TIME TO THROW THE RASCALS OUT-- AN UPDATE... PLUS GREEN DAY NEWS & WEST STOKES HIGH SCHOOL NEWS

This whole experience with "Have You Had Enough?" has been an incredible grassroots political adventure for me. I love everything about it-- especially the teamwork. I've always reveled in the team spirit; it's so all-American.

This one started very organically when Firedoglake community member Tummy Yum, who I had never met or spoken to, showed up in June at a Saturday afternoon live blog session we were doing for fellow Tarheel Larry Kissell. Tommy, like so many FDL members, contributed some money for Kissell at our ActBlue Page and since he was one of the first 30 to do so that day, he won an Eric Clapton CD. When he got it in the mail he wrote back and thanked me and introduced himself and said he wanted to do more to help clean up the horrible mess Bush has made of our country. This led to a flurry of e-mails and, not long after, the song, based on an old Squirrel Nut Zippers song, "Put A Lid On It," that Tommy had written when he was in that band, was recorded by Tommy, his old amigo from SNZs, Ken Mosher, and Rickie Lee Jones. All the musicians and producers and engineers were totally cooperative and no one thought of anything except for doing a great job-- and stopping the Bush Regime while there's still time.

Even the studio time was donated! Irwing, a 17 year old who got inspired by Robert Greenwald's new film, Iraq For Sale, ran home right after seeing a screening of the movie and put up a MySpace page for the song. And then Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars and Down With Tyranny community members started getting involved. Christine, one of the most accomplished publicists in the whole country volunteered to do the press; what a relief to not have to explain anything to the person who will be representing the project to the media! And then Jane warned me what a nightmare it could be figuring out which radio stations were most appropriate in each market in, as if by magic, a few hours later, Jacquie e-mailed me and offered to help, being a former media buyer, with the spot placement!

Yesterday, for the first time, I spoke with Mike McIntee, the genius behind the animated clips for the song. Mike is a supporter of Coleen Rowley and he loved the song and put together the clip in his spare time! After people saw the Coleen clip, they started asking Mike to do 'em for other Blue America candidates. Yesterday, John debuted "Time To Throw Pombo Out," the first of the 60-second customized videos to be ready. Starting today we're rolling out clips for several of the Blue America candidates.

Last Saturday, everyone was so impressed with Roger Sharpe that we turned around a customized clip for North Carolina bloggers today. Blue America world premiere:



Meanwhile, Star A. Decise over at the main blog in Connecticut's 5th congressional district, Enigmatic Paradox, has started his own fund-raising efforts to get "Time To Throw Nancy Johnson Out" on the local radio stations. And our pals at Say No To Pombo revved up a new Say No To Pombo My Space page to host the song for CA-11 voters.

People keep coming up with ideas and proposals and it's just absolutely amazing to me. I mean yesterday I saw that student supporters of Roger Sharpe at West Stokes High School put the song up at their school's Young Democrats website.

Air America hosts have been playing the song and even music djs at stations around the country who understand the importance of throwing the rascals out have started playing it where they can. Then today I was informed that the music was one of the top 10 most podcasted songs in the country. And the big guns don't hit until today when iTunes and all of the other commercial download services start offering "Have You Had Enough?" for free (as eMusic already started doing last week).

As I write this just over $5,000, between ActBlue and our Blue America post office box, has been collected to get our customized 60-second spots on the air. Our good friends at MoveOn tell me it takes around $20,000 to "move numbers." I know we're not going to have enough money to put into every worthy raise of the Blue America candidates-- and we won't make a final decision for a few weeks, when we can access if any of the races are close enough that a little help might push them over the finish-line. But we want to get some imput from community members about which candidates you've met at our chats seem most deserving. I'd also like to ask anyone who can afford to, to please consider putting some money into the Blue America PAC at the ActBlue Page. The PAC is used 100% for putting the song on the air and whatever gets collected there doesn't go to any candidates, just to the radio stations. Anyone who doesn't use Blue America, can send a check to Blue America PAC. P.O. Box 27201, L.A., CA 90027.

And, oh by the way, Green Day is getting the Spirit of Liberty Award from People For the American Way at a dinner/party in L.A. on October 10-- just about a month from now. Green Day is one of my favorite bands in the world and I can't wait to go. And what makes it even more exciting is that Ambassador Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame will be speaking. What a party! You want to go? I have an extra pair of tickets-- one for you and one for whomever you want to bring with you. And so easy to win 'em! Just lend a help out at the Blue America PAC today-- this is a one day offer which ends at 12 midnight Pacific Time. Right after midnight I'm going to put all the names of all today's donors in a brown paper bag and when I see Jane in a couple of days I'm going to ask her to pick one name at random. We'll announce the winner here at DWT. Oh, and if you know any Green Day fans... can you let them know too?