The increased likelihood of global nuclear annihilation aside, this could be fabulous news for congress:

Word is that Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on strategic forces and a staunch superdelegate for presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, is in line for a top post at the State Department, most likely for the undersecretary for arms control and nonproliferation slot.

California's 10th Congressional District was specifically redistricted following the 2000 census for a progressive. While Tauscher quit the Blue Dogs two years ago in preparation for an expected primary, she is still chair of the DLC's New Democrat Coalition (run from her congressional office). Right now, CA-10 is wasted on a major obstacle to Barack Obama's agenda and sound economic policy. With six BART stations in district, a Special Election in the 10th could allow progressives from across the Bay Area to ensure we have a better Democrat.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists would probably have to move the Doomsday Clock a minute or two, but it would be almost impossible for the district to elect a worse representative. Odds are the district could get a good progressive who would be an asset to Obama and a partner for progress.

There has been a great deal of pixels devoted to Brian Schweitzer. He's done well. But...

Today, there was an explosion that put a giant crater in Main Street of Bozeman, Mt. The Governor's mansion is more than 100 miles away, yet Governor Brian Schweitzer was explaining what happened next withing three hours. Yeah, and he had the National Guard ready when he threw down.

In talks with senior officials after today's explosion, credit was given to the drills Schweitzer began running when he became governor. Listening to the press conferences (via www.KMMSam.com, my old radio station), it was clear that everyone knew what to do. Worst disaster to hit Bozeman, but all is good.

Last week's Virginia Governor Democratic Primary Cattle Call

With only 129 days until Virginia's June 9th Democratic gubernatorial primary, the race is in full swing. The good news for political junkies is that the race has been receiving a good deal of attention. For those looking for a fix, on Tuesday Public Policy Polling* will release head-to-head and favorability numbers for the Democratic Primary. Some people think that Tuesday's Sharon Bulova result will be important. But it is an all hands on deck for all the campaigns and the only candidate trying to up the ante is Terry McAuliffe in his attempt to smudge the fact he hasn't helped down ticket Commonwealth Democrats by glossing over with cash.

What's happened in the last week?

On June 9, Virginia Democrats will vote for the gubernatorial nominee to take on presumptive Republican candidate Bob McDonnell in the top statewide race of 2009. There will hopefully soon be some head-to-head numbers for the primary now that the inauguration has passed. While Terry McAuliffe is planning to spend 9 gazillion dollars, at the end of the year the cash-on-hand numbers were pretty even. So where do things stand now?

Brian Moran It was a big week online with a warm reception at the Netroots Nation party, Joe Trippi coming on board ("Moran embraces a politics powered by the people, empowering supporters, not relying on millions of high-dollar donations and the status-quo party establishment"), and Kos saying, "The Virginia Governor's race is definitely shaping up to be a Big-Money Establishment (McAuliffe) versus Grassroots (Moran) battle." But that wasn't the big news for Moran. The big news was today's stories in the Virginia Pilot, the Washington Post, and Richmond Times-Dispatch on another bold move to protect the environment.

Staking his claim as an environmental champion, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian J. Moran said yesterday that he opposes the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Surry County.

Moran recently came out against drilling for oil off Virginia's coast.

Standing up to the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative is, shall we say, rarer than is to be desired. Moran is not just seizing the earned media for the move, but is list-building online. With the plant expected to harm the Richmond area, Hampton Roads, and the Chesapeake Bay, beyond philosophical environmentalists there are a ton of people who should be applauding this move out of self-interest.

Terry McAuliffe "The Macker" had a different kind of big week, "double-fisting champagne flutes while standing next to Martha Stewart" and raising huge Park Avenue money as part of his big money plan. While this black tie strategy will line his pockets, when it comes to a newbie candidate with carpetbagger issues, there is the expected backlash (read the whole piece, it was recommended at Daily Kos today):

I reject utterly that the mere idea that Terry McAuliffe is going to be such a financial rainmaker is the SOLE reason that he should just walk away with Virginia's Democratic Governor nomination.

The problem for McAuliffe is that the more he spends, the more bitter the taste in the mouths of meritocracy focused progressives. How this could influence electability will be a concern until McAuliffe can lead in head-to-head matchups. Till then, the enthusiasm gap and backlash problem will be a point of discussion.

Creigh Deeds Senator Deeds' potential advantage in that he is the only candidate who could legislate right now, but under Virginia law this is also a liability as he can't raise money during the session. So Deeds is stuck treading water while the race solidifies as a contest between Moran and McAuliffe. Banking on a split NoVa vote is only a smart strategy as long as Deeds is viewed as a viable candidate. If he becomes viewed as only having spoiler potential, smart voters will want to be part of deciding the nominee as Virginia Democrats don't want to turn back the clock on recent successes.

It wasn't too long ago that Act Blue was shunned. In the summer of 2004, even Markos was skeptical of the service until Matt Stoller vouched for the founders. During the 2004 cycle, ActBlue was the tool of the insurgent and mostly used by candidates who had nothing to lose and hadn't been taught better because nobody thought they would win. But ActBlue was contagious and the OH-02 Special Election in 2005 proved the power of the service (there is a legend that Mean Jean Schmidt's husband -- who was funding her campaign -- wouldn't invest in the ability for credit card donations which left Schmidt unable to respond and reportedly left him sleeeping on the couch). By 2006, Patrick Murphy raised twice as much money on ActBlue as Ginny Schrader (D-Blogosphere) had raised and won PA-08 (with the Bucks County Central Committee also taking advantage of the service). ActBlue was no longer just a tool for insurgents, but a common sense solution for Democrats and a clear institutional advantage over the right. Yet still, there was a belief that ActBlue numbers were a sign of netroots support (I'll admit I've pitched that to reporters).

Now one look at the Special Election for Rahm Emanuel's seat shows that nowadays, ActBlue has matured to a sign of fundraising ability with little relationship to netroots support.

Tom Geoghegan is clearly the netroots' candidate in the Special Election for fifth congressional district. From Geoghegan's longterm relationship with progressives online, to his announcement on Daily Kos, to his energizing of the blogosphere, he has coalesced online support. Geoghegan is getting fundraising support from Open Left and BlogPAC's Better Democrats to Down With Tyranny to Crooks and Liars to Digby to DDay to Joe Trippi to Kathy G to Henry at Crooked Timber to Corrente to Fighting Liberals to Seeing the Forest and even James Fallows. And he has had additional kind words from bloggers who don't endorse, like Josh Marshall, Matthew Yglesias, and Kevin Drum. Which is why the current ActBlue numbers don't look like they would have a few years ago (when Geoghegan would probably be the only one using it).

Tom Geoghegan - 645 donors for $81,754
Charlie Wheelan - 345 donors for $78,711
Justin Oberman - 251 donors for $72,799
Sara Feigenholtz - 234 donors for $86,685
Victor Forys - 108 donors for $12,896
Mike Quigley - 28 donors for $8,400
John Fritchey - 6 donors for $2,595

A couple of things jump right out. Geoghegan only has 783 people on FaceBook but 645 donors on ActBlue? That is a pretty huge conversion rate. Next, ActBlue domination by Geoghegan is not to the level I think traditional conventional wisdom would have suggested.

So where do things stand? Well the fact the machine split is great news for Geoghegan. And if the first poll is to be believed then the race is wide open:

If the first poll of the season is accurate, the solid if early front-runner is Mr. Quigley, whose battles with county President Todd Stroger over raising taxes and slashing waste have earned him pages of good publicity.

According to a poll conducted for his campaign by Alabama-based Anzalone Liszt Research, Mr. Quigley leads with 19%, to 11% for Ms. Feigenholtz and 8% for Mr. Fritchey. The remainder (55%) is undecided or scattered elsewhere, with a sampling error of plus or minus 4.4%.

If Mr. O'Connor is included in the field, the Quigley margin over Ms. Feigenholtz drops, putting him at 14% to her 10%, with Mr. O'Connor at 8% and Mr. Fritchey at 7%. But there's a big question of whether Mr. O'Connor will stay in now that Mayor Richard M. Daley insists he's staying out and the Machine is disengaged. When I talked to him last week, Mr. O'Connor wasn't even sure if he was going to file.

Personally, I pretty excited about Geoghegan's bid (sent him some turkee). What are your thoughts on the race?

A Gubernatorial candidate is paying for the worst DLC consultant?

Twenty thousand dollars a month for Garry South? As in that Garry South. As in the open letter not to hire Garry South lead by California bloggers?

So who is this man, Garry South?  He may not be the most well-known figure in California politics.  He doesn't have the name recognition of an Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Darrel Issa, or even a Tom McClintock, but he's caused more harm to the State Democratic Party than those three could wish for in their grandest dreams.

Twenty thousand dollars a month for this? No wonder Gavin Newsom can't raise as much cash compared to when he ran for mayor.

Full disclosure, I did some work for Newsom back before he sucked.

The Politico expects and CNN has sources saying Ohio Senator George Voinovich will announce he will not run for re-election in 2010.

If Voinovich doesn't run, expect Tim Ryan's phone to be ringing off the hook with people asking him to run. Ryan burst onto the national scene in the fall of 2004 when, as the youngest member of the House, he brought down the house with a speech that was a dorm-room hit.  When Matt Stoller hosted the video on MyDD a MP3 and torrent and transcript quickly showed up in the comments as people got creative in spreading the message in the era before video sharing sites. Even though the video is older than youtube, versions posted have over 1,000,000 views.

Ryan proved that C-SPAN can be a model, so it was expanded for the 2006 midterms under the 30-Something Working Group:

With the Capitol all but deserted last Monday night, the Democratic "30-Something Working Group" seized the House floor and took aim at their Republican adversaries.

As C-SPAN cameras beamed their performance around the country, Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, 32, of Ohio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, 39, of Florida recited a litany of GOP misdeeds -- mismanaging Hurricane Katrina and neglecting education and health care, for example -- and offered the Democrats' alternatives.

Their conversation even veered to religion, a subject many Democrats are afraid to touch. Ryan described the problems of the poor as a moral obligation and asked of Meek: "Where is the Christian Coalition when you are cutting poverty programs? They are fighting over Supreme Court justices."

The two newcomers -- who have served a combined six years in the House -- are part of a new generation of Democrats who are working to try to topple the GOP. Their fresh ideas, modern media skills and aggressive political tactics have inspired a party that has drifted for much of the past decade -- wedded to old notions and seemingly incapable of capitalizing on White House and congressional Republican miscues.

And the effort was cited by Pelosi as she joined them after midnight on election night. But it isn't just TV, Ryan's twitter account feeds into his Facebook account. And come tomorrow, he's likely to be the front-runner for the Ohio Senate seat.

The Washington Post makes it sound like a done deal:

Va. Governor Kaine to Become DNC Chairman
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will become chairman of the Democratic National Committee later this month, serving as the top political messenger for Barack Obama's administration even while he finishes his final year in the governor's mansion, several sources said.

One problem, it isn't an appointment, it is an elected position. Sure Obama's backing would give Kaine a big head start, but the Chair is ultimately elected by the DNC. So should the DNC vote in Kaine? I don't think so.

1. We need a full time DNC Chair, not a part-time Chair. Kaine apparently intends to half-ass it for the first year, which should be a deal-breaker.
2. His one real moment on the national stage, giving the rebuttal to Bush's 2008 2006 state of the union, was an unmitigated failure.
3. He's Anti-Choice!
4. The Virginia bloggers who know him best have been very unsatisfied with his gubernatorial term. Raising Kaine, the blog that bears his name, should have been renamed Razing Kaine before it shut down and Not Larry Sabato has been on a twitter-tear (but has a great backgrounder re-posted on Tim Kain and Jim Gilmore).
5. Terry McAuliffe, the last DLC'er from Virginia who ran the DNC, literally ran the Democratic Party into the ground.

While it would be a rebuke to Obama, I don't see any option other than voting against Kaine if he runs. Even if this is a sign that the real power will be vested in Obama for America 2.0.

Update [2009-1-4 19:45:55 by Bob Brigham]: Kaine didn't even want the job:

A top Democrat familiar with the move said Kaine first indicated that he was not interested, but then decided to take the post when Obama personally intervened.

An uniterested, part-time, inept on TV, self-loathing, anti-Choice, DLC'er as DNC Chair?

Update [2009-1-5 0:46:29 by Bob Brigham]: Why didn't Tim Kaine want the job? Because it would screw over Virginians (h/t to Not Larry Sabato). From Nov 12th:

Kaine said at a news conference Obama's transition team asked him if he was interested in the position. He said his response was that he'd rather be governor and won't do both jobs.

"That's not something I'm going to do. I don't view that, frankly, as consistent with being governor, so I'm going to be governor," Kaine said. "I would view it as taking my eye too much off the ball about things that need to happen here."

Those quotes are damning. More at Crooks and Liars.