May is a big month for primaries and this week is the kick-off with two tomorrow, one in North Carolina and one in Ohio. (Blue America has endorsed Elaine Marshall in the first and Jennifer Brunner in the second.)
North Carolina is likely to result in a runoff, although Elaine Marshall, despite Menendez's attempt to decide this race for North Carolina voters, is ahead. National Democrats have starved Jennifer Brunner's campaign of cash. She's getting huge grassroots support, but Menendez has managed to shut off all institutional money from her campaign, making it very difficult to get out her inspiring message. In North Carolina grassroots organizations like DFA and local bloggers like Pam Spaulding have endorsed Marshall. Meanwhile the clueless and divisive Menendez couldn't be doing a better job at re-electing Burr if he were on the GOP payroll. Last Sunday, despite the noises from Inside the Beltway, the Charlotte Observer also endorsed Marshall...
The Ohio blogosphere has largely gotten behind Jennifer Brunner both because she is more progressive on the issues and because she is far more electable in a general. And women's organizations feel very strongly about this race and about the DSCC's very strange positioning.
Here's Brunner:
Howie also issued a last call for our Blue America May primary contest
Blue America is running a kind of contest around the five May Senate primaries by which we're giving away an RIAA-certfied multi-platinum Barenaked Ladies award disc to the campaign that gets the most votes on this page, a vote being defined as a campaign contribution of at least one dollar. Front-runners have been Jack Conway of Kentucky and Bill Halter of Arkansas. The contest ends at midnight today, so there's still an opportunity to vote. Please do.