A couple of weeks ago, throwback incumbent Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma questioned whether Barack Obama really loves his country. The remark was so beyond the pale that Daily Kos readers responded enthusiastically to the challenge of punishing Inhofe by donating to his terrific opponent, Orange to Blue candidate Andrew Rice, in a fun Saturday night fundraising post.
The result: We raised around $12,000 for Rice in that one evening.
The unexpected success of that spur-of-the-moment effort has made us want to try the process again. this time with more community input, in a new feature we hope to run here on Saturday nights, that we will call ... Hell to Pay. The premise will be that every week, the winger opponents of our Orange to Blue candidates will have proven themselves unable to have gone a whole seven days without saying or doing something so egregious that civilized people will retch at the result--and we'll actually have fun smacking these people down by opening our wallets to our own candidates.
The community input part starts here. We need you folks on the ground to nominate one of our Orange to Blue candidates for fundraising tomorrow night, based on how awful the opponent has proven to be the previous week. Smears, slams, distortions, votes, ads ... let us know what they are. I'll start if off with three, but we need other nominations in the comments. After gathering the info, I'll post a thread with a poll this evening so we all can decide as a community who to fund tomorrow night.
To get things rolling, here are some nominations:
- A contender for most misleading, smearing ad: Tom McClintock's latest claims to show Charlie Brown, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, in uniform at a political event -- which would be a breach of rules, if true. Problem being, if you look at the video, Brown does not actually appear to be in uniform. The ad further claims Brown wore this non-uniform to watch a soldier being hung in effigy, a phrase that implies American troops were demonized. Instead, a glance at the video shows an event protesting deaths of soldiers due to Bush's lies. Pretty nervy of McClintock's campaign, relying on people to see what the voiceover tells them they're seeing and not what's there.
- Yes, Inhofe. At it again. At this rate, Andrew Rice is going to lock the Saturday night fundraising down from now until the election. This week's foul play: Inhofe released an ad which, according to AP, "contains anti-gay overtones, showing a wedding cake topped by two plastic grooms and a photo of the Democratic candidate as a young man, curly haired and wearing a leather jacket."
Rice said the negative ads against him show he is doing better in the race than some think.
Inhofe said he is not taking any chances. He said he is not worried about Rice, but is concerned he will be attacked by "the Hollywood crowd" for his views, including his stand that global warming is a hoax.
- While no immediate specific violation in the past seven days comes to mind, Dennis Shulman's induction onto the Orange to Blue roster scrolled down and out of sight on a busy news day this past week. Shulman, who has a remarkable personal story of his own, is taking on Scott Garrett in NJ-05:
Garrett, the New Yorker informs us, has "the most conservative voting record of any member of the House from the Northeast" - and by a good margin, to boot. Indeed, his Progressive Punch score for the current Congress ranks him at 388; the next-closest member from the Mid-Atlantic, New England or Chesapeake border states is fifty spots higher.
Now it's your turn, Kossacks! Check out the Orange to Blue line-up and nominate one of our candidates for Saturday night fundraising, based on what he or she faced from the shitstorm of the other side this week (provide links so we all can see outrage first-hand). Make your case and we'll include it in a poll this evening, letting the community decide who we should raise money for tomorrow night.
(And while you're over there checking out the candidates, you can always throw some change their way today too ....)
Update: Just to clarify ... the Saturday night fundraising posts will be for Orange to Blue candidates. Check the link to see if who you're nominating is an O2B candidate.