John Edwards (no, NOT somw) wins Arkansas Legislative House District 38 after a close race.
From KARK-TV this evening:

Democratic candidate John Edwards wins the State District 38 seat over Republican Kelly Eichler. Eichler requested the recount, after she lost November 4th by only 74 votes. Edwards won the recount with 7,067, 77 more votes than Eichler's 6,990.

Jim Martin and Paul Carmouche face runoffs next month, and we can't back down until they're over. Click here to donate to their campaigns today!

November 4 was an historic day. The Democratic wave created competitive races in "red" areas that the pundits never believed would be close. Two of those races are now headed to runoffs, and we can't back down until they're over.

Jim Martin in Georgia and Paul Carmouche in Louisiana have campaigned tirelessly in their races, and now we have an opportunity to put them over the top. Next month, Jim Martin faces a runoff against Saxby Chambliss for the U.S. Senate seat in Georgia, and Paul Carmouche will compete in a runoff against his opponent for a seat in Louisiana's 4th Congressional District. We have come too far and have fought too hard to back down in these tight races.

Click here to help Jim and Paul in their runoffs next month. Donate to their campaigns today!

Jim Martin

Jim Martin

I've written to you before about Jim Martin. He has served our nation honorably as a member of the Armed Forces in Vietnam, in the Georgia House of Representatives, and at the Georgia Department of Human Resources. Throughout his career, he led Georgia on health care issues, helped provide quality health care for thousands of children, and put foster children in loving homes.

Jim's opponent, Saxby Chambliss, is doing everything he can to cling onto his seat. In 2002, Chambliss ran one of the most despicable TV ads I've ever seen in which he compared war hero Senator Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden. And now, in a desperate attempt to win the December runoff, his latest ad uses images from 9/11 to exploit voters' fears about terrorism. To top it off, John McCain flew into Atlanta last week to campaign for Chambliss. We can expect more attack ads and other national Republican figures to descend on Georgia for Chambliss, and Jim needs our help now.

Click here to donate to Jim's runoff campaign!

Paul Carmouche

Paul Carmouche

Paul Carmouche is running for an open seat in Louisiana's 4th Congressional District. As the District Attorney for Caddo Parish, Paul has taken thousands of violent criminals off the streets and put them behind bars. He has cracked down on child predators and domestic violence. His opponent, John Fleming, on the other hand, wants to cut taxes for millionaires like himself and raise taxes for middle class families.

Paul has shown an ability to win over Republican voters and current polling has him ahead of his opponent. But we can expect the right-wing to launch full-scale attacks on Paul's record, and he needs our support. Let's help put Paul over the top, and add the 4th Congressional District to the growing list of Democratic seats in Congress.

Click here to help Paul in his runoff next month. Donate to his campaign today!

Runoff races are all about turnout and that depends heavily on the ability to raise money. Please rush a contribution to Jim and Paul today.

Sincerely,

Wes Clark

Wes has an important op-ed in the New York Times today. Here's part of what he says:

In a little more than a year, the Army has procured and fielded in Iraq more than a thousand so-called mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles. The lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines have been saved, and their tasks made more achievable, by the efforts of the American automotive industry. And unlike in World War II, America didn’t have to divert much civilian capacity to meet these military needs. Without a vigorous automotive sector, those needs could not have been quickly met.

More challenges lie ahead for our military, and to meet them we need a strong industrial base. For years the military has sought better sources of electric power in its vehicles — necessary to allow troops to monitor their radios with diesel engines off, to support increasingly high-powered communications technology, and eventually to support electric propulsion and innovative armaments like directed-energy weapons. In sum, this greater use of electricity will increase combat power while reducing our footprint. Much research and development spending has gone into these programs over the years, but nothing on the manufacturing scale we really need.

Those are excellent points. We need to help Wes get this important message out as widely as possible.