How is your State doing?

[searchingforlight]

I would be interested in what the political picture is in each State.

Are your incumbents Repubs or Dems?

Are they vulnerable?

Are there any good people on the scene who could give them a run?

I wonder about Senate, House and Govenors.

In my State, I think we are pretty safe at the national level, One Dem, one Independent and one Liberty Union.

We have a Republican Govenor who is a first termer and who has been rather ineffectual but have heard no buzz on replacements yet.

[FlashHarry]

1. Bizarro land, here.

Omaha, NE. Our Dem senator is a craven DINO and our GOP senator is taking Bush to task. It's weird. Oh, and the rich keep getting richer.

[Bandit]

4. Bizarro here also

Republican Governor who is raising taxes right and left. Alaska We do have a Democrat on the horizon that is going to run for Senate and he stands a very good chance. Our economy is screwed though. Republicans have been in charge too long and things are terrible.

[elfwitch]

2. Dallas, TX

I'm pretty much screwed. I live in Dallas.
All of my national and state reps are Repugs.
There is no joy or hope for a progressive thinker in this state.

I used to live in San Antonio. It was a little better, but not much better. Dallas is about as fascist friendly as they come. There is no hope for people here. One word comes to mind when thinking about most of the residents of North Texas -- callow.

[searchingforlight]

5. I am afraid I agree with you there.

It's golf, getting your nails done, lunch with the girls and how big my (car) is. To hell with the other guys.

[Stuckinthebush]

3. I live in Alabama

'nuf said.

[Bluzmann57]

6. Here in Iowa

Senators Harkin and Grassley most likely aren't going anywhere. Governor Vilsack is in his second, and likely, last term. He has stated that he wanted no more than two terms. Too bad, hes a good Dem. Here in the first district, we have Nussle, who is a Bush puppet. Out west of Des Moines is mostly Republican, but the majority of the population is from Des Moines east. So we are in decent shape here. I just wish we could lose Grassley and Nussle, not to mention the republican led legislature. A couple of them are suing Governor Vilsack over line item vetoes, which former governor Branstadt(aka braindead) signed into law. Just more hypocrisy from repubs. But as I said, we're ok out here in the heartland.

[searchingforlight]

7. That sounds good overall.

Is Grassley up for re-election? If so, is there anyone on the State scene who could take him? Do you want to run?;-)

[GBD4]

8. Florida sucks!

We need to focus on FL-22. This is a district carried by Al Gore and is represented by an 11 or 12 term incumbent conservative Republican, E Clay Shaw, chair of the SocSec Subcommittee in the House. He barely won his last two elections, as Fort Lauderdale residents began to realize that this guy does not vote their views. Stacy Ritter, currently in the Florida State Legislature, has expressed interest. She is a Coral Springs Democrat, and while FL-22 only includes a tiny piece of the large Coral Springs city (over 100,000 residents), a good campaign by her could do the trick.

FL-16 (Mark Foley) has become more Republican after redistricting, so that's a tougher one to pick up now.

And FL-14 (Porter Goss) has a retiring incumbent. Former US Senator Connie Mack's son, Connie Jr, has a vacation home in FL-14 and, even though his current State House District falls inside FL-22 on the East Coast, he is running for FL-14 on the Gulf Coast. If we make this an issue, perhaps Connie won't be so indomitable. Play the local issues!

If FL-2's Allen Boyd (D) wins the Senate nomination, we will have to fight hard to keep this seat. It is literally 50-50 Gore/Bush territory.

FL-9 and FL-10 are represented by veteran Republicans in a rather Democratic region (Tampa Bay) so they should retire soon. But we'll probably have to wait to pickup those seats for a little bit.

[searchingforlight]

11. I don't know. I see some real hope here.

It looks like the presidential election could swing the balance in some of these cases. It looks like a few are vulnerable. All we need are a few and we need to focus on them.

I wonder if a letter writing campaign like Dean uses in his meetups might work. Or, maybe local dems having block parties?

[Homer12]

9. Wisconsin

Nasty partisin fight between us lefties and liberals vs. the neo-conservatives and republicans in the state.

The repug conservatives will try any menas to destroy the Democratic gov. Jim Doyle by playing poltical games. They didn't think that Doyle woudl play hardball with them, but he did, and stopped their un-discussed shoved down our throat property tax freeze, doing a 180 on their supposed local government control philosiphy.

I execpt that they'll try to recall Doyle next year.

People for a Conservative(responsible) government were put together to recall democratic and lefty politicians in Milwaukee, and they'll make the push to recall Doyle.

I execpt they'll do it no matter the out-come of California. AM Bush Apologist Out-rage Radio will lead the charge just like they did in Milwaukee atgainst the Pension Scandal people.

[Skywalker]

10. Vermont's Not Too Bad

Except we have Repug Governer that puts me to sleep whenever he opens his mouth. But, I deal with it because I'm happy to have Dean run for Prez instead in charge of the State.

We have Leahy (D) and Jeffords (X-R now I...I'm so proud) in the Senate fighting the good fight. And Sanders (I) doing good things as well.

The budget is balanced, but our State and Property taxes are going up, up, up (thanx alot Shrub). As long as the Dems can batter Bush about State taxes being high because of his stupid Federal tax cuts, I guess I'll just have to live with it.

Of course, I have not had a raise in almost 2 years and my portfolio is in the toilet, so things will have to get better. I predict that will start to happen after the 2004 election!


Mark

[KaraokeKarlton]

13. Yes, Douglas is pretty boring, but he hasn't been bad

For the most part, he's done things in the same way Dean has done them. I'd take Douglas over Dwyer any day.

[KaraokeKarlton]

12. Vermont is doing quite well compared to other states

After Dean retired as Governor, Jim Douglas (Republican) was elected. So far, so good...he is essentially following the same path Dean took. He's a moderate and as it stands right now, I will likely vote for him in 2004. We have a $10 million surplus and things are nice and stable. As for the others in office...we have a pretty good mixture of politicians here, and just about all of them work together to get things done and most of them are probably safe for re-election. Just about all voters here purposely vote across party lines to make sure there's a pretty even representation, in order to keep everyone honest, so to speak.

[demnan]

14. Virginia

One idiot Repub Senator up for re-election. What worries me is all the repubs running unopposed.

We have a centrists Democratic Governor who is trying to repair the state after the damage done by two Repub idiot governors, (see Senator above).

[Don_G]

15. Louisville, KY

Home Klavern of Mitch McConnell and his wife: Elaine Chao.

[hatrack]

16. Murky in Missouri

Kit Bond (R-Betty Ford Clinic) is up for reelection next year, and still has a big lead in money, though he's never taken more than 53% in any of his Senate victories. He's up against the State Treasurer, Nancy Farmer, a decent centrist Democrat known as something of a dark horse. I'd have to give the edge to Bond, the Prince of Pork for this state.

That said, a lot still hinges on the economy, which is basically sucking big time. Missouri has lost more manufacturing jobs than any other state since 2000, and it isn't getting any better anytime soon. Chimpy came to town last week and administered the same old economic chloroform to the rapt crowd (the event was sponsored by the local C of C, so that'll give you an idea of just how hand-picked the event was). Heartening, though, were several hundred protestors who showed up for the song 'n dance man.

The current Congressional balance is 5-4 R to D, and with Gephardt retiring at the end of this term, hard to say how his district will swing. McCarthy (MO-5) is facing some ethics problems on office funding and returned from alcohol treatment a few months back, but her seat's still pretty safe. Those are the only potential changes in the House.

At the state level, the General Assembly used up pretty much every bit of one-time and tobacco money (after Bob Holden cut $1 billion in state spending), meaning that there are no easy solutions left on what will likely be at least a $700 million state budget deficit next fiscal year.

But of course, that isn't stopping the Pukes from focusing on what really matters - guns 'n abortion. The special session began on Monday, and they're moving heaven and earth to override two vetoes - one of a concealed-carry law and the other of a 24-hour waiting period for abortions. They're even trying to get one Puke Senator back from active duty in Guantanamo so that they can override the gun veto.

[SaintLouisBlues]

17. Good analysis, hatrack

And the Betty Ford Clinic reference to Bonds slayed me.

I'm hopeful that Bonds will be swept to the curb with the other neocon garbage next Fall.

I have a bad feeling about Gephardt's district, which has shifted south and takes in very little of the city of St. Louis and now is mostly suburbs (South St. Louis County) and exurbs (JeffCo and FrankCo).

[Clete]

18. My state is California. Take a wild guess.

However there are some things I can answer:

Incumbents are Democrats. They aren't safe they can be recalled on the drop of a billionaires dime any time and so they have. )-:

[kayleybeth]

19. Louisiana

Here in Louisiana, Dems hold a majority in the House (68-36), Senate (23-15) and State Supreme Court (6-1). Both of our U.S. Senators are also Democrats. We have a Republican governor whose term is about to expire, so the governorship is up for grabs. The current Lt. Governor (DEM) is running for governor and she currently has a 1 point lead over the closest contender (a republican). We have open primaries here, so there will probably be a runoff between the top two contenders for Governor. Not sure how the upcoming election will affect the legislature, but, in general, incumbents are very difficult to oust in this state.

In presidential elections, Louisiana almost always goes to the republican candidate. Go figure.