Goals Hit And Goals Missed— Blue America, 2017

Someone contributes $7 and Austin hits our 2017 goal for him

I really want to say thank you to all the DWT readers who helped end the Blue America efforts this year to help raise campaign funds for our House candidates on high note. We reached or surpassed almost every goal we set for ourselves for 2017. And now the real work starts, the work that determines whether or not we’ll have a strong progressive voice in Congress starting in January, 2019. A couple of things I’d like to ask you to help with first though-- reaching those unmet 2017 goals. This is the list of each Blue America House candidate where we didn’t quite meet out goal and how much we missed it by. Can you consider helping us reach each goal but making a contribution for that candidate, rather than splitting the contribution up among everybody, which about 70% of donors do these days? You can contribute by tapping the ActBlue thermometer on the right. This is serious stuff. Trump, Ryan and the Republican Party think this is their opportunity to wreck Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security-- for real. We’ve got to stop them-- and these candidates are part of the solution. The 2017 goals are the first number. Our shortfalls (in parentheses) are the second number

• TX-07- Jason Weston- $2,000- ($439)
• KS-04- James Thompson- $2,000 ($385)
• ME-02- Jared Golden- $1,500 ($339)
• NM-01- Antoinette Sedillo Lopez- $500 ($298)
• IL-03- Marie Newman- $1,000 ($264)
• CA-25- Katie Hill- $3,000 ($238)
• TX-21- Derrick Crowe- $2,000 ($238)
• MI-06- Paul Clements- $2,000 ($191)
• IN-09- Dan Canon- $1,500 ($173)
• PA-18- Jess King- $500 ($165)
• NC-05- Jenny Marshall- $5,000 ($140)
• TX-32- Lillian Salerno- $1,000 ($28)
• CA-39- Sam Jammal- $2,000 ($19)
• IA-03- Austin Frerick- $1,000 ($7)

If you’re wondering why some candidates have much higher goals than others it generally means the ones with the high goals were endorsed a long time ago-- like Jenny Marshall-- and the candidates with low goals were just endorsed very recently, like Antoinette Sedillo Lopez. By Election Day, 2018 we hope to raise at least $15,000 for each. At least.

And if you’re wondering which candidates surpassed their 2017 goals, that would be Doug Applegate (CA), Tom Guild (OK), David Gill (IL), Tim Canova (FL), Randy Bryce (WI), Kaniela Ing (HI) and Chuy Garcia (IL).

And rest assured, none of the Blue America candidates are on Politico’s idiotic 10 must-watch candidates of 2018. They warned that though Señor Trumpanzee’s name won’t be on the ballot “his influence will be everywhere.” The Democrats they chose to highlight are overwhelmingly conservative, real Republican-lite types. The corrupt corporately owned New Dems have endorsed 3 of them-- Paul Davis (KS), Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Mike Sherrill (NJ)-- and the Blue Dogs endorsed the two worst, Davis and Brindisi, awful candidates, who (unbeknownst to Politico and the DCCC) fly in the face of the excitement and energy that has infused the Democratic Party at the grassroots. Politico on the right-wing shitbag from Kansas: “Paul Davis kicked off his campaign for Congress in Kansas by promising to not support Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House, heralding a new generation of Democrats that won’t be sticking by the California congresswoman. But Davis’ political gamble-- crossing his party’s leader for the sake of competing in a bright red district-- hasn’t cost him much in Washington. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Davis to the first round of its ‘Red to Blue’ program, while Steny Hoyer’s PAC donated to his campaign. No doubt Pelosi either gave him the OK to diss her… or suggested it to him herself. Look for him to be swept into Congress by the tsunami, disappoint Democrats by voting consistently with the Republicans and lose to a Republican in the 2022 midterms. A pure garbage candidate.

Almost as bad is Brindisi who Politico describes-- with admiration-- as “a moderate” who occasionally criticizes party leaders like Gov. Andrew Cuomo and has received an ‘A’ rating from the National Rifle Association. After recruiting him for years, Democrats finally landed the assemblyman as a challenger to GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney in her upstate New York district.” When they say “a moderate,” they mean a right-of-center fake Democrat who, like Davis, will be voting with the GOP after the DCCC dumps something between $3 and $4 million into his race. And then Politico writes “Democrats” have tried to recruit him, they mean clueless Beltway DCCC losers, not actual Democrats, who loath candidates like Brindisi. He has one thing going for him; he isn’t as bad as Tenney. Nope, not outré kind of candidates-- not now, not ever. Would I contribute money to them? Never. Would I vote for them? Never. Would I root for them to win? Nope, not even that.