Last Thursday, U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL03, identified as a Bush Dog Democrat) held a forum that was advertised as being about Iraq. It started with giving the family of some guy killed in WWII the Distinguished Service Cross. See Proviso Probe.

I didn't think it noteworthy for anything but being sorta lame until Dave Kalbfleisch told me about U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL10) giving an ancient military award at one of his recent forum in the district.

Are other pro-Iraq occupation members of Congress engaging in the same distraction campaign in other parts of the country?

Today it broke that Paul Froehlich (R-Schaumburg) will switch to the Democratic Party. See Capitol Fax Blog (Rich Miller).

Miller also reports Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-DuPage County), former chair of the DuPage GOP, made a TV ad for Sen. Barack Obama.

It seems like the Illinois GOP can't even retain the elected officials they have. The recruitment efforts to run someone against Sen. Dick Durbin have been pathetic.

Ben Evans (AP):

Rep. Charles Norwood, Jr., a seven-term Republican congressman from Georgia, died Tuesday after battling cancer and lung disease. He was 65.

Norwood died at his home in Augusta, Ga., early Tuesday afternoon, his office said....

Norwood suffered from a chronic lung disease and later developed metastatic cancer that spread from his lung to his liver.

WARNING: this diary suggests a possible course of action that may be offensive. It includes a tactic which some may consider unethical.

If I were organizing a vote buying scheme in Connecticut this is how I would do it.

The candidate would never discuss it explicitly with the campaign manager. To the extent the candidate had to be in the loop the project would get a code name like, "Teaching Lamont Politics Old School".

The campaign manager would then recruit some old political hand that had close ties to the candidate--more importantly someone who was perceived as having the candidates ear. This old political hand would almost assuredly be a local who knew the players on the ground. He would be the one to solicit lieutenants in the vote buying scheme.

Dave Leip keeps a website called Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.

He has sections where users can predict the outcome of elections. It's not a betting website, so being right will just give you bragger's rights. There are separate sections for U.S. Senate races and governor races.

Proposal: the netroots should force members of Congress and congressional candidates to answer three questions about the possiblity of the United States using nuclear weapons against Iran.

Draft statements (agree or not):

1. Using nuclear weapons aginst Iran will hurt U.S. national security; it is unacceptable.

2. Before using nuclear weapons against a foreign country the president the Constitution requires specific authorization from Congress.

3. Before attacking Iran the president needs to either have specific authorization of the UN Security Council or needs to invoke the right of self defense as codified by the UN Charter.

I am looking for a writer that wants to do a story about how blogs effect local elections. I keep a blog that covers local issues, Proviso Probe. Last Tuesday, Illinois held its primary elections. Rep. Karen Yarbrough won re-election to the General Assembly and unseated the former Democratic Committeeman Eugene "Gene" Moore by almost 60-40.

I think the article would be attractive and interesting to Campaigns & Elections Magazine and, of course, to bloggers.

I also want to leverage blogging to reform Cook County gov't. I'm organizing bloggers to write a candidate questionnaire and force Cook County pols to go on record. See Soap Blox Chicago.

If you blog in Cook County, please get involved.