It’s becoming a tradition at Democracy for America to announce twelve candidates who will receive the maximum effort from DFA and its members. They’re called the Dean Dozen, and they are selected after a nationwide search, including visits to their campaigns and their districts. DFA doesn’t look for long-shots or people running in safe districts. They look for progressive-minded candidates who are running in difficult, but winnable, districts, and who have something special to offer. Yesterday, the governor announced the first six members of the Dean Dozen. Here they are:
U.S. Senate- New Mexico: Rep. Martin Heinrich
U.S, House- CO-06: State Rep. Joe Miklosi
U.S. House- CA-10: Jose Hernandez
U.S. House- IN-09: Shelli Yoder
U.S. House- NH-01: Fmr. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter
U.S. House- PA-08: Kathy Boockvar
The governor had good reasons for picking each of these candidates. Rep. Heinrich, for example, has been supportive of DFA-New Mexico for years, and they have endorsed him at every step along the way to his nomination for U.S. Senate. Out of all the new Democratic House members who were elected in 2008, Heinrich was selected to serve as Freshman president. He was also once voted the handsomest man in Washington, so you’ve got that.
Joe Miklosi is from Aurora, where that terrible shooting recently took place. You may not know the backstory on Colorado Progressive Majority, but Miklosi was their state director when they led the successful charge to take over control of the state legislature back in 2004. Colorado progressives were two years ahead of the game in getting organized to fight back against the Bush juggernaut. Miklosi has been a leader on the Colorado DREAM Act, which has won him many supporters in the Latino community in his district. He also campaigns well and has an easy rapport with suburban women (soccer moms). His birther opponent recently had to walk back a comment he made about the president not really being an American. He’s a wingnut whose district has been redrawn in a purple shade. This isn’t Tom Tancredo’s district anymore, and we have a real chance to put a progressive Democrat in office here.
Jose Hernandez is a freaking astronaut. How cool is that? He’s the first person to Tweet in Spanish from space. He’s also an aquanaut, which you probably didn’t even realize was an occupation. His district is 40% Latino, which should give him a nice base of support to build on in taking on his opponent, freshman Jeff Dehham. He also had one of the best political advertisements ever. It is easier to understand the ad if you realize that a bunch of Republicans sued to keep the word ‘Astronaut’ off the ballot (they lost).
Shelli Yoder has an interesting story. She
