Alternet: Bright Spots. Mentions good things from the election.

[madfloridian]

http://www.alternet.org/election04/20436/
Anti-war Democrat senators who won:

Barbara Boxer – California – 58%-38%
Daniel Inouye – Hawaii – 76%-21%
Barbara Mikulski – Maryland – 65%-34%
Patty Murray – Washington – 55%-43%
Russ Feingold – Wisconsin – 56%-44%
Ron Wyden – Oregon – 63%-32%
Pat Leahy – Vermont – 71%-25%

SNIP..."These statistics should strike fear out of the Democrats the next time issues of war and peace are on the table. Maybe, just maybe, if they can persuade the Democratic establishment to disabuse itself of the mistaken belief that reelection comes to those who adopt the safest position, rather than to those who make a strong case for the values they hold most dear, it has a shot at being relevant in the 21st century...."

And about Dean Dozens:
SNIP..."Amazingly, in what were not cherry-picked races designed for a boastful post-election press release, 31 of the 102 of the Dean Dozen candidates were victorious. An amazing 15 of the 31 had never run for office before. Among the highlights:

The mayor of Republican-dominated Salt Lake City, Utah, is now a Democrat.
Openly gay candidate, Nicole LeFeveur, won a seat in the Idaho state legislature.
In heavily Republican Alabama, progressive Anita Kelly was elected as Circuit Court Judge.
In Florida, a first time, Dean-inspired candidate, Susan Clary, won as Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor.
Montana's governor is now a Democrat, Brian Schweitzer.
Heavily Republican New Hampshire elected Democrat John Lynch, kicking the incumbent and ethically challenged Gov. Benson out of office.
Arthur Anderson won the race for supervisor of elections in electorally-challenged Palm Beach County, Fla.
Suzanne Williams won a state senate seat in Colorado, giving the upper house a Democratic majority.
In North Carolina, openly gay Julia Boseman was one of several Democrats to defeat Republican incumbents to take back control of the State House.
(And they do not mention the successes in Dallas County, TX by the Democrats.)

SNIP..."According to Gross, "These are all types of people: male, female, black, white, Latino ... when people talk about rebuilding the Democratic party, that's the start of it. You have to start at the base of this organization, the grass roots level and build your way up. That's what the Christian Coalition did 30 or 40 years ago and hey, they're obviously pretty successful. And DFA's activists? Gross said that "after the election, our people were more energized than ever. There were 450 meet-ups on Wednesday night. Our blog traffic is up 300 percent, our site traffic is up 300 percent. People don't want to have this 'woe is me attitude.' They want to get up and get active again."

Very long article, but uplifting to read. Gives hope.

[NewJeffCT]

1. Thanks - good article. A few more bits of good news

Some decent news here in CT despite two candidates losing close races for US Congress against entrenched Republicans.

The Democrats won 3 more seats to give them a veto-proof 24-12 margin in the State Senate. Included is the defeat of the Republican minority leader.

We also added more seats in the state House and now have an almost veto proof 99-53 margin there.

[madfloridian]

2. Great. I also just saw this at the blog from NC .

Another judgeship. That is good.

"NC has another Dean Dozen win with Debra Sasser (dist. judge). 2 out of 3 is great! (Julia Boseman won also, and Patsy Keever didn't clear the hurdle with her opponent)

"Wake County provisionals were counted today, of the 13,159 cast, a total of 10,900 were counted. One district court race race changed results, Debra Sasser (D) moved from 172 votes down to a victory of 315 votes, netting 487 votes on the provisionals. Debra had been endorsed by Democracy for Amierca, and was one of the 101 candidates nationwide to make the "Dean Dozen".

Not bad in NC. I like the way he is endorsing judges.

[spooky3]

3. Good--Leahy now has a mandate to annoy Cheney!