ch:

About Midwest Values PAC

Midwest Values PAC, founded by Al Franken, raised over $1.1 million in its first year from over six thousand donors.

37 MVPs nationwide

The PAC contributed to over three dozen federal candidates in 2006 – and 18 of those candidates won. Four incumbent Republican Senators and eight incumbent Republican Congressmen were defeated by candidates receiving assistance from the PAC.

Some of those winners were underdogs like Tim Walz (MN-01), Jason Altmire (PA-04), Nancy Boyda (KS-02), Paul Hodes (NH-02), Jon Tester (MT-SEN), and Jim Webb (VA-SEN), to whom MVP distributed what Al likes to call “pre-’macaca’” money.

In short, Al’s support helped to build the Democratic “tidal wave” in 2006.

Beans, burgers, and brats

Al appeared at more than 50 events in 2006 on behalf of local DFL party units, local candidates, and progressive organizations within the state of Minnesota.

ch: MVP News

Al Franken to Leave Air America Radio

On the January 29th edition of The Al Franken Show, Midwest Values PAC founder Al Franken announced he will leave his radio show on February 14. He also told his national radio audience that he’s currently considering whether or not to run for the US Senate in his home state of Minnesota.

To listen to that announcement, please click here.

ch: Al’s Channel

Al Spends the Holidays with the Troops and USO

Picture courtesy of BlackAnthem.com. Read their write-up of Al’s USO visit here.

This holiday season, Al Franken and MVP political director Andy Barr are entertaining our troops overseas with the USO.

2006 marks Al’s seventh USO trip, starting with Bosnia and Kosovo in 1999. (You can view pictures from Al’s USO trip last year here.)

On December 31, Al wrote about his trip and the need for strong leadership and decisions on Iraq in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Read the op-ed here.

Al also talked about the trip on his Air America Radio show, The Al Franken Show. You can listen below:

12.15.06: Al calls The Al Franken Show again from Kuwait: download

12.14.06: The Tour Starts. Al calls The Al Franken Show from his hotel room in Kuwait: download

Or click on the buttons below to listen on this page (uploaded by the podcast-sharing site Odeo.com):

powered by ODEO

powered by ODEO

ch: Others

Sen-Elect Klobuchar's Agenda

Minnesota’s first female Senator, Amy Klobuchar, on what she plans to do in her freshman term as US Senator:

Start bringing the troops home from Iraq. Clean up Washington. End the tax cuts for the rich. And visit each of Minnesota’s 87 counties every year for the next six years. [...]

She expects senators to spend more time in Washington next year, working longer and harder: “It’s going to be a different Congress. It’s not going to be a two-day-a-week Senate. ... We were elected for a reason, and that’s to get some things done.”

ch: Others

With Slim Pickings, GOP Freshmen Pick 'Idiot' as President

This is funny (via Daily Kos); from the AP:

Idaho Representative-elect Bill Sali has been elected president of the incoming freshman G-O-P class in the U-S House. Spokesman Wayne Hoffman says the 13 Republican lawmakers who will start their first two-year terms in January chose Sali because of his background in the Idaho Legislature.

Who is Bill Sali? “Republican Bruce Newcomb, the former speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives, recently called Sali “an absolute idiot.” Mike Simpson, a Republican who holds Idaho’s other House seat, once threatened to throw Sali out the window of the Capitol after Sali called him a liar.”

So in other words, someone who can’t get along with members of his own party. As the AP article noted, though, the Republicans’ poor election showing didn’t offer them much choice.

ch: 2006

Top Ten GOP Dirty Tricks of 2006

Salon.com has a good roundup of all the dirty tricks the GOP pulled in this election cycle. Read it here.

A ‘favorite.’:

It’s not illegal to be registered to vote in two places, as long as you don’t vote in both. But that’s not what Timothy Daly, of Clarendon, Va., was told. Daly got a message on his answering machine that told him that the nonexistent “Virginia Elections Commission” had “determined you are registered in New York to vote.”

“Therefore,” the message said, “you will not be allowed to cast your vote.” It ended by promising Daly, who has voted in Virginia since 1998, that if he did come to vote, he would “be charged criminally.”

Daly wasn’t the only Virginia resident to receive such a message; enough similar calls were made, in fact, that the FBI has opened an investigation into the allegations.

ch: Al’s Channel

Al Franken on Hardball

Al Franken on MSNBC’s Hardball, 11/16/06

A transcript of the show is available here.

ch: MVP News

Chairman Franken on Colbert Report

MVP Honorary Chairman Al Franken will appear on The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert.

The Colbert Report airs on Comedy Central at 11:30p / 10:30c.

Check local listings for details. Video of the appearance will be posted tomorrow.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to the video on Comedy Central.com

ch: Others

Tim Walz Confuses Karl Rove

Small and funny tidbit from the Minnesota Congressional delegation’s newest member, Rep-Elect Tim Walz (MN-01):

On Monday, he attended a new-members reception at the White House, where he met President Bush and political adviser Karl Rove, who was convinced Walz would lose. “He said, ‘we had the numbers on you, we thought we had enough, but where did you find the voters?’” Walz said.

Meanwhile, Rep-elect Keith Ellison snubbed the President—choosing instead to meet with labor leaders.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Bush To Usher In New Era Of ‘Bipartisanship’ By Renominating Controversial Judicial Nominees

That was quick.

See Think Progress for details.

ch: 2006

MVPer Joe Courtney Still Leads in CT-02

Yes, there are still 2006 races left! Democrat Joe Courtney, our MVP-supported candidate in Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District, is now “holding an unofficial 87-vote lead over three-term Republican incumbent Rob Simmons with 58 cities and towns completing the mandatory recount.”

If Courtney wins his race, he’d be the 29th pickup for Democrats in the 2006 election.

Courtney is currently in Washington for Freshman orientation. He defeated Republican Rep. Rob Simmons, a Bush rubber-stamp who voted with Bush more than any member of the Connecticut delegation.

UPDATE: Joe Courtney has indeed won. Sorry, CONGRESSMAN-ELECT Joe Courtney.

ch: Read This!

Read This: Mr. Walz goes to Washington

Rep. Tim Walz, like other newly-elected Freshman Congressmen and women, is in Washington now at orientation sessions. Before the elections last Tuesday, the Winona Daily News followed Walz as he “knocked on doors, rallied supporters, listened to voters’ gripes, and ultimately convinced voters to let him represent more than 615,000 Minnesotans.”

Read the piece here.

An excerpt:

Walz estimates he averaged 90 hours a week on the campaign and drove more than 130,000 miles. He says he is driven by the people he met along the way.

At the 101 Main Restaurant in Mankato, hostess Glenda Williams was seating Sunday breakfast customers. “There’s a frightening widening gap between the people that have and those who do not,” said Williams, a single mother of two. “And the tax policies in place now are making things worse.”

ch: 2006

Rush Limbaugh: Free at Last

We’re all very happy for him:

On the November 8 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed to “feel liberated” by Democratic victories in the House and Senate on November 7 because he is “no longer going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried.” Limbaugh added that the Republican Congress has produced “some of this legislation coming out of there that I have just cringed at, and it has been difficult coming in here, trying to make the case for it when the people who are supposedly in favor of it can’t even make the case themselves—and to have to come in here and try to do their jobs.”

Listen to the audio of Rush’s remarks here.

ch: 2006

Some of the Republicans We're Saying Goodbye To

In California’s 11th Congressional District, MVP Jerry McNerney defeated Richard Pombo.

Richard Pombo:

• Was rated as one of the most corrupt members of Congress by a non-partisan watchdog group for “accepting campaign contributions in return for legislative assistance, keeping family members on his campaign payroll, and misusing official resources.” More.
• Was considered the number one priority for defeat by environmentalists. Pombo, among other things, has tried to gut the Endangered Species Act, push for more drilling in ANWR and offshore, and sought to sell off public lands to private holders.

In Virginia, James Webb defeated Senator George Allen.

George Allen called an American of Indian decent a “macaca” and ‘welcomed him to our country’ (even though he’s from the US). Allen also has a history of racial tension.

In Montana, Jon Tester defeated Senator Conrad Burns.

Among other things, Conrad Burns is severely corrupt. For example:

Missoulian: “U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., changed his stance on a 2001 bill after receiving a $5,000 donation from a lobbyist’s client who opposed the legislation, records show. The client hired Jack Abramoff as a lobbyist to defeat the kind of bill Burns voted against. Prior to receiving the payment, Burns did not oppose an identical bill that unanimously passed the Senate in 2000, Senate documents show.”

In Minnesota’s 1st CD, Tim Walz defeated Gil Gutknecht.

Gil Gutknecht:

• condemned war critics for talking about withdrawing from Iraq, saying that “this is not the time to go wobbly. Let’s give victory a chance.” He later flip-flopped and said Iraq was worse than he expected.
• flip-flopped on term limits; “After Gutknecht’s 1994 election, he pledged to serve no more than 12 years. Last May he backtracked on that statement.”

ch: 2006

For a complete list of candidates we gave money to, go here.

To help candidates in future elections, and progressive groups that build the infrastructure to maintain our majorites in the House and Senate, consider giving to Midwest Values PAC today.

ch: 2006

It's Not Over!

In over a dozen Congressional Districts, the voting is over but the results aren’t final.

Mart Corley, blogger for TPMCafe’s Election Central, has a roundup of those races here.

MVPs include Joe Courtney, Vic Wulsin, Mary Jo Kilroy, and Gary Trauner.

ch: 2006

Al and Tim Walz on Air America Radio

Picture from MPR.

MVP Honorary Chair Al Franken interviewed Congressman-elect Tim Walz on Air America’s The Al Franken Show today. Walz, who’ll represent Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, pulled one of the biggest upsets in yesterday’s elections, handily defeating incumbent Rep. Gil Gutknect.

You can listen to a stream of the interview here.

ch: 2006

Conrad Burns's Campaign Doesn't Like Reporters Reporting

Apparently Republican Senator Conrad Burns doesn’t like Montana reporters reporting about something called ‘news’:

A Burns spokesman dismissed the USA Today/Gallup poll as inaccurate and initially said the campaign was revoking one newspaper’s credentials to attend Burns’ election night event in Billings because it wrote about the poll.

Jason Klindt first said Monday that the Great Falls Tribune would not be allowed to attend, before changing his mind later in the day.

“Running a bogus poll on the day before an election to try and suppress Republican voter turnout is irresponsible and in poor taste,” Klindt said Monday.

ch: 2006

Republican Ad Gives Tammy Duckworth's Home Phone #

Disgusting:

“A Duckworth adviser tells Election Central that soon after the ad went up on the air, her home phone started ringing virtually nonstop—until Duckworth disconnected it and plugged the line into a fax machine.”

ch: 2006

109 Reasons To Dump The 109th Congress

Read Think Progress’s memo:

109 Reasons To Dump The 109th Congress

ch: 2006

GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt Has Voting Machine Problem

Heh. Uh-oh.

See the video below:

ch: Read This!

Military Times: Fire Rumsfeld

Military Times, which is carried in bases across the United States and overseas, calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s firing in a strongly-worded editorial today:

It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.

And although that tradition, and the officers’ deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.

President Bush has rebuked calls to fire Rumsfeld. The Defense Secretary’s popularity is so low that some (vulnerable) Republicans are actually calling for him to resign as well.

ch: 2006

Ugly Campaigning: Republican Says MVP Charlie Brown Picks Nazis over America

See TPMCafe’s Election Central for more details.

ch: 2006

Predictions, Predictions

Predictions, predictions. Everyone has midterm election predictions. While we here at MVP are always optimistic about Democratic chances (Democrats take the House 435-0!) here are some of the more respected and well-known election prognosticators:

Larry Sabato:

THE SENATE: +6 Dems = 51D, 49R

THE HOUSE: +29 Dems = 232D, 203R

Charlie Cook (National Journal): “With just over 72 hours to go before the polls close, it’s very hard to imagine how the House majority does not turn over, it’s a question of how big this thing will be. As the magnitude of the House wave began growing a month or so ago, and the prospect of a 20 or more seat gain became increasingly probable, I decided that no matter how big it got, I was not going to say or write a number bigger than 35. After a certain point, you aren’t really counting or even estimating, you’re pulling numbers out of the air. I didn’t and don’t see any point in that. Let’s just say it’s 20-35, but that the possibility of this getting bigger, is very real.”

Stuart Rothenberg: “The Democrats are going to win the House. We are unsure right now whether it is 20 or 25 seats (gains) or 35 or 40, or somewhere in between. But they will win the House, and the Senate is probably too close to call.”

ch: 2006

One Day Left: Help Get Out the Vote

From America Votes:

The America Votes coalition is organizing the most sophisticated, coordinated get out the vote operation in the history of the progressive movement. This year could be the turning point for progressives nationwide, and we need your help. Tens of thousands of volunteers must hit the streets to ensure that progressive voters are registered, educated, and motivated on Election Day 2006. We need you, your family, your friends, and your neighbors to help us get out the vote.

Get out the vote now.