There was a time when she denounced the way "a handful of angry, petty, spiteful folks" took our conversations to a new low.  But she just posted a video of an angry, petty, spiteful woman who both denounced the likely Democratic nominee as "an inadequate black male" and offered her vote to John McCain (incidentally, I was sitting just a few seats from her, and believe me when I tell you her meltdown was more than a moment--it was almost an hour of continual disruptions before she was ejected and shown to the cameras).

She once decried "the venomous attacks and lies about fellow Democrats" as "spiteful and vindictive behavior" that would make it difficult to "reunite our party" (apparently that was once a goal of hers).  But she just accused our likely nominee of orchestrating elections fraud in Texas without any real sourcing, and directly claimed "he's using every trick he can think of to disenfranchise voters."

...Senator Barack Obama.

For the last four days or so, my cell phone has been getting calls from an unknown number.  Yesterday I decided to answer and see who the hell it was that kept calling.

God, how disappointed I was.

"Hello, this is ** with the Obama campaign.  May I speak with Jared Letini [a horrible mispronunciation/mangling of my name, but it happens a lot so I didn't worry about it]?"

"This is he," I said.

Now came the fun part: the pitch.

cross-posted from DailyKos
I understand that tempers are running high here and over at MyDD among the supporters of the various Democratic Presidential candidates.  The pie fight over the "1984" ad has been both entertaining and infuriating at times, and has sharpened some of the lines dividing the camps.

None of that matters for the next 12 and a half hours.

John and Elizabeth Edwards are calling a press conference for tomorrow at Noon.  Elizabeth has been fighting breast cancer since 2004, and John recently cancelled a campaign appearance in Iowa to return home and attend a doctor's meeting with Elizabeth.

It sounds as if there might be a health crisis in the Edwards family.

Tom Vilsack, a short time ago, quit the Presidential race.  And it's an understandible decision: he isn't raising much money, he's not polling above fourth in his home state, he pissed off Atrios and made a bad suggestion about Social Security...all good reasons for dropping out.  And he didn't even insult our intelligence by saying it was to "spend more time with family."

I think that Vilsack was probably right to get out--from an 'expectations game' perspective, his poor showing in Iowa would probably doom him--but we're still left with a number of likely also-rans, including Biden, Dodd, Richardson, Kucinich, Gravel, and Clark (if he runs).  As far as I'm concerned, we might as well write off Kucinich and Gravel just on the basis of sheer implausibility (what Kos might call "ugh").  But in the wake of the Vilsack withdrawal, we should consider for a moment just what the paradigm is within this primary, and what we should look for from these not-first-tier candidates.

Greetings again from sunny Sarasota, where Democratic candidate Christine Jennings has just been endorsed by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune!

Faced with Jennings's incredible bi-partisan local support, Republican Vern Buchanan had to answer a tough question: when you've already spent millions of dollars from your own pocket and you're still losing in a Republican district, where do you go from there?

I think we all know the answer to that one.  (Cue up "Hail to the Chief"...)

George W. Bush, for only the second time in his Presidency, is coming to Sarasota.  This time, it's to stump for Vern Buchanan.

$3.7 million will buy one heck of a house.  In Venice, Florida, it can get you a 3,500 square foot waterfront Italian Renaissance-style mansion.  In Arcadia, you could pay the salaries of every city employee for over a year.  In Sarasota, you could buy a nice home and keep the St. Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen up and running for years, instead of watching it close.  (Hell, you could operate the entire township of Belfast, Maine for a full fiscal year if you wanted to!)

If you're Congressional candidate Vern Buchanan, though, you wouldn't want to buy an entire house with $3.7 million.  Just a seat in one.

Yes, this week Republican nominee Vern Buchanan decided to throw another $700,000 of his own money into his campaign, <u>bringing his personal contributions to over $3,700,000 for the cycle.</u>  He has self-funded more than any other Congressional candidate in America this cycle.

Twelve percent.

In a district that has a high Republican registration advantage. In a district where independent and non-party voters almost equal Democratic voters in registration. In a district that twice elected Katherine Harris. In a district where the Republican candidate has spent more than four times as much as the Democratic candidate.

And in this district, the Democratic nominee, Christine Jennings, is leading by twelve percent, 50-38.

Greetings again from Jennings HQ.

Two days ago I wrote how Rep. Tom Reynolds, head of the RNCC and one of the members directly tied into the Foley scandal, was coming to Sarasota to stump for Republican candidate Vern Buchanan in our district, which is right next to Foley's.

Apparently, Rep. Reynolds figured out the risks of putting himself this close to the action, especially while his own seat is in jeopardy, and at the last minute decided to stay home and hold the Most Disturbing Press Conference Ever.

And without someone like the Predator Protector to come raise money, who's a self-funding multimillionaire candidate going to call?

How about "a Republican icon" like this guy?