Who You Callin' A Battleground State?

As Obama puts away one former battleground state after another, the actual battlegrounds move closer and closer into the center of the Republican heartland. It's like the Nazis being challenged in Bavaria-- or like when Loretta Sanchez kicked Bob Dornan's ass in Orange County, California. Even GOP shill Dick Morris is calling it a landslide; he even claims Arizona is leaning towards Obama! His electoral map is funny-- and the most devastating for McCain I've seen so far. But even when you get to more respcted analysists, "grim" is the only outlook you'll find for Republicans. By the most conservative perspective, Obama is ahead of tied in 10 red states that McCain needs. On top of that New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin were once considered the states where McCain could turn this around. They are all so seep in the pocket for Obama now that McCain knows it's hopeless. So where will the battle be fought for the next two-and-a-half weeks? There are 9 states up in the air. West Virginia is dead even. North Carolina (.9%), Missouri (1.2%), Nevada (3.4%), Ohio (3.4%) and Florida (4.6%) are leaning towards Obama. Indiana (1.8%), Arkansas (2.3%) and North Dakota (4.4%) are leaning towards McCain.

Obama is surging in McCain territory, Georgia, and can still pull it off in Montana. You can see the revulsion for all things Republican spilling over into the congressional races as well. Last night we mentioned that Cook had rejiggered 2 dozen race ratings in favor of House Democrats. Swing State Project has a good rundown of the newest congressional fundraising reports-- which look excellent for Democrats. As the most seriously contested races head into there final 2 weeks, in district after district, Democrats are more than holding their own against an incredible onslaught of corporate money going into GOP warchests meant to protect the special interests of Big Oil and the Wall Street banksters. Let's look at some of the Blue America candidates who are actually beating their GOP opponents in terms of cash on hand:

CA-04- Charlie Brown ($457,000) v Tom McClintock ($94,000)
MI-07- Mark Schauer ($856,000) v Tim Walberg ($692,000)
NY-25- Dan Maffei ($599,000) v Dale Sweetland ($137,000)
NY-29- Eric Massa ($401,000) v Randy Kuhl ($375,000)

Even more exciting is that in this last quarter Democratic challengers who are seen as winners are outraising GOP incumbents, including hideous Bush rubber stamps Ric Keller (R-FL), Tim Walberg (R-MI), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Randy Kuhl (R-NY) and David Reichert (R-WA). Some clueless hack at Time Magazine tried doing a hatchet job on Darcy Burner this week by parroting the desperate Reichert claim that no one supports her but a bunch of bloggers. She outraised him by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in this past quarter, pulling in more than $842,000 to his $412,586. Goldie calls out the media on their bias towards Reichert

Democrats usually need less than half what Republicans need to win a congressional seat. This morning's CQPolitics postulates that the money race is hurting Republican congressional chances... badly. Their House races maps don't bode well for the Republicans, showing the GOP losing 20 seats and with another 41 seats up in the air. Ten candidates closing in on wins who can really use the last minute financial boost to put them over the finish line:

Debbie Cook (CA-46)
Russ Warner (CA-26)
Larry Kissell (NC-08)
Dennis Shulman (NJ-05)
Annette Taddeo (FL-18)
Joe Garcia (FL-25)
Darcy Burner (WA-08)
Sam Bennett (PA-15)
Gary Peters (MI-09)
Tom Perriello (VA-05)

And they all have contribution pages here.

GOP front groups and the media apologists and enablers of the banksters who have raped the American economy are worried sick that Obama's message of change might actually be real. "If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants." To the far right, this is one step away from civil war. The Wall Street Journal editorial board goes on the beg it's fat cat readers to do whatever they can-- and that means dollars-- to save the filibuster" from... this:


They want to be sure the Senate will obstruct Obama's agenda for change. There is a way we can all thwart their plans and that would be by electing progressives to the Senate. You can still help in the tough races that will make the difference.