2014 congressional races

The "most Democratic" congressional district in Oklahoma is the 5th, which includes Oklahoma City, Edmund and Shawnee. The PVI is "only" R+12 and it's the only district in the state where Obama broke 40-- albeit barely-- against McCain and also against Romney. (Obama won 33% statewide last year.) The incumbent is Tea Party extremist James Lankford and last year his Democratic opponent was Tom Guild, who scored 37%, just a percent below the only Democratic candidate the DCCC got behind, very conservative Blue Dog Rob Wallace in the second district.

Tuesday, conservative polemicist Byron York was worrying the Republicans could lose the House in 2014. And if the Democratic Party was even vaguely competent, they could.

Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI) is one freshman who has not been embraced by the GOP House Establishment. The very strange Tea Party activist is very much an accidental congressman, who slipped into office when long-time GOP incumbent, Thaddeus McCotter, resigned as part of a deal to keep him out of prison for election fraud. Bentivolio has a typical GOP voting record (a ProgressivePunch score of 6.73) and hasn't done anything to distinguish himself since being elected last year.

You may have read this week how state Senator Daylin Leach-- who, as a registered officiant, is entitled to legally marry couples in the state of Pennsylvania-- did just that on Monday. He performed a marriage ceremony for a gay couple with a marriage license in Montgomery County, where he and they live. The extreme right, homophobic Governor of Pennsylvania flipped out and now there's a court battle and political war between the Commonwealth and Montgomery County over LGBT marriage equality.

As you probably know, Blue America has endorsed Nick Ruiz, a professor, a surfer and a former Green Party candidate running as a progressive Democrat now, against anti-environmental corporate stooge John Mica in a central Florida district next to Alan Grayson's.

Hard to imagine, but MN-06 is likely to wind up with someone WORSE than Bachmann!Drowning in scandal and extremism-- and facing a rematch with Jim Graves, the Democrat who nearly beat her last year-- Bachmann was uncharacteristically wise to announce her retirement from Congress.

Michigan could be a very fertile hunting ground for the DCCC. All that stands in the way is its own chairman, former Center Aisle Caucus big-shot and founder who refuses to allow the DCCC to target any of his former frat brothers, no matter how detestable they are.

Political scuttlebutt in Santa Clarita is that Buck McKeon is busy sucking up all the benefits of political corruption available and setting himself up as an armaments lobbyist this session and that he won't run against Lee Rogers again in 2014. Rogers came closer to beating him last year than anyone else in McKeon's whole career. And that was without any help from the DCCC.

But it isn't Boehner that keeps Ros-Lentinen in office; it's Debbie Wasserman SchultzLast week, Nate Cohn did a superb analysis of how the GOP is blowing it's chances to thrive politically in purple Florida, a state with a mighty 29 electoral votes.

If you click this, you'll see how the stinking rich liveI go for a hike in the Los Feliz hills everyday. I delight in taking candidates and congressmembers who come to visit me along for the walk. Darcy Burner was smart enough to be wearing tennis shoes. Others have had heels or tassels. That doesn't work as well. That page from Angeleno is about a spa in my neighborhood that charges $10,000 a day to put wealthy fat people through a kind of bootcamp.