FIGHTING DEM, ERIC MASSA LIVE BLOGGING NOW!

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Eric Massa is live blogging three diaries at kos right now!!!!

Eric Massa' Weekly Diary - Raise the Minimum Wage

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The report also compares the growth in average CEO pay – which was $11.8 million in 2004 – to the growth in the minimum wage. Had the minimum wage risen as fast as CEO compensation since 1990, the researchers calculated, it would now be $23.03 an hour instead of just $5.15. And the average production worker would be making $110,126 a year instead of $27,460.

The trend is clear. The Republicans want more money for their business cronies and less for working families and individuals. Blocking the minimum wage is just another cog in their free-for-all market and burn-down-the-barn trade policies that posit that the private sector can do everything better than the government ever could. What have these policies done for American workers? They have ensured that, while a minimum wage worker has to work a full day for just one tank of gasoline for her car, her CEO can buy a new Lear Jet to shuttle him to St. Tropez.

Eric Massa's Campaign Strategy - Building the Democratic Party from the Ground Up

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Eric's campaign has been run on the surmise that since Fighting Dem candidates, vets and non-vets alike are in a struggle to remove the stranglehold that Republicans have on districts that by all rights should vote for the party that best represent them; they must use every means available and grasp every tool there is to build their candidacy. Local politics in this mid-year election cannot be distinguished from state and national politics. There must be no divide between local and national, grassroots and netroots.

The Commander and the General - Massa and Clark at a recent fundraiser

Eric, a netroots endorsed candidate, posted an important diary on this issue entitled Fighting Dems, National Security, Netroots and Party Unity. In his call for unity, Eric warned:

A Dem Party that is factionalized -- grassroots versus organized leadership, Beltway versus outsiders, political pros versus upcoming novices, vets versus non-vets, liberal versus moderate, red state versus blue state, northeast versus heartland, ideological purity versus political expediency, or any other divisiveness that we are so prone to promulgate -- is a party that is preparing for election suicide. If recent polls are any indication, we have a great opportunity this fall. We cannot afford to squander that opportunity by getting bogged down in internecine warfare. We have to recognize that the face of the enemy is George Bush and his henchmen.

Fighting Dem Eric Massa - Profile in Courage

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Though a Republican during his military career, while on the staff of the House Armed Services Committee he earned the ire of the Republican members by opposing the impending War on Iraq. The final straw came when he went to shake the hand of his former commander, General Clark, outside of a presidential campaign event in Washington, D.C. Reported by Republican operatives; he was forced to choose between his position and his friendship with Wes Clark. He refused and resigned to become a senior aide to Clark during his primary campaign. He registered as a Democrat the first day of the next cycle according to the provisions of New York law. You can read his own take on being a Democrat here: Why I Am A Democrat. His transformation into a Democrat was, a process that began in his final year in the military when, recovering from cancer he was assigned to work with military personnel recovering from diseases and injuries and continued as he ran into difficulties with his superiors as a Republican staffer of the House Armed Services Committee.