Blue America Doesn't Do Triage On Our Candidates

If you're starting to follow this whole politics thing that they're talking about on the TV, you may be hearing the word "triage." We talked a little about it last Tuesday. In the Rachel clip from Thursday night-- interrupted by a commercial and then finished up on the show but, alas, not on the MSNBC website-- she mentioned how the DCCC is cutting lose hapless loser and Blue Dog Larry Kissell (NC) and how the NRCC had pulled the plug on deadbeat dad Joe Walsh (IL), hopelessly gerrymandered old timer Roscoe Bartlett (MD), goofy teabagger Frank Guinta (NH) and on organized crime figures Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (NY) and David "The Gangster" Rivera (FL). "Walsh and Bartlett have long been viewed by most observers as dead men running" and the mobster connections blowing up in the local newspapers about Grimm and Rivera have led to the GOP shifting money to more promising seats. [Update on this: Walsh has called in a promise by Boehner that if he gave up his relatively safe district and not primary Randy Hultgren but took on Democratic war hero Tammy Baldwin instead, he would receive $3.5 million in election help from the party. So he got plugged back in.]

Anyway, while the two Beltway parties wheel and deal and make decisions about whose political careers to end and whose to continue life-support, I just weant to mention that Blue America doesn't do triage. We're continuing to raise money for all of our House and Senate candidates and, like we've done every year, we'll use the money our generous donors have given to the PAC itself and to our new I.E. Committee to see if we can tilt one or two close races being ignored (or triaged) by the DCCC. We've been buying media in CA-25 to target corrupt and reactionary militarist Buck McKeon and we've been buying media in WI-01 to help stop Paul Ryan. [Thanks to you guys, we finally went over the halfway mark for our goal in that district.]

So we've been stepping up the fundraising apeals for our candidates. The picture of the right is of Alan Grayson, House Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn and Green Day guitar winner Judith Wilson when she was presented with the signed guitar. She had only contributed $25 to Grayson's campaign but she won the valuable guitar and others like her who contributed brought the total raised for Grayson on that ActBlue page to $38,355. Team work! We did a similar event for Patsy Keever (D-NC) and next week we're teaming up with our pals at PDA to turn a multiplatinum B-52's Cosmic Thing award into campaign cash for Lee Rogers and Rob Zerban, the intrepid progressives running against House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon (CA-25) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (WI-01). The site isn't officially open yet but... who better than you to be the first to see it?

And we're working on our Independent Expenditures. I don't want to give them all away but let me mention that Joe Pitts is the tip of the anti-Choice spear and an all-around reactionary jerk. His once safe Republican seat in southeast Pennsylvania is now a swing district that was won by Obama in 2010. And his opponent is a kick ass former Iraq War vet-- and mother of two, Aryanna Strader. This is one of several billboards we're making sure everyone across the sprawling district sees:

And we have some real surprises for Congressmonsters  Ryan and McKeon, surprises we'll be rolling out at a dizzying rate as October unfolds. But let's keep some surprises as surprises. Best place to help us finance more and better surprises: our I.E. committee. There are no limits to what you can give on that page.

And, hopefully, all of our candidates are learning from the master himself, Alan Grayson. Here's his latest, as "tame" as he ever gets in a campaign: