Keeping It Real
by digby
While we’ve all been enmeshed in the soap opera of the former mayor of Wasilla and Mean Mr Mustard all week, Howie Klein has been doing something useful — raising money for Blue America’s progressive candidates.
He will introduce the winner of the contest today at 1PM over at FDL, so if you’ve contributed, check in over there to see which Blue America candidate gets the $5,000.
But check this out (I can hardly believe it):
Meanwhile at 9AM this morning, we got this awesomely generous letter from Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Chairman of the DCCC. Before I share it with you, just let me remind everyone that when Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer beat up on a buncch of Democrats and led enough across the aisle to help the Republicans pass Bush’s continuing occupation of Iraq and, a week later, his hideous FISA legislation, Van Hollen, was one of the few in the Democratic leadership who refused to join them on either. Like a majority of Democrats, Chris voted to end the war and voted against the FISA bill. His letter:
Please offer my thanks to the Blue American community for their continued help to our Democratic candidates. Mobilizing grassroots supporters is crucial in our campaign to strengthen and secure the Democratic Majority. The outpouring of support that the Blue America community has shown this week for our Democratic candidates for change has been particularly exciting. I am pleased to match Blue America’s $5,000 contribution to the winner of your “Vote For A Blue America Candidate” contest. I thank you for your continuing support in securing a New Direction for America.
Warm Regards,
Chris Van Hollen
ChairmanTranslation: today’s winner gets $10,000, not $5,000.
And… futhermore there’s a bonus for our donors today too! Anybody who contributes at least $25.00 before noon will be entered in a drawing to win two (2) fourth row center tickets to the Jackson Browne concert at the historic Orpheum theatre in Los Angeles on October 5th.
I’m as hooked on the presidential soap opera as anyone, but this is the real work of getting progressive policies passed in the congress. We don’t know how many of our candidates will make it this time. probably quite a few. But this contest was run specifically for those candidates who are not getting institutional support from the party (the Red to Blue operation) so it means something that Van Hollen kicked in the matching money. It’s possible that some of the leadership are finally seeing the value of having a progressive wing of the party after all.
If you still want to contribute, you can find all the necessary links at Down With Tyranny.:
You can see what each of our candidates has managed to bring in since last Saturday on our special contest page. Many overly enthusiastic donors gave more than once– some more than a dozen times– to the candidates of their choice. To determine the winner of our prize, only one donation per candidate is counted for any one screen name. The contest remains open until 12 noon (PT), so, by all means, please donate to the candidate, or candidates, of your choice. We have also gotten a generous donation of $1,250 to the Blue America PAC from an anonymous donor who has asked that we match it and donate $2,500 to the runner-up. So… if you’d like to support that proposition, by all means drop some cash into the Blue America PAC slot as well.
.