Yes, Fundraising Is Tight-- And Ending The War In Afghanistan Is Important

Tomorrow Blue America will be launching an effort to raise awareness about the 8th year of occupation and war in Afghanistan. One aspect of the effort will be a fundraising effort on behalf of the 32 Democratic members of Congress who voted against the supplemental financing for the war and occupation on June 16. At the same time Blue America is still raising money to keep our Blanche Lincoln ads on TV in Arkansas; money to oppose reactionary Blue Dogs; and we're still moving towards our $450,000 goal in the campaign, Standing Up For the Public Option. (Currently 6,928 donors have contributed $422,141.88.)

And we're in the middle of a recession.

And some netroots activists are unsure if they're ready to break with the president they worked so hard to elect over Afghanistan, or if "maybe we should give him a little more time." The next few months should see a lot of discussion around that premise. We've been having it internally and we war goes beyond political considerations. Ron Paul may be a nut-job surrounded by zombies (and racists) but when it comes to Afghanistan, it's got it right... more so than plenty of Democrats. Listen to him discussing how wrong American policy in Afghanistan is:



When he says "it isn't going to do any good," he's hit the nail on the head. Ron Paul sees no change in U.S. policy; do you?

Back to fundraising. Tomorrow another member of Congress who wants to end the occupation of Afghanistan, Alan Grayson (D-FL), will help us kick off our campaign with a live blogging session at Crooks and Liars (3pm, PT, 6pm back East). Aside from getting the discussion going about Afghanistan, we want to thank the Democrats, like Rep. Grayson, who have already demonstrated their committment to ending the occupation by voting against the supplemental 3 months ago. I know that money is harder to come by. America is worth it. The alternative will be members of congress with no ethics-- men like Duke Cunningham (R-CA) and Mike Ross (D-AR) who take bribes to vote for special interests. Even $10 and $20 contributions help add up to significant grassroots impact of campaigns. Please give what you can.

And you might be interested in knowing that over on the far right, there has been almost no success in raising money for the extremists and loons who the teabaggers and obstructionists have decided to back in Senate races: right wing kooks Chuck DeVore (CA), Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and Michael Williams (TX). Erick Erickson is leading another failed fundraising drive at Red State for a pack of lunatic fringe candidates. His goal is $250,000 and he's somehow managed to scrape up $12,000. He's been whining regularly to a readership that would rather yell about Kenyan and Indonesian birth certificates than work for their candidates. (Of course they don't really need to. Unlike progressives, reactionaries get immediate support from Big Business PACs who still do control the GOP agenda.) Erickson:

Yes, yes, we can go to the polls in droves, etc., but cash is king in politics. And if we want to be taken seriously, we need to step up to the plate. I know that hacks some of you off. Every time I write stuff like this I get dozens of angry emails from people suffering due to Barack Obama’s economy. I get it. But you need to get it too-- you want to change the Republican Party and have a seat at the table, you’ve got to launch a coup against the establishment. And the best way to do that at the present time is support these candidates who are running against the establishment.

Today, give at least one dollar to each of our anti-occupation candidates and we'll send you a special thank you-- a two CD set, Quixotic from Matt Keating, his most recent release. (You can preview the tracks here.)