The Madison lawmaker is the only Democrat in the race to replace retiring sen. Herb Kohl.

Kohl was there for the grand opening and endorsed Baldwin as his replacement.

“We are going to see to it that Tammy Baldwin is elected as our senator. I would have no one else as my successor. So you better get elected as senator, said Kohl.

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“I’ve had the chance to say it in living rooms and school auditoriums, but I’m glad to have the chance to say it here,” Warren wrote. “No one — no one — should be discriminated against because of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or religion.”

Warren lauded the passage of the Transgender Equal Rights Bill and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the military’s ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly. She made clear in the post, however, that the work for full equality is by no means finished.

“We’ve made extraordinary progress, but there is still much to do,” Warren wrote, specifying a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — which bans federal recognition of same-sex marriage — passage of a fully inclusive Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and safer school environments for students who identify or are perceived to be LGBT.

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Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran and former Obama administration Veteran’s Affairs appointee, is engaged in a competitive primary race with Raja Krishnamoorthi, the former Illinois Deputy Treasurer. Duckworth also picked up the endorsement yesterday of the SEIU Illinois Council, which sponsors this web site.

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Suggesting the GOP will face an historic rebuke in the 2012 elections just two years after Tea Party activists helped to sweep it into power, Baldwin pinned her candidacy on the two pillars of the modern progressive movement that have both faced concerted assaults from newly-elected Midwestern governors in the past year: strong unions and a robust welfare state.

“I can promise you 2012 is a very different election year,” she said Saturday. “When [Governor] Scott Walker and [Congressman] Paul Ryan started to attack everything we hold dear as Wisconsinites, our rich progressive history, our belief in a strong retirement, people in Wisconsin stood up and became organized and engaged.” Walker led a successful effort to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for public employees and Ryan’s Medicare privatization scheme passed in the U.S. House only to die in the Senate last year.

“I was raised by my grandparents,” Baldwin said. “I learned at a much younger age than many people about the important role that Social Security and Medicare play in retirement security for our seniors. These are national success stories and we have to make them stronger and available to everybody and not weaken them as Paul Ryan proposed and end Medicare as we know it for those 55 and under.”

Though veteran Democratic Senator and progressive hero Russ Feingold was unseated by Tea Party-backed businessman Ron Johnson just 14 months ago, Baldwin articulated a vision of her own bid for the Senate as an opportunity to carry on his legacy — and directly confront the movement that at least until the emergence of Occupy Wall Street was by far the most politically potent in America.

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The national chamber organization ran a television ad over the holidays in cities across Montana attacking U.S. Sen. Jon Tester for voting for “$500 billion in new taxes to pay for Obamacare,” which the ad said could cost the country “almost 250,000 jobs.”

Tester, a first-term incumbent Democrat from Big Sandy, is facing a stiff re-election challenge from six-term Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Billings.

The race has been pegged as one of the top U.S. Senate races in the country and, as such, political action committees — or PACs — from across the country are expected to spend millions of dollars on TV and radio ads promoting their respective favorite candidate in the coming months.

Some chamber members in Montana were not happy about the tone or the content of one of the national organization’s ads, and chamber officials in at least three Montana cities have responded to complaints raised by their members.

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Toward that end the Minnesota Democrat — who held a round-table meeting on the issue Friday at Duluth’s Keystone Bluffs Assisted Living Residence — has introduced legislation aimed at protecting seniors and vulnerable people.

She bases the need for such protection on her experiences as Hennepin County attorney, on governmental reports and on the tribulations of people like Deanna Van de North.

Van de North of St. Paul told the audience at Friday’s round table

how her mother’s guardians moved her from an assisted-care facility in the Twin Cities to her farm in rural Minnesota. The guardians hired unlicensed caregivers to care for the 82-year-old woman, who was suffering from dementia and diabetes. Over five years the guardians wrote checks to themselves or to “cash” on the woman’s account totaling more than $60,000. They restricted family visits — not even telling most family members of the woman’s death until after her body was cremated.

“We had a horrible experience,” said Van de North, who hailed Klobuchar’s legislation.

“It’s great she has brought the issue to the forefront,” she said. “There are crooks out there, and they are going to take advantage of people.”

Klobuchar’s bill, the Guardian Accountability and Senior Protection Act (S.F. 1744), would provide money to help state courts improve procedures dealing with adult guardianship and conservatorship. It also would authorize a pilot program for conducting background checks on people wanting to be appointed as guardians or conservators.

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We’re currently accepting ideas for books to read and discuss. Please make your voice heard today by suggesting a book to kick us off. Kirsten will lead a live online discussion of the book on our Facebook page.

You can sign up for the book club at http://offthesidelines.org/bookclub

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The recent spending bill passed by Congress and signed by the president included $142 million for restoring the Everglades and the Kissimmee River. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Rep. Bill Young of St. Petersburg teamed on the effort to ensure the funding remained in the bill.

The spending is justified. The Everglades, a vast watery network that stretches from Central Florida to Florida Bay, produces most of South Florida’s drinking water. But the unique resource also provides critical habitat, offers countless recreational opportunities and attracts tourists from around the world. The water that flows through the Everglades helps sustain the sport and commercial fishing industries.

But the River of Grass, as author Marjory Stoneman Douglas called it, was damaged through the years by ill-conceived projects – drainage canals, dikes, roads, subdivisions and an array of water-control projects. The natural flow of water through the Everglades was disrupted. Runoff from agricultural operations polluted its waters. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers channelized the Kissimmee River. The meandering, vegetated river naturally filtered pollutants; the channel flushed the junk straight into Lake Okeechobee.

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Outside conservative groups not officially affiliated with the Republican Party have spent nearly $2.9 million on the Ohio Senate race, according to numbers compiled by a Senate Democratic campaign operative. Big spenders include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($1.5 million), the 60 Plus Association ($723,338), Crossroads GPS ($506,647) and Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee ($200,077). Brown is the only candidate 60 Plus has targeted.

After Ohio, the Senate race with the highest amount of third-party spending from outside conservative groups is in Florida, which has seen more than $1.4 million pumped in, according to the same set of data. In that race, Rep. Connie Mack (R) and several other Republicans are vying for the chance to face Sen. Bill Nelson (D.).

Brown has a strong populist record, and the Washington Post has referred to him as “something of a modern-day Paul Wellstone,” referring to the late progressive Minnesota senator. He is being challenged by the 34-year-old Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel (R), who is known as a strong conservative and an aggressive fundraiser.

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