Do it for Dick: Donate to Josh Segall

by: mooncat

Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 16:09:19 PM CDT

Josh Segall is a great young progressive (see his positions on issues below the fold) Democrat running for Congress in Alabama's third district. He's young, smart, enthusiastic and hard working, convinced that his district can and should be more prosperous than it's been under incumbent Mike Rogers. The district is a favorable one for a Democrat too, with a partisan voting index of only R+3 and a high proportion of young voters and black voters. Segall has outraised Rogers in the first and second quarters of this year and the incumbent is worried enough to have already started running television ads attacking him -- so Josh is making inroads. The problem is, he's not just running against Mike Rogers anymore -- the Republicans have brought in their big gun, Dick Cheney himself, to raise money for Rogers and other Alabama Republicans. Josh Segall needs grassroots help to cancel out the big donations Cheney will rake in at the Shoal Creek Country Club from the have-mores -- people George W. Bush likes to call "my base."

Editor's note: I plan to cross post a version of this at other sites around the blogosphere later this evening, so please don't hesitate to make constructive comments. It isn't quite as complete as I'd like, but I have to run now and value your feedback.

mooncat :: Do it for Dick: Donate to Josh Segall

Yeah, Cheney's popularity is hovering somewhere around "dirt" with average Americans but he's still one of the Republican party's most effective fundraisers. "The base" still loves this guy no matter what he's done to the Constitution. For the Birmingham event, those who still like this man will pay $500 for lunch and pony up $2000 for a photo op with Cheney, gun not included -- photo op with the gun will cost you extra, but I'm sure they will oblige if the monied elite demand it. Alabama GOP Chairman Mike Hubbard expects 100 to 150 to attend the event which some are predicting will raise $250,000 -- as much as Michelle Obama raised in an Alabama visit last month.

Manufacturing and agriculture are important to the economy of the third district in Alabama. In addition, the district has a very high number of National Guard members and Reservists. This seat has only been in Republican hands since 1997 and the many Democrats in this district tend to be of the populist flavor.

Why am I convinced Josh Segall is progressive? His positions are listed below and notice I don't call him liberal. He wouldn't pass muster as the "best" Democrat in a lot of districts on either coast, but he is in step with his district, progressive in a forward looking way and he's easily the "best" Democrat running for Congress from Alabama this cycle -- the best in several cycles, actually. He's the sort of new Southern Democrat we need to cultivate to replace some of our Blue Dogs who are too often just a pale shade of Republican.

Josh Segall supports:

Network neutrality legislation and bringing affordable broadband internet access to every household in Alabama,
Health care benefits for national guardsmen and reservists,
A moratorium on unfair trade deals such as CAFTA
Reforming the earmark system and returning to fiscal responsibility,
Investing in renewable energy and alternative fuels.

And he's pro choice, recently telling a reporter "We should have fewer abortions, and I wouldn't advise it for a family member, but I don't think the federal government should decide that for you."

Unlike incumbent Mike Rogers, Segall also believes a Congressman should listen to his constituents and put his district above everything else—including his political party. Rogers has been little more than a rubberstamp for the Bush/Cheney agenda since he got to Washington 6 years ago.

The folks at Progressive Electorate have set up a Chase Cheney page for Josh Segall at ActBlue and I implore you to give what you can to cancel out the tens of thousands Dick Cheney will raise in Birmingham this Friday. Send a good Democrat to Congress from Alabama! Support Josh Segall. Do it for the progressive cause and, most of all, DO IT FOR DICK!

Tags: AL-03, Josh Segall, Dick Cheney, Election 2008, Campaign Fundraising, Alabama, Mike Rogers, (All Tags)

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Do it for Dick: Donate to Josh Segall | 10 comments

Please! Por Favor! Sil vous plait! (4.00 / 2)

Donate to Segall, and do it on ActBlue "Chase Cheney for Change" page. Let's tell the Vice-President that we don't like hie vices or his President.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

by: piggieheart @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 17:07:05 PM CDT

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Thanks guys (4.00 / 1)

I added Left in Alabama to the Act Blue page. I'm going to start pushing this also.

by: gradyw @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 20:43:58 PM CDT

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Here's an idea (0.00 / 0)

Some folks did a 24 hour fundraiser for Glenn Nye (VA-02) over at Daily Kos. Basically they had several diaries and posted pics and did some blogging.

It seemed like it was working. Building up the email lists are key for on-line fundraisers though.

by: gradyw @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 21:27:54 PM CDT

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Better numbers (0.00 / 0)

I am not sure where you are getting the “R+3” number for aggregate voting, but I would not post it elsewhere. It understates the Democratic vote in the district. Feel free to steal my aggregate legislative voting numbers (65.5% D) from my recent diary. I can send you the spreadsheet on it if you need it, and its more representative of the overall vote. There’s a reason this district had been Democratic for all but 2 out of 130 years when the DCCC cut the legs out from under Ted Little in ’96.

by: PubliusIX @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 21:59:55 PM CDT

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typo (0.00 / 0)

“it’s” – and is there any switch you can throw to let us edit comments, as we can diaries? I go nuts when I see a typo just after posting a comment ... (I know, almost a Republican trait; forgive me as I am weak.)

by: PubliusIX @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 22:04:40 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

No switch. (0.00 / 0)

Comments are forever. Even the all powerful admins can't edit them, although they can be deleted. The silver lining is that we all look human and there's always comic relief.

As to the R+3 number, I intended it to be the Cook partisan voting index, which it turns out is actually R+4 -- so it's a typo anyway. Told you this diary still needed work!

Anyway, the pvi is a measure people across the blogosphere are used to seeing. The best thing might be to quote that and add your aggregate voting information as additional and better data upon which to judge the character of this district.

And I would love to get a look at your spreadsheet -- I have a weakness for data. mooncat at leftinalabama dot com will reach me.

Work harder and work smarter!

by: mooncat @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 22:38:40 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I prefer numbers raw - i.e., un-Cooked (4.00 / 2)

Cook’s numbers betray the inherent overemphasis on the presidential vote common to Beltway savants. I would only include them alongside some real world data to show their inadequacy. It’s analogous to the observation that a progressive political campaign lacks the time and resources to re-educate an electorate suffering from media and scholastic deprivation – you have to play the short, simple message game, same as the bad guys. For the limited purpose of persuading people of the Democratic nature of the district, putting “R+4” anywhere in the discussion is just counterintuitive. It’s like quoting Fox News; you only vouch for the errant by citing it. If you use this sort of overemphasis on presidential numbers, it was mathematically impossible for the Democrats to have retaken the Congress in 2006 – yet we all know what happened in the real world.

by: PubliusIX @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 00:35:33 AM CDT

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The lack of a Democratic presidential (4.00 / 1)

campaign or GOTV effort in Alabama causes the Cook Report numbers to shift to the republican side. The people in the 3rd CD have not had a Democratic presidential candidate campaign or support voter registration and GOTV efforts since Jimmy Carter! We have been ignored for a whole generation. I don't know of any way to quantify what the impact of an OBAMA 50 state compaing with voter registration and GOTV efforts will be on this race, if anything this race may well provide the yardstick to measure it.

by: drg @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 06:40:15 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

GOTV (4.00 / 1)

The Cook index Mooncat quotes doesn’t even give a district that much thought. If it did, I might cut it more slack. All Cook does is take the last two presidential results from a district, and compare that to the deviation from the presidential vote nationally. Frequently, Cook (and other DC pundits who tacitly, if not explicitly, parrot his numbers game) looks no further when “analyzing” an open seat. When this one statistic favors an incumbent, it’s even harder to cure their myopia.

As to the impact of turnout, note the potential impact I identified with respect to Macon County alone in an earlier diary. And a lot of that was more spontaneous and grassroots, as opposed to an organized effort. This doesn’t mean that the Segall campaign should relax its GOTV efforts, and if I were running his campaign, I would have “Tiger teams” of lawyers and experts ready around the district on Election Day to sort out “unforeseen difficulties” in voting. There have already been reports of snafus in the Bob Riley/Beth Chapman “improved” voter list – alphabetization errors that make it difficult to find voters’ names, etc.

by: PubliusIX @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 10:12:06 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

You make some excellent points (0.00 / 0)

I'm working on a major revision and I still feel like I have to mention the CPVI, but I'm going to quote you extensively to debunk it's value for this district -- a lot of others too, but AL-03 is what we're concerned with today. The presidential numbers just don't tell the story in Alabama where we don't see a presidential campaign.

Even Cook shows that AL-03 is the 2nd most Democratic district in Alabama, behind AL-07 (Davis) and ahead of AL-05 which hasn't gone to a Republican in over a hundred years.

Work harder and work smarter!

by: mooncat @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 11:18:20 AM CDT

[ Parent ]