This diary is in reaction to the diary about former Democrat Joe Lieberman giving more money to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) than most Democratic Senators. It's also a try to get another "use it or lose it" campaign going.
All numbers below the fold.
UPDATE 8/13/2008:
When I looked through all the numbers I was surprised that several Senators did not have a PAC. I now learned that Sen. Schumer does have a PAC (Impact). For some reason it's not listed on Open Secret's Chuck Schumer page. His PAC has contributed to the DSCC and individual Senate candidates. I've updated the numbers below.
TheUnknown285 proposes ( http://www.swingstateproject.c... ) that Carol Shea-Porter, NH 1, is a good investment and I want to second that. Her campaign is going to be real hand-to-hand combat - the R's and their 527s see her as vulnerable and have targeted her with ads that have been running for months already - but she is well armed.
First, she just tells the truth and people can see that. She inspires confidence by refusing to cop to the easy political summary of an issue. She sees it as her job to educate, unconstrained by conventional wisdom. She seems to find the underlying realities of an issue and communicate that in a way that people understand. An example is her explanation of her FISA vote in today's Portsmouth (NH) Herald: http://www.seacoastonline.com/... .
We'll see in November how well she's bringing the whole district along, but anecdotal signs are good. Regular folks who don't necessarily follow politics all that closely say, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to vote for her. She's really working hard down there." Or "I'm proud to have her representing me." What they really end up saying is that, whether or not they agree on everything, they can see how serious and honest she is and they buy into that. All this is independent of their party affiliation.
Second, she's a professional legislator and politician, in the best sense of the word. She actually attends her committee hearings, works her issues, shephards legislation through the process. Then, in Unity, NH last Friday, she reached rhythmic rhetorical heights before 4,000 people and a wall of media, improvising and creating real excitement. A few hours later, she converted a room of 40 people by telling stories from the front lines of committee work.
Finally, although she won last time on a viral campaign and no budget, she looks to be fully committed to both on-the-ground organizing and serious fundraising in this campaign. Recently, she cold-called a business person who follows the issues in a middle-of-the-road sort of way but has never been politically active. After a half hour discussion of issues, he proposed hosting a house party that, two weeks later, raised serious money.
So there's nothing inevitable about the outcome of this race. National Republicans are going to invest in winning back this seat. We need to do the same. Carol's had good fundraising results so far, but will need major support from every direction before it's over.
I'm very disenchanted right now. Somehow, we're still in Iraq, don't have universal healthcare, don't have stem cell funding. We're seeing pushes for offshore drilling. And this week, our party assumed the position when it comes to FISA.
What was even more infuriating is to see candidates that many candidates heavily supported the grassroots and the Netroots (both in the more limited sense that includes the page DailyKos, Swing State Project, etc collaborate on. and the broader sense to include all of the liberal websites such as Democracy for America and MoveON). It's both heartbreaking and infuriating to see people like Patrick Murphy, Kirsten Gillibrand, Nancy Boyda, Jim Webb, and Jerry McNerney, people we thought would be the vanguard of the coming progressive era, vote they way they do, with the likes of Murphy and Gillibrand joining the Blue Dogs!
The Democratic field is cleared for State Senator John Unger (campaign site) to challenge Foleygate/Page Board scandal star and incumbent Wall Street Journal Republican Shelley Capito for West Virginia's Second Congressional District seat.
The Democratic House leadership seems to be lining up behind Unger's bid to unseat the increasingly vulnerable Capito, hopefully giving Unger vital early support in a district the Democratic leadership dreadfully under-invested in the 2006 cycle. Unger has even been honored as one of Rahm Emanuel's "Six Pack", one of only six candidates to whom he has donated so far in this cycle.
It is a very encouraging sign that Monday evening six of the leading House Democrats (including Hoyer, Emanuel, and Van Hollen) will host a big old fundraiser (info) for Unger.
In 2006 Democrats picked most of the low-hanging fruit in regaining the House majority. Seats in which we have a legitimate takeover opportunity are few and far between (and we have several seats we won in 2006 we are going to be hard-pressed to hold and need to offset).
John Unger's campaign in 60-some percent Democratic registration WV-02 offers us a chance to pick the GOP's pockets of a seat which traditionally belongs to us. Read on for the who, how and why.
