Clinton, Edwards and Obama supporters, you've all heard the complaints. You suck, your candidate sucks, and because of all of you, this community sucks.
Well, it's true. All of the pie fights, hit diaries, and the "Iowa/NH/Planet Earth loves my candidate" diaries are keeping us from doing what we said we were here to do - Elect Democrats.
For every diary rec'd about Obama in Iowa, Hillary being swiftboated or Edwards being ignored by the MSM, there is a diary about an election that slides off the list barely noticed.
So what is my f'ing problem and why should you care? Because regardless of which candidate gets elected, they are nothing without Democratic legislative support behind them; support they won't have unless we get the right local, state, and federal candidates elected.
So I have a challenge for Clinton/Edwards/Obama supporters who want to have their debates and still support Democratic ideals right after the jump...
Before I get started on the challenge, a quick preface... Most of you in this thread have probably come across my comments in the same threads that I am calling out, so I expect to get the "you're a hypocrite" comments regardless, but that would be missing the point of this diary.
Since we are distracting from the primary objective of this community- to elect Democrats (plural), we need to make better use of our time. It's not enough just to hang out in and rec the "C/E/O" threads, we need to make sure that every Democratic candidate running for office gets a chance to be heard. And that's why I am challenging all of us to do better.
.........
This is going to be a weekly series posted on Friday mornings (providing it doesn’t roll into oblivion faster than Chris Dodd’s poll numbers ;) ). Once and for all, we are going to decide which candidate is more supportive of Democratic ideals and politics. Is it Edwards with his grassroots support, Obama and his record number of donors and volunteers or Hillary and the traditional Democratic base?
You, my friends, will decide.
The challenge for Clinton, Edwards and Obama supporters is to raise the most for DailyKos-backed candidates over the primary campaign. To make it as fair as possible, there are several contest criteria which should give everyone the opportunity to compete.
Judging will be based on and the following points will be awarded weekly:
Overall money raised: 5 points
Number of overall donors: 5 points
Avg number of donors per candidate: 1 point
Avg donation per candidate: 1 point
Most new donors from previous week: 1 point
Most new donations from previous week: 1 point
Total Pres cand $ higher than other cand combined: -10 points
Each week, I'll be adding up the total scores and announcing which candidate's supporters hold bragging rights for the week.
Here are the new Clinton, Edwards and Obama Kossack ActBlue pages-
Clinton's DailyKos ActBlue page
Edwards' DailyKos ActBlue page
Obama's DailyKos ActBlue page-
And these are the candidates that we are raising funds for:
Tom Allen- ME-Sen- running to unseat the Bush-supporting Susan Collins.
Eric Massa- NY-29, The very definition of a Fighting Dem, Eric has also been a longtime blogger on this board. With the DCCC finally lining up behind him, Eric is going to have change his user name to Congressman Eric Massa in November.
Gilda Reed- LA-01, Gilda is the first chance Southeast Louisiana has had in 30 years to turn Blue. Katrina, polio, and grad school with 7 children in tow have seasoned her into the fighter her people need in Washington.
Jerry Northington- DE-01, DailyKos's beloved possum is working to bring Democracy back to America. When did Liberty become a word only Liberals understand?
Ron Shepston- CA-42, Better known to Kossacks as CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream, Ron and his merry band of Kossacks are fighting to bring honest government to his district and to Washington DC.
Darcy Burner- WA-08, Darcy is back to finish what she started in 2006 and unseat Right-Wing Congressman Dave Reichert.
Barry Welsh- IN-06, Barry is response to any Republican who claims that the GOP is God's Own Party. And this year, Barry will be giving Mike Pence plenty of time off to stroll those Indiana marketplaces in the summertime.
Donna Edwards- MD-04 Proof that this board stands for more than just supporting the Democratic Establishment, Donna has had long-standing support from the DailyKos and other progressive organizations, as she campaigns to take out DC Insider Al Wynn.
Jared Polis- CO-02, Not content for the dog-and-pony show or the glowing reports on Iraq from the White House, longtime Kossack Jared Polis is finding out the truth for himself in order to make an informed opinion on the issue of Iraq. When was the last time our officials stuck out their necks on any issue?
Mark Pera- IL-03, Mark is another great example of the primary process at work. Riding on Daddy's coattails isn't exactly what our Founding Fathers had in mind, but Mark Pera's stand on the issues is.
Dan Seals- IL-10, Dan has hit his stride this campaign, bringing in the endorsements and the fundraising to take out PAC-loving, Arab-fearing incumbent Mark Kirk.
Al Franken- MN-Sen, Seriously, if I have to introduce you to Al Franken....
Dan Maffei- NY-25, A former aide to Sen Moynihan and Congressman Rangel, Dan will make sure that Jim Walsh's support for war-mongering, unitary executives like Rudy Giuliani and George Bush will be his undoing in the next Democratic Congressional wave.
Charlie Brown- CA-04, Another Congressional district in desperate need of cleanup, Charlie is going to make sure that John Doolittle's corruption problems problems get him the boot in 2008.
Harry Taylor- NC-09, As an everyday voter, Harry stood up to President Bush. As the Congressman from North Carolina, Harry will be standing up for all of us.
I know there are so many others, and I apologize for all of those deserving candidates that I didn't include, but these are candidates that we can get behind, if we haven't already. They need our rec's, our support, and most of all, our money. So while we insult our presidential candidates and each other in the Clinton, Edwards, and Obama threads, let's remember why we are hear and support the candidates that we need at all level's of government to promote the Democratic ideals that we all share.
And here are the links to the Kossack Act Blue pages-
Clinton's Kossack ActBlue page
Edwards' Kossack ActBlue page
Obama's Kossack ActBlue page
Let the Clinton/Edwards/Obama DKos challenge begin!
Updated to add the Kossack ActBlue pages since they were kind of the whole point to this diary series, lol...