SHERROD BROWN SCHEDULES SPECIAL BLUE AMERICA SESSION... PLUS UPDATES ON COLEEN ROWLEY AND DONNA EDWARDS

When Sherrod Brown's campaign first got in touch with me, looking for some financial help for their campaign, I told them that I admire Sherrod as a progressive leader with a proven track record and and that I admire his (then) primary opponent, Paul Hackett. I asked if they would allow me to sit out the primary and watch the debate and campaign and contribute to whomever Ohio Democrats selected in their primary. I mean this was never a Lamont v Lieberman race. Paul and Sherrod always seemed like two absolutely great candidates to me. And then along come the anti-grassroots, anti-democracy, Inside the Beltway power-mongers (Schumer and Emanuel and their little rat pack) to knife Paul in the back and drive him out of the race. They also managed to drive right-wing rubber stamp incumbent Mike DeWine's re-elect numbers sky-high.

A lot has changed in Ohio since then. Grassroots Democrats and progressives have gotten over hard feelings and rallied around Sherrod and a couple weeks ago Paul jumped into the race-- not just endorsing Sherrod but committing to a heavy schedule of active, passionate campaigning. If Paul could do it... so can Blue America.

We've scheduled a special session of Blue America featuring Sherrod Brown live on Wednesday, August 16th at 5:30 PM Eastern time (2:30 on the West Coast) at Firedoglake. It's amazing Sherrod can take off any time at all for this. I was going over his schedule and I saw just event after event all over Ohio with Max Cleland and Paul Hackett. Sherrod is doing well in the polls and looks like he'll be trading his House seat for a Senate seat in November, but he isn't leaving anything to chance. His campaign is on full throttle. Please mark next Wednesday in your calendars. Meanwhile, anyone with questions they want me to ask Sherrod in the pre-interview, put them in "comments" today and I'll read them.

A little Blue America update: As I was writing the last paragraph Coleen Rowley called me to congratulation us and to tell me how excited she was about Ned's victory. She's been a big supporter of his, of course, but she was strongly against the war even before Bush manipulated the country into it. She told me she felt that the thrashing Lieberman took last night was an echo of what happened in Minnesota last year when another Bush lackey/fake-Democrat, former St, Paul mayor Randy Kelly got has ass handed to him by St. Paul voters outraged over his endorsement of Bush's catastrophic and destructive policies, especially in Iraq. Coleen reminded me that Chris Coleman beat him by better than 2 to 1 in the general election. "When people told me to tone down my anti-war stance," she told me, "I could see they didn't understand my campaign or why I was running. This isn't just about winning or losing. Iraq and everything around it goes to the heart of what's happening in our country today. Ned's beautiful victory last night showed that people are paying attention."

I had another call too. Howard Dean called to tell me he's a huge Squirrel Nut Zippers fan! Apparently so is Stephanie Miller; she played "Have You Had Enough?" on her morning show today. That reminds me, if you'd like to read why Ricky Lee and why Tom and Ken did the song, I did a story about it here.


Of all the congressional races we've talked about at Blue America the most parallels with Ned's race against Lieberman is Donna Edwards' race against the equally faithless and odious, Liebermanesque Al Wynn. I just got this from Donna not 5 minutes ago:

Encouraged by Lamont's big anti-war, anti-incumbent win, Donna Edwards released her latest hard hitting advertisement to be mailed to voters in the district. The copy of the advertisement, which is a political cartoon by artist and progressive activist Tom Chalkley, explains in simple terms the real Albert Wynn.
 
"Wynn has voted with Republicans on the Iraq War Authorization, the Bush-Cheney Energy Bill, the Bankruptcy Reform Bill,and the Net Neutrality Bill. And wouldn’t you know, over the course of his time in Congress, he has received $233,436 from the telecommunications industry, $288,963 from the energy industry, and $275,298 from the finance industry. It is clear. Wynn is voting on the side of corporate special interests and against the interests of the people of Maryland’s 4th Congressional District."

Sound familiar? Visit Blue America's Act Blue Page-- open 24/7.