In 10 days, the Wheeling and Palatine Township Democrats will be hosting a joint fundraiser (PDF) to help cover costs for keeping the only Democratic office in the northwest suburbs up and running.

The Wheeling Dems in particular will also be awarding the First Annual Pat Botterman Leadership Award to honor the legacy of the late, great Wheeling Township Committeman who died suddenly on March 10th.

Over the next 10 days, leading up to the brunch fundraiser, I'll be asking folks to help out the Wheeling Dems with a wee bit of a virtual fundraiser.

Last week I promised to figure out what went wrong in the Mark Pera-Dan Lipinski race. I've been delayed in that assessment for two big reasons -- the elections and work finishing up my book, Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in the Digital Era which I must deliver to Penguin on March 20th.

However, my book writing and my efforts to figure out what went wrong in Illinois crossed paths, as I was working on a case study dealing with Rep. Carol Shea-Porter's unlikely victories in both the primary and general election in 2006.

On September 13, Shea-Porter rocked the political world by winning her primary by a 54-35 margin despite the fiercest efforts of the party establishment. She had been outspent $192,558 to $19,023 in the primary, yet had been the beneficiary of record low turnout that allowed her small grassroots army to swamp Craig’s voters.

The Jim Webb-Harris Miller primary battle in Virginia in 2006 also featured dismal turnout, around two percent if I remember correctly. So could it be that our nascent movement can only able to win tough primary races in low-turnout affairs, in which low-information voters are kept away from the polls and only the most informed and engaged participate?

There may be something there. The Pera campaign worked to identify the most likely voters and persuade them to back his campaign. However, the presidential race and Obama's presence on the ticket spurred massive turnout and a flood of new voters that had not been previously identified. And faced with an unknown race on the ballot, they went with the safety of the incumbent.

But is that a perfect rule? The 2006 Montana primary between Jon Tester and John Morrison had extremely high turnout, as did the primary between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont in Connecticut. Then again, Tester had enough money to advertise in a state that was cheap to advertise in, unlike Webb's Virginia or Pera's Chicago media market. And Lamont had plenty of money to get out his own message. And in both those cases, those primaries were the top-of-the-ticket contests. Voters turned out precisely to vote for Tester and Lamont, unlike last Tuesday's voters which turned out to vote for Obama.

So my tentative lesson in all of this is that we're most effective in races where we can get two out of the following three:

1. we're the main attraction on the ballot,

2. we have the money to get out our message (duh), and

3. turnout remains low.

So what does that say about today's primary in Maryland between netroots hero Donna Edwards and Al Wynn?

It's an expensive media market, the main attraction is the presidential primary, and turnout will likely be near record highs. If Donna Edwards wins -- and observers on the ground are gung-ho that she can pull it off -- she will have done so by bucking the lessons from those previous primaries. In other words, it'll be a tough task.

But no one ever said that taking on entrenched and corrupt machine politicians would ever be easy.

Well, I've been posting about the race of Mark Pera against Dan Lipinski, NDFA's role as leading the charge in the 11th ward, and my own canvassing. Tuesday night, the results were in. We lost to the machine.
In particular, Having campaigned heavily in the 33rd precinct in the weeks up to the election, I spent most of the day -- more than 12 hours, all told -- there. I was mostly passing out "palm cards" asking people to vote for Pera. Very few of them did.
Details after the jump.

The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. I have try mixing my own rants and ideas, with national issues, news items, and some very local groups and events in an attempt to both help shape debate and to help people find their own ways of getting involved.

This week I highlight John McCain, the probably Republican nominee who offers America nothing but a third term of failed Bush policies. I also discuss Biofuels. Unlike some, I do think biofuels can play a role in a new energy economy and I discuss some ideas that may help. As a piece of the solution, biofuels may be a small part, but still might be helpful if done right. And I continue to highlight local events in all the states where I have had a good number of readers. Diane Benson, a candidate for Congress in Alaska, is coming to visit NYC...I am hoping to meet her. I highlight Darwin Day events in many of these sates as Darwin's Birthday approaches. I also highlight some peace rallies, alternative energy events and impeachment events around the nation. Don't forget to visit an advertiser or two and if you want more, please visit Culture Kitchen.

Dear Friends,

First off, I apologize for not writing sooner. We spent all day Wednesday moving out of our campaign offices and my staff and I are finally getting a chance to take a breath.

I know you that by now you have probably seen the results from Election Day here in Cook County. Like many of you, I was very disappointed. Our hard work was not enough to cut into the incumbent vote and we lost by a fairly wide margin. There were many fine, reform-minded candidates who lost across Cook County. In just under six weeks, we'll get to see exactly how the numbers broke down precinct by precinct. I feel like we did everything we could during our campaign and I'm proud of our effort. We stretched every dollar we raised. Overall, more than 82 percent of our expenditures, including taxes, went toward voter contact.

I'm a little disappointed with the front-pagers to be honest with everyone.  For literally months, we were inundated with calls to action on behalf of Democrat Mark Pera - Kossacks consistently opened up their wallet - to the tune of over $57,000 - and those who lived in Chicago undoubtedly gave up their time.  There's no question that we fought the good fight on this one, but I'm equally as mystified (and miffed) that there has been absolutely no mention of the third congressional district primary over the past two days.  None.

Back in the fall, I was looking to get involved with a candidate. I had heard Dean say that the reason why the conservatives got so much power was because people like me..who are progressives but not very politically active.

Combined with the constant capitulation of the so-called "Democratic" congress on issue after issue, I was actually REALLY fired up.

So I was excited to see a race close to my own district being talked about on the front page of DailyKos.. I decided I was going to start helping out.

I started by sending a blast of email to my friends and by sending a tidy sum (for me anyway) to the campaign

(more after the jump)

I don't see this diaried anywhere else - If I am clueless and missed it I'll delete immediately.

With 97% of precincts reporting, Pera has 29% to Lipinski's 50%

http://www.voterinfonet.com/...

More to follow:

OK...I did the "right thing."  I dug down and contributed to candidates I believed in...candidates who were challenging the status quo....candidates who were battling entrenched DINOs and who clearly needed help from small contributors to get things rolling.

I pulled my automatic contributions to the Democratic Bond fund after I watched the party march in lockstep with bush on continuing the war, FISA rape, habeas corpus and on and on and diverted those funds to selected candidates.

And just what did I get for my money?

In the other big election tonight, John Laesch and Bill Foster are in a dogfight to win the Democratic nomination for the 03/08/08 IL-14 special election to replace Dennis Hastert.  With 44% percent of the vote counted, Foster is leading 50% to 43%.  Results here:

http://hosted.ap.org/...

Meanwhile, netroots candidate Mark Pera has, unfortunately, lost to incumbent Daniel Lipinski in what looks like a blowout -- a greater than 2-1 margin.  Primaries against entrenched incumbents are generally uphill battles, and it looks like this hill was just too steep.  Results here:

http://hosted.ap.org/...

After spending the entire campaign scapegoating immigrants, Dan Lipinski has suddenly had an 11th-hour conversion.

In the other important primary tonight, reactionary machine hack Dan Lipinski suddenly changed tactics against progressive reformer Mark Pera.  Apparently Lipinski started handing out flyers two hours ago that say in both English and Spanish 'Dan Lipinski is pro-immigrant'.  Before that he was just handing out standard palm cards with his name.

Lipinski votes with Sensenbrenner, so it's really interesting to see this flip.  Immigration isn't quite the bogeyman for the right it seemed to be, perhaps.

Anyone know where to get results for this race?

Update: Thanks to commenters, you can get results here or here.

Can anyone help make calls and stuff?  Is anyone in district?  This is going to go down to the wire and the great turn-out today has to be good for Mark!  This is a race we can make a difference in!  

You must enter an Intro for your Diary Entry between 300 and 1150 characters long.You must enter an Intro for your Diary Entry between 300 and 1150 characters long.You must enter an Intro for your Diary Entry between 300 and 1150 characters long.

After you read this flyer, paid for by the Dan Lipinski campaign, you will know exactly why he was targeted, and you'll feel damn good about the decision to support Mark Pera.

An Important Message from a Fellow Southwest Sider

As a longtime Southwest Side Democrat and neighborhood advocate, I want to congratulate the News-Herald for it’s [stet] wisdom in endorsing the re-election bid of Congressman Daniel W. Lipinski (D-3rd).

I think it’s important to add a few observations to the ones made in the editorial.

The few cranks and chronic complainers among us can say what they want about how Congressman Lipinski first came to be the Democratic nominee way back in 2004; but the fact is that he stood before the voters for election in the fall of 2004, and the voters said “yes” to his candidacy.  He responded to the vote of confidence by serving the district well – so much so that when he stood before everyone for re-election in 2006, he won a majority of votes handily.

So now it’s 2008, and Congressman Lipinski finds himself faced with several primary opponents – one of whom, Mark Pera is heavily supported by left-wing extremist political groups.

These groups and their millions of dollars are not from the southwest side or anywhere around here, but from places like San Francisco, Hollywood, New York City and Massachusetts.  (But don’t believe me.  Look it up and find out who is behind the Open Left radical organization and some of the other political hate groups that are funneling resources to defeat Congressman Lipinski.)

These aren’t your garden variety liberals. The people backing Mark Pera are radical left-wingers – people who, for example, have publicly criticized Ted Kennedy could possibly be more liberal.

The left-wing extremist groups trying to defeat Congressman Lipinski are political punks who snicker and sneer at Southwest Siders like us.  They laugh at traditional values.  They mock people who go to church.  They dismiss senior citizens as irrelevant relics of a bygone era.  They look down their educated noses at blue-collar men and women who work for a living.  They bad-mouth police and other public safety employees – except when they need a cop of course.  And they give the finger (figuratively and literally) to the men and women of the American military.

They think that regular folks like us, the residents of the Southwest Side, should no longer have a place in the Democratic Party – despite the fact that we were working, sweating, building and strengthening the Democratic Party while they were still crying in their cribs because their diapers were full.

But these extremists have a lot of money, and they are going all out to eliminate all Democrats who are not hardline left-wingers.  They say they want to purge the Democratic Party of centrists and moderates like Congressman Lipinski and a handful of other congressmen across the nation.

So clearly, this is more than a re-election battle for Congressman Lipinski.  This is a war for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. A war that was started by left-wing extremists to kick folks like us out of our own party.

But one thing I can do is expose the shameful tactics and goals of the left-wing extremist punks trying to defeat Congressman Lipinksi; and I can strongly urge all my fellow Southwest Siders to go out and vote on Tuesday, February 5th for Congressman Daniel W. Lipinski.

Let’s get it done, and let’s show the punks how real Democrats can mobilize and make our voices heard.

Joe Kulys

Fellow Southwest Side Resident
Re-Elect Dan Lipinski Congressman

Paid for by Dan Lipinski for Congress

The flier looks as bad as it reads.

But if this isn't a perfect example of how we need better Democrats, nothing is. Lipinski is a corrupt Republican who pretends to be a Democrat because it's the only way he'd get elected in this Democratic seat.

You can still help out financially, but if you're anywhere near this district tomorrow, volunteer to help get out the vote.

We can send a clear signal to corrupt, entrenched DC Democrats that we no longer have to suffer their abuses. But to do so we need to win races like this one and the Donna Edwards/Al Wynn primary next week.

Update: Our good friend Joe Kulys has a blog.

Dear Friends —

We received a tremendous response again this morning from voters across the district. Our volunteers and I, as we have been for many weeks, were out early greeting commuters at Metra train stops as they headed into the city. I can’t tell you how many people said, "You have my vote," or, better yet, "I early voted for you!"

I have a great feeling about tomorrow.

While we were working this weekend to get out the vote on Tuesday by running phonebanks and canvassing door to door, Dan Lipinski was trying desperately to make up for lost time by taking cheap shots at our campaign and our supporters, volunteers and staff.

(cross posted at PrairieStateBlue, MyDD, Booman Tribune and OpenLeft)

One line I used a lot on Saturday was:
"There's an election Tuesday. The papers tell you it's all about president, but the congressman is up for nomination, too."
The election in the 3rd CD of Illinois pits Mark Pera against incumbent William Lipinski, who votes with Bush 49% of the time although he calls himself a Democrat, and two diversions.
NDFA, Northside DFA, has been spending its time in the 11th ward, a solid machine center in the district.
We've been spending each weekend there, talking to voters. Yesterday, since it was Superbowl Sunday, and voters might not enjoy the interruption, we put flyers in the doors of most of our plus voters in the ward. We ran out of time and missed several precincts.
What we're up against after the jump.

Continuing to run scared, Dan Lipinski's campaign has paid for and released the kind of flyer that's usually dismissed after the fact as having been the work of an over-zealous volunteer. Its target? Mark Pera's radical left-wing, military hating, political punk supporters at Open Left and other such political hate groups.

People who raise concerns about the nepotism and carpetbagging that got Dan Lipinski elected? They're a "few cranks and chronic complainers." But that's just the beginning. The flyer goes on to roll out just about every anti-left stereotype you can think of, from geography:

These groups and their millions of dollars are not from the southwest side or anywhere around here, but from places like San Francisco, Hollywood, New York City and Massachusetts.

To Ted Kennedy:

These aren’t your garden variety liberals. The people backing Mark Pera are radical left-wingers – people who, for example, have publicly criticized Ted Kennedy could possibly be more liberal.

To elitism, anti-religion, troop-hating, blah blah blah:

The left-wing extremist groups trying to defeat Congressman Lipinski are political punks who snicker and sneer at Southwest Siders like us.  They laugh at traditional values.  They mock people who go to church.  They dismiss senior citizens as irrelevant relics of a bygone era.  They look down their educated noses at blue-collar men and women who work for a living.  They bad-mouth police and other public safety employees – except when they need a cop of course.  And they give the finger (figuratively and literally) to the men and women of the American military.

To being young upstarts:

[W]e were working, sweating, building and strengthening the Democratic Party while they were still crying in their cribs because their diapers were full.

I don't think he misses a single one. And if you'll look around, you'll see how wrong and lazy those characterizations are. It's actually hilarious.

But more, they're wrong, lazy Republican stereotypes of Democrats - and here, they're being used on behalf of a supposed Democrat, which is pretty revealing. There's one thing right, though.

This is a war for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.

The heart and soul of the Democratic party shouldn't be about using Republican slurs of Democrats. It shouldn't be about supporting Bush's war or Bush's energy policy, it shouldn't be about opposing choice for women and opposing stem cell research, it shouldn't be about nepotism and corruption. That's why it's so important to support Mark Pera.

On the web:
Mark Pera for Congress
Get Involved
Blue Majority ActBlue page

The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. I have try mixing my own rants and ideas, with national issues, news items, and some very local groups and events in an attempt to both help shape debate and to help people find their own ways of getting involved.

This week I highlight the Drum Major Institute's response to the State of the Union and a short video showing "The Real McCain" (a must see for any Dr. Strangelove fans out there). I also discuss the importance of Primary elections, including Mark Pera's, Steve Harrison's and Dennis Kucinich's, for the strength of the progressive movement. And I continue to highlight local events in all the states where I have had a good number of readers. I highlight Darwin Day events in many of these sates as Darwin's Birthday approaches. Interestingly, Florida and Texas are joining New York and California as states where I have lots of readers. Don't forget to visit an advertiser or two and if you want more, please visit Culture Kitchen.

Once upon a time, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04) went along with the corrupt Chicago machine and endorsed Bush Dog Lipinski in IL-03.  This was a bad mistake by a good Representative.

Hispanics and immigrants are a large part of IL-03, and a large majority of Gutierrez's district.  Lipinski is horrible on immigration, but most politicians see immigrants as useful scapegoats, so there did not seem to be much downside to the endorsement.

Until ...