I am glad John Edwards is not the Democratic nominee.

A few more thoughts on this story are after the jump.

Mike Glover of the Associated Press bureau in Des Moines wrote a piece this week on the huge money advantage that Senator Tom Harkin and Iowa's five U.S. House incumbents have over their opponents.

I'll have more to say on this topic in future posts, but for now I want to note one thing: although nearly all incumbents are able to outspend their opponents, that is not always enough to overcome a national tidal wave toward the other party.

Bruce Braley (D, IA-01), Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) all represent districts with a Democratic tilt (of varying degrees) in what is likely to be a very big Democratic year.

The odds-makers might favor Tom Latham (R, IA-04) and Steve King (R, IA-05) now, but in a big year for the challenger's party, money and the other advantages of incumbency are not always enough to win.

Just ask Neal Smith, who was an 18-term incumbent and had more clout in 1994 than any Iowan currently serving in the U.S. House. I can't find campaign finance statistics going back that far, but I would bet that he spent more trying to keep his seat (IA-04) than Republican Greg Ganske spent in taking him down.

Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley spent "what aides say may total $1.5 million to $2 million, a staggering amount for a House race" in 1994, but he still lost to George Nethercutt in Washington's fifth district.

Chris Bowers had the most accurate final House forecast in 2006. But following several states' primaries in September of that year, he wrote:

NH-01 drops off the board since upset winner Shea-Porter has only 3% of her opponent's cash

And in his final House update, published on November 6, 2006, Bowers still had Shea-Porter's race in the "likely Republican" category, commenting, "If she wins, Carol Shea-Porter will become a legend."

Her shocking victory in New Hampshire's first district over an entrenched Republican incumbent was indeed legendary.

Obviously, it's better for a challenger to have as much money to spend as possible, which is why I've been encouraging Democrats to donate to our good Democratic candidates like Rob Hubler, who is taking on King in IA-05, and Becky Greenwald, who is running against Latham in IA-04.

Also, I would like to see another "Use it or lose it" campaign to encourage our ultra-safe Democratic incumbents giving more to the DCCC and DSCC. That would help reduce the money disparity faced by our challengers in many districts.

But I strongly disagree with the contention that a big lead in cash on hand makes Latham and King as safe as Iowa's Democratic incumbents this year.

On Saturday a fundraising solicitation arrived in the mail from Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. It asked me to confirm delivery of the enclosed "supporter card" within ten days, and also to "help keep my 2008 re-election campaign on the road to victory" with a special contribution.

Funny, I wasn't aware that Harkin needed any extra help. Everyone in the election forecasting business has labeled this seat safe for him. The available polling shows Harkin with a comfortable lead.

According to Open Secrets, Harkin had $4.1 million cash on hand at the end of the second quarter. His little-known Republican opponent, Christopher Reed, has raised a total of $11,765 for his Senate campaign and had $292 (two hundred and ninety-two dollars) on hand as of June 30.

Harkin's letter got me thinking that we need a "Use It Or Lose It" campaign for 2008.

In 2006, MyDD and MoveOn.org launched a "Use It Or Lose It" campaign to contact "ultra-safe Democratic House Representatives and ask them to help fully fund all of our competitive challengers this cycle." The project spurred at least $2.3 million in additional major donations from House incumbents (click the link to read details).

A similar project targeted at safe incumbents in the House and Senate has the potential to raise even more money this year.

The Democratic House and Senate campaign committees have been crushing their Republican counterparts in fundraising. At the end of the second quarter, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had about $46.2 million cash on hand, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had $54.7 million cash on hand. As of June 30, the DSCC had about twice the cash on hand as the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the DCCC had six times the cash on hand as the National Republican Congressional Committee.

But we should be able to outspend the Republicans even more if our Democrats in safe seats donate more to the relevant committees.

Everyone agrees that the Democrats have an unusually large number of solid pickup opportunities. Here's the Swing State Project list of competitive Senate races. All them are Republican-held but one (Louisiana), and that one is "lean Democratic." Only one Democratic-held seat (New Jersey) is even on the "races to watch" list.

Look at the most recent Senate forecast by Chris Bowers. He's projecting a pickup of six seats. He also lists ten "Democratic held, uncompetitive locks":

Arkansas (Pryor), Delaware (Biden), Illinois (Durbin), Iowa (Harkin), Massachusetts (Kerry), Michigan (Levin), Montana (Baucus), Rhode Island (Reed), South Dakota (Johnson), West Virginia (Rockefeller)

I haven't added up the cash on hand numbers for all those incumbents from the latest FEC filings, but it must total many millions of dollars.

In the past six weeks, the DSCC has sent out many fundraising e-mails touting "11 battleground states" (Alaska, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Virginia).

How many more Senate races could become more competitive if the DSCC were able to put significant resources behind our candidates? Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Georgia immediately come to mind.

The netroots are already working hard to promote Democratic challengers for Republican-held seats. Daily Kos has featured 10 House and four Senate candidates in its "Orange to Blue" ActBlue page. MyDD is raising money for five Senate candidates on its "Road to 60" ActBlue page. SenateGuru even went "on strike" until readers donated enough to three of eleven candidates on SenateGuru's ActBlue page.

But it's likely that Tom Harkin alone could donate more to the DSCC than all of the donors to all of those ActBlue pages combined.

Not only that, but safe Democratic incumbents sitting on huge war chests could do a lot for legislative candidates in their home states. A few thousand dollars can go very far in a statehouse race.

I don't mean to pick on Harkin. (After all, he was the only senator to have the guts to vote against confirming Gen. David Petraeus as the new chief of U.S. Central Command last month.)

More to the point, I know Harkin is already helping other Democrats. He has reportedly donated to the Iowa Democratic Party's GOTV efforts. Over the weekend he held a joint event with Becky Greenwald, the Democratic candidate for Iowa's fourth Congressional district. Earlier this summer, he gave $2,000 each to five Iowa House and five Iowa Senate candidates, plus an extra $5,000 to two candidates who received the most votes from constituents in Harkin's "Building Blue" contest. I hear rumors that Harkin will hold fundraisers for other Democratic candidates in key Iowa statehouse races, or perhaps donate substantial amounts to the Iowa House and Senate Democratic leadership funds.

For all I know Harkin has already donated a substantial amount to the DSCC as well. I couldn't find a list of Senate incumbents who have given to that fund.

But still--Harkin had more than $4.1 million in the bank at the end of June, which is more than 14,000 times the amount his Republican challenger had in the bank. Couldn't Harkin dig a little deeper to help the DSCC get behind Scott Kleeb, Jim Slattery, Andrew Rice and other good Democrats?

While I've talked primarily about Senate races in this diary, of course a potential "Use It Or Lose It" 2008 campaign should also focus on some House incumbents. The DCCC has reserved ad time in 51 districts so far, and only 17 of those are Democratic-held. (Click here for the first wave of DCCC ad buys and here to see the 20 districts targeted in the second wave.) I take that to mean that the DCCC feels confident about holding more than 200 of our House seats.

There have to be at least 150 House Democrats who meet the "ultra safe" standard and should be putting more of their campaign funds into the DCCC pot.

Look at Swing State Project's list of competitive House races. Four Republican-held seats are in the "lean Democrat" category, another 11 are "tossups", another 17 are "lean Republican," and at least two dozen more could become competitive with more money for Democratic challengers to spend. Meanwhile, no Democratic-held seats are in the "lean R" category, and only two are even rated tossups.

How many of those Lean R or Likely R races can we break open with more money for challengers to spend? How many races not even on Swing State Project's list right now could become surprise wins for us, along the lines of NH-01 in 2006?

For instance, Swing State Project's list does not currently include the two Republican-held seats in Iowa, but in my opinion both Becky Greenwald in IA-04 and Rob Hubler in IA-05 have a chance to win in a strong Democratic year. (I explain why here and here.)

I look forward to reading your thoughts and suggestions on a possible Use It Or Lose It campaign.

Congressman Tom Latham is a conservative Republican representing Iowa's fourth district (D+0). He has a lot more money in the bank than Democratic candidate Becky Greenwald, but Iowa political observers think this race could be very competitive. The DCCC and EMILY's list are said to be watching the race closely.

Yesterday Latham opened up his war chest to start running statewide radio ads touting his advocacy of drilling for more oil on U.S. territory.

I don't have audio from this ad, but judging from this press release, it hits some of the same points John McCain raised in a television ad launched last week. That commercial blamed Barack Obama for high gas prices because Obama opposes more offshore oil drilling.

Join me after the jump for more on Latham's strategy, which may be repeated by down-ticket Republicans across the country.

I've written before that it would be a huge mistake for Barack Obama to select a Republican for a running mate. With at least two and perhaps four Supreme Court vacancies likely before 2012, I don't want any Republican in line to inherit the presidency.

I've also said I think it would backfire for Obama to choose a woman other than Hillary Clinton for a running mate. If he wants his VP choice to help boost his support among women, he should pick the woman who received more than 17 million votes for president in the primaries.

In addition, like many Democrats who backed John Edwards in the primaries, I worry that as president Obama would do too little to rein in the excesses of corporate power in Washington.

But until I read this piece in Politico, it never occurred to me that Obama might consider going for the trifecta: a female Republican corporate hack for a running mate.

According to Amie Parnes and Ben Smith, Obama's vetting team has been floating the name of Ann Veneman, who was Agriculture Secretary during George W. Bush's first term, with members of Congress.

I can't understand what Veneman could possibly have going for her. She's executive director of UNICEF, but who cares? When she was in the cabinet, she didn't promote sustainable agriculture or sensible health protections.

The Organic Consumers Association reported when Bush appointed her that Veneman had a long history of standing with corporate interests. She had served "on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation and [was] instrumental in promoting their Biotech agenda."

As agriculture secretary she did absolutely nothing to make confined animal-feeding operations pay for the harm they cause. On the contrary, when she left Bush's cabinet, her "vision and commitment" won praise from the American Meat Institute. Politico notes:

The low-profile Republican was close to food and agriculture industries but clashed with farm-state Democrats and environmentalists during her tenure, which lasted from 2001 to 2004.

The Nation explains in more detail why Veneman would be "a uniquely awful choice" for Obama.

Presumably Obama is too smart to pick Veneman as a running mate. I assume she is being mentioned to underscore his commitment to bipartisanship, throw journalists off the scent, or trick progressives into feeling relieved if he chooses a corporate Democrat who's not "that bad." Perhaps all of the above.

But it bothers me that Obama would allow his team to float a name like Veneman, even as a diversion, especially since we never seem to hear about any progressive champions on Obama's short list for VP.

Nor do I see much sign that his vetting team is seriously considering Democrats who would quickly unite the party, such as Wes Clark or Hillary Clinton.

Please use this thread to share your thoughts on Obama's VP search.

It doesn't get much more visionary and ambitious than Al Gore's recent speech on energy and climate change, and this sentence in particular:

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

If you missed it, you can find the full text here or read a helpfully annotated version here.

My only quibble with this fantastic speech was that Gore said little about the transportation sector, which is the second largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Changing our transportation policies and funding priorities could greatly help us address the climate change emergency. More on that after the jump.  

Following up on Jonathan Singer's post about Barack Obama and the Jewish vote, and Josh Orton's post from last week about Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel joining Obama on an upcoming visit to Iraq, I wanted to let people know that the Republican Jewish Coalition is trying to use Hagel to drive a wedge between Obama and Jewish voters.

My 60-something Jewish cousin in Florida included me on a mass e-mail forwarding this press release from the RJC.

Barack Obama's campaign held kickoff events in 15 Iowa field offices yesterday, coinciding with the first statewide canvass of the general election campaign. In addition, the Obama campaign plans to open at least two more field offices in Iowa.

The Des Moines Register published an alphabetical list of cities and towns with Obama field offices. In this diary, I group the offices according to Congressional district.

If 17 field offices sounds like a lot for a medium-sized state like Iowa, keep in mind that Obama had at least 40 field offices here before the caucuses in January.

Also, the Iowa Democratic Party has in effect shut down its "coordinated campaign" for getting out the vote, which means that Obama's field offices will coordinate GOTV for all Democratic candidates in the state.

The details are after the jump.