FRANCINE BUSBY-- LOOKING VERY STRONG AS HER CONGRESSIONAL RACE ENTERS ITS FINAL MONTH

I'm always raggin' on Rahm Emanuel so i was happy to see the DCCC do something really good this weekend. Now that they have accepted the inevitability of Francine Busby and have actually embraced her campaign with apparent enthusiasm, the pulled off the kind of masterful and effective campaign tactic that goes a long way towards electing candidates. They managed to get Busby a coveted national radio slot-- the Democratic Radio Address of the Week. And she was great. You can listen to it here and you can also watch her new TV ad there.

The grassroots enthusiasm for Busby was already high going into this race and it has only been growing. She's beaten her Republican opponents in the money race (her mostly small individual donations adding up to a million dollars, out-performing each of the big-money corporately-bankrolled Republican challengers) and the last poll I saw showed her beating each one of them. Meanwhile, Democrats in Northern San Diego County are thoroughly united behind Busby while the Republicans are attacking each other with unbelievable vehemence, further turning off voters to their sewage-soaked party.

And speaking of sewage-soaked, the favored candidate of the Inside-the-Beltway Repugs is ex-congressman Brian Bilbray (who was defeated by Susan Davis in a 2000 re-election bid in a neighboring district). He was a crook when he was a congressman-- on the take from none other than Jack Abramoff-- and when the voters kicked him out of office, he naturally went to work as... a lobbyist. Talk about tone-deaf! This is the district where the incumbent admitted taking millions of dollars in bribes from defense contractors and was just sentenced to 8 years, 4 months in prison-- and the GOP wants to bring in someone just like him?!?!? I mean it's a red-leaning district but they must think no one has a pulse!

The Special Election isn't in November or June. It's next month-- April 11th to be exact-- and Francine can sure use some help in the final stretch. If you can help her out, believe me it's the $10 and $20 contributions that have helped make her competitive with the big money Republicans. Hers was the first campaign for which I started an ACT BLUE Page. I'm hoping it will be our first victory of a 2006 sweep too!