Democracy for America (remember, the DEMOCRATIC wing of the Democratic Party) is urging all of us to, in the words of its current head, Jim Dean, "Take ownership of the process." Coming up Feb. 5th are two heavily targeted primaries where progressive Democrats are challenging corporate Democratic incumbents. Here is their pitch:

Democracy for America doesn’t shy away from tough fights. Bush Democrats think that the “D” next to their name keeps them safe, but you know better.

DFA stands up for progressive principles in any district, in every state. We make primaries matter and hold Democrats accountable who are afraid to stand up to President Bush and for a progressive America.

The primary I consider a progressive "must win" is Mark Pera vs. Lipinski in the IL-3 district. Lipinski is an anti-choice, pro-Iraq war Bush Democrat. Mark Pera is a genuine progressive who has a real chance of unseating Lipinski. Here is what DFA has to say about this race:

DFA-List endorsed Mark Pera is fighting back against Bush-Democrat Dan Lipinski in Illinois.

Democracy for America has nominated New York 13th Congressional District Democratic candidate Steve Harrison for consideration as a "Congressional Grassroots All-Star".

The winner of the competition receives in addition to bragging rights, a donation from the organization. Here's the link. http://democracyforamerica.com/gras

In your State of the City speech that you made this past week. You said that you are going to reform the New York City Board of Elections. Click on hyperlink:

http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c70...

You mentioned in the State of the City speech that 2008 is the 130th anniversary of the death of Boss Tweed. Let's also make it the year we finally put to rest his style of politics.

So Mayor Bloomberg click on this hyper link and read this article:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0624,robbins,73514,5.html

My question to you is when is this going to happen. At this point my advice to you, Mayor Bloomberg is “ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS” You have been talking about this since 2004. Certain employees at the Board of Elections are abusing the integrity of our electoral process. Click on hyperlink:

http://www.nycivic.org/MediaArchive/BloombergSpeech041110.html

Congressional Democrats plan to attempt to override President Bush’s veto of the State-Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2007. They have not yet the votes to override. As a result,the NY Times finds Democratic House Leader Steny Hoyer looking to compromise with Bush. There is plenty you can do to help change that.

What Can You Do? Citizens’ Action of New York is calling upon all of us to call the two Republican Congress Members Tuesday. John “Randy” Kuhl and Thomas Reynolds voted with President Bush and against children.

National Call-In Days on Health Care for Kids Monday, October 15th through Wednesday, October 17th

CALL RANDY KUHL AND TOM REYNOLDS 1-866-544-7573

All New Yorkers, wherever you live, should call Kuhl, except for Western New Yorkers, who should call Reynolds. Tell Congressmen Kuhl and Reynolds to override the President's veto of SCHIP and to expand health care coverage for hundreds of thousands of New York kids.
The vote to override the President's veto -- expected on October 18th -- will be extremely close. We need you to call now and tell everyone else you know to call!

Or -- call directly: Rep. Randy Kuhl: (202) 225-3161 – Karen Livingston (staffer)

Rep. Thomas Reynolds:(202) 225-5265 – Tina Mufford (staffer)

Children's Defense Fund suggested phone riff “New York needs you to support Congress’ SCHIP compromise bill. Child Health Plus has provided NY’s children with access to vital health care for our children. New Yorkers expect you to vote to override the President’s veto. It’s the morally right thing to do.” More, including links to some of the better ads, after the jump.

I already posted the footage of Bill Richardson and Barack Obama's responses. Here is the one I had missed so far.

Here is the second Democracy for America film clip on the Democratic Primary candidates. As with Barack Obama's clip, I present it without comment:

Democracy for America is interviewing each of the Presidential candidates. Let me present to you Barack Obama's response to DFA:

While Karl Rove was dancing his Dance Macabre at the National Correspondents' Dinner (see Lorraine's diary on Culture Kitchen), his Swift Boat Liars were firing up their attack machine and aiming for one of the progressive grassroot's top candidates. Congressman Jerry McNerney came up from behind to defeat a corrupt Republican incumbent largely because the progressive grassroots, including Democracy for New York City (even though he's in California!), backed him heavily. And, as you would expect from a man who resigned from West Point to protest the Vietnam war and who became an engineer to design wind turbines, Congressman McNerney has taken a real leadership role in the fight to get our troops out of the Iraq quagmire and to build an alternative energy infrastructure to help mitigate global warming. Congressman McNerney has already started to live up to the promise we all saw in him.

So now that he is under attack, I hope we can back him up against Karl Rove's jive. This comes from McNerney's campaign:

Yesterday, our campaign got hit with a one-two punch. First, a scandalous House hearing unearthed a secret document from a deputy of Karl Rove revealing that the GOP “architect” is targeting me as #3 on his political hit list.

Some of the latest examples of a leftist circular firing squad have been many who complain that Congress is doing nothing to get us out of Iraq and some of the Hillary Bots who claim progressives in general, and Daily Kos in particular, are a bunch of atheist, anti-religion nut jobs.

Both accusations are untrue and here is one item that counters BOTH. This comes from a DAILY KOS diary by someone with the screen name PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN who is pushing progressives (and Christians, we can assume) to support HR 455, one of SEVERAL bills in Congress designed to block the McCain/Bush/Lieberman escalation and to bring our soldiers home from the Iraq quagmire. I sure hope those who have been denegrating congress for not acting to end the war and those who accuse progressives of being anti-religion will take note and help Progressive Christian in getting HR 455 passed.

On January 12, my congressman, Jerrold Nadler (NY-8), introduced H.R. 455, the Protect the Troops and Bring Them Home Act of 2007, a simple bill that limits the use of funding in Iraq for force protection, troop withdrawal and Iraq reconstruction. We spoke with Congressman Nadler's office last week and verified that he is still quite actively promoting this legislation.