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Democrats are using Rush Limbaugh to raise money. AP Photo by Ron Edmonds

A number of Democratic candidates and committees are using the controversial remarks made by conservative-talk radio host Rush Limbaugh about President Obama to raise money and recruit volunteers to their causes.

In an email sent to supporters late Thursday and entitled "Kowtow," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee executive director J.B Poersch writes, "when Rush says jump, congressional Republicans say how high?" and urges recipients to sign a petition condemning Limbaugh's behavior and calling on Senate GOPers to "declare their independence" from him.

A similar missive came out of the Democratic Governors Association as well. "Did you hear what Rush said?" writes DGA executive director Nathan Daschle, adding that Limbaugh and his acolytes will do everything they can to block the implementation of Obama's economic stimulus plan. The best way to stop Rush? Why, send money to the DGA of course.

And, the Democratic National Committee is raising money to sponsor a billboard in Limbaugh's hometown to "send him a message", according to an email sent by DNC executive director Jen O'Malley Dillon.

The appeals by the DNC, DSCC and DGA are the latest but far from the only evidence of how Democrats are seeking to use Limbaugh's comments as a cudgel against Republicans. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who is running for governor in Virginia, sent a letter to state Attorney General Bob McDonnell, the GOP nominee, calling on him to renounce Rush, and followed that up with an email petition drive aimed at pressuring McDonnell to "prove" his bipartisan credential by casting Limbaugh off the Republican island.

"Bob McDonnell says he knows how to work across party lines," said Mo Elleithee, a consultant to McAuliffe's campaign. "He can prove it by showing that he is willing to stand up to the de facto head of his party and repudiate his divisive rhetoric."

The appeal of these appeals is obvious for Democrats. As popular as Limbaugh is among the conservative base, he is equally reviled among liberal Democrats -- the very same group that is most likely to give money or donate their time to a candidate or committee.

While neither the DGA nor the DSCC would discuss what sort of response -- financial or otherwise -- their email petitions have received, one source familiar with the DSCC effort said it was on pace to rival a similar email sent out after then President George W. Bush commuted the sentence of former Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby, who was convicted of obstruction in the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

In the end, this may be the lasting impact of Limbaugh's raised profile in the national political debate. It's highly unlikely that any candidate will win or lose in 2010 as a direct result of Limbaugh but the indirect effect on Democratic fundraising, organizing and base-rallying could be sustained and significant.

Obama in Ohio: President Obama jets to Columbus, Ohio today to speak at a police officer graduation. The idea is to tout the economic stimulus plan as some of the money sent to the Buckeye State was used to retain these new graduates rather than let them go.

Friday Must-Reads: Scanning the world of news for the best and brightest.

1. After a one day respite on Wednesday, the Dow continues its plummet.
2. The White House launches a new website (www.healthreform.gov) and announces a series of town halls to sell the public on the need for healthcare reform.
3. The man who beat, and subsequently lost to, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) is mulling a run for governor in 2010.
4. Politico.com commander in chief John Harris steps down from on high to pen an interesting piece on the uncertain future of the Democratic Leadership Council.
5. The Obama Administration is no longer "Paging Dr. Gupta."

DCCC Weighs in on NY-20: Keep an eye on the Albany media market today and you just might catch the first ad paid for the by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's independent expenditure arm. With a little over three weeks remaining in the special election race between state Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (R) and businessman Scott Murphy (D), the DCCC will weigh in -- seeking to use their financial might to overcome the efforts of the National Republican Congressional Committee for Tedisco. GOP strategists have privately fretted about the DCCC's continuing financial edge and how they might bring it to bear in this race. No details on the extent of the ad buy yet but Democrats want to keep this Upstate seat in their column to keep up the momentum built last fall.

Twitter Drive: As of yesterday, we are nearing 7,750 followers. The goal is 10,000. Perhaps a giveaway of a few Fix T-shirts would do the trick? Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Sign up to follow "TheFix" and "TheHyperFix."

McCain Mafia Reunites: John McCain's presidential campaign is over but four men who were intimately involved in that effort have banded together to form The Trailblazer Group, a GOP consulting firm based in Alexandria, Va. The four founding partners are: Craig "Goldy" Goldman, who ran McCain's Straight Talk PAC and served as a regional campaign manager during a portion of the general election; Christian Ferry, deputy campaign manager for McCain; Doug Davenport, a regional campaign manager who stepped aside last May due to his lobbying ties; and Ryan Price, the deputy national political director of McCain's presidential bid. "We are pleased to be able to offer our clients a public affairs business model that allows us to work both inside the beltway and in all the 50 states to best represent their needs," said Goldman.

The Clown is Back: For all of those (like the Fix) who mourned the departure of Krusty Conservative from the Iowa blogosphere, the time to rejoice is now. Krusty along with a passel of other GOP bloggers has re-formed under the umbrella of The Iowa Republican. Bookmark it. You'll thank us when presidential caucus season rolls around.

More Charlie Pics!: For those of you who have wanted to see a few more shots of the latest addition to the Fix family (and who wouldn't?), check out this and this.

Say What?: "It really is an honor to have him here and I know for some of my staff, and for bragging rights to my children and my grandchildren, a real treat for me as well." -- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) gushes, er, introduces actor Brad Pitt on Capitol Hill Thursday.

(Credit: mobileread.com)

Just got an e-mail from Alexander Turcic over at MobileRead.

Turcic, based in Switzerland, writes:

Hi David:

I hope you are doing fine. Got some news regarding Kindle 2 price and release info, plus the first Kindle 2 pics.

Cheers,
Alex

According to the post, the Kindle 2, which is expected to be announced Monday at 10 a.m. in New York, will be available on February 24 and carry a list price of $359--just like its predecessor. All in all, the device looks similar to what we saw in earlier leaked photos, but in these shots the Kindle 2 looks sleeker and decidedly more impressive. While we have no confirmation that this is the real deal, these look like marketing shots if I ever saw them.

More photos after the jump.

(Credit: mobileread.com)

(Credit: mobileread.com)

(Credit: mobileread.com)

(Credit: mobileread.com)

Click here for more stories on Amazon's Kindle.

MODESTO, California (CNN) -- The photograph became an icon of the Great Depression: a migrant mother with her children burying their faces in her shoulder. Katherine McIntosh was 4 years old when the photo was snapped. She said it brought shame -- and determination -- to her family.

Katherine McIntosh holds the photograph taken with her mother in 1936.

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"I wanted to make sure I never lived like that again," says McIntosh, who turns 77 on Saturday. "We all worked hard and we all had good jobs and we all stayed with it. When we got a home, we stayed with it."

McIntosh is the girl to the left of her mother when you look at the photograph. The picture is best known as "Migrant Mother," a black-and-white photo taken in February or March 1936 by Dorothea Lange of Florence Owens Thompson, then 32, and her children.

Lange was traveling through Nipomo, California, taking photographs of migrant farm workers for the Resettlement Administration. At the time, Thompson had seven children who worked with her in the fields.

"She asked my mother if she could take her picture -- that ... her name would never be published, but it was to help the people in the plight that we were all in, the hard times," McIntosh says.

"So mother let her take the picture, because she thought it would help." Watch "we would go home and cry" »

The next morning, the photo was printed in a local paper, but by then the family had already moved on to another farm, McIntosh says.

"The picture came out in the paper to show the people what hard times was. People was starving in that camp. There was no food," she says. "We were ashamed of it. We didn't want no one to know who we were." Watch a Depression-era daughter's recollections »

The photograph helped define the Great Depression, yet McIntosh says her mom didn't let it define her, although the picture "was always talked about in our family."

"It always stayed with her. She always wanted a better life, you know."

Her mother, she says, was a "very strong lady" who liked to have a good time and listen to music, especially the yodeler named Montana Slim. She laughs when she recalls her brothers bringing home a skinny greyhound pooch. "Mom, Montana Slim is outside," they said.

Thompson rushed outside. The boys chuckled. They had named the dog after her favorite musician.

"She was the backbone of our family," McIntosh says of her mom. "We never had a lot, but she always made sure we had something. She didn't eat sometimes, but she made sure us children ate. That's one thing she did do."

Her memories of her youth are filled with about 50 percent good times, 50 percent hard times.

It was nearly impossible to get an education. Children worked the fields with their parents. As soon as they'd get settled at a school, it was time to pick up and move again.

Her mom would put newborns in cotton sacks and pull them along as she picked cotton. The older kids would stay in front, so mom could keep a close eye on them. "We would pick the cotton and pile it up in front of her, and she'd come along and pick it up and put it in her sack," McIntosh says.

They lived in tents or in a car. Local kids would tease them, telling them to clean up and bathe. "They'd tell you, 'Go home and take a bath.' You couldn't very well take a bath when you're out in a car [with] nowhere to go."

She adds, "We'd go home and cry."

McIntosh now cleans homes in the Modesto, California, area. She's proud of the living she's been able to make -- that she has a roof over her head and has been able to maintain a job all these years. She says her obsession to keep things clean started in her youth when her chore was to keep the family tent clean. There were two white sheets that she cleaned each day.

"Even today, when it comes to cleaning, I make sure things are clean. I can't stand dirty things," she says with a laugh.

With the nation sinking into tough economic times and analysts saying the current economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression, McIntosh says if there's a lesson to be learned from her experience it is to save your money and don't overextend yourself. iReport: Are you worried about losing your job?

"People live from paycheck to paycheck, even people making good money," she says. "Do your best to make sure it doesn't happen again. Elect the people you think is going to do you good."

Her message for President-elect Barack Obama is simple: "Think of the middle-class people."

She says she'll never forget the lessons of her hard-working mother, who died at the age of 80 in 1983. Her gravestone says: "Migrant Mother: A Legend of the strength of American motherhood."

"She was very strict, but very loving and caring. She cared for us all," McIntosh says.