I was thinking that we should start fundraising now for those incumbents that we know will be pretty vulnerable in 2006. If we do this now, we'll be able to breathe easier later and go on the offensive against Republicans later.
I would limit it to two or three really good candidates, and we should stretch this out over at least the next six months, beginning in January.
So with that in mind, I say that we should open nominations for who should recieve our help.
I'll start by nominating Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota.
Here's why:
Dayton is in trouble because up until recently, he's had a hard time articulating the issues. But recently, he started hitting his stride, check out some of his issues in the quotes I've included below. I think you'll find a lot of progressive positions that are easy to support
-Dayton on the Federal Marriage Amendment
This political ploy is not about ``saving marriage''; it is about saving politicians' jobs. Thank goodness we have Senator so and so, they will say back home, to save us from the heathen hordes. Thank goodness we have the President saving us, too. We may not have jobs or health care. We cannot afford prescription drugs or gasoline. They are bankrupting the Federal Government with deficits, they are destroying our credibility throughout the world, they made a mess of Iraq, they cannot find weapons of mass destruction or Osama bin Laden or whoever shut down Congress with anthrax or ricin, but they are defending marriage--again and again and again and again. Let's reelect them.
-Dayton on the Omnibus Bill and the Republican agenda, which took funding away from poor Minnesota schoolchildren and gave it to red state porkbarrel projects instead
So much for compassionate conservatism, so much for No Child Left Behind. Those slogans ought to be prosecuted for consumer fraud. They don't tell the truth. Even worse, they are betrayals of our Nation's children, of our neediest children.
Once again, this legislative process has impoverished the truly needy while it enriches the truly greedy.
Poor schoolchildren don't have full-time lobbyists to prowl the Halls of Congress and serve their interests. Poor schoolchildren can't make big campaign contributions to big people who even make bigger contributions to their special projects. Poor schoolchildren have to depend upon us and on the House.
Well, the Senate stood up for poor schoolchildren in Minnesota this year, but the House Republicans let them down in the $388 billion spending bill, a foot and a half of paper. In all that money, the House Republicans cut our funding by $25 million for the poorest kids in Minnesota.
And then they went home.
Well, they should come back on Monday and remove the tax inspection atrocity from this bill. And when they do, they should also correct the terrible injustice they served upon the children of Minnesota.
-Dayton on Bush's Tax Cuts
"Remember that the House of Representatives' package was called 'show business' by the Secretary of the Treasury," Dayton said. "It is a huge bundle of holiday goodies to the people who need them the very least: the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations."
-Dayton has fought tirelessly for lower cost prescription drugs for seniors both in the Congress and by organizing bus trips to Canada for Minnesota seniors (paid for out of his Senate salary, no less). Now there's something novel, a politician who puts his money where his mouth is.
-Dayton is pro-choice, and opposed the partial birth abortion ban passed by Senate Republicans
-Finally, Dayton was a close friend of Paul Wellstone and has tried his best to pick up the flag of the Wellstone agenda. Losing Paul's seat to Coleman was a travesty in and of itself. Losing Dayton's to a Republican like Mark Kennedy would just make it that much worse.
I figure that we can have a major impact on this race. Even if you can only give a few dollars a month, it would pile up over time.
While Minnesota isn't exactly the cheapest Media state in the nation, its not New Jersey or California either.
The Committee to Re-Elect Mark Dayton is US.
http://www.markdayton.org