It what looks to me to be a sign of the times... I took this photo taken at one of a typical Americana tourist shop in Union Station in DC this Friday...

The last time I saw this kinda political merchandise sale was when Giuliani merchandise was dropping like a rock right after Florida...

Bi-partisan pollster Charlie Cook continues to be a great resource of fact based analysis of the state of the race:

Today he wrote:

"Despite the recent show of strength by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the odds against her winning the Democratic presidential nomination are as imposing as ever — and probably worse."

More after the jump....

A great article from pollster Charlie Cook today on the state of the race...

The good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she’s winning a lot of battles. The bad news is that the war is pretty much lost...today, she is 133 delegates behind Obama, 1,728 to 1,595, according to NBC News. At this point last week, she trailed by 136 delegates. Since then Clinton has scored a net gain of 10 delegates in Pennsylvania, according to NBC, but has lost a few more superdelegates, so she has made little headway.

More after the jump...including the likely endgame he sketches out...

UPDATED: Blogger/Author Taegon Goddard makes exactly the same point and I'll add his quote to the bottom of the posting...

I have zero concerns with Hillary going negative against Barack (whom I support)...he can hold his own, and will battle back in a fair, above the belt and effective way.

...but HOW Hillary is going negative should give every democrat who cares about winning in November great concern...

We should hold him to this word:

Graham first hinted at a 90-day clock in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee September 19. In his comments before that panel, he merely predicted the world would see progress by Baghdad in the next 90 days.

In his conversation with TIME, he held out a stick in the event that progress does not materialize. Said Graham: "We've won the day here politically, to give them the infrastructure they need to do this. It's been missing up until now. I am vocally saying it's up to [the Iraqis] to deliver. We've done our part."

Though he would not elaborate on what kind of plan he would push if the Iraqis fail to meet the deadline, Graham did say a change in strategy would be warranted. "If they can't do it by the end of the year," he said, "how do you justify a continued presence?"
http://www.time.com/...

More below...

I've been adding everyone suggestions to the http://www.vetooverride.com site...

This includes target info, district info, web forms for sending email and phone numbers for all targets in the push to override the Bush Veto on SCHIP.

After adding a second tier of Republicans, I've also added the 4 Democrats that voted "no" that I "think" are still in the No or Undecieded category.
Let me know by commenting here if I got that wrong, or if there are others who should be on this list.

I'd love to move on to adding Governors... but am not quite sure the best strategy there... Governors who are for SCHIP and could help put pressure on their State's congressman?

What do you think?

Thanks,

Tim

Check out the new site: http://www.vetooverride.com.

Got a lot of good suggestions to the previous diary here, and am implementing them as fast as I can.

Here is a mini-site listing key Republican targets to get them to switch and support a Veto Override for SCHIP: http://www.vetooverride.com.

So far, I've added a second tier of Republican targets. I'm building these out from public lists that Unions, the DCCC, and family organizations have listed as targets, and in roughly the order that they list.

Next, I'll add key Governors, and after this key local SCHIP officials to target. Any help on digging this up would be great, and any other ideas for outreach and local pressure would also be great.

Thanks...

Ok, just to organize my own effort among friends, I compiled a list of all the Republican Congressfolk that are listed as "top targets" to be pressured to switch their vote by October 17th...

It includes their names, states, districts, webforms to send them email, and phone numbers.

VERY open to expanding this list, but thought it could be a good start and a helpful list for others in the netroots to use.

The quick page I put up is at http://www.vetooverride.com

It includes all the Congressmen mentioned here, and here... If you have others that really should be on this list just leave them in comments here...

Thanks...

Amazing photo of Obama at the recent Oakland rally... I'd seen other pics, but none that captured the scale of the event like this one after the jump...

Check out this new online search tool we are offering to the progressive community: It's called ThinkingBlue Search (http://www.thinkingbluesearch.com), and it is a google-powered custom and focused search engine.

ThinkingBlue Search is currently covering about 470 web sites, including:

every major progressive blog that discusses politics and policy (over 200 of them and adding more daily), every major progressive think tank (over 40 of them), every major official Democratic web site including every single local State party website (about 70-ish of them), every major liberal political journal and magazine in print and online (over 25), most of the major progressive syndicated columnists (right now just over 20 and growing), most of the progressive watchdog groups (also about 20 at the moment) and lastly, it also searches the early progressive political wikis that exist (about a dozen or so).

..and we’re adding sites daily.

As I cross posted at my blog for politically progressive Chritians, a big deal occured today.

86 senior Evangelical leaders stood up calling for a serious legislative effort against global warming. It includes a respectable number of Evangelical leaders -- but notably not including James Dobson Chuck Colson and others. Details can be found at their new site.

This is a key initiative that Democrats should reach out to and support.

As snippet from the AP news and the full transcript of their Statement on Global Warming after the jump.

Here are the online polls relatng to the SOTU that I've seen, anyone else have others? Make your voice heard here:

MSNBC:
http://msnbc.msn.com/...

CNN: Worried of future or hopeful? (lower right)
http://www.cnn.com/...

AOL: How convincing was Bush's speech?
http://news.aol.com/...

ABC News: Send us video of your reaction to SOTU
http://abcnews.go.com/...

Pretty cool. An innovative way for this Senate candidate to engage with (and evangelize his positions to)the people he hopes to lead...Dem hopefull Pete Ashdown has set up a compelling looking campaign wiki... (This may well have been done in other races, but I'd not seen it before...)

You can check Ashdown's Campaign wiki here, and here is a description of it from the American Press Insitute site which I excerpt from after the jump.

Where is there online petitions to Congress to register our public outrage at this?

From ABCNews.com:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238

"Congressional Republicans have decided (for now) that their political interests (as in 2002 and 2004) lie in solidarity with the Bush Administration. "We shall all hang together" is the unofficial mantra, and the clearest manifestation of that is the decision to produce a congressional investigation process that is precisely what the White House wanted, in terms of timing, focus, and the make up of the committee. As of now, the investigation is likely to be as tough as any other that this Congress has done of the Bush Administration (which is to say: not very, or at all), and Democrats have no leverage to change that."

But the same article notes:

As crossposted on my blog for politically progressive Christians, TalkingDonkeys...

Check out the Business week article written by Robert Barrow about the "Political Power of the Pew" that cites an upcoming study that "looks at voting patterns in U.S. Presidential elections from 1972 to 2000. For any given gender, age, race, and income level, a person who attends church at least monthly is 10 percentage points more likely to vote Republican."

More details on this, including evidence that Dems do not have to suffer from this effect after the jump.

In the race for the seat of outgoing Republican Representative Henry Hyde (IL-6)... All of  the Dem candidates would be light years better then their Republican opponnent but one of these Democratic candidates -- Lindy Scott -- is running a campaign that really warrants attention.

The Chicago Tribune wrote: "Scott, 53, is a political newcomer, but he said he has been writing about politics and economics for more than 20 years. An evangelical Christian, he said he hoped to "bring people of faith back into the Democratic Party" and worte that "on 80% of the issues I believe Evangelicals and other Christians would fit comfortably in the Democratic Party," Scott said, listing public education, the environment, health care, Social Security, foreign relations and immigration."

In a time when Democrats are struggling to speak to authentic progressive political and social issues but also do so in a way that can speak with crediblity using a moral and religious framework...this candidate in this race could be very important. Very worth your support.

More after the jump:

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland is the umbrella body for all the major Christian Churches in Britain and Ireland, the Muslim Council of Britain is the UK's representative Muslim umbrella body with over 400 affiliated national, regional and local organizations, mosques, charities and schools...Today they jointly issued this statement:

"`Deepest sympathy is expressed at the death and suffering which the series of co-ordinated attacks in London has caused to the families and loved ones who have been the victims of this terrible atrocity.

`This criminal attack is condemned in the strongest possible terms. No good purpose can be achieved by such an indiscriminate and cruel use of terror.

`The scriptures and the traditions of both the Muslim and Christian communities repudiate the use of such violence. Religious precepts cannot be used to justify such crimes, which are completely contrary to our teaching and practice.

Anyone care for some homework?

In today's WSJ opinion Peggy Noonan asked what she likely thought was a rhetorical question.
Let's do some googling and answer it:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006794

"Knowing that, let's do a thought experiment. Close your eyes and imagine this.
President Bush is introduced at a great gathering in Topeka, Kan. It is the evening of June 9, 2005. Ruffles and flourishes, "Hail to the Chief," hearty applause from a packed ballroom. Mr. Bush walks to the podium and delivers the following address..."

More after the jump: