Editor's note from the Massa for Congress blog team: Eric Massa will not be live-blogging today. He is on the road taking his son to freshman orientation.
It has been said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. The broader quote could have been written today:
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty—power is ever stealing from the many to the few.... The hand entrusted with power becomes ... the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.
After six years of the Bush administration and four years of one party controlling both the White House and the Congress, the rich and special interests are thriving and the working people of America are falling further and further behind. And some within the Republican Party have been working to make this a permanent condition. Just this week the Baltimore Sun published a piece with evidence that the Bush administration worked hard to reduce voter turnout in key elections states. (link) This seems directly related to the US Attorney story especially since, as Senator Kennedy and others have noted (link), most of the fired US Attorneys were in key battleground states.
We managed to reclaim control of the House and Senate this past November, but there is much left to be done. Democracy is still at the midnight hour. We have nothing close to the majorities necessary to stop filibusters or override partisan presidential vetoes. Therefore, we must not stop after an election, even one as sweeping in its scope as 2006 was for the Democratic Party. We must keep working to expand the majority by winning the seats that were barely lost last time.
And that is exactly what DFA is doing with a Grassroots All-Star Contest featuring seven candidates who barely lost last time and have announced that they will run again in 2008. If you haven't already, please vote here now:
DFA Grassroots All-Stars contest
The previous winner, in 2006, was Jerry McNerney, who had lost to Congressman Richard Pombo in 2004. After winning the grassroots contest in 2006, Congressman McNerney defeated Pombo, the then seven term incumbent in the 2006 elections. So there is proof that early money and support can make a big difference in districts that were narrowly lost in previous elections.
Voting in the DFA contest is one simple way to help those of us who are vigilantly working to win in close districts and expand the current Democratic majority. To vote in the current contest go here:
DFA Grassroots All-Stars contest
The initial contest ends at midnight tonight. Then, starting tomorrow, the top three candidates will be in a runoff that will end Wednesday at midnight.