour” of the whole district this summer, where she will give basketball clinics to kids and speak under a tent at night. She is determined to offer a positive agenda for change and not just run against Musgrave’s record. And if you could see Angie talk in person, you would see her enthusiasm for the race and the people of Colorado, as well as her intelligence when considering the various issues presented to her. Plus she is a great listener – she answers the question you ask her and not just the question she wished you had asked.

This race is critical for the Democrats if they want to win control of the House. Musgrave got just 51% of the vote in 2004, and both she and Bush are much less popular this time out. However, for some reason, the DCCC hasn’t fully targeted the race in their Red to Blue Program. Emily’s List has yet to adopt Angie. Our own PAC, Blue Catapult (www.bluecatapult.com) , sponsored last night’s event and gave a small donation to Angie, but to take on Marilyn Musgrave’s $1.2 million cash-on-hand, Angie is going to need an infusion of support to use the Denver media market to counter the expected onslaught from Musgrave, who once again is the House sponsor of the Anti-Gay Marriage amendment in the House.

Angie is a progressive in every sense and is a two-fer: She is right on the issues AND she can win. She got the highest percentage of the vote any Democrat has ever received in her district in her last election for the Colorado legislature so she knows how to campaign and count votes. But the powers that be need to recognize this as a critical race.

In an interview on CNN , Brian Bilbray was asked why he won the race for CA-50, Duke Cunningam's seat. . His response, was that he went full force in opposition to Bush’s immigration policy in the last week of the election. By attacking Bush’s program as amnesty and stating that if he was elected he would fight against the Bush immigration program, that is when he saw his numbers move (I assume he is talking about his internal campaign polling numbers).

I actually agree with Bilbray’s analysis of his own victory. In addition to Francine Busby’s “You don’t need papers to participate” comment, McCain not coming to the district for Bilbray probably played to his advantage in the end. Immigration may become in this election what the “Gay Marriage” issue was in 2004 – and it has the added advantage of helping Republicans distance themselves from Bush in a year where their President is unpopular.

I think Democrats in areas where immigration is a hot-button issue need to learn from this race that they can not support the Bush/Senate proposal whole-heartedly or they will be giving their Republican opponents a key to winning the election. Especially in certain border areas such as metropolitan San Diego, where the Busby-Bilbray race was fought, Democrats need to be careful as to how they address immigration reform.

All this almost makes me think that this is a deliberate strategy on the part of Republicans to find an issue that will give them enough distance from the President so that they can claim independence, but tie Democrats to the President on the same issue. But they aren’t THAT clever… are they?