Today at 5pm EDT, Democracy For Action will close voting for their
Grassroots All-Star Campaign. This is your last chance to vote for Jerry McNerney -- the progressive hero who is on the verge of pulling off a major upset in the 2006 election by booting out powerful anti-environmental extremist Richard Pombo (CA-11). Pombo is House Resources chair, vice-chair of Agriculture (soon to be chair), and is Assistant Minority Whip -- thanks to his mentor, Tom DeLay. He's a powerful, corrupt, vile target, and we need to defeat him in 2006.
If McNerney wins the DFA competition, he will receive DFA's endorsement and DFA will send a fundraising message for him to over 500,000 potential supporters.
There are rumors that since the DCCC's candidate in CA-11 (Steve Filson) did not win the primary, the DCCC is not giving Jerry the backing he needs, even though a recent Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research poll shows Jerry leading Pombo 46 to 42 percent. Also Pombo's pockets are overflowing with money from exploitive industries like mining, oil, natural gas, logging, fishing, etc., -- enough money that Pombo recently sent out a recruitment letter that indicates he plans to spend almost $450,000 to send campaign workers door-to-door to campaign for him.
If you'd like to learn more about the candidates in the DFA contest, read Land of Enchantment's excellent diary summing them up. And as he points out, because of the Instant Runoff feature built into the DFA election, simply being in first place does not guarantee a victory. In fact, the folks at the Say No to Pombo blog are suggesting that if you really want to help McNerney, vote only for him and no one else.
You can read McNerney's bio on the Blog for America site. Notice that Jerry was a Dean Dozen candidate in 2004, and he has a son in the Air Force who urged him to run against Pombo. Also, Tracy Joan just posted a diary Q&A with McNerney.
Finally there is one more competition where you can help McNerney: Go over to Mark Warner's Forward Together site where you can vote for McNerney in their MapChangers competition. If Jerry wins, Forward Together will cut a $5,000 check to his campaign and advance him to the final round. Grand prize is a major fundraiser hosted by Mark Warner.
Why should you do all this for Jerry McNerney? Because he is a wind engineer and proud progressive who will not only help his district "become the 'Silicon Valley' of renewable energy," but will also help the House move away from the destructive, criminal, anti-American activities that Richard Pombo promotes every day he is in Congress.
Pombo has tried to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. He has tried to revive commercial whaling, and tried to sell off our national parks, national forests, and BLM land. He has shot down global warming legislation, weakened the Clean Air Act, weakened the Clean Water Act, and weakened EPA enforcement. And he has tried to open up our beaches and Arctic Refuge to oil drilling.
In fact this week, Pombo has offered an amendment (H.R. 4075) to the Marine Mammal Protection Act that will permanently kill the Zero Mortality Rate Goal and lead to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of dolphins and whales.
In addition, he has ties to Abramoff, he has manipulated legislation to benefit his family's holdings, he has taken expensive trips illegally paid for by private anti-environmental organizations, and most recently he let American taxpayers foot the bill so he and his family could tour our national parks in an RV -- the same parks he has worked to open up to ORV users and corporate exploitation.
Pombo does not represent the interests of CA-11 nor does he represent the interests of the majority of responsible Americans. He must be defeated in 2006, and we've never been closer to booting him out.
So go vote for McNerney today, and if you want to help even more, go to McNerney's website and make your own donation to his campaign. And thanks!