It's the third year that Democrats control both chambers of the Iowa legislature as well as the governor's chair, and party leaders want to seize the opportunity to pass some good labor legislation. In 2007, Democrats controlled the Iowa House 53-47 but couldn't find enough votes to pass a "fair share" bill that would have forced individuals represented by unions to stop being "free riders." In 2008, Governor Chet Culver angered labor activists by vetoing a bill that would have expanded collective bargaining rights. That prompted several major labor unions in Iowa to stop giving to Culver's campaign committee.

This week a "prevailing wage" bill dominated debate in the Iowa House. It's one of organized labor's top legislative priorities for this session. Democratic leaders want to pass this bill, and Culver, who wants to heal last year's wounds, has spoken out strongly on the issue.

Although Democrats now have a 56-44 majority in the lower chamber, they were unable to find a 51st vote for the prevailing wage bill during five hours of debate on Friday. Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy now plans to keep the vote open all weekend, sleeping in the chamber, until some Democrat's arm can be twisted on this issue.

I don't want to wade too far into the Iowa weeds here; I've written more on this mess at Bleeding Heartland.

I'm bringing this to the attention of the MyDD community because it underscores the cost of the inadequate get-out-the-vote effort last year on behalf of our statehouse candidates.

Last summer Barack Obama's campaign took over the "coordinated campaign" role from the Iowa Democratic Party and promised to work for candidates up and down the ticket. But staffers and volunteers in the unprecedented number of Obama field offices didn't even collect voter IDs for our state House and Senate candidates. Our legislative candidates weren't usually mentioned in scripts for canvassers and rarely had their fliers included in lit drops. After the election, Rob Hubler, the Democratic candidate in Iowa's fifth Congressional district, took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the GOTV effort.

In the end, Obama carried this state by 9 points, but we lost several excrutiatingly close races in the Iowa House (more details on that are at Bleeding Heartland). If even one of those races had gone the other way, we would have the votes to pass the prevailing wage bill without the fiasco that is now unfolding.

The Iowa Democratic Party must run a better coordinated campaign in 2010 and must insist that the GOTV in 2012 is about more than re-electing President Obama. Even Obama's general election campaign director in Iowa, Jackie Norris, admitted that more could have been done for the down-ticket candidates:

I also think that a lot of the people who voted were new voters and while we educated them enough to get them out to support the president they need to now be educated about the down ballot races.

I have stopped donating to the Democratic National Committee for now, because I am concerned that new DNC chairman Tim Kaine plans to replace efforts to strengthen state parties across the country with a 50-state strategy to re-elect President Obama.

We need better coordinated campaigns to GOTV in 2010 and 2012, because even if Obama remains as popular as he is now, support for him will not magically translate into votes for other Democratic candidates.

As the fate of the prevailing wage bill in Iowa shows, lack of attention to down-ticket races will affect what Democrats can achieve long after the election.

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Wondering why the Obama campaign is advertising in Georgia but not in states like Oregon or Minnesota? Perhaps it's because the map appears to be changing.

A New InsiderAdvantage / PollPosition survey conducted June 18 of registered likely voters in the November presidential contest shows Sen. John McCain leading Sen. Barack Obama by a single point in Georgia, making the race in Georgia a statistical tie. Libertarian Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia, received 6 percent of the vote.

The telephone survey of 408 registered likely voters is weighted for age, race, gender, and political affiliation. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 5%. It was conducted with InsiderAdvantage's research partner Majority Opinion Research. PollPosition is InsiderAdvantage's new branding name (look for additional information and expansion of PollPosition in the coming months).

The Results:

McCain: 44%
Obama: 43%
Barr: 6%
Undecided: 7%

I have to admit that I just didn't see this coming. Virginia, which has been trending towards the Democrats (two straight governorship wins, soon-to-be two straight Senate wins, retaking the state Senate), I could see. Colorado, which has been trending towards the Democrats (a gubernatorial win, soon-to-be two straight Senate wins, two pick-ups in the House, retaking both chambers of the state legislature), I could see. Even Alaska I could see.

But Georgia? A state that has appeared to be one of the very few (and I do mean very few) to be trending towards the GOP? Georgia is on the map? Apparently. According to the Real Clear Politics average of recent polling out of the state, John McCain's lead over Barack Obama is just 49.7 percent to 41.3 percent. Nate Silver gives Obama a 28 percent shot at carrying the state -- not overwhelming, but certainly much higher than I would have anticipated.

So will Obama carry Georgia with the help of Bob Barr, who represented the state in Congress? At this point, it doesn't even really matter. It would be yet another back-breaker were it the case that Obama beat McCain in Georgia, making it that much more difficult (if not impossible) for McCain to make it to the White House without those 15 electoral votes. But even more important, by making the McCain campaign play defense in a state that the GOP hasn't had to defend during the last two presidential elections, thus spreading its resources even more thinly, Obama increases the likelihood that he is able to win overall. It almost makes you wonder why the Democrats weren't operating under a 50-state strategy earlier...

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Take a look at the purple states on the map below -

Map by Johnnygunn

What do you see?

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Cross posted, with minor edits at "Daily Obama"...

What I want to do here is detail why I'm deeply afraid that a Hillary Clinton nomination, should she manage to win that and a victory in the general election, could be a very bad thing for the long-term prospects of Democrats and progressives.

Please don't get hung up on that word "concern".  I think, should Clinton win the nomination, she'll likely beat McCain in the general.  This is a discussion of long-term issues.  History doesn't end with the next inauguration.

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Cross-posted from BlueIndiana.net

In 2006, 10% of all Democratic gains in the House of Representatives came from Indiana.  That's three seats out of the 31 that switched from Republican to Democrat.  All three seats are districts which Republican President George Bush carried in both 2000 and 2004.  While all three represent the conservative side of the Democratic spectrum, their voting patterns are a good match for the voters in their districts.

Also in 2006, Democrats on the state level took back the lower house of the Indiana state legislature, added seats in the upper chamber, and took over a number of county seats.  In 2007, Democrats were able to pick up mayors offices in cities around the state, with the notable exception being my home city of Indianapolis.

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