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 Denham. 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. As a former Miss Indiana, she’s as attractive as Martin Heinrich, but she has never been a politician before this year. She didn’t like the options she was seeing in the Democratic primaries so she went to the Bloomington City Hall to find out how to run for Congress. They didn’t really know, so she wound up in Indianapolis. In an incredibly short period of time, she put together a very loyal and dedicated staff of volunteers, and she went out and spanked four competitors. She won 47% of the vote, and her nearest competitor won only 20%. The people I talked to said that no one could figure out how she got so much done in so little time until they met her and confronted her personality. People really feel like she’s going to Washington to represent them, not to further her own ambitions. I think that’s a nice thing to hear about someone.

Carol Shea-Porter served in Congress from January 2007-January 2011. She’s a career social worker (not a lawyer, CEO, car salesman, or exterminator) who was appalled by the federal reaction to Hurricane Katrina and decided to run for office. If you walk around Portsmouth with her, you’ll see people just come up and shake her hand and thank her for running again. She’s earned a ton of good-will, and she’s a solid bet to win back this seat if she has the resources.

Kathy Boockvar comes from my neck of the woods. She’s running for Patrick Murphy’s old seat centered in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She has been a legal services attorney, working with the poor. More recently, she has been working to protect Pennsylvanians’ voting rights (which, you may have heard, are under severe attack). I hear that Ms. Boockvar has assembled the best organizing team in the country. As someone who once organized neighboring Montgomery County for ACORN, I love the sound of that.

These are six progressive candidates who have a real chance to win. They are all great people who are running impressive campaigns. Most of them seem like kind of accidental politicians. President Obama personally asked Jose Hernandez to run. Shelli Yoder and Carol Shea-Porter seem to have had some kind of midlife epiphanies. Ms. Boockvar originally wanted to serve on the court. Maybe that’s part of why the governor found this list so attractive.

So, here’s the ask. Can you chip in $12 for each of these candidates? You’d make me look good, cuz I do consulting work for DFA.

I’ll be back next week to tell you about the remaining six fantastic candidates Howard Dean selected for this year’s Dean Dozen.