'Average Joe' Candidate says Dems, GOP Manipulate the System (ContributorNetwork)

How can someone who considers himself an "average joe" run for president of the United States? Ask Matthew Gerwitz. With a conservative but non-conforming platform, the unknown "joe" has joined the 2012 race, as yet independent from any party affiliation.

In a previous Yahoo interview, Gerwitz gave his view of the U.S. Supreme Court and what to look for in a president. Today, he answers more questions.

Q: You state on your website that the two major parties manipulate the political election system for their own benefit. Can you give an example?

A: Say I was running Republican...if it even looked like any average joe could come close to winning, the GOP would probably change the rules so that I couldn't become the "establishment" candidate. They have a definite idea of whose "turn" it is. I feel that's how Bob Dole and George W. Bush got the nomination. What goes on in the two-party system has got to change.

Q: Do you think a conservative woman could ever win the presidency?

A: I think Palin or Michelle Bachmann could win, if they won the GOP nomination. Ideas win elections. We've seen that. Even though we think no one besides conservatives might vote for them, if one of them has the right message at the right time like President Obama had the message of change, they could win.

Q: Do you consider yourself a tea partier, or has any Tea Party affiliate approached you offering support?

A: I would consider myself a tea partier. No one has approached me yet, although I've sent some information about myself to Tea Party affiliates.

Q: You have a full plate at home, working three jobs--writer, guitar teacher, pastor--plus having helped your wife homeschool your children. What made you decide to run for president?

A: Even back when I was 18, I made jokes about running for office. But years later, after George W. Bush signed the prescription drug plan [2003, including prescriptions for seniors in Medicare but seen as a huge benefit to drug companies], I realized politicians would never change and began praying about what I could do.

On a sightseeing trip to Gettysburg, I stood at the historic location of a Civil War hospital. I could feel the death. More soldiers died at Gettysburg than in all the years of the Iraq war. Sadness overwhelmed me. I felt the Lord saying, "Are you going to be obedient?" But I ignored him.

The next Sunday, I was teaching a class at church about people needing a vision for their lives. Hosea 4:6 says, "Without vision, my people perish." The Lord asked me again to be obedient.

A week later, it just came tumbling out of my mouth. "I'm going to run for president."

Q: As a Christian pastor running for office, how would you address accusations of "homophobia" and "hate"?

A: Many people use the name "Christian" carelessly when they aren't really one [haven't actively accepted and professed Jesus as Lord, Saviour and leader over their life]. And they mistreat people in the name of what they think is Christianity.

A genuine, true follower of Christ knows what the Bible says about needing to love all people while not necessarily believing that everything people do is okay. Disagreeing is not hate. But many Christians haven't voiced this in the right manner. If we read in the Bible that something is a sin, and that sin hurts people, then we feel we are doing right by kindly telling someone so. If I correct my children for improper behavior, does that mean I hate them?

By the same token -- if the definition of "hate" is defined by those who make generalizations against Christians, then these others are acting just as "hateful" as the Christians they accuse.

See Gerwitz's July 4 You Tube video explaining the national debt ceiling, and stay tuned to the Yahoo Contributor Network for a third interview, discussing the pullout of troops from Afghanistan and other issues.

Sheryl Young has been freelance writing for newspapers, magazines, organizations and websites since 1997. Her specialty is American politics, education and society as they intersect with religion. Credits include Community Columnist for the Tampa Tribune Newspaper, Interview Columnist with Light & Life Magazine, and a National First Place "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award from the Amy Foundation.

(Disclosure of acquaintance: The writer and candidate are previous writing acquaintances, with the candidate inviting this writer to do the interviews. However, the writer is not receiving any form of remuneration from the candidate, nor is she working for, or personally endorsing, his campaign.)

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Debt Ceiling Debate Winner Will Win 2012 (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | The Democrats are playing a dangerous end game on the debt ceiling and the result is a possible win for Barack Obama in the 2012 election. The Republicans have taken a hard line and are willing to let the United States go into default. This is exactly what the Democrats want to happen.

If the United States goes into default, the Republicans will be the scapegoat for the failing economy in the next year and a half before the election. The Democrats will be able to turn the tables and blame the United States devalued credit rating and lower standing in the world economy on the stubborn Democrats.

ABC News posted the anatomy of a debt default and their graphic and story lays the groundwork to make the Republicans look like the bad guys in this battle. The battle over the debt ceiling will become a major talking point in the next three weeks and the focus will be on the Republicans refusal to budge.

Republicans need to learn they have the upper hand. They can send a debt limit approval tied to only cuts, no taxes and send it to the Democrat controlled Senate. If the Senate sends the debt limit approval to the White House with just spending cuts and no taxes, Obama will be responsible for the default and the Republicans will have the edge.

The Republicans have to get a debt limit approval through the House of Representatives and the Senate and on Obama's desk quickly and then his refusal to sign will be the perfect end game for the Republicans in 2012. They will be able to claim victory and Obama go down as the only president to allow the country to go into default.

People struggling to resist claiming bankruptcy will now have an out. The government can default, why can't they? The ramifications have not been thought through. A government default sends a message to the nation and the world. The United States government is in such disarray they cannot honor their obligations.

The House of Representatives has the keys to the car and they can drive the president to the brink with no option but to sign off on the cuts and his ability to expand the government ends in dramatic fashion.

The next three weeks will tell voters if they need to vote out the incumbents or hail them as heroes in the next election. History will happen in the next three weeks. Will it be the end of this country or a new beginning of bipartisan cooperation?

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NYC Dems tap state lawmaker to run for Weiner seat (AP)

NEW YORK – Democratic leaders have chosen a state lawmaker from Queens to replace Rep. Anthony Weiner, who resigned his seat in New York's 9th Congressional District last month after a sexting scandal.

Assemblyman David Weprin, 55, was expected to be formally nominated Friday by leaders of the Queens and Brooklyn Democratic parties, an adviser to Weprin said Thursday. The adviser spoke on condition of anonymity because the nomination had not been announced.

Weprin will be heavily favored to win the special election for the seat Sept. 13. While Republicans are expected to announce a nominee soon, no Republican has ever won the seat and the national party was not expected to invest significant resources in the contest.

Weprin was elected to the Assembly in 2010 after serving in the City Council for eight years. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for city comptroller in 2009.

Weiner stepped down in the middle of his seventh term after admitting he had sent sexually suggestive texts and photos to women he met on Twitter and other social networking sites. He remained popular in the district until the end, with polls showing a majority of residents did not believe he needed to resign.

New York is set to lose two House seats next year, based on the results of the 2010 census.

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Pelosi flexes muscle as House Democrats prepare for final debt ceiling negotiations (The Ticket)

(Alex Brandon/AP)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has so far played a minor, background role in the negotiations between President Obama and congressional Republicans over raising the debt ceiling. But she sought to change all that Friday, in a private meeting with Obama to drive home her earlier pledge to oppose any deal that cuts the nation's entitlement programs.

Pelosi emerged from a meeting with House Democrats Friday to announce that they remain "firm" in their commitment to keep Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare free from cuts.

One day earlier, Pelosi made clear that many House Democrats fervidly oppose the White House's bid to place cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the table during the debt-ceiling talks. Republican leaders, meanwhile, say they won't proceed with negotiations unless such cuts are included, together with provisions to restrain the future growth of government spending.

"We do not support cuts in benefits for Social Security and Medicare," Pelosi said. "Any discussion of Medicare or Social Security should be on its own table. I have said that before. You want to take a look at Social Security? Then look at it on its own table. But do not consider Social Security a piggy bank for giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country."

It isn't surprising to see the former Speaker flex a little muscle. Through all the big deals negotiated between Republicans and the White House--even the one that extended Bush-era tax rates, which happened while House Democrats still held the  majority and Pelosi was Speaker of the House--she often found herself sitting on the bench, waiting to be called into the game. Now the country is faced with a dilemma that will need her to help fix it--and she's understandably squeezing every bit of leverage she can out of the situation.

The details of the deal are still pending, but both parties are examining ways to reduce federal spending by $4 trillion over the next  10 years. Obama earlier this week said he would consider including the entitlement programs in those cuts, an admission that has received little support from his party.

Members of the House Progressive Caucus have remained the most vocal about their opposition to the deal. Caucus leaders sent a letter to Obama Thursday urging him to strip entitlements from the negotiations, or risk losing Democratic support.

"Not only am I not going to vote for it, I am going to whip my caucus as hard as I can to persuade them not to support it," House Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison told the Minnesota Post.

Rank-and-file members are also primed to go to battle over entitlements.

"You want a fight?" said Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) recently during a press conference. "If anybody in this building wants to take on Social Security—privatize it, change the benefits by altering the Consumer Price Index or by any other method—know this: You've got a fight on your hands."

Still, at least some Democratic lawmakers actually do support at least one of the measures Garemendi cited: reducing benefits by indexing them to the Consumer Price Index. As  Talking Points Memo reporter Brian Beutler points out, congressional Democrats have indicated some backing for an approach to altering Social Security in a way that would reduce benefits without the measure necessarily qualifying as a "cut." By pegging the Cost of Living Adjustments to a lower inflation estimate, Congress could, technically, reduce spending for the program and avoid at least some of the political fallout that would come with deeper outright cuts to the program.

Of course, since the exact details of the deal remain behind closed doors, much of the talk at this point is mere posturing. The true moment of reckoning will come for both sides as more concrete details surface over the next few days.

It's still unclear whether House Speaker John Boehner will even be able to secure votes from a wide majority of Republicans. So for this thing to pass, it will need every Democratic vote it can get. And Pelosi knows it.

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Democrats continue fight against voter ID laws (Daily Caller)

Democrats are battling a growing number of states that are preparing to implement tougher voter identification laws.

Stopping voter ID laws is crucial to Democrats who argue college students, the elderly and minorities will be prevented from voting under the new laws.

“It’s no surprise that these voter suppression efforts are being pushed by Republicans in key swing states,” said Democratic Governor Association spokeswoman Lis Smith.

Republicans pushing to pass such legislation counter that tougher laws will prevent voter fraud and keep ineligible voters from the polling booths.

Now, opponents of the laws don’t just have Republicans to worry about.

Rhode Island’s independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee is the latest to join the voter identification law spree—he signed a tougher bill into law Tuesday after it was passed by the state’s Democratic-controlled house and senate. The governor told The Providence Journal the new law would increase “accuracy and integrity” shortly after signing the bill.

Nearly 20 other states are considering more stringent voter photo identification laws, which has many Democrats crying out in retaliation.

More than 15 Democratic senators have signed a letter calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the legality of states’ “highly restrictive photo identification requirements,” which they allege violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act and, ultimately, civil rights.

Holder’s office would not confirm or deny if it is complying with the request from the senators.

“The Justice Department is monitoring, as it routinely does, this type of legislative activity in the states,” Holder’s office told The Daily Caller.

The letter comes weeks after the Democratic Governors Association embarked on a $50,000 fundraising effort to combat voter ID laws.

The Supreme Court has previously upheld voter photo ID laws. The high court ruled in favor of allowing Indiana to enforce photo identification legislation at voting booths in April 2008. High profile Republicans such as current House Speaker John Boehner praised the decision while civil rights groups like the League of Women Voters and many Democrats denounced it.

The fundraising, which ended June 30, surpassed the $50,000 mark, Smith said.

So far, the DGA has specifically targeted Florida and Wisconsin, where Republican governors recently signed voter ID bills into law.

But the DGA isn’t stopping there.

“It’s definitely a big priority of ours,” Smith said. “I think you’ll see we’re going to be involved in additional states in coming weeks and months, Pennsylvania’s one, Ohio’s another.”

Smith said the issue, which the DGA believes is “aimed directly at Democratic voters,” is a priority because it will stop thousands of eligible voters from coming to the polls in 2012.

Before 2011, nine states already required photo IDs at polls. Seven states have inked new voter ID laws this year.

“If this legislation is successful, it will prevent seniors, students, low income folks, women who’ve gotten their names change because they were married, from being able to cast their vote in the 2012 elections,” Smith said.

Not to be outdone, the Democratic National Committee has started its own push back to stop voter ID legislation from becoming law.

The DNC has focused its energy on the exposing the cost of implementing “unnecessary” new voter ID laws. The DNC estimates the cost of the laws could range between $276 million and $828 million for states, attributing the millions to educating voters.

“The concern is the really isn’t a problem,” said DNC spokesperson Alec Gerlach. “It’s more of a solution in search of a problem. Voter impersonation is not a problem”

Gerlach said the stringent voter ID laws make it difficult for minorities and the elderly to vote.

“I think that minority voters and elderly voters are harder to reach as far education is concerned, if you change the law you have to make the effort to educate,” Gerlach said.

No matter how many attack ads Democrats run against the voter ID laws, Republican-controlled legislatures are undeterred. Ohio’s GOP legislature is expected to vote on a series of voter identification reforms during special session in coming weeks.

“The Ohio Republican Party favors an identification provision that is strict and consistent to ensure integrity in our election process,” Ohio GOP Chairman Mike DeWine said to The Daily Caller in a statement. “Identification requirements should comply with the requirements for registration and remain consistent across all 21 days of voting.”

Read more stories from The Daily Caller

Democrats continue fight against voter ID laws

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Four governors add names to Cut, Cap and Balance pledge

Senators introduce Sense of the Senate resolution against President acting alone on debt limit

Was Obama almost put up for adoption?

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Pelosi: Dems oppose Social Security, Medicare cuts (AP)

WASHINGTON – The top House Democrat says she and fellow Democratic lawmakers will oppose including cuts in Social Security or Medicare benefits in any package aimed at reducing huge federal deficits.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made the remark to reporters Thursday after returning to the Capitol from President Barack Obama's budget talks with congressional leaders. The leaders are looking for a compromise package that would extend the government's borrowing limit while also slicing trillions off future budget deficits.

Signals have emerged that the White House would consider culling savings from Social Security and Medicare. But Pelosi, a California Democrat, says Democrats believe those two programs should not be used to pay for tax breaks for the rich.

Republicans have opposed ending some tax loopholes for the wealthy.

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Does Eric Cantor have a conflict of interest in debt ceiling debate? (Daily Caller)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) could face a resolution brought by House Democrats accusing him of having a conflict of interest in the debate over the debt ceiling, the Huffington Post reported late Friday.

According to the resolution, Cantor’s investment in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF means he could stand to gain if the debt ceiling is not raised. The fund bets against U.S. government bonds, and if the country were to default on its debts, the value of Cantor’s fund could increase. (Rep. Cuellar: Cantor’s withdrawal from budget talks good for Democrats)

The resolution, the Huffington Post writes, says Cantor “may be sabotaging [debt ceiling] negotiations for his own personal gain.” The resolution goes on to say that Cantor has “compromised the dignity and integrity of the Members of the House.”

Cantor’s spokesman, Brad Dayspring doesn’t just say this is wrong. He says it’s the opposite of the truth. Cantor has only about $3,300 invested in the trust in question, while he has more than a quarter million dollars in a congressional pension plan dependent on government bonds.

Dayspring put it this way: “For the conspiracy theorists — they would have to believe that Eric would want to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a few thousands in return.” He called the insinuations made in the resolution “outrageous.”

Cantor recently removed himself from budget negotiations anyway, saying he wouldn’t consider until Democrats addressed tax issues.

Read more stories from The Daily Caller

Does Eric Cantor have a conflict of interest in debt ceiling debate?

Even Whoopi Goldberg confused why she hosted Dalai Lama talk

Would you give up the internet? [VIDEO]

Congressional staffer resigns after sending inappropriate tweets

Hard times for old time publishers

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Seriously? Democrats Target New House Republicans for...Sleazy Ethics? - News Busters

Stephanie Condon of CBS News reports the Party of Charlie Rangel is attacking freshman Republicans as sleaze-oids: "Democrats are launching a series of robocalls today against six vulnerable House Republicans who have been caught in ethics scandals."

The calls focus on six relatively new GOP members: Reps. Scott Tipton of Colorado, David Rivera of Florida, Frank Guinta of New Hampshire, Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, and Stephen Fincher of Tennessee were all elected in 2010. Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida came into office in 2007.

"House Republican leaders pledged a zero tolerance policy to ethics problems in their conference, but their answer has been to turn a blind eye, " said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of House Democrats...

Most of the allegations noted in the robocalls surfaced before Election Day 2010, but there have been new developments since then in most cases. For instance, Fincher came under scrutiny in 2010 for allegedly failing to disclose a loan of $250,000 to his campaign, but the Federal Election Commission has since opened an investigation into the charge.

The robocall targeting Guinta focuses on an investigation into his campaign funding, while the call targeting Rivera highlights a series of charges against the congressman, including the accusation he received "secret payments" from his mother's company.

Perhaps CBS could add the story of Rep. Laura Richardson, recently profiled by David Freddoso.

Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Tim Graham on Twitter.

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Who is blocking a grand debt deal? Democrats, too, have limits - msnbc.com

WASHINGTON — Republicans who refuse to consider tax increases aren’t the only obstacles to President Obama’s bid to get a significant debt deal through Congress in time to avoid default as early as Aug. 2.

Democrats, too, have a point beyond which they will not go — cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits — and want the president to keep it in mind as he prepares for a new round of negotiations at the White House on Sunday.

The White House has asked that congressional leaders lay out their bottom line negotiating positions at the Sunday meeting.

For that reason, a closed caucus meeting on Friday was a last chance for many Democrats to signal the White House and their own leaders what it will take to win their votes, once a deal comes to the floor.

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“I came to Washington to protect Social Security and Medicare, not to dismantle them,” says Rep. Jim McGovern (D) of Massachusetts. “These aren’t just programs, they represent core values of the Democratic Party. You shouldn’t be balancing the budget on the backs of seniors and poor people.”

Democrats say they don’t know what’s been discussed in closed meetings so far, but are alarmed by what they’re hearing in the corridors or reading in press reports. Republicans, too, say they are in the dark. The White House and congressional leaders have deliberately avoided discussing details before the deal is done.

But the rank and file in both parties want to make it very clear to their leaders what will fly on the floor, when it’s necessary to find a majority of 218 House votes. Democrats say they expect that Republican Speaker Boehner will need at least 100 votes from Democrats to pass a debt deal. That, they say, gives them some clout.

Story: Presidential candidates warn about compromise in debt deal

“The know-nothing wing of the Republican Party is going to vote against a debt ceiling agreement no matter what is in it,” says Rep. Gerald Connolly (D) of Virginia, alluding to freshmen Republicans who campaigned on a pledge to never raise the debt ceiling. “Speaker Boehner is going to need the Democratic caucus to pass this. That means that, whether he likes it or not, taxes are on the table.”

From the start of the debt talks, Boehner has said that tax increases are off the table, because it hurts jobs to raise taxes when the economy is struggling to recover from a recession. At a press briefing on Friday, he said that his aim from the start of the process was “the big deal that would fundamentally solve our spending problem and our debt problem in the near to medium term.”

“But at the end of the day, we’ve got to have a bill that we can pass through the House and the Senate,” he added. “In all honesty, I don’t think this problem has narrowed at all in the last several days.”

Back in the days when she was House speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D) of California was the president’s essential partner on Capitol Hill, but as the House minority leader recently has been less a presence in closed White House negotiating sessions, displaced by Boehner.

Now, she’s a player again, if only because Democratic votes may be needed when it comes time to pass a debt deal in the House.

Democrats want to reduce the budget deficit and grow the economy, but not “on the backs of America’s seniors and working families,” Pelosi said Friday. That means “no benefit cuts in Medicare and Social Security,” she said. “And we have serious concerns about what is happening with Medicaid as well.”

“I'm still optimistic that we can find a place where we can come together, I don't like to have a situation where we're saying, well, you need our votes, so you better have this in the bill,” she added.

Story: House boosts military budget in time of austerity

House Republicans have taken a pounding in public opinion polls over their budget plan for FY 2012, which reduced the federal role in Medicare. They lost a special election in New York they had been expected to win that turned on GOP Medicare cuts.

Democrats are gearing up to use the issue in the 2012 campaign – a strategy that would be undermined if Democrats wind up voting for a debt deal that includes Medicare cuts.

“A lot of Democrats thought they were going to run [in 2012] as guardians of Medicare and Social Security, but for the White House to tell them that both are going to be chopped puts their reelection plans in jeopardy,” says Thomas Ferguson, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

© 2011 Christian Science Monitor

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Democrats may have too many candidates for their own good - Las Vegas Sun

By David McGrath Schwartz (contact)

Sunday, July 10, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Sen. Harry Reid’s Democratic Party has done a remarkable job preventing contentious primaries over the past few elections. The reasoning: Infighting requires campaign spending on something other than defeating Republicans and leaves internal rifts.

So the congressional campaign outlook for 2012 presents an interesting math problem: For the three seats in Southern Nevada, there are five current or former elected Democrats expressing strong interest in running.

Noting that in 2012 the president will be up for re-election and there will be a U.S. Senate race to worry about, that scenario causes some party observers to worry.

Dina Titus

Steven Horsford

John Oceguera

“This is a critical state for the president’s re-election,” said Terry Murphy, a Nevada political consultant. “It would benefit everybody if Democrats selected their candidates rather than fought it out in the primary.”

Another Democratic source imagined two popular Democrats such as former Rep. Dina Titus and state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford duking it out for a congressional seat. He called it “a nightmare scenario” because of the drain on resources it would cause.

(The latest example of the Democratic machine’s distaste for primaries: a targeted effort to weaken Byron Georgiou, who’s running against Reid-supported Rep. Shelley Berkley for the party’s nomination for U.S. Senate.)

This year, the Democratic-controlled Legislature drew congressional boundaries with the help of consultants hired by the state party. Although not mentioned publicly, the three names most often mentioned for those seats were Horsford, Titus and Assembly Speaker John Oceguera.

That worked out cleanly because after the 2010 census, Nevada had four congressional seats — one for the north, where Democrat Treasurer Kate Marshall is running against former Republican state Sen. Mark Amodei, and three in the south.

Oceguera signaled he was willing to take on Rep. Joe Heck; and the two maps passed by the Legislature had him living in Heck’s district.

But politics is rarely simple.

First, Democrats couldn’t strike an agreement with GOP lawmakers or Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval on the boundaries, leaving redistricting, for now, in the hands of the courts.

Second, any sense of anointment that Oceguera, Horsford and even Titus had evaporated once the Legislature adjourned.

Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, has been the recent subject of buzz, pushed by local and national groups trying to recruit a Hispanic candidate in Nevada.

Kihuen said he appreciates that supporters have started a Facebook page to draft him to run for Congress, but said it’s too early to commit.

Would he consider running in a primary against a Democrat?

“I’m going to base my decision on what I feel is best for the people of Nevada, and what my constituents are saying,” he said.

Titus said she can’t comment on electoral politics because she is a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

Also interested is Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, a business-friendly Democrat who openly sparred with Oceguera during the session and took swipes at the control Horsford tried to exert over his caucus.

He called his possible opponents “good people. But it will be easier for me to make a decision because I’m not a political opportunist.”

The glut of options is a shift from early last decade, when the Democrats struggled to find viable candidates to run in the competitive congressional district. Now they have more serious candidates than available seats.

Andres Ramirez, a political consultant, warned against anointing anyone.

“In many instances, the perceived front-runners in the beginning don’t even run,” he said. “It’s way too early.”

Publicly, anyway. Privately, all the potential candidates are preparing.

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Fake Democrats face real ones in Wis. recall primaries - Post-Bulletin

Fake Democrats face real ones in Wis. recall primaries

MADISON, Wis. — Isaac Weix thinks he can win a Democratic primary for state Senate on Tuesday, even though he's not campaigning and he's not a Democrat.

Weix is one of six fake Democrats running in recall elections under a move organized by the state Republican Party to delay the general election for a month. The Republicans got members of their party to run as Democrats, giving the real candidates a challenger for Tuesday's primary.

All six Republican incumbent senators have no challengers and will advance to the Aug. 9 general election. That means the primaries won't offer any clue whether the voter anger that spurred the recalls will translate into big wins for Democrats.

If Democrats pick up three seats, they will control the Senate and be able to block Walker and the GOP's agenda. Democratic losses would further embolden Republicans as they defend the collective bargaining changes that led to the recalls to begin with.

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Democrats Oppose Talk of Cuts to Social Security - New York Times

As word spread that Mr. Obama was considering large savings from the use of a different measure of inflation to reduce the annual cost-of-living adjustment in Social Security benefits, Democrats joined with lobbyists for older Americans to reject the idea. Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Democrats would oppose changes in Social Security benefits as part of the deficit-reduction talks.

“Any discussion of Social Security should be on a separate track,” he said. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said, “Any savings should be plowed back into making Social Security stronger.”

Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said, “The proposal would place new burdens on the backs of seniors.”

Representative Xavier Becerra of California, a member of the House Democratic leadership, said, “The cuts in Social Security benefits would grow larger as retirees age, and seniors who rely most on Social Security to pay for basic necessities would receive the biggest benefit cuts.”

On the Senate floor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said Thursday: “Social Security and Medicare benefits should not be on the table. Social Security is not the cause of the deficit, and beneficiaries should not be made to shoulder the burden of deficit reduction.”

In particular, Mr. Whitehouse said, Congress must not “cut benefits through backdoor methods such as lowering the cost-of-living adjustment.”

Republicans are concerned about the growth of entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare. Some, like Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, support the idea of an alternative measure of inflation, known as the chain-weighted version of the Consumer Price Index, because they believe it is more accurate. But the party, waiting to see details, has not taken an official stand.

Lobbyists for older Americans were blistering in their criticism of the proposal, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, could reduce federal spending by more than $110 billion over 10 years.

“This is nothing more than a backdoor benefit cut that Washington hopes Americans won’t notice or understand,” said Max Richtman, executive vice president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

He said Social Security beneficiaries did not receive a cost-of-living adjustment this year or in 2010 because inflation, as measured by the standard Consumer Price Index, was so low.

AARP, the lobby for older Americans, said last month that it might be open to modest reductions in Social Security benefits for future recipients. But A. Barry Rand, the group’s chief executive, tried to quash the inflation adjustment idea, saying that “AARP will not accept any cuts of any kind to Social Security as part of a deal” to reduce the deficit and increase the debt limit.

The proposal under discussion would affect current and future beneficiaries. Any move to exempt current beneficiaries would reduce the amount of savings.

Supporters of the proposal argue that the current measure of inflation overstates increases in the cost of living because it does not adequately reflect how, when faced with higher prices, consumers change their buying habits, substituting cheaper items for more expensive ones.

On the other hand, some economists say the current measure understates the impact of inflation on older Americans, who tend to spend more of their income on health care. Medical prices have been rising faster than the overall price index.

Budget negotiators are also discussing a proposal that would use the alternative measure of inflation to adjust income tax brackets and other provisions of the tax code, like the standard deduction and the personal exemption amount.

This proposal would raise nearly $60 billion over 10 years, as more Americans would find themselves in higher tax brackets.

Republicans, adamantly opposed to any form of tax increase, worry about an increase that might result from using the new measure of inflation to adjust tax brackets.

Representative Robert E. Andrews, Democrat of New Jersey, said he would consider changes in the Social Security benefit formula only as part of a giant deficit-reduction package that included substantial new revenues and cuts in military spending. If the alternative measure of inflation is more accurate, he said, it would be “logical, consistent and desirable” to use it in adjusting tax brackets and Social Security benefits.

Grover G. Norquist, a prominent conservative strategist who is president of Americans for Tax Reform, said he saw a big difference. Reducing Social Security benefits would be a cut in spending, and “that would be fine,” Mr. Norquist said. But he said using the new price index to set tax brackets would be a tax increase, in violation of the pledge made by Republican leaders.

Stephen C. Goss, the chief actuary of Social Security, said the alternative inflation measure could reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments so the benefit for a retiree turning 85 in 2035 would be about 7 percent lower. The cuts are cumulative and would have a larger effect on older beneficiaries, who depend more on Social Security as a source of income.

Congressional Democrats said that using a different version of the Consumer Price Index could also reduce Medicare payment rates for some health care providers, including ambulatory surgical centers, clinical laboratories and suppliers of durable medical equipment like wheelchairs and respirators.

In addition, they said, the proposal could eventually increase the number of Medicare beneficiaries who must pay higher premiums because they have incomes above a certain level — $85,000 for individuals and $170,000 for married couples this year.

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Democrats aim for sweeping deal in US debt talks - Reuters

WASHINGTON, July 10 | Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:57pm EDT

Democrats are willing to consider changes to popular benefit programs, but "Republicans are refusing to take yes for an answer" because they don't want to raise revenues, the source said.

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Iowa Democrats trying to stay in the game - FOX2now.com

It's an unsettling time for Iowa Democrats, who spent 2008 basking in the glow of having given Barack Obama his first major victory on the road to the White House. Since then, their one-term Democratic governor, Chet Culver, was defeated in November, and three Supreme Court justices were booted off the bench over a decision favoring same-sex marriage.

"After all the euphoria of '8, '10 was such a rude awakening," said Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky, a chipper former special education teacher who refers to years by only their last digits. " '7 and '8, for those of us who lived through it, was so spectacular."

On a recent afternoon, Dvorsky was in her small, cluttered office at party headquarters near the Des Moines Airport. In one corner, there was a small photo of Dvorsky with a tall, dark man. "That's my boyfriend," said a mischievous Dvorsky, 56, who is married to Iowa state Sen. Bob Dvorsky. On closer inspection, it turned out to be President Obama.
Photos: Potential 2012 GOP candidates

Almost all the excitement in Iowa now is on the Republican side. But Democrats are hardly sitting things out. The Iowa Democratic Party, which has steadily lost registered voters in the last 2 1/2 years, pumps out a stream of stinging retorts to the GOP news du jour.

"We want to keep 'em honest," said Megan Jacobs, the party's press secretary. She picks on nearly all the major GOP candidates; not so much, though, on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose campaign has been beset by defections and controversy. Gingrich, she said, "kind of does my work for me."

The state's Democrats have recently taken jabs at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his opposition to the auto industry bailout and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman for his plans to skip the Iowa caucus.

A favorite target is Tim Pawlenty, who spends a lot of time in Iowa but is faring poorly in fundraising and polls.

Late last month, when the former Minnesota governor released an ad touting his fiscal record, vowing, "If we can do it in Minnesota, we can do it in Washington," the Iowa Democrats replied: "To that, we here in Iowa say, please don't."

Whether Iowa voters are tuned in yet is hard to know. But Iowa, which went solidly for Obama in 2008, is up for grabs in 2012. Democrats still have an edge in registrations, but as Dvorsky pointed out, the electorate of about 2 million is basically divided into thirds — Democrats, Republicans and independents. "We are just about as purple as can be."

Whoever the nominee is, she said, "they are going to have to come back here and make the argument to independent voters. Even if they've won the caucuses, what they've won is only a subset of Republicans. That's the danger of blowing off Iowa."

Casey Mills, spokesman for the Iowa Republican Party, said his Democratic counterparts should be worried.

While Democrats do have an edge in registration over Republicans in the state, the gap has narrowed considerably since Obama took office, plunging from 111,000 to 35,000, according to the Iowa secretary of State's website. "We have closed that gap every month that President Obama has been in office," Mills said.

Newly registered Republicans, Mills said, are driven by the federal issues — healthcare reform, the deficit, opposition to the stimulus — that led to widespread Republican success in the midterm election.

"Iowans are particularly concerned with the jobs numbers we saw out there today," Mills said Friday, when the unemployment rate rose to 9.2%. "Iowa Democrats have failed to make the case that four more years of President Obama would help restore the economy."

In the meantime, both parties are gearing up for the signature Republican event of the summer: the Ames Straw Poll, scheduled for Aug. 13. It is a fundraiser for the Iowa Republican Party and has many critics, but it also functions as the true beginning of the 2012 campaign. The results can boost — or undermine — a candidate.

The Iowa Democrat Party plans to be there.

"We'll have a rapid response room," Dvorsky said. The Democratic National Committee, she added, "will have important people there to push back a little bit. This is the reelection of the president, different from the election of Barack Obama. It has a different weight and there are different stakes. God yes, it's our job to worry about it."

Photos: Potential 2012 GOP candidates

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

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Democrats launch campaigns by blowing up GOP Medicare plan - Washington Post

Democratic House candidates across the country are signaling a desire to make the GOP’s plan for Medicare reform a real issue — early and often — in the 2012 election.

From California to New Hampshire, Democrats are launching their campaigns with a united message on Medicare and hoping it will pay off next year.

That message? “Your Republican member of Congress voted to end Medicare as we know it, and it’s time for someone new.”

In Colorado, state Sen. Brandon Shaffer (D) launched his campaign against freshman Rep. Cory Gardner (R) this week by laying into Gardner for his vote in favor of the House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget that would turn Medicare into a voucher program.

Shaffer made the attack the keynote of his announcement, saying Gardner “just gutted Medicare with his vote on the Ryan budget.”

Other Democratic candidates who have made the Medicare plan a key part of their rollouts include activist Ann McLane Kuster, a repeat challenger to Rep. Charlie Bass (R-N.H.); Colorado state Rep. Sal Pace, who faces Rep. Scott Tipton (R); Dr. Ami Bera, who is running against Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) for the second straight cycle; Illinois state Sen. Dave Koehler, who is challenging Rep. Bobby Schilling (R); and Wisconsin state Sen. Pat Kreitlow, who is running against Rep. Sean Duffy (R).

Kuster railed against Bass’s vote in an op-ed, Bera held a town hall devoted to the GOP’s Medicare plan, and the rest all mentioned Medicare as a motivating factor for their campaigns.

The man who got the ball rolling, of course, was businessman Rob Zerban, who took the fight directly to the man responsible for the Medicare proposal, Ryan. Zerban’s challenge to Ryan instantly became a cause celebre for national Democrats earlier this year when it began to look like the GOP’s Medicare proposal would be a real liability.

Ryan, despite coming from a swing district, is a second- or third-tier target for Democrats. The others, though, are all among the most targeted Republicans on the map.

Medicare continues to poll well as an issue for Democrats – a recent Bloomberg poll showed that 57 percent think they would be worse off under Ryan’s plan, while just 34 percent think they would be better off – so it’s no surprise that they keep going back to the well.

Democrats have won a special election in upstate New York where the Medicare proposal was cited as the main reason for the upset, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.) stated publicly that the GOP’s Medicare proposal gave him new hope for winning back the House in 2012.

The question for Democrats is whether the issue is as relevant in November 2012 as it is in July 2011.

People tend to be pretty passionate about entitlement programs, and Democrats are banking on them continuing to be strongly against the GOP plan next year.

At the same time, when Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-N.Y.) scandal broke, much of the Democrats’ messaging momentum on Medicare was thwarted. And, with President Obama floating the possibility of cuts to Medicare in a grand bargain on the debt ceiling there is some concern in Democratic strategist circles that the party will lose its political high ground on the issue.

Republicans, for their part, have struggled to justify the vote, and are hoping the issue doesn’t ruin their 2012 election prospects in the same way the Democratic health care bill swamped that party’s 2010 efforts.

There is anecdotal evidence that people don’t quite know what to think about Medicare. Results of a focus group of independents released today by Resurgent Republic, a conglomerate of GOP consultants and pollsters, shows that they are strikingly unfamiliar with the the Republican budget plan.

Of course, what they do know about the plan makes them not like it, and explaining the finer points is difficult to do. Democrats have a much simpler message to sell, and they are — quite literally — running with it. Look for them to keep running with it until they have a good reason not to or it stops paying dividends.

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Sweden Democrats suffer drop in support - Local

Published: 10 Jul 11 08:25 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/34842/20110710/

The Sweden Democrats Party has lost one in three voters over the past month according to the latest opinion survey.

Only 4.2 of the electorate described the party as their favourite last month, down by 2.4 percent from the previous month, reports TT.

The voter survey, carried out by Skop, was based on telephone interviews with 1059 people made during the period between June 17th and July 3rd. They were asked the question: "Which is your favourite political party?"

The result was good news for the centre-right Alliance which saw a 2.3 percent rise in popularity, closing the gap on the Red-Green opposition, polling their second best result since the election in 2010. Support for the two largest parties, the Moderates and the Social Democrats, remains at a pretty steady 30 percent meanwhile.

The Liberal (Folkpartiet) and Centre parties have both seen a rise in popularity recently, with the Centre party especially on a roll, having increased in each of the past three months.

The Green Party has also seen a slight increase, but the latest opinion poll has not been so positive for the Christian Democrats. Only 3.1 percent of those surveyed described them as their favourite party.

It remains to be seen how the recent campaigning in Almedalen will effect the electorate, although the Social Democrats leader H?kan Juholt will be hoping for a boost after his speech on Friday during which he presented a sweeping row of new points on labour and employment reforms.The Sweden Democrats Party has lost one in three voters over the past month according to the latest opinion survey.

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Democrats seek debate on bank exposure to state laws - Reuters

* Barney Frank, other Dems seek longer comment period

* Proposal aims to restrict OCC in preempting state laws

* OCC has been criticized for shielding large banks

* BofA, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo among banks the OCC oversees

WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) - Five Democrats are seeking more time for the public to influence a rule laying out when federal regulators can shield large U.S. banks from state consumer financial laws.

The five, including Barney Frank, who co-wrote last year's Dodd-Frank reform legislation, wrote a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. In it, they ask the regulator to reopen the proposal's comment period, which ended June 27.

The proposal, called for in Dodd-Frank, is designed to make it more difficult for the OCC to "preempt" state laws such as those governing predatory lending, mortgage rules and credit cards. [ID:nN25148900]

Critics of the OCC charge that in the run-up to the 2007-2009 financial crisis, the agency was too aggressive in preventing states from enforcing some consumer protection laws, and took an expansive view of its ability to do so under the National Bank Act.

The Democrats said a longer comment period is necessary "in light of the history of the OCC's previous preemption rulemaking, the clear gravity of preemption determinations generally."

The OCC has said it uses its preemption authority to protect national banks from a patchwork of state laws that can be contradictory and difficult to comply with. It has also noted that much of the worst subprime lending activity occurred at institutions outside of the OCC's jurisdiction.

The OCC had no immediate comment about the letter.

Bank of America (BAC.N), JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) and Wells Fargo (WFC.N) are among the banks the OCC regulates. (Reporting by Karey Wutkowski, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

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Fake Democrats raise few funds for recall primary campaigns - Wausau Daily Herald

MADISON -- Fake Democratic candidates running in recall elections in order to give Republican incumbents more time to campaign have raised almost no money for the effort, reports filed with the state showed Wednesday.

The candidates, prompted by the state Republican Party, ran simply to force a primary and thereby delay the general election by a month in hopes of giving GOP incumbents more time to campaign.

Six Democratic primary elections are scheduled for Tuesday, with the winners facing the targeted Republican incumbents Aug. 9.

Five of the six fake Democrats whose reports were available Wednesday raised just $4,200 -- with nearly all the money coming from the Republican Party to help pay for copies and postage related to their filing as candidates.

A report for the sixth fake Democrat, James Smith of La Crosse, was not posted on the Government Accountability Board website by midday Wednesday.

While the protest candidates lie low, the legitimate Republicans and Democrats are raising tons of cash.

The six Democratic candidates combined have raised more than $1.5 million and had nearly $1 million in cash on hand. The Republican incumbents collectively raised about $2.4 million and had about $893,000 in cash on hand.

Four of the Republican incumbents raised more than their Democratic challengers, but two had less cash on hand entering the final weeks of the campaign.

The reports submitted Tuesday to the Government Accountability Board show incumbent Sens. Rob Cowles of Green Bay and Luther Olsen of Ripon face the biggest financial challenges.

In the 10th District, Olsen raised $107,000, compared with $227,000 for Democratic challenger state Rep. Fred Clark of Baraboo. Clark had $163,000 in cash on hand, compared with just $71,000 for Olsen.

In the 2nd District, Cowles raised $101,000, compared with $177,000 for Democratic opponent Nancy Nusbaum. She had $134,000 in cash on hand, and he had just $62,000.

Democrats need to win three seats to gain majority control in the Senate, giving them the power to block the Republican agenda. Three Democratic state senators also face recall elections. Their latest financial disclosure reports are due Monday.

Other Republicans facing recall elections are Sens. Alberta Darling of River Hills, Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac, Dan Kapanke of La Crosse and Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls.

In the 10th District, fake Democrat and hardware store owner Isaac Weix raised just $450 beyond a $750 in-kind contribution from the state Republican Party. He faces Democrat Shelly Moore in Tuesday's primary, with the winner moving on to face Harsdorf.

Four other fake Democrats -- Otto Junkermann, Gladys Huber, Rol Church and John Buckstaff-- all reported just a $750 contribution from the state Republican Party with no other
money raised or spent.

Junkermann faces Nusbaum on Tuesday, with the winner moving on to face Cowles. Huber is running in the 8th District against state Rep. Sandy Pasch, with the winner moving on to face Darling.

Church is running against Rep. Fred Clark, with the winner moving on to face Olsen. Buckstaff faces Democrat Jessica King on Tuesday with
the winner taking on Hopper.

The other protest candidate, Smith, is running against Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Shilling, with the winner facing Kapanke.

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Christie, Democrats gear up for next round - Courier-Post

Gov. Chris Christie says the state Legislature shouldn't try to play Santa Claus with the $29.7 billion state budget. Democrats retort that doesn't mean the governor has to play Scrooge.

Christie's series of line-item vetoes hit social programs and aid for low- and middle-income communities the hardest. They even included orphans-and-widows items, such as a treatment center for abused kids.

The Democratic legislative leaders, just days after being effusively praised by Christie, a Republican, for their bipartisan cooperation in passing pension and benefit reform, were outraged.

"We're not talking about political hacks here. We're not talking about pork spending. We're not talking about special interests. We're talking about abused children," Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver of Essex County said in a statement about the treatment center cut.

State Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said it would be much harder to work with Christie in the future. He pointed particularly at the $46.5 million taken from Tuition Aid Grants, a college-aid program for students from low-income families. The cut was more than double the $21.3 million Democrats had added to the program.

"This is the most disappointing day I've had as a legislator," Sweeney said in a news conference. "To prove a point, (Christie) had decided to hurt people. When you see the TAG cut, that shows where he's headed."

Partisan budget dustups are de rigueur in Trenton, but this year's line-item vetoes by Christie were interpreted as a reaction to Democrats or others, such as the state Supreme Court, with whom Christie has battled.

Cuts included:

$537,000 from the Wynona M. Lipman Child Advocacy Center in Newark for abused children. A cut of some $10 million from Legal Services, which provides attorneys for low-income people after Democrats had added $5 million to the program. He also cut $200,000 from a Seton Hall law program for the poor.

$139 million from transitional aid to municipalities such as Asbury Park, Harrison, Jersey City and Chesilhurst. The action leaves only $10 million for such aid, even though some $13 million has been awarded, including $10.4 million to Asbury Park. Some of the cities will receive some $450 million more in school aid because of a state Supreme Court order in May.

A Christie spokesman early last week complained that Democrats had removed funding for a watchdog to keep tabs on the program. "Could it be to allow waste, fraud and abuse to return, allowing Democratically controlled cities to hire political hacks?" asked spokesman Michael Drewniak.

Christie had taken umbrage at many of the Democratic maneuvers, such as Democrats' estimating a $300 million savings from employee benefit reform, even though the savings from the reforms eventually approved were far less than Christie had proposed.

"It was to pay back their base and embarrass me," Christie said in a press conference Thursday where he explained his vetoes. "Now they'll play the old politics of this building. They still don't get me. I don't care. This is the right thing."

Patrick Murray of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said that Christie's line-item vetoes smacked of tit-for-tat politics.

"This was Chris Christie saying, "if you want to play games, game on,' " Murray said in an interview. "There were things cut from this budget that did not even affect the bottom line. He did exact some revenge."

Murray said he thought that, overall, Christie was unhappy that Democrats passed an income tax surcharge on millionaires that would have raised some $600 million and corresponding legislation that would have sent $500 million to suburban school districts.

Put in the position of having to veto a tax that would have sent money back to Republican areas, Christie likely reacted, Murray said.

"It will make it difficult to work with (Democrats) again going forward. This will snowball."

Not that Christie got all he wanted. The governor's moves to limit the senior citizen property tax relief program and the Family Care health insurance program were eliminated by the Democrats. Christie's proposed changes to Medicaid resulted in a line-by-line tussle as Christie edited language in the budget over how those changes can be implemented.

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Democrats are not socialists - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The June 30th letter "He is naked, we are broke" demonstrates that conservatives have no clue what socialism means when they call Democrats socialists. If we define capitalism as being on the right and socialism on the left then the Democratic party isn't even left-wing. Democrats are part of a capitalist dominated political system and are only socialists compared to the unregulated rampant form of capitalism worshiped by conservatives. Unlike Democrats and Republicans debating how much social programs should have cut, a true socialist would see right through the lie that we are "broke" with a $14 trillion economy. Also, they would realize the catastrophic economic and social effects of wealth being redistributed upward.

Matt Winschel

Florissant

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GO BIG OR GO HOME: THE CHOICE FOR THE DEMOCRATS IN NOVEMBER - American Reporter

by Randolph T. Holhut
Chief of AR Correspondents
Dummerston, Vt. Back to home page Printable version of this story

DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Politics is all about salesmanship and getting your message across to voters.

In this regard, President Obama and the Democrats have failed miserably.

According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, about one-third of voters believe that the Obama Administration has raised taxes for most Americans, compared to only 8 percent who believe - correctly! - that he has lowered them.

Mr. Obama's stimulus package lowered taxes for most working Americans and put an extra $400 into their pockets. But you'd never know that fact from reading or listening to the news.

That's why allowing the Bush Administration's tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, while extending them for those who earn less than $250,000 a year is the ultimate political no-brainer for Democrats.

It's also an economic no-brainer. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office looked at 11 different policy options for stimulating the economy. The CBO found that the least effective option was cutting taxes for the wealthy, since they are likely to save their money than spend it.

As the CBO put it, "tax cuts, though difficult for politicians to resist in an election season, have limited ability to bolster the flagging economy because they are essentially a supply-side remedy for a problem caused by a lack of demand."

That was echoed by Moody's, which found that when the top tax rate on the wealthy was increased from 31 to 39 percent by President Clinton in 1993, the saving rate dropped while the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index increased. By comparison, when President Bush cut the top tax rate to 35 percent in 2001, the saving rate increased while the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index decreased.

Study after study shows that increases in the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest in our society does not weaken the economy or significantly decrease consumption. At the same time, when more money is put into workers' pockets, it creates more spending, which creates more demand, which creates more jobs, which creates prosperity.

And forget this week's proclamation that the recession is officially ended last year. For most Americans, times are still hard. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate surged to 14.3 percent in 2009, up from 13.2 percent in 2008. There are now 43.6 million Americans living in poverty, the highest number in the five decades that the Census Bureau has been keeping those statistics.

The official federal poverty level for a family of four is $21,756 a year, which is not nearly enough to pay for food, shelter, transportation or health care. Even at 200 percent of the poverty level - roughly $43,000 a year -it's difficult. Yet the Census Bureau found 1 in 3 Americans not even earning that level of income, and that ratio is steadily rising.

Many Democrats are afraid to make the following statements out of fear of being branded as engaging in "class warfare." But these numbers say it all. The share of income going to the wealthiest 10 percent of American households - those earning more than $100,000 - has risen from 34.6 percent in 1980 to 48.2 percent in 2008, while incomes for those who earn under $40,000 a year have been essentially flat for nearly 40 years.

Even before the current recession, working Americans had been squeezed hard. Now, with 29 million Americans either out of work or forced into part-time work, we're seeing class warfare waged by the wealthy and powerful against the rest of us - and the rich are winning big time. The disparity between rich and poor has reached the levels of the late 1920s, just before the Great Depression, while the number of long-term jobless is the highest its been since the 1930s.

So where are the Democrats? Why aren't they defending the interests of working Americans? Because the party sold them out long ago. They allowed the financial sector to be deregulated and let the markets become one giant casino. They allowed our manufacturing sector to wither and allowed jobs to be shipped overseas. They allowed labor unions to be destroyed and the social safety net to be slashed. They allowed corporate power to grow unchecked, and for more wealth to be concentrated into fewer hands.

Yes, Republicans have also been responsible for all this. But we expect Republicans to behave like this. That's what their party stands for, and we'll get a lot more of it if Republicans regain control of Congress in November.

But Democrats once stood for the opposite of these policies, and the result was a fair, just economy and a prosperous nation in the 1950s and 1960s. But the Democrats slowly backed away from these principles, and are now as much blame for the death spiral that our nation is in as the Republicans.

Being less worse than the crazy Tea Partiers who have taken over the Republican Party is not enough for the Democrats. They need to regain the trust of working Americans, and to do that, the Democrats need to stand again for the common good and fight against the expansion of corporate power into every aspect of our lives.

Unfortunately, the Democrats won't do this. Yes, President Obama has nibbled around the edges of the many problems facing our nation. Yes, he inherited a mess the Bush Administration that will take many more years to clean up. But even with a robust majority in Congress and a groundswell of popular support, he squandered so many chances to make his presidency a truly transformative one.

In an economy with near double-digit unemployment, it is imperative that we create jobs. We also know there's also no shortage of public infrastructure that needs rebuilding. A revival of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps could solve both problems.

In the longer term, we need to shift our economy to a cleaner and more energy-efficient path, we need to really overhaul our health care system and we need to re-regulate the financial markets to prevent a replay of the recklessness and fraud that brought our economy to the brink of collapse.

In other words, the Democrats need to go big or go home. In the six weeks left before Election Day, they must either offer a positive and ambitious agenda that will help create an economy that works for all of us, or get thumped at the polls in November.

Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 30 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2011 Joe Shea The American Reporter. All Rights Reserved.

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Democrats Need a 12-Step Recovery Program on Taxes - CNBC

Here's a question: Why is repealing the Bush tax cuts such a constant obsession for the Democratic Party? Especially the top rates for the most successful earners and small business entrepreneurs?

It seems this is the Democratic answer for every single issue, every problem, every debate.

This, of course, saddens me enormously.

And so, always ready to help, I am recommending a 12-Step program to help them overcome their anger, resentment, and obsession over the Bush tax cuts. Democrats really need a Higher Power on this.

First, when tax rates were lowered across-the-board in mid-2003, the incentive effect kicked in to jump-start the economy immediately. Over the next four and a half years, before the financial meltdown slammed the economy—and that was a credit event, not a fiscal one—8.2 million jobs were created.

Jobs essentially rose for about fifty consecutive months.

Non-farm payrolls rose from just under 130 million to just over 138 million. Don’t believe me? You can look it up. This sort of job creation is exactly what President Obama would love to see happen now.

And, while jobs rose, the government took in more revenues. As a share of GDP, revenues rose from 16.2 percent to 18.5 percent. Simply put, supply-side tax cuts were the single best economic policy President Bush implemented.

Elsewhere, President Bush overspent and overregulated. And yes, the dollar collapsed on his watch. And from Fannie Mae to the Federal Reserve, the housing bubble was born.

But the tax cuts? They worked. And that's my point. 

Questions? Comments, send your emails to:document.write("");document.write("lkudlow"+"@"+"kudlow.com");document.write('');

© 2011 CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Florida Democrats Struggle To Connect With Latino Voters, Elect Hispanic Leaders - Huffingtonpost.com

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida Democrats have seen their registration numbers swell in recent years, due in large part to a surge in Hispanic voters.

But despite their success on paper, state Democratic officials are struggling to connect with Hispanics, who have little representation among the party's Florida leadership. That could spell trouble not just for the future of the party in a state that's now nearly a quarter Latino, but also for President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who will be counting on Latino support during tough races next year.

"There's no bench here. Democrats don't cultivate Hispanic leaders," said Freddy Balsera, who heads a Hispanic-focused public relations firm in Miami and serves on the Democratic National Committee's finance team.

That's a problem for the party statewide but especially true in South Florida, where Cuban exiles have long been loyal to the Republican Party and have built their influence over decades. The list of high-level Republican GOP Hispanics includes U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, South Florida's three members of Congress and state House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera. The run-off for Miami-Dade County mayor pitted two Republican Cuban-Americans against each other.

Meanwhile, only three Latino Democrats serve in the state House, none in the Senate. And as the state begins the process of redrawing political boundaries to conform with population changes since 2000 – which will likely lead to at least one new heavily Hispanic congressional seat – Democratic party officials have been slow to respond.

Joe Garcia, a past head of Miami-Dade Democrats and former Obama appointee who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year, said Republicans have been more aggressive in going after Latino voters.

"The Republican Party views Hispanics in terms of market share: Who are they? How do we reach them? Democrats still view us in terms of quotas," Garcia said.

Florida Hispanics, like Latinos nationwide, provided overwhelming support in 2008 for Obama thanks to a national get-out-the-vote effort. Since December of that year, 73,000 have registered in the state as Democrats and another 76,000 have registered while declaring no party. There have been 31,000 new Hispanic Republicans.

The growth in Democratic voters has come in part from younger, more progressive Cuban Americans and a wave of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos.

But that didn't help Florida Democrats in last year's election, as turnout of their Hispanic members dropped sharply – even more than among other Democratic voters – according to party leaders. It was one reason why the Democrats lost races for governor and U.S. Senate as well as other statewide contests.

For Democratic Hispanic Caucus leader Jose Fernandez in Orlando, that drop came as no surprise. The Army veteran recalled how Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink bought few Spanish-language ads and toured a local Puerto Rican community center only weeks before the election, when narrowly lost.

"People still thought she was a man with a name like Alex," he said. "We don't work like that. We have to see people, hear them."

The Democrats' challenge in Florida comes as the party expects to do well again nationally with Latinos in 2012, in part because of GOP attacks on the immigration issue.

But Hispanics in Florida are somewhat of an anomaly. Cubans, who make up the majority, are generally allowed to stay in the country as soon as they touch U.S. soil, and Puerto Ricans are already citizens. Among the state's growing South and Central American communities, many have yet to be naturalized.

Patrick Manteiga, publisher of a trilingual Tampa newspaper (Spanish, English and Italian), said the party needs to reach out to new leaders like those at the region's thriving Hispanic churches, many of them evangelical.

"The pastors may be conservative Republicans, but there are many Democrats among their congregants," he said.

Scott Arceneaux, executive director of the state Democratic party, said the party is trying to improve outreach, but he conceded his party could take a page from the Republicans when it comes to Hispanics.

"They have absolutely done a better job than we have," he said. "It's finding young school commissioners, your business and community leaders. You've got to identify those people and help bring them along."

Earlier this year, Florida Democrats hired a Puerto Rican community activist from Orlando to head Hispanic outreach efforts. But the party declined to make her available to The Associated Press for an interview.

Luis Garcia, one of the party's three state representatives, said he's urged the Democrats to hire someone to do similar work in South Florida.

"Where we have been failing, is that we have not been attracting the younger voters," said Garcia, a retired fire chief who is being courted to run for Congress against embattled South Florida Republican David Rivera.

Arceneaux blames the lack of elected Hispanic Democrats on districts created a decade ago by the Republican-controlled Legislature following the 2000 Census. But as the state gears up again for redistricting, local Democrats have missed key opportunities.

In Orange County, many Puerto Ricans were angered when officials failed to appoint any to a redistricting committee even though they make up a third of the county. Local Democrats were slow to react to the flap, even though Puerto Ricans tend to support them.

Similarly, in neighboring Hillsborough County, it took a New York-based Latino civil rights group from New York to help propose a county commission redistricting map that accurately reflected Hispanic growth. The mostly Republican commission nixed that map during a recent hearing. Local Democratic leaders were largely absent, attending their monthly meeting.

At the national level, the Obama campaign has set up Spanish-language phone banks in Florida and is planning a grass-roots organizing meeting later this month.

But Fernandez and others say engagement with Latinos should be about more than electing a Democratic president every four years.

Amy Mercado, chair of the Orange County Democrats, said she wants to see people in office like herself "who may be Hispanic, who are married and have to juggle and still do it all."

But she added: "They're not going to field a candidate just because it has a Hispanic name. I'm a Hispanic, Latina, but I'm a Democratic Latina. I'd rather have someone who's really going to push Democratic ideals than just have someone whose Hispanic or Latina."

She said the party is beginning to recognize people like herself, but that Hispanic Democrats also need to demonstrate they can act independently.

She should know. Last year, Mercado, a manager for the National Mango Board, ran a $64,000 maiden campaign against the powerful Florida House speaker, a Republican. With less than $2,000 in cash and $5,000 worth of in-kind contributions from the party, she won 40 percent of the vote.

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Democrats to elect new party leader mid August - Nation - Thailand

Suthep said he would support Abhisit Vejjajiva to lead the party for a second term despite the election defeat.

"For the time being, Abhisit is perfect in every way to lead the Democrats," he said.

In regard to his future, he said he would not accept the position of party secretary general even if reappointed.

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Justice Ginsburg's future plans closely watched (AP)

WASHINGTON – Democrats and liberals have a nightmare vision of the Supreme Court's future: President Barack Obama is defeated for re-election next year and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at 78 the oldest justice, soon finds her health will not allow her to continue on the bench.

The new Republican president appoints Ginsburg's successor, cementing conservative domination of the court, and soon the justices roll back decisions in favor of abortion rights and affirmative action.

But Ginsburg could retire now and allow Obama to name a like-minded successor whose confirmation would be in the hands of a Democratic-controlled Senate. "She has in her power the ability to prevent a real shift in the balance of power on the court," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Irvine law school. "On the other hand, there's the personal. How do you decide to leave the United States Supreme Court?"

For now, Ginsburg's answer is, you don't.

There are few more indelicate questions to put to a Supreme Court justice, but Ginsburg has said gracefully, and with apparent good humor, that the president should not expect a retirement letter before 2015.

She will turn 82 that year, the same age Justice Louis Brandeis was when he left the court in 1939. Ginsburg, who is Jewish, has said she wants to emulate the court's first Jewish justice.

While declining an interview on the topic, Ginsburg pointed in a note to The Associated Press to another marker she has laid down, that she is awaiting the end of a traveling art exhibition that includes a painting that usually hangs in her office by the German emigre Josef Albers.

"Couldn't think of leaving until after it is returned to me, which won't be anytime soon," she wrote.

Certainly there is no indication that Ginsburg is slowing down on the job, even after she underwent surgery two years ago for pancreatic cancer that her doctors said was detected at a very early stage.

Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, she served for the first time this term with two other women, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, and as the senior liberal-leaning justice, a role that gives her the power to assign dissenting opinions when she is on the losing side of ideologically split rulings.

On a personal level, she appeared to take comfort in her work as she adjusted to life without her husband, Martin, who died a year ago.

And she doesn't have to look very far ahead to imagine having a vote in some of the most important cases of her time on the court, including the challenge to Obama's health care overhaul and the fight over gay marriage.

Laura Krugman Ray, a Widener University law professor who has written about Ginsburg, said it is easy to believe Ginsburg would want to have a voice in those cases.

"I think the court is enormously important for her," Ray said. "And especially now after husband's death, you wonder what she can see herself doing if she were not on the court."

Ginsburg, the second woman on the bench, has only to look at the first for a cautionary tale about retiring. Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement in 2005 in part so she could take care of her ailing husband, John. Two months later, Chief Justice William Rehnquist died in office.

Meanwhile, John O'Connor's health declined much faster than his wife anticipated and he soon was living in a nursing home in Arizona. Would she have quit the court had she known what awaited?

In retirement, O'Connor has maintained a busy schedule, hearing cases on federal appeals courts as well as advocating for Alzheimer's funding, improved civics education and merit selection, rather than partisan election, of state judges.

O'Connor, now 81, also has said she that she regrets that some of her decisions have been "dismantled" by the Supreme Court. Justice Samuel Alito, who took her seat in 2006, has voted differently from O'Connor in key cases involving abortion rights, campaign finance and the use of race in governmental policies.

But some on the left say that the focus on the personal is misplaced. Ginsburg needs to put self-interest aside and act for the good of the issues they believe in, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy wrote recently. Kennedy said 72-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer should leave, too.

Too much is at stake and both life and politics are too fickle to take the risk that everything will work out as the justices desire, Kennedy said.

David Garrow, a Cambridge University historian who follows the court, said Ginsburg's situation points to an institutional problem for the court, "the arguably narcissistic attitude that longer is better."

The longest-serving justice, William Douglas, was on the court for more than 36 1/2 years, reluctant to retire even after a debilitating stroke. "History teaches us that often longer is not better," Garrow said.

Justices sometimes look at electoral projections when considering retirement, he said, adding that Ginsburg probably still could decide to retire next summer if Obama's electoral prospects seem shaky.

Chief Justice Earl Warren never envisioned retiring during the presidency of his nemesis, Richard Nixon. Yet that is exactly what came to pass in 1969.

Warren planned to step down early in what he hoped would be Lyndon Johnson's second full term. But then the Vietnam War got in the way of Johnson's re-election plans and Robert Kennedy fell to an assassin's bullet.

At that point, Warren thought Nixon had a reasonable chance of winning the presidency "and desperately tried to leave under a lame-duck LBJ presidency on its last legs," said Artemus Ward, a political science professor at Northern Illinois University who has written about court retirements.

Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice failed amid election-year politics in the Senate and the first allegations of financial improprieties that eventually would drive Fortas from the bench. Early in 1969, Nixon nominated Warren Burger as chief justice.

___

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Was Goal of Economic Stimulus a Payoff for Democrats, Supporters? (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Critics of President Barack Obama's nearly $900 billion stimulus package consider it a failure, the equivalent of burning the money in a bonfire for all the effect it has had on the American economy. Now the president's Council of Economic Advisers agrees.

It has been claimed that the stimulus "created or saved" 2.4 million jobs. According to the Weekly Standard, the report suggests that every job "saved or created" by the stimulus cost $278,000. That means the government could have come out ahead if it just cut checks for $100,000 and distributed them to the unemployed.

The report also suggests that the economy would have "created or saved" jobs even without the stimulus. Furthermore, the stimulus is now having the reverse effect over the past six months, shedding jobs as the stimulus money runs out.

Here are some sobering statistics that demonstrate the ultimate effects of the stimulus:

* Unemployment rate before the stimulus: 7.3 percent

* Unemployment rate after the stimulus: 9.1 percent (It was supposed to keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.)

* National debt before the stimulus: $9.986 trillion

* National debt after the stimulus: $14.467 trillion (and rising)

In theory, if the stimulus money had actually been spent on infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, and technology development, there might have been a lasting economic effect. Unfortunately the stimulus money was spent on every pork barrel project imaginable, as well as giveaways to the labor unions. A lot of the money went to states with profligate spending practices to pay the salaries of bureaucrats who also happened to be members of public sector unions (political supporters of the president and his party in Congress).

In effect, the stimulus package was the greatest robbery in the history of civilization, fleecing the American taxpayers and using the money to pay off congressional Democrats and their supporters. It suggests that the Obama administration not only had no notion of how to stimulate the economy but actually had no care to do so. The stimulus should be seen as graft and corruption on an epic scale, done in the guise of economic stimulus.

How is that hope and change thing working out for you?

Source:Obama's Economists: 'Stimulus' Has Cost $278,000 per Job, Jeffrey H. Anderson, The Weekly Standard, July 5. 2011

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New Illinois Law Simplifies Democratic Process for Citizens (ContributorNetwork)

This Fourth of July, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a new bill into law that will make the democratic process more accessible to the state's residents, especially in terms of voting and the bureaucratic process, by simplifying the state's election code.

Quinn signed Senate Bill 1586 Monday. The legislation outlines three major reforms, including lowering the petition signature requirement for beginning referenda to 8 percent of the gubernatorial vote, which will ultimately make petition approval easier and also make it less likely that petitions will be thrown out or rejected based on a technicality, as well as giving more authority to local school boards over their own advisory referendum.

In addition, the Associated Press reports the bill includes a provision that military members serving overseas can now have ballots emailed to them for Illinois and federal elections, making the elections more accessible to servicemembers. Election officials are now required to send out these ballots at least 46 days before a federal election. Traditionally, Illinois has had limited ballot access, but the new law details major changes to this.

"On the very day we celebrate our democracy, I am enacting a bill that will put more power in the hands of the people of Illinois," Quinn said. "By giving voters more authority at the ballot box, they will have a better opportunity to hold elected officials accountable and we will continue to create a more vibrant democracy in our state."

According to WGN News, the governor spoke in Des Plaines, a suburb of Chicago adjacent to O'Hare Airport, shortly before making his way through the town's Independence Day parade. Quinn also took the time to shake hands with citizens and veterans attending the town event.

While speaking to Des Plaines residents before the parade, Quinn emphasized the importance of making the democratic process more accessible to all citizens across the state.

"Whether you're in Des Plaines, or whether you're in Cook County, or whether you're in the state of Illinois, or anywhere in our country, participation in elections is the fundamental act of citizenship," the governor said. "Democracy is not a spectator sport."

Senate Bill 1586, which officially takes effect Jan. 1, was sponsored by Sen. Don Harmon and Rep. Michael J. Zalewski and was originally filed on Feb. 2 of this year. The bill passed in both the Illinois Senate and the House of Representatives and was sent to the governor June 22.

Rachel Bogart provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.

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Fla. Dems struggle to capitalize on Latino surge (AP)

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, AP Hispanic Affairs Writer Laura Wides-munoz, Ap Hispanic Affairs Writer – Tue Jul 5, 12:26 pm ET

ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida Democrats have seen their registration numbers swell in recent years, due in large part to a surge in Hispanic voters.

But despite their success on paper, state Democratic officials are struggling to connect with Hispanics, who have little representation among the party's Florida leadership. That could spell trouble not just for the future of the party in a state that's now nearly a quarter Latino, but also for President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who will be counting on Latino support during tough races next year.

"There's no bench here. Democrats don't cultivate Hispanic leaders," said Freddy Balsera, who heads a Hispanic-focused public relations firm in Miami and serves on the Democratic National Committee's finance team.

That's a problem for the party statewide but especially true in South Florida, where Cuban exiles have long been loyal to the Republican Party and have built their influence over decades. The list of high-level Republican GOP Hispanics includes U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, South Florida's three members of Congress and state House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera. The run-off for Miami-Dade County mayor pitted two Republican Cuban-Americans against each other.

Meanwhile, only three Latino Democrats serve in the state House, none in the Senate. And as the state begins the process of redrawing political boundaries to conform with population changes since 2000 — which will likely lead to at least one new heavily Hispanic congressional seat — Democratic party officials have been slow to respond.

Joe Garcia, a past head of Miami-Dade Democrats and former Obama appointee who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year, said Republicans have been more aggressive in going after Latino voters.

"The Republican Party views Hispanics in terms of market share: Who are they? How do we reach them? Democrats still view us in terms of quotas," Garcia said.

Florida Hispanics, like Latinos nationwide, provided overwhelming support in 2008 for Obama thanks to a national get-out-the-vote effort. Since December of that year, 73,000 have registered in the state as Democrats and another 76,000 have registered while declaring no party. There have been 31,000 new Hispanic Republicans.

The growth in Democratic voters has come in part from younger, more progressive Cuban Americans and a wave of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos.

But that didn't help Florida Democrats in last year's election, as turnout of their Hispanic members dropped sharply — even more than among other Democratic voters — according to party leaders. It was one reason why the Democrats lost races for governor and U.S. Senate as well as other statewide contests.

For Democratic Hispanic Caucus leader Jose Fernandez in Orlando, that drop came as no surprise. The Army veteran recalled how Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink bought few Spanish-language ads and toured a local Puerto Rican community center only weeks before the election, when narrowly lost.

"People still thought she was a man with a name like Alex," he said. "We don't work like that. We have to see people, hear them."

The Democrats' challenge in Florida comes as the party expects to do well again nationally with Latinos in 2012, in part because of GOP attacks on the immigration issue.

But Hispanics in Florida are somewhat of an anomaly. Cubans, who make up the majority, are generally allowed to stay in the country as soon as they touch U.S. soil, and Puerto Ricans are already citizens. Among the state's growing South and Central American communities, many have yet to be naturalized.

Patrick Manteiga, publisher of a trilingual Tampa newspaper (Spanish, English and Italian), said the party needs to reach out to new leaders like those at the region's thriving Hispanic churches, many of them evangelical.

"The pastors may be conservative Republicans, but there are many Democrats among their congregants," he said.

Scott Arceneaux, executive director of the state Democratic party, said the party is trying to improve outreach, but he conceded his party could take a page from the Republicans when it comes to Hispanics.

"They have absolutely done a better job than we have," he said. "It's finding young school commissioners, your business and community leaders. You've got to identify those people and help bring them along."

Earlier this year, Florida Democrats hired a Puerto Rican community activist from Orlando to head Hispanic outreach efforts. But the party declined to make her available to The Associated Press for an interview.

Luis Garcia, one of the party's three state representatives, said he's urged the Democrats to hire someone to do similar work in South Florida.

"Where we have been failing, is that we have not been attracting the younger voters," said Garcia, a retired fire chief who is being courted to run for Congress against embattled South Florida Republican David Rivera.

Arceneaux blames the lack of elected Hispanic Democrats on districts created a decade ago by the Republican-controlled Legislature following the 2000 Census. But as the state gears up again for redistricting, local Democrats have missed key opportunities.

In Orange County, many Puerto Ricans were angered when officials failed to appoint any to a redistricting committee even though they make up a third of the county. Local Democrats were slow to react to the flap, even though Puerto Ricans tend to support them.

Similarly, in neighboring Hillsborough County, it took a New York-based Latino civil rights group from New York to help propose a county commission redistricting map that accurately reflected Hispanic growth. The mostly Republican commission nixed that map during a recent hearing. Local Democratic leaders were largely absent, attending their monthly meeting.

At the national level, the Obama campaign has set up Spanish-language phone banks in Florida and is planning a grass-roots organizing meeting later this month.

But Fernandez and others say engagement with Latinos should be about more than electing a Democratic president every four years.

Amy Mercado, chair of the Orange County Democrats, said she wants to see people in office like herself "who may be Hispanic, who are married and have to juggle and still do it all."

But she added: "They're not going to field a candidate just because it has a Hispanic name. I'm a Hispanic, Latina, but I'm a Democratic Latina. I'd rather have someone who's really going to push Democratic ideals than just have someone whose Hispanic or Latina."

She said the party is beginning to recognize people like herself, but that Hispanic Democrats also need to demonstrate they can act independently.

She should know. Last year, Mercado, a manager for the National Mango Board, ran a $64,000 maiden campaign against the powerful Florida House speaker, a Republican. With less than $2,000 in cash and $5,000 worth of in-kind contributions from the party, she won 40 percent of the vote.

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