One simple question, asked as she prepares for an apparent exit from the primary campaign.

Senator Clinton, will you fight as hard for Obama and our Congressional candidates in the general election as you have for yourself in the primary?

The discussion going around about McCain's marriage to his second wife and his apparent infidelity to his first wife have, not for the first time, spawned some ethical questions in my mind.

We recall the 90s, of course, and our outrage at the Republicans' (mostly successful) attempts to gain political points off of Bill Clinton's philandering, the way they derailed the entire national discourse and tried to destroy the legacy and policies of the only Democratic president since the 70s.

So is it okay for us to try to make McCain's personal life an issue now, when we complained about it being done to us then?  I think there are arguments to be made for both "yes" and "no" answers, and I'll list a few after the fold.

Here in Washington state, the advertising war surrounding Referendum 67 is heating up.  To hear "Reject R-67" describe it, the referendum is a means for trial lawyers to earn fees for large settlements and judgments at the cost of higher insurance rates.  This claim centers around the referendum's threat of (up to) triple damages in judgments rendered by the court.

Those are the two main components to the Reject R-67 ads:

1. threats of higher insurance rates to Washington consumers, and

2. the invocation of the "greedy trial lawyer" bogeyman.

As it happens, despite the advertisements' claims to be funded by "Consumers Against Higher Insurance Rates", these threats of higher insurance rates are effectively coming from the insurance companies themselves, which are funding most of the rejection effort.

And of course, something doesn't quite add up here.  It turns out that these advertisements effectively constitute an admission of wrongdoing by the insurance companies.

When I look at the current results and see +N Democratic pickups in the House, I have no idea how many of the competitive seats have been called.

So, I'm pulling the data from CalD's MetaProjecting the House (mostly because it's at hand and therefore convenient) and sorting the competitive races into called pickups and called holds, so I can get a better picture of whether or not we're on pace to take the House....  I'll add in pickups that aren't on the list, too.

I'm done updating for the night, which is just as well, since I don't think anyone's reading anymore. Good work, everyone. We've had a hell of a night.

Current net shift for Democrats: +27
(not counting Sanders' seat as a pickup)

Saturday, I (along with my girlfriend) did something neither of us had ever done before: we volunteered for a political campaign.  Before 2006, I'd donated some money to the Kerry campaign, but that was about the extent of my political involvement until this year, when joining Daily Kos inspired me to dig deep for candidates across the country.  But I knew I needed to do more...

Here in Seattle, Democrat Jim McDermott has a pretty safe seat in the Washington's 7th congressional district.  But across the lake, Darcy Burner is challenging the local Rubber-Stamp Republican, Dave Reichert.

"When the leadership comes to me and says, 'Dave, we need you to take a vote over here'... I do it."
--Dave Reichert (R-WA)

So on a rainy Saturday, three days before Election Day, my girlfriend and I hit the streets for Darcy.