I was going to write another post chiding certain Obama supporters for their overheated rhetoric about the evil Clintons (who apparently are now even worse than Joe McCarthy).

Instead, I will attempt to spark a more constructive discussion of the best way to make the case against John McCain in the general election.

Daily Kos star diarist clammyc is absolutely right: “We don’t need a nominee to focus on our opponent”:

But while way too much energy, time, money and focus is spent on the back-and-forth and the less-than really important issues that are facing this country, or the enormous hypocrisy of just about everything that John W. McCain has been saying or doing is getting either ignored or fluffed over, precious time is being wasted to frame McCain and “rebrand him” as the man he is and has become as opposed to the man he once was and represented.

The question is, what is the best way to “rebrand” McCain? There are some good ideas in that clammyc diary.

Jason Rosenbaum wrote a great piece for Open Left, How to Attack John McCain: A Search Study,” which evaluates various frames:

   * John McCain as old and unstable

   * John McCain as angry, with a temper, a hothead

   * John McCain as a war hawk who’ll keep us in Iraq forever

   * John McCain as confused and unprepared (can’t tell the difference between Iran and Al-Qaeda for instance)

   * John McCain as weak and unprepared on economic issues

   * John McCain and his association with radical fundamentalist pastors like John Hagee

   * John McCain as a flip-flopper or sellout

If quantitative analysis isn’t your thing, you might enjoy kid oakland’s half-joking “twenty thoughts about John McCain.”

Finally, for a laugh read Moody Loner’s Dr. Seuss-style poem, “I Will Not Vote for John McCain.”

Consider this an open thread on the best way to run against McCain.

Cross-posted around the blogosphere yesterday. I am posting here because a few of the links have not appeared in previous posts at Bleeding Heartland. -desmoinesdem

Welcome to the latest diary in my series on the Democratic primary in Iowa’s third Congressional district. Ed Fallon is challenging Leonard Boswell, who was first elected to this seat in 1996.

Today, I consider who would represent this district more effectively in Congress.

Here are links to my previous diaries on this campaign:

the introductory diary, with biographical information on Boswell and Fallon

The cases for Fallon and Boswell

Boswell and Fallon pick up the pace

Will Democrats vote on the issues?

Please let me know about other events this week in the comments, or by e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com).

Tuesday, March 25:

One Iowa is holding a Des Moines Area March CORE Team Meeting at 7:00 PM (details after the jump)

Thursday, March 27:

Iowa Interfaith Power and Light candlelight vigil a Nollen Plaza in Des Moines at 7:30 pm (more details after the jump)

Friday, March 28:

Ed Fallon is holding a town hall meeting to talk about immigration reform: 10:00 AM at Fallon for Congress, 2715 Cottage Grove Ave., Des Moines.

Time TBA

Screening of the film “Renewal” about the faith-based movement concerned about the environment, food and drink, and discussion

Dowling Catholic High School, Des Moines

Check out www.renewalproject.net for more information about this great film.

Saturday, March 29th:

9:00 AM to 2:00 PM (Times flexible and subject to change depending on attendees – please RSVP!)

Dowling Catholic High School, Des Moines

As Iowa Interfaith Power & Light moves forward, we’re planning to train new volunteers in giving presentations about faith, the environment, global warming, and creation care, in helping support Iowa Interfaith Power & Light’s efforts, in doing Cool Congregations trainings, and many other ways you can work with IIP&L. (more details and RSVP number after the jump)

Over at Open Left, fladem wrote this diary about the relationship between economic inequality and life expectancy in the U.S. Poor people don’t live as long as wealthier people for a lot of reasons, one of which is that they are less likely to have health insurance.

I totally agree with fladem’s take on the situation:

a more damning indictment of our health system I could not imagine.

The right always argues that socialized medicine will lead us to “ration health care.”  Of course, what they don’t tell you, and what this article makes clear, is that markets are rationing health care just fine on their own. No, I have never thought that conservatives mind health care rationing so long as they get their health care.

The Des Moines Register published this editorial a few days ago citing a report by Families USA about the number of Americans who die because they lacked health insurance. An estimated three Iowans die every week for this reason, though that cause is not listed in their obituaries.

This doesn’t surprise me a bit, as my scary run-in with an infection last month could have turned out much worse if I had delayed seeking treatment, as many uninsured people do. But as the Register noted, the cause of death in such a situation would never be listed as “lacked health insurance.”

The latest issue of Mothering magazine (no link, article not available online yet) had a harrowing story about the high rates of infant mortality and maternal mortality in the U.S., compared to other industrialized countries.

If you have the stomach to read them, nyceve’s series of diaries on “murder by spreadsheet” are essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the shameful inequities in our health care system.

Her latest piece is about how the for-profit insurance industry has denied limbs to many amputees. Absolutely horrendous stories in that diary.

Someday we will have a presidential nominee, and I hope that person will focus some attention on economic inequality and inadequate access to health care.

UPDATE: nyceve posted a diary today: Pacificare denies 17-year-old cancer patient lifesaving treatment. Read it and weep.

John Deeth wrote a great piece for Iowa Independent about “The Battleground Districts” that will decide who controls the Iowa legislature.

You might want to bookmark this analysis of five House races and 10 Senate races for future reference.

The Center for Responsive Politics has ranked the U.S. House and Senate members in terms of their net worth, based on disclosure documents filed in 2007. Jane Norman has the highlights in the Des Moines Register.

Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, and Tom Latham are the only members of Congress from Iowa who disclosed a net worth greater than $1 million. Click the link for more details.

Freshman representative Bruce Braley (IA-01) has already gotten a bill out of committee in the U.S. House of Representatives:

Braley’s bill mandating “plain language” in government documents was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee just before the House adjourned for its spring recess.

Braley wants the government to write documents in “plain language” rather than bureaucratese. Next, there will be consideration on the House floor.

It sounds like a good idea. I don’t know how a law like this would be enforced, but maybe there are precedents at the state level I haven’t heard about. Anyone know the answer?

I received an e-mail from Kurt Meyer’s campaign in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district, and it mentioned that incumbent Tom Latham is one of the Republicans being targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

I hadn’t realized that the DCCC planned to put resources into flipping that seat. It will be an uphill battle, but if the climate is right for Democratic candidates nationwide and in Iowa, it should be within reach.

I am staying out of the primary battle in IA-04, but I plan to donate $100 to the campaign of the winner of that primary. I would love to see that district turn blue.

While digging around on the DCCC’s website for more information, I noticed that they have also named Leonard Boswell as one of 29 “frontline Democrats.” I do not know whether that means the DCCC will put resources into the primary race in IA-03.

Here is the ActBlue page the DCCC set up for all of its “frontline Democrats”:

http://www.actblue.com/page/fr…

Here is a map you can use to find all of the districts the DCCC is targeting this year, either for pickups or defense:

http://dccc.org/page/content/r…

UPDATE: brownsox analyzes the list at Daily Kos and says the DCCC is targeting 59 Republican-held seats for pickups and 31 Democratic seats for defense:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

I just got an e-mail from Leonard Boswell’s campaign. It confirms my belief that they are very worried about Ed Fallon’s primary challenge.

Most of the e-mail contains negative information about Fallon, including a lead paragraph citing Fallon’s support for Ralph Nader in 2000 and a closing paragraph stating flatly, “Ed Fallon is no Democrat.”

Positive information about Boswell makes up a small portion of the message, mostly near the bottom. It mentions that Knowlegis has ranked him the 135th most powerful member of the U.S. House, making him “more powerful than nearly 70 percent of other Members of Congress.”

It also cites Boswell’s endorsements from AFSCME, SEIU, the Des Moines Police Association, Des Moines Association of Professional Fire Fighters, and UAW, as well as his support from Senator Tom Harkin, Governor Chet Culver, Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, Congressman Bruce Braley and Congressman Dave Loebsack.

The message mentions Boswell’s loyalty to the Democratic Party twice.

I would like the incumbent to address his tendency of voting with the majority of House Republicans, and contrary to the majority of House Democrats, on issues such as:

the 2005 bankruptcy bill

the 2005 energy bill

permanent repeal of the estate tax

the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping

weakening the right of habeas corpus

I would also like to know why I continually get action alerts from environmental groups asking me to contact Boswell about this or that bill, when Braley and Loebsack seem to know instinctively what position to take on these bills without getting a barrage of phone calls from constituents.

Boswell’s e-mail also features an article by Chase Martyn for Iowa Independent: Fallon Faces Campaign Finance Questions (that link works, although the link in Boswell’s e-mail was broken). I will write more about that piece in a forthcoming post about the financing of the Boswell and Fallon campaigns.

The full text of the Boswell campaign’s e-mail is after the jump.

Thanks, as always, to Betsy Muse of BlueNC for this roundup. -desmoinesdem

It’s Spring Break here in our neck of North Carolina. We’re Tar Heel fans, so are glued to the tube during March Madness. Unfortunately, North Carolina is in for a different type of March Madness as the Clinton and Obama campaigns descend on the state. We have a short roundup this week while many of our state bloggers take a much needed break. Enjoy!

The roundup is after the jump.

How disappointing–Drake lost in overtime when a guy for Western Kentucky made a desperation three-pointer with no time on the clock:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…

Even more frustrating, UConn lost in an upset today as well, meaning that Drake would have been able to play a lower-seeded team if they had advanced to the second round.

The Bulldogs had such a great season, and I’m sorry it ended this way.

Probably you knew that already, but techfidel provides this great analysis of the demographics in Ohio and Pennsylvania, going down to the county level.

The bottom line is that if the various demographic groups vote the same way in PA as they did in OH, techfidel projects a 57-43 victory for Hillary.

Click the link to see the maps and read the detailed explanation. There is also a spreadsheet you can download if you’re interested.

I missed the Leno show last night, but NCDemAmy came through with the YouTube, as usual. Here it is, for those who are curious to hear what John Edwards has been up to:

No big news in the interview–he wisely is not endorsing either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and says both would be excellent candidates, far better than the alternative.

Parents may appreciate his story about his son Jack!

Lots going on in the state legislature this week, so here are some quick hits:

The ban on smoking in public places has gone to a conference committee after the House approved a version that would fail to protect many bar and restaurant employees. The version passed by the Senate bans smoking in all bars and restaurants, along with most other public places. Senator Staci Appel chairs the conference committee.

On a party-line vote of 52-47, the House approved a measure backed by unions that

greatly expands the issues that unions can negotiate. Under the proposal, unions could negotiate such issues as insurance carriers, class sizes and overtime compensation.

Advocates say the proposal would better protect public employees. Opponents said it would strip power away from locally elected officials, placing more decision-making power in the hands of unions.

Republicans say that bill would lead to tax increases, and brought Senate business to a halt on Thursday in an effort to block debate on the proposal.

Watch for some fireworks in the Senate over this issue, starting next Monday:

But about 24 hours after Republican senators first holed up in a back room Thursday morning, refusing to debate the labor-backed bill, lawmakers agreed to end the stand-off today.

Democrats agreed to wait until Monday to debate the controversial bill, and Republicans agreed to limit debate to no longer than six hours.

[…]

The stalemate idled and irritated Democratic lawmakers, who were eager to go home to their families for the Easter holidays. At least two Democratic lawmakers stayed awake at their desks the entire night, while most left to get some sleep.

This morning, the Republican leader, Ron Wieck of Sioux City, offered what his staff called “an olive branch.”

“We will allow the bill to be read in, have a subcommittee and full committee hearing in an effort to move it to the Senate floor,” Wieck said in a statement. “This would then make the bill funnel proof and eligible for debate for the rest of the session.”

[…]

“Senate Republicans, however, refuse to allow a radical expansion of union power, at the expense of the taxpayer, move forward without more public comment,” the e-mailed statement says.

Meanwhile, attorneys are warning that the proposed worker-ID law which has not been approved yet “likely will face multiple constitutional challenges.”

The Interfaith Alliance Action Fund issued a statement last month detailing many problems with the worker-ID proposal.

Global warming is making spring come earlier in much of the United States:

And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn’t be measured until late April.

Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

“The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast,” Stanford University biologist Terry Root said.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year’s authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

But look on the bright side: Iowa legislator Dwayne Alons (Republican, of course) says we don’t need to worry about global warming in this age of air conditioning and refrigeration technology.

By the way, James Van Bruggen is running against Alons in House District 4, which is in the northwest corner of the state.

I am no fan of Chuck Grassley, but I agree with these comments by the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee:

Grassley said today that he has told his staff members to look into the details of a sweeping arrangement in which the Federal Reserve will help guarantee the obligations of Bear Stearns with a $30 billion credit line.

Bear Stearns will be bought by J.P. Morgan Chase at a price considered by some analysts to be far less than its market value. The company has 14,000 employees.

“I want to understand what the downside risk for the taxpayer is and any upside potential,” Grassley said in a statement issued through his Senate office.

He said he also wants to know more about how insiders such as senior executives fare when such deals are made.

“Corporate bigwigs shouldn’t be able to profit from a deal while employees, shareholders and creditors have to carry the burden of a company’s demise,” Grassley said.

Here’s hoping the Democrats who control that Senate committee will make sure a thorough review is conducted.

I am not a regular on any of the economist blogs, but check out bonddad’s diary history for background on the Bear Stearns debacle.

What else is new?

It’s not just that women hold different, lower-paying jobs. There is still a lot of gender inequality in some fields:

The report showed little pay inequality in fields such at architectural and engineering, business and finance, and computer and mathematical science careers.

However, in other professions such as education, healthcare, management and sales careers, the gap is between gender pay is wider.

Iowa was one of 38 states to get an “F” on its open records law, according to this front-page article in Thursday’s Des Moines Register.

“The question posed was: Do states have a good apparatus built to … make it easier to further a complaint short of litigating?” said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. The group helped sponsor the study, which was conducted by the Better Government Association last year.

Sponsors of the study stressed the research attempted to measure how easy it was for citizens to obtain access to records, not the strength of state open records laws themselves.

There are a lot of interesting details in the article, so if freedom of information is a big issue for you, click the link.

The Register’s editorial board writes a lot about open-records law, and I give them credit for that. Unfortunately, under Gannett’s ownership, the Register hasn’t devoted nearly enough resources to solid investigative reporting.

I wish the editors were assigning more reporters to dig into the information that’s already publicly available.

This came through on the Sierra Club’s e-mail list:

Please call Representative Leonard Boswell’s office and ask him to cosponsor HR 39, a bill that would permanently protect the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  His Des Moines office number is 515-282-1909 and D.C. number is 202-225-3806.  All other Iowa Democratic members of Congress have already cosponsored HR 39.

Some facts:  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls the Refuge’s Coastal Plain “the center for wildlife activity” for the entire Refuge.  The Refuge provides vital habitat for some of America ‘s most spectacular wildlife. Polar bears, grizzly bears, caribou, wolves, and muskoxen are a few of more than 250 species that rely on the Coastal Plain for their survival.  Millions of birds, representing some 180 species, migrate to the Coastal Plain to nest, rear young, molt, and feed.  Birds from all 50 states and six of the seven continents migrate to the Refuge for summer.

The native people living near the Refuge are the Gwich’in (meaning “caribou people” in their language) and their livelihood and culture have been dependant on the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which gives birth on the Coastal Plain, for centuries. They refer to the Coastal Plain as the “Sacred Place Where Life Begins” and oppose drilling in the area and strongly support permanent protection. Impact to the caribou herd could mean a loss of their way of life.

Global warming is already threatening life in the Arctic and drilling for gas and oil will only accelerate the warming trend.

I can’t resist adding that if Ed Fallon were representing Iowa’s third Congressional district, this kind of action alert would be unnecessary. He would sign on to a bill like this in a heartbeat without needing to be nudged by constituents.

The answer depends on what state you’re looking at.

Recent polling suggests that Barack Obama has been running much better than Hillary Clinton against John McCain in states such as Iowa and Colorado.

However, that appears not to be the case in some other important swing states. Survey USA released three new state polls:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/…

In Ohio, Clinton beats McCain 50-44, but McCain beats Obama 50-43.

In Missouri, McCain leads Clinton 48-46 (within margin of error), and McCain leads Obama 53-39.

In Kentucky, McCain leads Clinton 53-43 and leads Obama 64-28. Obviously, Democrats are not going to carry Kentucky in the presidential race, but there may be some close Congressional races in that state. Who is going to be better for our down-ticket candidates?

For the record, I think both Clinton and Obama could beat McCain or lose to McCain. I have no idea who has a better chance of getting 270 electoral votes. I do think Obama runs a greater risk of losing in a Dukakis-style blowout than Clinton does.

Right now I’m pessimistic about either of them being able to win the general, in part because of the way our primary is now all about identity politics rather than issues.