Here is an annotated list of the 7 Congressional races in Ohio in which Democrats appear to have a chance at taking seats currently held by Republicans. This update of an earlier (September 7) diary includes total receipts and cash on hand (CoH) figures for the end of the 3rd quarter (September 30) plus independent expenditures on behalf of the candidates.

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Inspired by this calitics analysis of races in California, here is an annotated list of the 7 Congressional races in Ohio in which Democrats appear to have a chance at taking seats currently held by Republicans.

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vive le democracy

<Republicans continue to beat us in the field. Even though our financial resources in 2006 reached parity with the Republicans, and we had much more enthusiasm on our side, they were clearly ready. Chris Shays and Heather Wilson and Steve Chabot and Deborah Pryce were incumbents that held on because they ran a tried and true effort to turn out their voters. We have serious problems in the way we run Democratic field operations. I've laid out ways we can improve upon them below<p>

There are a number of new statements by Democrats on Iraq that deserve attention. The first one I would like to address is the now debunked notion that Patrick Murphy supports escalation in Iraq. Others have already pointed out that he was misunderstood by Charles Gibson last night, but I want to add that he stated opposition to escalation both to me personally, and to a crowded room of netroots folks at out party last night. He believes it is time to start brining the troops home, and there should be no mistake about that. As for Nancy Boyda, well, clearly that is another issue.

Second, a new study by ABC News finds that an overwhelming majority of Democratic Senators who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002 would now vote differently. From the study: >

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This is genuinely different. I'm note sure if I have ever seen an ad like this before:



This election cycle has featured more ads trying to make use of humor than I can ever remember. In my opinion, the funniest one is still Ned Lamont's "Wang Chung" ad, which was made even funnier because that was the song they played in the ballroom after Ned Lamont gave his victory speech. This ad from Cranley is different not only because it makes use of humor, but also because it uses a celebrity impersonator to mimic Bush. Basically, it the same sort of ad you would expect to see in a political campaign, but instead the candidate or a voice-over, this ad has someone impersonating Bush saying it instead.

I think it works. This ad is having a strange ability to stick in my mind. It isn't that funny, but it has kept me quietly giggling and smiling for about fifteen minutes now. It seems to have more of an endurance, slow-twitch muscle fiber quality to its humor, rather than being built for a sprint. Overall, I think this ad will be effective because it shows just how much Cranley opposes Bush. Because he makes fun of Bush, you are left with the impression that Cranley really doesn't like Bush at all, and even shares some of the cynicism about candidates who say they oppose Bush, but don't actually do anything to show it. It also gets a nice dig in on Chabot by having Bush nickname him "Chabby," which is a thinly veiled homonym for "shabby."

On the web: John Cranley for Congress.

So what do Barry Welsh, our candidate in IN-06

http://www.barrywelsh.org/

and John Cranley, our candidate in OH-01

http://www.johncranley.com/

have in common? Birthdays? Signs of the Zodiac? Don't know about that. But the incumbents they're running against share something I wasn't aware of until yesterday. Different states, different situations; some would say, different tier races. Yet they are tied by at least one thread.  

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