Candidate Watch

Perhaps a semi-regular feature. Now that we're firmly ensconced in 2008, it's time to look at the candidates and the races that will determine the spread of the Democratic majority in the Congress.

• For the first time, Al Franken has a lead in a poll against incumbent Norm Coleman. He leads 43%-40%, which this far out is a very good sign.

• Earlier I mentioned Oregon Senate candidate Steve Novick's great ad. Something's in the water in Oregon this year, because this ad, playing off a scary incident where Novick's primary opponent Jeff Merkley flipped his car while campaigning, is pretty funny, too.



• I like these candidates that are true fighters, up against incredible odds. Marshall Adame, a candidate in NC-03 against Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones, is such a figure.

Despite running as a Democrat in a strongly Republican district, Adame has the sort of military past that is appreciated in these parts. "I am a retired United States Marine," he tells me. "I'm a Vietnam veteran. I spent nine months in Kuwait right after we kicked Saddam out, helping to rebuild the Kuwaiti air force. I spent four years in Egypt with Kaman Aerospace"—a military contractor—"as their logistics leader in that country." More recently, he spent three years in Iraq working on reconstruction projects, ultimately rising to a senior position with the State Department's National Coordination Team in Baghdad, where he oversaw the work of roughly ten Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Two of his sons have served in the U.S. Army in Iraq—one was seriously wounded in an IED attack and is still undergoing reconstructive surgeries; the other is currently on his second 15-month tour, stationed in Tikrit. Now back in North Carolina, Adame has even opened his home to a family of Iraqi refugees.

Yet Adame's recent public criticism of the private security industry's role in Iraq has caused him to become the target of a political attack from Blackwater. It all began in mid-January when Adame participated in a live question-and-answer forum on a North Carolina progressive blog called BlueNC. "People were writing in, and I was answering the questions," he says. "It just so happened that the first one was about Blackwater." He didn't mince words. "There is no place in the American force structure, or in American culture for mercenaries," he wrote on the blog. "They are guns for hire; No more, no less… Private Armies represent the very things we despise as a people. Servants to the highest bidder with true allegiance to no-one." [...]

Adame's comments about the company have enraged Blackwater employees, including executive vice president Bill Mathews. In an internal corporate email, Mathews encouraged his colleagues to barrage Adame with mail ("he was too cowardly to put a phone number on the web," Mathews noted in the message). "[H]e wants this company and all of us to cease to exist," Mathews wrote in the email, which was obtained by the Raleigh News & Observer and posted to the newspaper's web site. "Do you like your jobs? Are you sick and tired of the slanderous bullshit going on in DC? If so, would you all mind joining me in reminding Mr. Adame that he is running for office in our backyard…. Let's run this goof out of Dodge...!"

Since then, Adame has been on the receiving end of "some pretty rough stuff,” he says. "I received all kinds of hate mail from Blackwater people. They use a lot of vulgarity. They tell me how Blackwater is defending America's rights, and that we're free because Blackwater is fighting for us. Give me a break! That is so erroneous and misleading. It's just totally dishonest, but those people really believe it. Blackwater is a large organization, and they have a great way of propagandizing their product."

This is the kind of honorable American who will get my support. Anyone who scares the bejeebus out of Blackwater is well worth it.

UPDATE: See also this big-picture story about Republican difficulties at even keeping their numbers in the Congress, let alone regaining the majority.

A swelling exodus of senior Republican incumbents from the House, worsened by a persistent disadvantage in campaign money, threatens to cripple Republican efforts to topple the Democratic majority in November.

Representative Tom Davis, a moderate from Northern Virginia, on Wednesday became the fifth House Republican in the last week to announce that he would not seek re-election.

That puts the roster of retirees at 28, one of the highest numbers recorded for the party in the House.

Politicians have the numbers. They're not just retiring because they want to sit on their front porch. They see no way to continue in an even weaker minority position.