Speaking of scrappy start-ups
by digby
It occurred to me that I should give everyone a little update on what Blue America is doing around the country as we hit the final weeks of the campaign. Thanks mostly to progressive campaign guru Howie Klein and his relentless energy, encyclopedic knowledge of House districts and proven nose for talent, the three partner blogs, Down with Tyranny, Crooks and Liars and this one, along with our dedicated progressive small donors, have managed to raise nearly half a million dollars for our candidates and campaigns this cycle --- which ain't half bad for three old country bloggers and a couple of good friends.
One of the most successful fundraising ideas we've had so far is the Rock and Roll Memorabilia drawings (again, thanks to Howie's glittering career in the music business.) These have garnered attention far and wide and resulted in bringing in some big bucks for our candidates. Lucky donors have received a guitar signed by Joan Jett to benefit Paul Ryan's opponent Rob Zerban in Wisconsin, signed platinum awards from BBKing and Eric Clapton for Patsy Keever in North Carolina and a signed B52s award on behalf of Zerban and Lee Rogers in California (which we did in partnership with Progressive Democrats of America.) Our current drawing is in concert with Peace Action Now --- a Frank Sinatra platinum award to benefit Rogers.
Here's Alan Grayson with House Democratic whip Jim Clyburn and the winner of a signed Green Day guitar, Judith Wilson:
It's fun. The winners are chosen randomly without regard to size of the donation and as it happens they have all been people who donated 25 dollars or less. Mostly they just want to support the candidate. Winning a valuable award is just gravy.
Howie, John and I had quite the laugh the other day when the Romney campaign stole our idea and announced that they were holding a contest for a guitar signed by Kid Rock and Paul Ryan. Someone told me that Ryan suggested to Romney that they get their big celebrity endorser Lindsay Lohan to sign a pair of panties and Romney reminded him that she doesn't wear any. How he knew that is anyone's guess. (And I suppose my friend might have made the whole thing up ...) But hey, they've always got The Nuge. And Taylor Hicks.
Right now we are running either Independent Expenditure campaigns or Blue America PAC campaigns in several districts.
Corrupt Republican Buck Mckeon isn't *not* enjoying the radio ads we are sponsoring with the help of TheBuckStopsNow.org that are currently blanketing his district in both English and Spanish. And this traveling billboard that follows him all over the district has got him really irritated:
The song, by the way, is an oldtime Blue America jingle that we've re-purposed for this election. It's one of the ads running on a loop on radio. You can hear all of them here.
Here's the ad we're running in the district. (If you can help us keep it going, the link to our Independent Expenditure committee is here.)
For some reason Republicans really hate these mobile billboards. Here's another one we're running in PA-16 for Aryanna Strader who's challenging one of the most cretinous, anti-woman throwbacks in the House, Congressman Joe Pitts:
And voters in Paul Ryan's district are seeing ads in all the local papers calling him a liar about Medicare:
Earlier we tweaked the DCCC a little bit for failing to mention Rob Zerban in their anti-Ryan billboard by putting up a very similar one with the information they'd "missed."
And there's more to come in these last few weeks.
The vast majority of the money we collect from you goes to the candidates we endorse and to whom you donate directly through our Act Blue page. Only about five percent of regular donations go to the PAC and we use that money for these campaigns in the districts. (There are a few larger donors who contributed to our IE, for which we're extremely grateful.)
It's a purely volunteer effort --- we don't have the money to employ anyone and we don't take a penny for ourselves --- so these are all shoestring campaigns. But we feel strongly about doing the best we can to support progressives who are out there doing the truly difficult work of campaigning and who need to know that there are people out here who support their causes even when the political professionals can't be bothered.
There are campaigns out there that are winnable, if they had enough money to compete. The Party bigwigs are convinced of the conventional wisdom that progressives can never win and that "independent" automatically means "centrist" and so they ignore these races and put their money in quixotic campaigns where it's right wing New Dem against Republican wingnut. They are going to lose those races and that money will have been thrown away.
But nonetheless, next month it's very likely there are going to be some new (and returning) progressives in the House and in the Senate. And they all know who their friends are. You. Because when the chips were down and the Party panicked after 2010, these candidates turned to the grassroots and the Netroots to help them keep their campaigns alive long enough to get some traction.
In this polarized political world, the neanderthal Blue Dogs have gone extinct. The progressives, on the other hand, are getting stronger. (See how that works?) I don't think the DC establishment has quite grokked this new development.
Anyway, that's just a short update on what we've been up to. It's been a lot of fun and hugely rewarding, even the painful losses. We are seeing progressive candidates coming together after primaries, both losing and winning, and working their networks on each others behalf for the very first time. Progressive incumbents are making themselves available for consultation and support. Netroots/grassroots groups are working together in many different ways. Little by little, this ship is turning.
If you would care to help these candidates get over the hump, you can donate here to our House page and here to our Senate page. If you'd like to get in on the drawing for the Sinatra platinum record, you can do that here. And if you'd like to help us pay for these billboards, ads and radio spots, this is the place. It's all in a good cause.
Politics sucks for the most part, I know that. This is one of the ways you can feel good about being involved. Truly, even when we lose I feel better for having done this that I do when another corporate Dem goes to Washington.
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