One of the great things about Netroots Nation this year was the exceptional access to candidates that we had. I got to meet and have extended conversations with several of our challengers and I just wanted to feature two candidates that I think really made an impression at this year's conference.

Everywhere you looked, it seemed, there was Annette Taddeo. Taddeo, a self-described "non-Cuban Hispanic Jewish-American," is running in FL-18 against entrenched Bush rubber stamp Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of the three Cuban-American incumbents struggling to hold onto their seats in southern Florida this year.  

Her district contains parts of Miami including Miami Beach yet is R+4, largely because of the Cuban-American population, which traditionally votes Republican. It's an uphill climb but Taddeo is a real progressive running in an increasingly progressive district. It's great to see that the DCCC intends to buy ad time in FL-18 to support Taddeo. Charlie Cook sees the potential of Taddeo as well, having upgraded her race from Strong Republican to Likely Republican. As Taddeo told us at the Future Leaders panel at NN, her opponent is voting more with Democrats and is essentially running as one since Taddeo got in the race. In order to continue to win in this district, Ros-Lehtinen must hide her true Bush rubber stamp record from the voters and Taddeo is determined not to let her do that.

Join DFA in helping Annette Taddeo get her message out by giving to her campaign at Act Blue.

Below is Annette at a DFA event in Austin:

Another candidate that created a lot of buzz at Netroots Nation is Debbie Cook, Mayor of Huntington Beach, who is running against "lazy crazy" Dana Rohrabacher in CA-46. Rohrabacher has been in the House since 1989 and has won re-election easily every cycle because his district is at the northern end of what has long been ruby red Orange County. Rohrabacher should be vulnerable, as every year he says some crazy shit, but never pays for it because his challengers are underfunded and out-manned.

The free ride is over. Cook, the well-regarded mayor of the district's largest city, is running a real race this year, having out-raised Rohrabacher two quarters in a row. A long-time energy activist, Cook is running on energy in a year when it is on everyone's minds and when people see it as an economic issue, an environmental issue and a moral issue. At Netroots Nation, Cook impressed on the Energizing America panel and followed that appearance up with a call to action over at calitics. Debbie Cook is a strong candidate who is serious about engaging the netroots, serious about changing the way we think about and use energy and serious about sending lazy crazy Dana Rohrabacher packing.

Show Cook some love over at Act Blue.

Below is an interview TPM did with Cook at Netroots Nation:

Don't forget tomorrow is the DCCC's Mobilize for Change: A National Day of Action marking 100 Days to the election. If you want to help these candidates out, or your own favorite candidate, tomorrow is the day to join up with the campaign.

By nearly all accounts, Barack Obama's trip abroad is a huge success. He got a view of the facts on the ground in Iraq, met with leaders in Afghanistan, and embraced our allies in Europe while stressing the need to re-engage in Afghanistan and secure the world's nuclear weapons. He brought over 200,000 Germans to unite in a chant of "USA! USA!"

Not a bad week.

Meanwhile, back in the states, John McCain engaged in self-parody at a German fudge store yesterday, desperately trying to get any, ANY criticism of Obama to stick.

First, McCain chided Obama for giving a campaign speech oversees one month after McCain gave a campaign speech overseas.

McCain's most recent spitball involved a canceled Obama campaign stop at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where the Dem nominee planned to visit injured troops. The campaign canned it, you see, because they felt it would be inappropriate to conduct such a visit as a campaign function

But McCain's so desperate, he went on the attack anyway.

But it turns out the Pentagon itself advised Obama against the visit:

There's a pattern here - McCain's campaign is getting lead around by the nose - across news cycle after news cycle.

The long-term result is a huge net-positive for Obama because the press core may become inoculated to such distractions. In normal circumstances, a bogus attack intended for distraction is considered successful if it lands its own story or news cycle before getting rebutted; it uses the 24-hour news frenzy to hang out there for a bit and clip your opponent's good press regardless of whether the attack is...true. But McCain's hits are duds - the sniping about Obama giving a campaign speech was contradicted with a description of McCain's own foreign campaign speech right in the same article. At the end of the day, reporters will start to wonder if McCain really has any message of his own - or any actual policy ideas that aren't "drill" and "victory" rhetoric. Perhaps they'll realize that McCain's actual policies on the war and the economy are unpopular, so he's avoiding them.

The Village even created a derogatory term for those in the traveling press relegated to following the McCain train-wreck: the "JV squad."

Update [2008-7-25 13:12:9 by Josh Orton]: McCain's campaign should learn to use Google.

Amy Walter, from National Journal, on the Democrats chances in the House:

The NJ House rankings are here. The SwingStateReport has the 'power rankings' for the top 50 races.

A 15 seat gain would be tremendous for Democrats in the House in 2008. Going into the 2006 election, there were 202 Democrats and 232 Republicans and 1 Independent. Democrats won 31 seats in '06, and then have won seats in 3 special elections, to now hold a 236-199 advantage heading into the 2008 election.

Larry Sabato is saying a +8 to +14 D gain in the house too, for Democrats.

Remember how George W. Bush was going to reshape the electorate by bringing Hispanic voters into the Republican Party, and how John McCain was going to continue the Bush legacy in this regard? Remember how the fact that Hillary Clinton bested Barack Obama among Hispanics during the Democratic primaries augured poorly for Obama's chances among the demographic during the general? Well apparently it's just not the case.

This is a remarkably poor performance for McCain, one that seriously threatens his ability to win this fall. In 2004, George W. Bush received at least 40 percent (.pdf), and perhaps even as much as 44 percent, of the Hispanic vote. Even in 2006, when the Republicans (particularly in the House) were running a strongly anti-immigrant campaign, the GOP still pulled in about 30 percent of the Hispanic vote. But John McCain, a candidate assumed at the outset of this race to have particular strength among Hispanics? McCain has roughly half the support of George W. Bush among Hispanic voters and even a quarter less support within the community than Republicans received in 2006.

And in case you don't think these numbers matter, think again. Just look at McCain's home state of Arizona -- where McCain has been forced to campaign. If McCain were only able to manage 22 percent of the Hispanic vote in Arizona, just doing the math he'd have to pull in about 63 percent of the White, Asian-American and "other" vote in the state to reach the 50 percent marker (Jon Kyl received about 55 percent of the White vote in his 10-point reelection victory in 2006, for reference). Even if McCain only needed to hit the 48 percentage point mark to win because of third party participation, he would still need to get over 60 percent of the non-Hispanic and non-African-American vote in order to hit such a plurality. Let's say that mark is just 45 percent. McCain would still need to get 56.4 percent of the White/Asian-American/"other" vote -- again, above Kyl's performance in 2006.

This is just one state, Arizona, a state that McCain should win. Now extrapolate these numbers across the country, particularly in other states with large Hispanic voting blocs, and you see McCain's immense problem. If the 22 percent mark were to hold in a state like Texas, and Obama were to receive a respectable though not shockingly high 90 percent of the African-American vote, McCain would need to pull in close to 60 percent of the remaining vote to earn a majority of the overall vote. Even if McCain were just shooting for a 48 percent plurality, he'd still need 57 percent of the vote outside of the Hispanic and African-American communities.

I'm just playing with numbers based on the 2006 exit polling, and you can shift the turnout in one direction or the other, or the percentage share of the African-American vote received by Obama up or down. Nevertheless, it's fairly clear that McCain would have difficulty earning 200 electoral votes, let alone 270, were he to receive just 22 percent of the Hispanic vote this year.

Obama's full speech, video form:

What's going on tonight?

The non-partisan Research 2000 company has released polling out of Mississippi commissioned by Daily Kos, and yet again the numbers show that the special election race to fill the unexpired term of Trent Lott is a remarkably tight one.

With these new numbers in the mix, the latest Pollster.com trend estimate actually shows Musgrove ahead by a similarly narrow margin, while the overall average of the past four polls shows an exact tie. In short, this race is about as tight as they come, and as was the case with the special election in the state's first congressional district, which was held to fill the unexpired term of Wicker, the partisan affiliation of the two candidates will not be mentioned on the ballot -- a fact that would seemingly helps the Democrats.

Musgrove's competitiveness, and the relatively high likelihood that he would be a part of the Democrats' 60-seat majority in the 111th Congress should they achieve that target, are a testament to why he's a part of MyDD's Road to 60 Act Blue page. This race is a back-breaker, one that sends a signal to the country that the regional party that is the Republican Party doesn't even have a lock on the South anymore. But it's not just that. I noted last week Musgrove's strong support for the Employee Free Choice Act, a position that shows that he is with us on economic issues. Musgrove also recently articulated his support for net neutrality (a position now held by every major Democratic Senate challenger this year), which also shows that although Musgrove won't be the most reliable vote in the Senate he will nevertheless be a part of the coalition on a number of the votes most important to our community (certainly a more reliable vote than Wicker).

So if you haven't yet had the opportunity to show your support for Musgrove -- or the other candidates on the MyDD Road to 60 list, for that matter -- head over to Act Blue today and make your voice heard. Even a $5 contribution to each candidate on the list would make a big difference in helping the Democrats reach the 60-vote, filibuster-proof threshold in the Senate.

My experience of Barack's speech today was a little unusual. I was on the road, drving to Northern California (I'm blogging from the lobby of some hotel in Santa Rosa), and the only station I could find broadcasting the speech was on the freakin Rush Limbaugh show. He didn't play the whole thing but what he did play he spoke over intermittently with cranky commentary, as though he was one of those robots in Mystery Science Theatre 2000 critiquing a really bad film. So when Barack said "I come here as a fellow citizen of the world" Rush chimed in "citizen of the world? I'd like to see that passport." And when Barack said

Rush complained that Barack was channeling Ronald Reagan except the walls Barack spoke of were "imaginary."

Oh, and I can't leave out that Rush consistently referred to the speech as "the messiah's sermon." And you'll be shocked to learn Rush didn't like the speech much. He was "disappointed" and felt it ran a bit short. Thanks for your concern, Rush.

But what struck me the most was a comment Rush made in some post-speech analysis: that Obama and Democrats in general "just don't understand American exceptionalism." In other words, this speech just reinforced the right's meme about Barack that he's un-American, despite the fact that it's actually quite a patriotic speech.

Now, I don't know Rush well enough to know the difference between when he actually believes something and when he's just spewing talking points, but this whole "American exceptionalism" thing struck me as a particular passion of Rush's and many of his callers.

For example, when Barack said:

Rush saw this as an insult to America because by declaring himself a citizen of the world, he was rendering his US citizenship as secondary.

And when Barack said:

Rush considered this a blatant slam against America and George W. Bush. Who re-constructed Europe, Rush demanded angrily, who is the one country doing more for Africa than any other!?  

But what Rush and the whole "American exceptionalism" crowd don't get is that our outrage about what's happened over the past 8 years isn't about hating America, it's not about bashing America or our president. Rather, it's about the profound disappointment at what America has become under this president based on the deep belief that we are exceptional, that we are better than this and we should start acting like it.

I've written a background article on what is happening in Malaysia, with the continued political battle, on Malaysia Matters. It basically shows that in Malaysia, "politics is about individuals rather than parties" and as a result, the frontal character attacks are the norm. So its little wonder then that the internet & blogs played a central role in their latest election. I'm hoping to be a part on a political trip back over there this summer, stay tuned.

Also, I took a trip over to Israel earlier this year, and Democratic Jews were very nervous about whether Obama would have the appeal that Clinton had for American Jewish voters. It's probably too early to tell, but like Latinos, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Over on Open Left, Matt has blogged that Every Major Senate Democratic Challenger has Announced Support for Network Neutrality. He includes the statements from the candidates, including one that I helped get Warner to put out when he was driving Forward Together:

I find the "gaffe" stories (it seems like there's one every couple of days for each of the candidates, McCain and Obama) pretty useless. I'm not sure how Obama's speech in Berlin is going to go over, or his trip in general. I doubt the GOP has anything that lasts more than a blog-post, that gets the questioning response. Gotcha politics is so boring to play a part in... one thing I'll predict is that if Obama wins, the US Presidential elections will move to being more global.

Here's what I know, the terrain of the '08 election has, issue-wise, wildly shifted. Gone are the days when Iraq was the number one issue with half the voters and Healthcare was a strong second. Here are the days when "Economic Security" is the dominant issue and Gas Prices and Job Security are at the top. Iraq is last elections issue. Neither Obama or McCain has fully adjusted to the new terrain. McCain has been more out-front and aggressive in defining himself with it, Obama has been holding back to date. That mirrors the Congress, where Democrats are content with the current dynamics and want to holdout for '09 to address the issue, and Republicans are looking for an issue to move the polls with for '08. If this remains the 'economic security' positions of the parties going into the '08 election, we are not going to win some races we should have, and the GE is going to be very close.