Once upon a time, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04) went along with the corrupt Chicago machine and endorsed Bush Dog Lipinski in IL-03.  This was a bad mistake by a good Representative.

Hispanics and immigrants are a large part of IL-03, and a large majority of Gutierrez's district.  Lipinski is horrible on immigration, but most politicians see immigrants as useful scapegoats, so there did not seem to be much downside to the endorsement.

Until ...

(fixed the math; thanks for pointing it out)

A 26 point victory for Obama is what the MSNBC exit polls indicate.  

Obama: 53%
Clinton:  27%
Edwards: 18%

The news media is being very coy, predicting winners but not saying the percentages.  But they are releasing internals which allow one to figure them out.

How?  after the flop

Here is the money quote talking about interrogations, including water boarding:

Republican 10th District Congressman Mark Kirk says back then, such tactics were justifiable "to wrap up the al Qaida cells, that had just attacked the United States." Kirk says destroying videotapes of the interrogations made sense as well.

How the netroots kept this story from being buried, and why it matters, after the fold.

Is America ready for a woman/African-American/Mormon/Mexican-American President?  A friend from rural Missouri, exasperated by neighbors who clearly are not ready, raised that issue the other day. We know that a candidate should be judged on his or her program, principles and record, and are a bit tired of these questions.  But in the real world of politics, those are not all the same question.  They affect Democrats and Republicans differently.  And the reason is related to Lyndon Johnson’s ability to see the future clearly and engineer a huge inter-generational horse trade, and to why the Republican candidates don’t even try to talk to African-American voters or their issues, and to sex with Congressional pages.  Let’s tie all those things together, after the break.

Sometimes we just love a candidate and we will work for him no matter what.  Doesn’t have a chance?  That’s okay.  We are getting important issues out into the public debate.  Or building name recognition for next time. Or maybe our favorite is going to win by 15 point?  That’s okay too, because she can run for higher office, or help other progressives run for other offices.

But other times we are strategic.  We work for someone we don’t really agree with in order to win a larger goal.  Or we skip working for the candidate who is highly likely to win (or highly likely to lose) and spend our time on the candidate who is expected to have a very close race.  One Democrat I worked for won his Congress seat by a margin of less than one vote per precinct. That night at the victory party each of us felt that our efforts alone may have made the difference.

There may be a candidate that makes sense either way you look at it.  More, and why this is a perfect race for a strategic progressive activist in the Chicago area, after the break.

Walking back to YearlyKos from lunch, a companion complained that there is very little discussion on the site of structural economic change.  I remembered a piece on how Norway deals with oil profits and wanted to send him a link as a counter example.  The piece exists but I was wrong about the source.  Here is the best quote:

Our oil profits go to robber barons who give it to their wastrel children to subsidize lives of insane narcissism, but Norwegian oil profits go mostly to the Norwegian people and subsidize the little villages and the roads and rails needed to connect them -- Norwegians are in favor of provincialism -- and also go to the largest pension fund in Europe, $300 billion, which is forecast to more than double in the next 10 years.

The source, after the fold:

Bush must not be allowed to silence Congress on Iraq foreign policy.  There are two polls today on whether American foreign policy should be guided by Bush's attitude of not talking to anyone who does not agree with him.  He has followed it in domestic policy, and in Iran, so he wants to impose it on Nancy Pelosi.

CNN Poll on whether Nancy Pelosi should talk to the Syrians.

AOL poll on whether she should even visit Syria.

The New York Review of Books is the premier intellectual journal in the US.   (That is my way of saying I enjoy reading it, but I am not alone.  It has a circulation of 125,000 .) The lead story on the web version, out today, is an anti-war resolution.

How and why, and what you can do, below:

The Mayoral Election next Tuesday is not in doubt, but the fate of the Mayor may depend on it anyway.

Mayor Daley is a good friend of President Bush and did nothing to help John Kerry in 2004 and little or nothing to help Dems running in three close races for Congress in the Suburbs in 2006.  He has a huge machine of supporters and had he sent them to the suburbs we might have won in IL-06 and IL-10.  But he didn’t.   Republicans have no strength in Chicago; the contests are always between machine Dems and reform Dems.

For years, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has won everything.  Elections.  Bulldozing an airport in the middle of the night when he could not get permission to do so.  Budgets approved unanimously.  But that might not last much longer.  Why?  That, and a call for help, after the flop:

Congressman Tom Andrews had a diaryyesterday that mentioned that a live interview with Murtha was available on the site of MoveCongress.

What he did not say was that you can listen to it even though the interview is finished.

(He also did not say he is a (former) Congressman.  And Director of Win Without War.)

Murtha's stradegy is clever.  It is good that he is doing it.  But Congress should vote down the Supplemental Appropriation.  And if there are not the votes to do that, the fight should still be made on that issue.

Republican Senators make a very strong case.  For defunding.  Here is why:

It would be nice to have a discussion of Bush’s plan for escalation.  It could be like a nationwide teach-in.  Teach-ins are good.

(More "nice to haves", and what we can have, and the three reasons the Dems are being pushed to defunding, all after the flop.)

On Monday, after the big demonstration, 1000 of us stayed on for training and Lobbying our representatives as part of United for Peace and Justice Lobby Day.

Our delegation included representatives of peace groups, clergy, unionists, and Democratic Party activists hoping to cash in on hard work in recent elections.

Our message, and a copy of my follow-up message, which you are welcome to use, after the flop.

Today is the United for Peace and Justice Lobby Day.  We have over 1000 people swarming through Senate and House offices urging opposition to the $100 Billion Dollar Supplemental Appropriation bill coming up next week for funding the Iraq War.

Add your voice.  Call and email your senators and representatives today!  There is something for everyone.  For those who have spoken out against the war, the message is that they can no longer merely voice opposition, but need to vote to stop funding.  For the more moderate, the Murtha House Joint Resolution 18 to redeploy our troops out of Iraq with 96 co-sponsors has become the politically safe alternative and actually can be passed.

Go hereto vote on the question:

Should Congress try to stop President Bush from deploying more U.S. troops in Iraq?

It is a poll that accompanies the Newsweek poll on Bush's popularity.

And it ties directly into the most interesting part of the Newsweek article, which is not Bush's (un)popularity.  More after the flop:

Bush will announce his escalation on Wednesday evening.  

Democracy responds the next day.  

Details below the fold.

The American Historical Association, founded in 1889, is the preeminent association of historians in the country.  Yesterday, at their annual convention, they passed overwhelmingly a resolution declaring that the Bush Administration has violated the principles of "free speech, open debate of foreign policy, and open access to government records" and urged its members to "To do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion." (You can read the resolution here.)

The particulars of the indictment and why this is an unprecedented move are under the fold:

A literature professor once told me to think less about what an author meant and consider instead what effect he had on his audience.  Living in Illinois, every day someone asks whether Obama will run, and whether I would support him.  And I remember that advice.

I have learned on this one to suppress my natural tendency to dissect every utterance he has ever made and weigh those hints at positions against those of other candidates and against my own positions.  Elections are more complex than such comparisons imply.

Now I simply twist the question and give my answer: "Obama should run because it would be good for the primary season, good for the Democrats, and good for the country."  And so should Edwards.  For the same reason.  And Gore.  

Here’s why, after the flop ....

Historians know how to end the War in Iraq.  There is actually a clear historical blueprint for it.  The front page will set up the problem.  

Democrats campaigned on ending the Iraq quagmire and won big.  (How often do you get to write two Q’s next to each other like that?)  Bush heard the voters speak, and is deciding to expand the war?!.   This appears to be a set-up for an epic battle between the Bush Administration and Congress on whether to expand the war or end it.  And the American people are on the side of ending it; support for Bush’s handling of the war is at a new all-time low of 31% in the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll.  

The historical precedent for the solution is after the flop.