Great news from Maine! Press Release -- Hay Bright wins primary!

[paineinthearse]

JeanHayBright.
2006 US Senate
Press Release June 14, 2006

Contact Info: David Bright [email protected]

Phones:
Dixmont 207-234-4224
Bangor 207-735-0626
Augusta 207-430-0308
Lewiston 207-376-0162
Portland 207-321-2776
Biddeford 207-571-0826
Washington DC 202-747-0426

Jean Hay Bright [email protected] Dixmont ME
207-234-4224 www.jeanhaybright.us


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Hay Bright U.S. Senate campaign gears up for fall victory

Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate Jean Hay Bright begins a full-time campaign schedule Thursday after a review of the primary election vote showed she has won her party’s nomination.
Unofficial tabulations of the Tuesday primary election, provided by the Bangor Daily News, show that with 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Hay Bright won 50.68 percent of the vote — a margin of 600 votes out of 44,120 votes cast. The remaining towns that had not reported by Wednesday afternoon do not collectively have enough enrolled Democrats to change the outcome of the election.

The Dixmont writer and organic farmer carried 12 of Maine’s 16 counties.

“I’m pleased with the breadth and depth of our support across the state,” Hay Bright said, noting she carried Waldo County with more than 66 percent of the vote, Somerset County with 60 percent, Knox at 56 percent, and Washington at 55 percent. She also won in Lincoln, Franklin, Hancock, Kennebec, Oxford, York, Sagadahoc and Piscataquis Counties.

“I’m grateful to all those Maine Democrats who voted in the primary,” Hay Bright said, “and to our hundreds of volunteers and supporters who made this victory possible. Now we move beyond the primary and begin the task of unseating Olympia Snowe and increasing the Democratic margin in the United States Senate.”
Hay Bright congratulated her primary opponent, Eric Mehnert of Orono.

“Eric ran a quality campaign,” she said. “Our combined efforts during the primary, where we both focused on the destructive record of the Bush Administration and Olympia Snowe’s complicity in that agenda, will serve as the foundation of our fall campaign.”

“We understand the size of the task in front of us and we are prepared to meet that challenge,” Hay Bright said of her campaign team.

Hay Bright will meet with some of her advisors on veteran’s affairs on Thursday, and also attend the monthly meeting of the Hancock County Democratic Committee. Over the weekend she will attend the Maine AFL-CIO convention and the Southern Maine Pride Festival, both being held in Portland.



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Authorized and paid for by JeanHayBright.US Senate 2006, David Bright, treasurer
4262 Kennebec Road, Dixmont ME 04932
Phones: Dixmont 207-234-4224 Bangor 207-735-0626 Augusta 207-430-0308 Lewiston 207-376-0162
Portland 207-321-2776 Biddeford 207-571-0826 Washington DC 202-747-0426

[Greeby]

1. The news I've been waiting for

Smithers! Release the smilies!

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

[practicalprogressive]

2. 600 votes is a shaky margin. . .

I wonder if Mehnert is looking into the possibility of a recount. Anyone know what voting system they use Downeast?

[Maine-i-acs]

7. Some paper ballots and about 2/3 optical scanners

I voted on Accu-vote. There is no centralized computerized tabulation - precincts call in their vote totals to the Capitol. Relatively fraud-proof for now.

[MaineDem]

3. No concession from Eric

I believe he may be within the margin of error to trigger an automatic recount.

[Donna Zen]

12. Wasn't Eric on the election protection team in Ohio.

I really like him.

Oh...I vote with a #2 pencil and a piece of paper that is them hand-counted.

Rage Against the Machine(s)

[MaineDem]

14. Yes he was

And I voted with pencil and paper, too.

Maine has a pretty good law to prevent the Diebolds of the world from stealing our votes.

[Change has come]

4. What are her chances against Senator Snowe? n/t

[TheVirginian]

6. Nil.

[Maine-i-acs]

8. Hopefully it will be closer than her usual competition.

She's never faced a woman opponent that I know of. This makes Jean a better opponent that Eric would have been (all due respects to both contenders and both genders).

Snowe's allegedly moderate, illusionary pro-choice stance wins a goodly amount of female voters across the board. Hopefully Jean Hay Bright will call her out on her obvious hypocrisy present in her voting record.

[Davis_X_Machina]

10. 70-30 Snowe.

Gender of opposition is irrelevant.

Chellie Pingree couldn't beat Susie Creamcheese -- a weaker incumbent, and a much, much more substantial challenger.

Hay-Bright will be hard-pressed to break 30%.

[nickshepDEM]

9. Zero.

[paineinthearse]

5. Show the Maineiacs some love

Cross-posted to the Maine forum.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=156&topic_id=2371&mesg_id=2371

[Hippo_Tron]

11. Remember guys there's ALWAYS a possibility of an october surprise

This race may be locked up right now, but it's becoming more and more frequent that every year there's an october surprise in at least one race. Remember Jim Bunning in 2004? We need to continue to pick good challengers even in tough races just in case something like that happens.

[ticapnews]

13. How do we beat Olympia Snowe?

Can we beat Olympia Snowe? Yes.
Will it be easy? No.
How do we do it? Education.

Not students in schools, but Democrats in the voting booth. Olympia Snowe has tremendous support among Democrats in Maine - higher approval than among Republicans and Unenrolled voters. Many people remember Olympia Snowe as a moderate voice in the Congress in the 1980's and early 90's. She has lived off that deceptive moderate facade for over a decade now. She may have been a moderate once, but as the Congress (particularly the formerly-centrist Senate) has moved to the right, she has followed along.

She may not be a neocon, but she is a neocon-enabler. Her vote in favor of the Iraq War - and every subsequent round of military spending - furthers the neocon cause. Her presence in the US Senate has allowed Trent Lott and Bill Frist to serve as Majority Leader. It allows Pat Roberts to lead the Select Committee on Intelligence - effectively stifling any investigation into the illegal wiretapping of American citizens. It allows Michael Enzi to chair the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (rather than Ted Kennedy). It allows Thad Cochran to chair the Committee on Appropriations (rather than Robert Byrd). It allows Larry Craig (who spent the Vietnam era at the University of Idaho) to chair the Committee on Veterans Affairs (rather than Daniel Akaka, who served in World War II). It allows Judd Gregg to chair the Budget Committee (rather than Kent Conrad - who once said, "I don’t know of any religion who says take from the least among us and give to those who have the most among us.")

Olympia Snowe also has capitalized on the support of women. In the 2000 election, 40% of Gore voters in Maine voted for Olympia Snowe then voted for our two Democratic candidates for Congress. Those voters were mainly women - like my mother - who still believe Olympia Snowe is a friend to women. Her votes for Justices Roberts and Alito place that support in jeopardy. Just as damaging was Snowe's lack of a spine during the Alito vote - she not only refused to speak from the Senate floor prior to the vote, but also would only issue a written statement AFTER the cloture vote had succeeded.

Jean will be the first woman to challenge Olympia Snowe in nearly 30 years of campaigns. Olympia has never had to defend her votes against women with another woman there to respond. If we are able to neutralize Olympia's support on women's issues, it brings her other votes into the light. Her support for the war, for illegal wiretapping, the disregard for human rights, the abandonment of our veterans when they return from the battlefield, continued support for tax cuts for the wealthiest handful of families while cutting programs for the poor and fighting attempts to raise the federal minimum wage (go back and read that Kent Conrad quote again).

Defeating Olympia Snowe will require a monumental effort. But it is a battle worth fighting and winning. For all Democrats predicting we will go down in defeat this fall, ask yourselves if you really want that to happen. Is it more important for you to be right in your prediction than to replace Olympia Snowe in the US Senate? Is our regaining control of the Senate, restoring sanity to our government and reclaiming our way of life less important than whatever differences you may have with our candidate? For Democrats around the country who are reading and wondering if there is any point in offering support to a candidate going up against a juggernaut like Olympia Snowe, I ask you to consider that we need to win six seats to reclaim the majority in the US Senate. Look around the country and try to find those six seats. It's going to take a couple of upsets to swing the Senate - the stage is set for Maine to be one of those upsets.

We are not going to win this election by covering the airwaves with advertising. It is going to take the candidate, the campaign staff and volunteers reaching out to Democratic groups, going door-to-door and talking with Democratic voters and educating Democrats (and Unenrolleds) about Olympia Snowe’s real record and showing them how different the Senate could be with Jean Hay Bright as a member of a Democratic majority.

In Maine, and across the country, support Democratic candidates who represent the America you want to live in.