I started this blog because someone over at kos said they needed one, and literally the day afterward, I read a story in the MSM and started writing an entry for this blog. Before I published, I had lunch, went back to my desk and, just browsing around I found 3 blogs that said what I would have said, written better and published first. Ooops.
The folks at Ellen Tauscher Weekly keep track of the great work that https://calitics.com/tag.do?tag=Ellen+Tauscher and Kos post on Dear Ellen every week, there are regular posts on MyDD, by Chris Bowers, and other places.
The day I started this blog, I emailed Act Blue on what to do about primary elections, and I didn’t even have a candidate to name. Haven’t had an answer yet, and I can see why. Why would people give money to an unknown quantity? I wasn’t going to choose who people were givig their money to, and having Act Blue hold the money in trust for a nameless stranger was not a good idea.
So here’s the deal. I understand the pre-Lieberman campaign took pledges for a candidate to be named later. That’s what I propose now. You email this site, $20, $30, $50 whatever ($1 accepted, as a placeholder) Include your email address, and when we have a candidate or candidates, you look over their positions, weigh their chances, and send in your $ or not. We will help with research on all potential candidates, who are willing to toss their hat in the ring. We post their postions, interviews, YouTube posts, we’ll help everyone. (Not indescriminately, this is my site, but I’ll let any legitimate candidate’s advocates become poster on this site. NO REPUBLICANS AND NO TAUSCHER)
What I’m after, is showing the potential candidate that there is support out their for him/her to make a SERIOUS run against a candidate that can raise $1M for a primary, and doesn’t have to spend bupkus against a Republican. (the Republicans don’t eat their own, they know Dear Ellen is a fellow traveler. Lord, I wish the Dem’s would learn that. (HEY! PROGRESSIVES ARE DEMOCRATS! HELLOO….) There are good potential folks on the back bench who are looking at state offices, city offices, dog cacher because money is the deal killer and they don’t know any millionaires.
You pledge your $, as little or as big as you can afford. Anyone who steps up to mount a primary challenge, we post what they say and what we find. We’ll have help in the later, because Dear Ellen will have $1M to spend on oppo research, and you can just open up the Contra Costa Times to see all tha bad stuff about anyone who dares speak out agianst Dear Ellen. You’ll get email from all the declared primary challengers, and anytime between filling day and the primary, you can redeem your pledge. I would be surprised if, between now and the primary, there wasn’t a candidate not worth supporting. If you find more than one, feel free to redeem your pledge more than once. Or redeem your pledge more than once to the same candidate.
My point is to start building a war chest. The total will appear here, in 6 months, 3 months after that, and more often if needed to convince the good candidates that they will have support for the primary, support for the general. Too many good legislators are kept out of office because the grind of raisng money is a daunting and dispiriting task. For an incumbent, who can provide that all valuted “access” if not a quid pro quo, money is much less of a problem.
If we can show a candidate who has a progresive record, that they have as little as $100k before they even file, and a fundraising op behind them, if they decide to take on a conservatve entrenched career politician, I think we can have our pick of a field of 2 or 3 prime candidates. (If we find three progressive candidates, there are state seats, commissions, county seats, city seats, we can start packing the back bench up BIG TIME)