(Full Disclosure: I am the National Community Organizer at DFA)

Hey Kossacks,

Yesterday, Charles posted a diary about our campaign to save SCHIP - and thousands of DFA members and Kossacks made calls to their governors demanding that we resist George Bush's anti-children campaign.

But, we all know that SCHIP is just part of the bigger story of our health care system.

When we launched our SiCKO Health Care Petition in June, we knew it would be a huge success -- and it was. What we didn't count on was the incredible outpouring of personal health care horror stories you shared. Thousands of stories were submitted by members who actually have coverage and still didn't get proper care.

(Crossposted at BlogForAmerica.com - Disclosure: I am the National Community Organizer for DFA)

Ten days ago, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen took a major step forward in restoring election integrity by decertifying electronic voting machines with the "potential for serious security breaches". Our DFA-List endorsed candidate followed through on her campaign promise to require a top-to-bottom review of election procedures and take action on the results.

On Friday, I shared some of the success stories California Democracy for America Members had calling their county clerks in support of Secretary of State Debra Bowen. But the positive responses keep rolling in!

County Official:

"It is working. I work for the [] Registrar of Voters, and I receive the website mail, and very few calls, but others in the office have received quite a few, all seemed on message, polite, well-done. All week I have seen that many other counties Registrars' offices have been getting increasingly more.....

Thanks for your Great work"

(Crossposted at Calitics and BlogForAmerica.com - Disclosure: I am the National Community Organizer for DFA)

Last Friday, Secretary of State Debra Bowen took a major step forward in restoring election integrity by decertifying electronic voting machines with the "potential for serious security breaches". Our DFA-List endorsed candidate followed through on her campaign promise to require a top-to-bottom review of election procedures and take action on the results.

Now Sacramento lobbyists and media pundits are trying to stop reform and influence the county officials charged with implementing the changes. Yesterday and today, DFA members in California placed hundreds of calls in support of Debra Brown and verifiable elections and delivered this message:

"I support Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s decision to restore election integrity and ban unsafe voting machines. I’m counting on you to support the ban and protect our votes."

Here is a some of the feedback we received:

There's a front page diaryfrom kos up right now attacking one of our Democratic candidates.

With indignation Kos claims that:

Let me repeat that -- Obama just surrendered to Bush.

I call bullshit. I call bullshit because Barack Obama was one of those "dirty fucking hippies" - as Markos likes to call us- who actually went to anti-war protests in 2002 with groups like ANSWER - because they were the only ones out there organizing against the war.

But more importantly, I call bullshit because I read the rest of the article Kos cited and I think we may have been duped.

Analysis below the fold.

Sorry for the short diary, but it's official Sen. Obama is filing papers today to consider a run for the presidency.

The Exploratory Committee Website has been posted!

It's about time a candidate who has opposed the war from the beginning got in the race. I think this is the beginning of a historic campaign. For now, I'm going to withhold any more comment. All I can say is Obama 2008!

Sen. Feingold will be on the Ed Schultz show after the commercial break.

You can listen live right here.

Earlier today Sen. Reid was on and said he did NOT have the votes for a filibuster so one would not happen. Lets hear what Russ has to say.

Many of us here at DailyKos including Kos himself have been talking about candidates earning our support in 2008 by working for it in 2006. For example, a Warner candidacy gains from having Kaine and Webb win in Virginia. Bayh benefits if he can deliver some of the IN-6,7,8,9 seats to Democrats. Even HRC gets credit if she builds a turnout machine to turn upstate New York blue.

But how do we judge someone like Russ Feingold? And how does this affect his chances in 2008?

...the outcome of this November's elections could determine whether [Feingold] runs for president in 2008."

(If you have more interest in a potential Feingold candidacy , head over to RussForPresident.com

(Crossposted at RussForPresident.com

The media is buzzing with word of Ned Lamont's victory over in the Connecticut Democratic Primary. Sen. Feingold had been the first Senator to refuse a primary endorsement of Lieberman and insisted that he would support the Democratic nominee. Of course, he never hid his true sentiments in the race and repeated them wednesday.

"Ned Lamont's positions on the critical issues facing our country today are much closer to mine. We need more leaders like Ned Lamont in Washington."

Ned Lamont is a Feingold Democrat. He supports censure, equal marriage, the Feingold-Kerry Amendment for a withdrawal timetable, but there's something more important than individidual issues. Like Feingold, Lamont believes that Democrats do best when they stand up to the Bush, Cheney, Rove administration.

(Crossposted at RussForPresident.com)

Kyle of "Diary of a political madman" (a local Iowa blog) has has an excellent piece on the Senator's visit to Clinton and Davenport over the weekend. As a local blogger in touch with the political scene he's had the chance to attend events for a few of the 08 candidates and has a good sense of their appeal in Iowa.

I'm now the proud owner of a "Run Russ Run!" button, and I would be surprised if the issues he presents don't resonate with the large portion of Iowa voters who supported Ed Fallon. Feingold is also probably the only candidate I'd get up at 5:45 on a Sunday to see, and as it turns out, that's what I did.

Read below the fold to find out why: update: the title was suggested in a comment below. This commentary is about Senator Feingold's visit to Clinton, IA. Thanks

Senator Feingold made his 2nd visit to Iowa this weekend and I followed him to a couple of the events.

I've never met Senator Feingold in person before but do write over at RussForPresident.com and am a big believer that Senator Feingold should run in 2008. Meeting him today only reinforced that belief. Take a look below to see why.

The Senator discussed a variety of topics from Iraq, Lebanon/Israel to the nature of progressivism, education, and health care. I expected the Senator to be a bit angrier, but sitting there in an Iowa basement I saw a calm, logical man full of common sense. He didn't yell about the Bush administration but simply pointed out their mistakes and presented a positive vision of his own. There were many memorable moments and I hope you'll join me for some of them below.

Chris Bowers:

Joe Lieberman has left the party. If the DSCC backs anyone except the Democratic nominee, they better be prepared for real consequences. Do not abandon your own party and break your own rules and then expect the plebs who have been playing by those rules to sit quietly and accept it.

There's a concensus broadly amongst the netroots that even if one doesn't support Ned and doesnt believe in putting resources into the battle against Joe, the party must respect the wishes of Democrats in Connecticut.
And, local politicians have been coming out in support of the Democratic nominee from the August 8th primary. (LIST)

A few concrete steps for us to take:

A couple days ago, there was a very prominent diary entitled "Is Barack Obama the next Joe Lieberman?". Now, I don't wish to revisit the question in that discussion regarding Senator Obama's speech on faith and politics.

I left a comment to the effect that "there is no separation between church and state" and was met with some snide remarks. So if you have any interest in the matter, let's take a stroll though history, church and state, and wikipedia to see exactly what the state of the "separation" between church and state.

And, if there is someone with legal knowledge out there and  I am wrong, please let me know and I'd genuinely like to hear the details.

Something happened to a lot of us between the Dean campaign crashing in Iowa and Kerry/Edwards coming up short in Ohio. We started to become "realists" - coldly calculating the odds that someone would win and whether it was worth supporting them.

Sure, we believe in the 50 state strategy- as long as it doesn't hurt our chances of winning swing states.

Sure, we support progressives for office- but not if it means a harder race in the general.

Sure, we support Ned Lamont - but he can't really win can he?

Well, I'm here to say that I believe in Ned Lamont, because I believe that change is possible and some things are worth it despite the odds.

Here's the deal. No tip jar today. If you support Ned, contribute to his campaign. If you think others should support Ned, recommend this diary for others to see.

Russ Feingold has received a lot of attention for his stance on marriage equality. Without equivocation he explained that he is 100% in favor of equal marriage rights in this country for all couples. This has brought about the usual whining and complaining that the Senator is out of the mainstream, on the kooky left, or simply too liberal to be President. Of course, there is not a shred of evidence to back this up.

In a Gallup  poll taken between May 8-11, 2006, Democrats support full marriage equality by a healthy 53% to 45% margin. More significantly, marriage equality is only narrowly opposed by independents at a rate of 49% to 45%. In contrast Republicans oppose gay marriage at almost 4 to 1 (79% to 19%).

Poll Chart below the fold:

There's been a lot of talk about bringing the troops home this year. Namely, CNN has been covering the Republican attempts to bring home some 30,000 troops before the election and claim mission accomplished.

Senator Feingold has taken the lead in making sure that ACTUAL withdrawal happens, and is credited to Democrats.

Today, Feingold is introducing an amendment to the emergency supplemental appropriations bill that requires the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq by December 31st, 2006

If you still don't get the reasons for censure.

Then watch last night's Daily Show with John Stewart courtesy of Crooks and Liars.

The news story:

The Wisconsin Democrat appeared on the Comedy Central show tonight ... and Stewart told him he likes the censure idea because -- quote -- "This feels like some attempt at accountability."

And what was Senator Feingold's simple explanation?

I was taught that the congress makes the laws and the president is supposed to sign them and enforce them. He's not supposed to make them up.---How many times are we going to let George Bush and Dick Cheney say you guys don't support the troops, you're not patriotic and let them push us around?

That's why this man should be our President in 2008.

A lot of words and emotions have been shed over the race in IL-06. I live in nearby Illinois 10 but was following this race quite a bit and stayed up quite late to see the results trickle in.

In the end (almost the end as only 98.6% are still reporting, Tammy Duckworth seems to have pulled out the victory.

    Duckworth , Tammy     Dem     14,019     43.81
    Cegelis , Christine     Dem     12,939     40.44
    Scott , Lindy             Dem     5,038     15.75

A lot of us in the "netroots" and local progressives are quite upset by what transpired here, Duckworth supporters claimed to be leading in the polls, that Cegilis had no support, and that only their candidate could win. Clearly, that wasn't the case, having been hugely outspent, Cegelis still nearly pulled it out

So what happens now? Please read below the fold.

Russ Feingold has done it again. After voting against the Patriot Act extension along with only 9 others, the Senator gave a floor speech in which he was absolutely on fire.

Without freedom, we are not America. If we don't preserve our liberties, we cannot win this war, no matter how many terrorists we capture or kill.

That is why the several Senators who have said at one time or another during this debate things like, "Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead" are wrong about America at the most basic level. They do not understand what this country is all about. Theirs is a vision that the founders of this nation, who risked everything for freedom, would categorically reject. And so do the American people.