From the about section of the ActBlue page I've created:
Despite the self-important screechings of the traditional media, the hurt feelings and ruffled feathers of the primary season are not insurmoutable. Hillary and Bill Clinton have worked to unite the Democratic Party with their rousing convention speeches and gracious support of Obama during the delegate voting process. Now it's time to reward Hillary for being a team player by helping pay off her campaign debt.
And while we're at it, lets give Barack Obama, who was equally gracious in victory, the funds he needs to expand the map, create coattails for down-ballot races, and end the conservative governing that thinks that all social issues are due to gays, Atheists, Hollywood, and working women, that the way to solve all economic ills are tax cuts for the super rich, and that war will solve all of America's international problems.
Two weeks ago, I posted a diary on DailyKos, MyDD, Open Left, and the Swing State Project announcing the creation of the ActBlue page Protecting Our Asses. The goals of this page are as follows:
1. To reinforce vulnerable and potentially vulnerable incumbent members of Congress with cash.
2. To reward good, progressive behavior from these incumbents.
3. To diminish or replace the need for these incumbents to seek fundraising dollars from less progressive sources such as corporate PACs and "moderate"/conservative groups.
4. To send the message that the Netroots will have your back if you have ours.
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!
