I call on people here not to give money to any of our fine presidential candidates during primary season. This money will be used for the candidates to tear each other down. Most it will be wasted. Think of the $50 million+ in small donations Howard Dean blew through even before Iowa in 2004. Imagine if the 50 closest challangers in 2006 congressional races had $1 million each, and you will see the tragedy of small democratic donors giving way to much to presidential primary campaigns.
While I have my reservations about Obama (see past diaries), and lean towards either Edwards or Hillary, all of them would make incredible Presidents. So would Richardson, Dodd, and even Kucinich.
Save your money for the general!
Moreover, your money would likely be wasted. Even Obama, who got the most small donations, still got the vast majority of his money from big donors. The grassroots will never have much a say in the presidential process until we have public funding of campaigns. Every one of the major presidential candidates have DC establishment consultants on staff. Let's not pay their salaries.
If you want to donate some money to Democrats now, donate it vulnerable freshmen Democrats so they have enough money to scare their strongest potential challangers, to those that already are going to face tough races, and to those who lost closely in 2006. $20 given to Nancy Boyda, John Hall, Charlie Brown, Ciro Rodriguez, or Heath Shuler would do more to advance the progressive agenda than $2000 to your favorite candidate for president.
This same reasoning applies to contested Senate races like Al Franken v Mike Cerisi. Both would beat Norm Coleman in the general and make awesome Senators, and neither needs your money in the primary.
If you are really concerned about moving our party to the left, the single best use of your money, in my opinion, is to mount challanges to some of the corporate sell-outs representing majority-black districts.
Here is an excellent report listing some of the corporate sellouts in the CBC:
A short summary:
Aside from the catastrophic Caucus collapse on the telecom industry's COPE bill, during the first half of 2006 twelve Black lawmakers revealed themselves as less than dependable stewards of their constituents' interests, to downright sellouts to corporate power, by voting with Republicans on key legislation. Beginning with the most egregious offenders, they are: Harold Ford (TN), William Jefferson (LA), Sanford Bishop (GA), Bennie Thompson (MS), Albert Wynn (MD), Edolphus Towns (NY), Gregory Meeks (NY), Artur Davis (AL), William Clay (MO), Bennie Thompson (MS), G.K. Butterfield (NC), and Bobby Rush (IL).
We came very close to knocking off Jefferson and Wynn last year. Money donated toward this goal will be 1000 times more effective than donations to the presidential candidates that will go 10% to political consultants and 85% to run dreary and mostly ignored TV adds to Boston (for NH) and Iowa.
Liberal primary challangers in CBC districts have absolutely no way to get any corporate or big money donors. These are the people who need your help. These are the people who will use your money to identify new black progressive voters, get them registered, and get them into the habit of voting.
Donna Edwards lost her primary race by only 49 to 46%. She's running again. Hopefully her near upset will embolden others. Let's save our money for these types of races.