What Happened Last Night? Short Answer: Mixed Bag

Last night's biggest losers

Although younger voters and African-Americans didn't bother voting yesterday-- and Republicans did well in Virginia and New Jersey-- the most recent polls show that Obama is still as popular today as he was when he was elected. 54% of Americans approve of his job performance, one percent higher than his winning total a year ago. And even Southerners agree he's been doing a better job than Bush did. (True that is an exceedingly low bar... but still... Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee...)

With GOP factions arming themselves for a bloody civil war, and N.Y. Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava talking about how all the hyperbolic right-wing hate and lies wore her down, the Republicans are celebrating their expected victory in Virginia and their surprise one in New Jersey. Democrats who went for that whole Hope and Change thing a year ago just didn't feel all that inspired and didn't bother turning out. Deeds basically lost the Virginia governor's race when he declared in a debate that if he was elected, he would opt out of the public option. But Republicans already had a candidate they liked; all Deeds did was give Democrats a reason to stay home; a good one. And the results were disastrous-- not just for Deeds who deserved to lose, but for the whole ticket. Most tragic of all, progressive Delegate Margi Vanderhye was defeated by lunatic fringe GOP nutjob Barbara Comstock. Margi lost by about 300 votes, thanks to Deeds' stupidly-run, conservative campaign.

An even bigger disappointment came in Maine where bigots took away the right of marriage equality for gays and lesbians, 53-47%. It was close all night but what I just couldn't understand is how medical marijuana legalization won in Maine while same sex marriage lost. Stoners voted against gay marriage? And although Maine passed its medical marijuana referendum by a hefty vote (59-41%), in Breckenridge, Colorado it was a 3 to 1 landslide, not for medical marijuana but for full on pot decriminalization. Only 27% of voters opposed de facto legalization.

"This vote demonstrates that Breckenridge citizens overwhelmingly believe that adults should not be punished for making the safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol," said Sean McAllister, a Breckenridge attorney who proposed the ordinance.

The measure's victory is considered symbolic because it conflicts with state and federal laws. However, supporters of the measure say it inches the whole state closer to full legalization.

And at least the pro-gay ordinances won in Kalamazoo, Michigan and in Washington state. And openly gay Mark Kleinschmidt won the mayoral race in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Detroit elected an openly gay City Council president, Charles Pugh.

California Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher was a socially liberal, fiscally conservative Democrat is suburbs north of San Francisco, in a district that was Republican just over a decade ago. She often voted with them on crucial issues like bankruptcy and other bills that empowered banksters and Wall Street thugs. She was appointed to a minor job in the State Department and last night she was replaced in Congress by John Garamendi, a hard working progressive. He beat Republican David Harmer 56-40%.

But the big race, of course-- the one the media had hyped beyond recognition-- was in NY-23, where Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Darrell Issa, Jim DeMint, Tim Pawlenty and the teabaggers slimed the mainstream Republican candidate so badly that she withdrew, leaving a confused Republican Party in complete disarray. They switched en masse to the teabagger third party candidate, Doug Hoffman, who then proceeded to lose to conservative barely-Democrat Bill Owens, 49-45%. It was the night's biggest shocker-- or at least one that was tied with Corzine's loss in New Jersey and Bloomberg's near loss in NYC (after dumping $100 million of his own money into the race against someone who no one has ever heard of). The biggest losers were Palin and Beck-- and the GOP has so much egg on its face that it'll never figure out how to clean itself off. Does this mean Marco Rubio should throw in the tea-towel down in Florida?

I'll be on the radio this afternoon (1-2pm, PT) with Nicole Sandler, who's sitting in for Randy Rhodes, and we'll be talking about the election results and about how screwed up the GOP is with their deadly teabagger problem. The call in number is 866-87-RANDI.

Smiting Virginia's Philistines-- A Guest Post

by Joshua Grossman, ProgressiveKick

It's a rare thing that one gets to smite five right-wing philistines with a single small donation, but ProgressiveKick has exactly that opportunity to offer today.

In fact, not only will your hard-earned sheckels go to support progressive candidates and smite nasty right-wingers in Virginia's House of Delegates for whom the 2009 elections are the last chance to change the balance of power in advance of 2010 redistricting, but we'll at least double your donation.

We can do this because we've secured at least $25,000 (a number that is still growing!) in pledges from large donors specifically pledged to mount a national matching fund drive to swing the balance in Virginia's House of Delegates in a progressive direction. Any dollar you donate today will be doubled by the time it hits Virginia.

We at Progressive Kick believe that matching large donors with small donors offers an untapped potential to wield progressive power and move political outcomes in Virginia and the nation.

You can check out the page at this link to see the full line-up.

All five of our candidates, Robin Abbott, Peggy Frank, Stevens Miller, Margi Vanderhye and John Bell will do progressives proud in VA's state house. And one look at their opponents tells you everything you need to know about the worthiness of this project.

Robin Abbott's opponent, Phil Hamilton is so corrupt that even the Republican candidate for governor, Bob McDonnell, has called on him to resign for having “violated the public trust.” Hamilton is also staunchly anti-choice, having received a “zero” rating from NARAL since 2006. In contrast, Robin Abbott has been endorsed by NARAL, which calls her “a strong advocate for health care” who will “ensure access to comprehensive reproductive health care.”

Peggy Frank's opponent, Dave Nutter, has received multiple ratings of “zero” from NARAL and Equality Virginia while garnering an “A+” from the NRA. In short, it’s obvious where Dave Nutter’s priorities and values lie. In contrast, Peggy Frank – a prosecutor, former Girl Scout Leader and Kindergarten soccer coach who worked her way through college as a single mother - promises to focus on “job creation, making healthcare more affordable, and improving education and public safety.”

Stevens Miller's opponent, Tom Rust, portrays himself as a “moderate” but in reality is allied with far-right-wing Loudoun County board member Eugene Delgaudio, a “leader in the nation's anti-gay rights movement” who actually staged a “man-donkey wedding” in support of the Federal Marriage Amendment. Rust has also voted against education, choice, and mandating that health insurers in Virginia provide coverage for autism. In sharp contrast, Stevens Miller supports choice, environmental protection, and equality for all.

TPMMuckraker calls Vanderhye's opponent Barbara Comstock a "GOP knife-fighter" who "ran oppo research for the RNC and chaired Scooter Libby's defense fund.” Former colleague David Brock described her as "almost unhinged," while Sean Hannity considers her a "good friend." In sharp contrast, Margi Vanderhye is a strong progressive who has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, the AFL-CIO, Equality Virginia, and Planned Parenthood.

John Bell's Republican opponent, Bob Marshall, is an extreme homophobe whoalso likens contraception to “chemical Love Canals for…frat house playboys,“ believes that “sometimes incest is voluntary,” and (with regard to abortion in the case of rape) opines that "the right of a child predominates over the embarrassment of the woman." In contrast, John Bell believes in equality for all and has been endorsed by the LCV, NARAL, and NOW.

This is exactly the kind of program Progressive Kick intends to run across the United States in 2010. We believe in bringing large and small donors together in support of targeted progressive races where the opportunity to "smite the right" is in the air. The matching pledges to double your dollars are icing on the cake.

Please join us and consider making a donation today.

Blue America Welcomes Virginia Delegate Margi Vanderhye

Margi Vanderhye (D-VA)

A couple months ago Jane Hamsher called to give me some disturbing news. She warned me that it was heart of darkness time right near where she was living! One of the most reprehensible extremists any of us had ever run across, Barbara Comstock, is trying to get into elected office. Many of us first heard about Comstock when we read David Brock's book, Blinded by the Right.

One night in the winter of 1995, as the scandal over the firings of workers in the White house travel office reached a crescendo on the Hill I received a late night telephone call from one of Ted's colleagues on an investigative committee, Barbara Comstock. Around the committee, the two Barbaras [Comstock and Olsen] were known as "the Barbarellas," a reference to the 1968 movie starring Jane Fonda as a space-age vixen whose cosmic adventures take her to bizarre planets via rocket ships. Late night calls from Barbara Comstock were not unusual. She often telephoned with the latest tidbit she had dig up in the thousands of pages of administration records she pored through frantically, as if she were looking for a winning lottery ticket she had somehow mislaid. A plain woman with tousled reddish brown hair, she once dropped by my house to watch the rerun of a dreadfully dull Whitewater hearing she had sat through all day. Comstock sat on the edge of her chair shaking, screaming over and over again, "Liars!" As Comstock's leads failed to pan out and she was unable to catch anyone in a lie, the Republican aide confided that the Clinton scandals were driving her to distraction, to the unfortunate point that she was ignoring the needs of her own family. A very smart lawyer by training and the main breadwinner for her charismatic, happy-go-lucky husband and kids, Comstock remarked that maybe she couldn't get Hillary's sins off her brain "because Hillary reminds me of me. I am Hillary." In this admission a vivid illustration of a much wider "Hillary" phenomenon can be seen. Comstock knew nothing about Hillary Clinton. Comstock's "Hillary" was imaginary, a construction composed entirely of the negative points in her own life.

Comstock invited me to go along on an expedition to the Washington home of senior White House aide David Watkins, the central figure in the travel scandal Olson and Comstock were probing. A short time later, Republican lawyers Comstock, Olson, and other congressional investigators, including David Bossie, and Whitewater investigator Christopher Bartomolucci, pulled up outside my house in an SUV. Though I wasn't sure what the group hoped to accomplish-- they were visibly frustrated with their inability so far to incriminate Watkins-- I went along for the ride. Olson explained that Congressman Sonny Bono had cleared us into the private, gated community where both Bono and Watkins lived, in the northwest section of Georgetown. When we arrived at our destination, Olsen giddily leapt from the truck, trespassed onto Watkins's property, and hopped down a steep cliff that abutted his home. Barbara peered into Watkins's window where she observed him-- watching television. No crime there. (Blinded by The Right by David Brock, p 208, 209.)

But it was Digby who pretty much broke the news that Comstock was acting as the GOP's #1 oppo character assassin. She's been in the middle of every Republican dirty trick for 2 decades-- from Scooter Libby, Monica Goodling, Dan Burton, the Florida 2000 vote theft, John Ashcroft, and Tom DeLay. And her list of big time right-wing donors reads like a list of all the worst in American politics-- from Ted Olson, Eric Cantor, Bill Bennett, Michael Chertoff and Jay Sekulow to Borks and Ledeens, Matalins, Maleks, Toensings, Townsends and even a Scalia! It's a shame she isn't running for something in DC, which is where all of her contributors are from and where she has focused 100% of her smarmy political efforts, like her current jihad against Employee Free Choice. She's certainly never done anything remotely connected to the district she's trying to capture now.
Fortunately, the seat Barbara Comstock is trying to get her hands on is held by one of the smartest, best-liked and most competent state legislators in Virgina, progressive icon Magi Vanderhye. Watch the brief video interview with her above and you'll get a feeling for what she's all about before joining us in the FDL comments section for a live session (2pm, EST).

Margi has been active in Virginia community service for over two decades but she's new to the House of Delegates. In her first term she's focused on a wide array of issues that are most important for people in Northern Virginia: economic development (especially of the "green" variety), environmental protection, strengthening public education, sensible solutions to the transportation crisis, and improving health care. This year she authored a law to expand the screening and treatment of breast and cervical cancer for Virginia women, which is being used as a model across the country. There's plenty more about her-- plus an opportunity to sign up as a volunteer at her website.

Comstock has one thing going for her: big money from every right-wing donor Inside-the-Beltway. That's why Blue America has decided to make Margi our first endorsement this year. We started a Blue America ActBlue page for her and we're giving away cool CD packs to the 20 top donors today.