Terrific news for Annette Taddeo, our brilliant challenger against a Bush rubber-stamp. Taddeo now has full backing of the Democratic Party establishment’s Red to Blue program.
It was leaked out today on Swing State Project, The Politico and the Down with Tyranny blogs. This will mean more funding for her campaign against Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and equal footing with the other Democratic challengers in South Florida, Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez, who have been on the Red to Blue list for some time.
More in the body, cross-posted from Miami-Dade Dems and Florida Progressive Coalition blogs
We in South Florida all can help build momentum in this important race by canvassing for Annette Taddeo, who’s a multiple winner this week – certified also after winning a national contest among progressives to show whose backers would work the hardest.
Thanks to the readers of Miami-Dade Dems, those receiving Democracy For America-Miami-Dade newsletters and others who boosted Taddeo in the Blue America contest among nine progressive candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The idea in the contest was to register an individual’s support for one of the nine candidates by making a donation of as little as $1 to that candidate. Taddeo, who made calls herself to backers asking for a buck (I know, I got one of her calls), came out ahead in this national contest and will receive over $15,000 including a $5,000 matching check from Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The DCCC now also has promoted Annette Taddeo from the category of “Emerging Races” to the fully emerged status of the Red to Blue program. This will call for the long-reluctant Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, FL-20, to become a full backer of Taddeo’s campaign to unseat Ros-Lehtinen, whom Wasserman Schultz has been reluctant to oppose.
This blogger has been writing about this conflict for almost six months, and it will be a great relief to put this chapter behind us and step into a more unified final eight weeks of campaigning.
Here’s a link to the Taddeo campaign site with news of the Blue America win – nothing official yet on the DCCC Red to Blue program – and you can click on the Contribute button and do the right thing.
And a Florida footnote: also among those promoted from “emerging” to Red to Blue is Alan Grayson, the Democratic challenger in FL-08. The incumbent is Rick Keller, who must now think his 53-47 margin in 2006 is looking pretty skimpy. The district is in central Florida including part of Orlando.