First piece in a series on trends in voter registration

In early August, the New York Times revealed that since 2005, there has been a major shift in party registration, with the Republicans losing ground to Democrats and to unaffiliated voters. But what caused these shifts? How large have they been in key (and not so key) states? Have there been any demographic shifts? How will they help (or hinder) the Democratic party's chances at victory this November?

The answer can be found below.

Georgia does not have voter registration by party. As you may recall, in addition to "the Jews", Cynthia McKinney's campaign blamed "crossover" votes from Republicans for her losses in the 2002 and 2006 primaries.

However, thanks to the legacy of Lester Maddox, Georgia is covered by the Voting Rights Act, and as such, registration data by race is available.

The latest news in the Ted Stevens/VECO bribery case is quite possibly the most shocking.

According to the federal government, in addition to the house additions, Ted Stevens accepted a free generator from VECO CEO Bill Allen.

Ted's reason for wanting a generator is shocking enough.

a new court filing from the federal government suggests that Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was one of the people who was concerned that the transition from "99" to "00" would wreak havoc on the nation's electric grid.

But the real shocker is that Ted Stevens requested the free generator via e-mail

One of the biggest mistakes I feel we in the national netroots (state blogs have been more into it) have made this cycle  (and every cycle, for that matter) is our lack of involvement in primaries for open House seats.

In my opinion, getting involved in open-seat races is probably the easiest way to ensure a progressive House of Representatives. If we get in early, we can help provide a major cash advantage for our preferred candidate, because there is no incumbent with a massive war chest to take down.

It's also far, far easier to win an open-seat primary than it is to take down an entrenched incumbent (granted, it's still worth it in cases like Wynn and Lieberman and Cuellar and Lipinski, but there's only a handful of other districts where it's worth the resources). Furthermore, if we don't get involved, a bad candidate might get through.

Of course, it's too late for that in tonight's race in CO-2, and Jared Polis and Joan Fitz-Gerald both seem to be fine candidates.

Results below or from The Denver Post

Yup. He's given $230,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this cycle ($200,000 from his campaign fund, and $30,000 from his leadership PAC.

Now, obviously, as mentioned in the Politico article, he's doing this to try to buy himself some love:

"Basically, he doesn’t want everybody to hate him," one Lieberman-friendly Democrat said. "Plus he wants to keep his committee."

Of course, that's not good enough. Despite the fact that Tom Carper (next most senior member) is not a great Democrat, we will make sure he becomes chairman. If Lieberman wants to make peace, he can do so by using his time at the Republican Convention to castigate McCain and endorse Barack Obama (think of the media you'd get, Joe! That's what matters to you above all, isn't it?). Otherwise, he's out.

My real point is this.

A non-Democratic member of the Senate has put more money ($257,000) towards electing Democratic Senators than most Democratic Senators have.

2008 is a major, major opportunity that's not coming again for a while. We've got a legit shot at at least 12 pickups. They need to pony up.

Sorry to break the bad news to y'all.

But our hero, the great, the learned, the wise, the socially studied Brock Olivo seems to be heading to a resounding defeat tonight.

Despite his star record as a rusher at Mizzou and his Jehovah's Witness-like commitment to showing up at the polls, the Republican voters seem to be going with one of the other unqualified candidates, either the corrupt "family values" man Bob Onder, or the liar Blaine Luetkemeyer.

It's neck and neck between Steve Gaw and Judy Baker for the Democratic nomination in this seat, last held by a Democrat named Harold Volkmer, who lost to current incumbent Ken Hulshof (who's narrowly ahead in the gubernatorial primary tonight) in 1998
Results below:

Link here

Currently Hulshof (R-Gov), Powell (D-Treasurer), Koster(D-Atty. Gen), Luetkemeyer(R-District 9), and Gaw (D-District 9) are leading

That's the message I'm getting from every female House Republican except for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

It's been over 45 years since President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, and yet women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar made by men.

After the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 (Justice Alito writing the opinion) against Lily Ledbetter last year in her suit against Goodyear under that Act for basing raises on her gender, Democrats in Congress have been trying to pass something to ensure women have routes to fight pay discrimination.

Today the House passed the Paycheck Fairness Act 247-178.

That's right. Republicans are coming our way. At least that's what it seems like to me.

Senator Sam Brownback has just publicly denounced a newly revealed program where the government requires foreign-owned hotels to install equipment to allow them to monitor Internet transmissions.

These hotels are justifiably outraged by ... their customers ... being spied on by ... the government.
.
.
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If you were a human rights advocate, if you're a journalist, you're in room 1251 of a hotel, anything that you use, sending out over the Internet is monitored in real time. It's not right.

It's unbelievable, isn't it? Sam Brownback coming out for the 4th amendment.

He's introducing a resolution today in the Senate on the issue. Progress is being made!

Except, of course, the 4th amendment does not apply in this jurisdiction, because these hotels are located in the People's Republic of China.

I'd been planning to write an entry bashing Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters for her attempts to privatize our road system.

While doing some more research, I found that the Department of Transportation now has a blog, The Fast Lane.   The comment policy is disturbing, to say the least.

The Fast Lane is a moderated blog, and we expect this community to treat its members with respect.  All comments will be reviewed before posting, and a representative sample will be posted to the site.

In other words, their stated policy involves picking and choosing (i.e. censoring) comments by the public on a government-run website.

If I'm reading the pocket Constitution I got at NN correctly (thanks, ACLU), this is in violation of the First Amendment statement that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ... or the right of the people to petition the government"

Such is my take, anyway, and I believe it behooves those of us in the blogosphere to get such policies addressed and rectified sooner rather than later.

It's time, once again, for me to write about my time at the convention, taking in all the important parts of the convention but emphasizing myself.

It's a harrowing tale. Join me as I relive my time spent with my good libertarian friend Bob Barr, some LaRouchies, quite a few great candidates many, many many great bloggers, and quite a lot of refreshing beverages.

Hats were stolen, hearts were broken, and I even found a protege to indoctrinate.

And yes, the Squirmy Rooter and Rick Astley were involved.

Join me below the fold.

Sorry I'm late, y'all. Breakfast with the candidates and showering and whatnot.

Debbie Cook, Huntington Beach mayor is up now.

Serves on two non-profit boards

Study for Peak Oil ???

Post-Carbon Institute.

Jerome A Paris is awesome, and without the Internets, she'd never be Energy Smart.

The down button is missing from her PC.

Picture: "A Road Forward"-Bliss Rd and Dead End crossroads.

JeffLieber turns out to be a DEA official, so I will soon be arrested for underage drinking.

Help, help, I'm being repressed.

It's his second job.

He brought the Squirmy Rooter, too, but it's not here now.

Maybe later ...

Meeting people terrifies him.

Ben Masel wants to get me in trouble. I'm in!

Sign on the men's room door: Larry Craig Caucus

What is this world coming to? I always thought that if only two things in this world were certain, they were these:

1. It's the members of the Democrat party that flip-flop

2. Ron Paul will always vote against spending money that was stolen by force by the Government from innocent freedom-loving Americans.

Yet today, my beliefs have been cruelly torn asunder. Ron Paul joined the Democrat party in stealing our money, and the Republicans flip-flopped on taking more of our money for the Socialist Medicare program.

I am very, very upset.

As you probably heard, last week the Obama campaign began the general election with an 18-state ad buy

In addition to the presence of 6 red states Kerry never advertised in (AK,  GA, IN, MT, NC, ND), many of us noted that the ad isn't running in 4 blue states where Kerry ran ads.

Kerry won Maine by 9 points, and Obama has a 22 point lead in the latest poll.

Since the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party was founded in 1944, only 3 times has Minnesota failed to vote for its nominee (still McGovern's 2nd best state after MA in 1972, and Stevenson's best non-former slave state in 1956), and most pollsters have shown Obama up by double digits.

Washington went for Kerry by 7 points and nearly every poll has Obama up by double digits, so that's explained.

But most Oregon polls have him up by only by single digits; Kerry won by only 4 points, and Oregon was one of 4 states (along with IA, NM and WI) that Gore won by only half a point; had he lost them all, Florida would have been irrelevant.

It turns out that he is advertising there after all.

He's just contracted it out ... to Republican Senator Gordon Smith

Kossacks Under 35 is a weekly diary series designed to create a community within DailyKos that focuses on young people. Our overall goals are to work on increasing young voters' Democratic majority, and to raise awareness about issues that particularly affect young people, with a potential eye to policy solutions. Kossacks of all ages are welcome to participate (and do!), but the overall framework of each diary will likely be on or from a younger person's perspective. If you would like more information or want to contribute a diary, please email kath25 at kossacksunder35 (at) gmail dot com

While everybody benefits from a mass transit system, it's a more pressing issue for young people.

Of course, that's not to say that even younger Americans use mass transit regularly; in 2006, only 5% of Americans got to work using mass transit.

There are several reasons so few Americans use mass transit.
The biggest reason, though, is that we haven't built it.

In a strong blow to the chances of a dystopia like GATTACA, the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act has unanimously   passed the United States Senate after apparently minor changes made to capitulate to Tom Coburn (because, of course, unlike Chris Dodd's hold on the FISA bill, Coburn's hold matters)

One of Senator Coburn’s main concerns was that the bill might subject employers to civil rights lawsuits stemming from disputes over medical coverage. ... "We would have created a trial lawyers’ bonanza," he said.

Senator Coburn, a medical doctor, had called for a "firewall" between the employer and insurance sections of the bill. "We withstood all the criticism we got from lots of people, and now we got it fixed," he said.

This bill prohibits discrimination in health insurance and employment based on genetic information.

Since it passed unanimously in the Senate and with only 3 NAYs in the House (fake libertarian R0n P4v1 and 2 other extremists), I expect the House to pass the minorly amended version soon, at which point it will go to Bush, who will likely sign it.

Where's the darn coverage? It looks like it's headed for a runoff.

Right now the Republican is up 29,521-29,169 over Travis Childers, with the other candidates getting enough votes to keep it 48% to 47% [50% is necessary to avoid the May 13th runoff]

Nearly all the votes are in. Of the two outstanding counties, one is 30% black and one is majority-black, so it seems highly unlikely that the Repub wins outright tonight.

Before Roger Wicker won this district in the '94 Republican rEVOLution, it was held for a long time by Jamie L. Whitten. And I mean a very long time. When he first took office, the Japanese had not yet bombed Pearl Harbor.

He served as Appropriations Committee chairman from 1979 until he was removed from the position by House liberals in a coup, installing William Natcher until he died in early 1994, at which point Dave Obey became chairman, a position he now holds again.

Update: Travis Childers takes the lead, 29,997 to 29,659

I'd been wondering why Senator Obama chose the word "bitter" in his remarks.  I've just heard from an unreliable source that Obama chose to use "bitter" as a pander to Jewish voters.

See, Passover (or, as John McCain would say, Jewish Easter) is starting just days before the Pennsylvania primary, and the Jewish vote is likely to be key to winning the Pennsylvania suburbs, which is a must for Senator Obama.

On Passover, the youngest (that would be Senator Obama, since he's seen as so young and gets all the youth vote) asks four questions.

One of those questions is "Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, but on this night we eat only bitter herbs?"

Some misguided individuals may write polling diaries on presidential race polls, like the poll showing Obama up 8 in Pennsylvania or down 17 in North Carolina.

But nobody writes about the most crucial issue facing us these days:

How many Americans have been rickroll'd?

SurveyUSA estimates that at least 18 million Americans have now been "Rickrolled," according to this latest national poll of 959 adults, conducted 04/08/08.

Unsurprisingly, the major difference in the crosstabs is by age group.

7% of 18-34 year olds have been rickrolled, while only 3% of those in the John McAncient demographic have been rickroll'd. Moreover, 66% of 18-34 know what rickrolling is, whereas a majority of those 35 and up have no idea.