As I've diaried and commented about before, I live in the 4th District in Washington State. It's a red district, in fact it's the reddest in the whole state.
That being said, it consistently votes 40% Democrat in almost every election. R+10 is too big a margin for the DCCC and party elders to think of investing much in a serious campaign challenge against eight term Congressman Richard "Doc" Hastings, empty suit extraordinaire.
They won't, but that doesn't mean we can't. Besides Doc being a weak candidate (his record of legislative accomplishment over the last 15 years is paper thin), we have a young, former Marine who's just declared his candidacy as a Democrat for the 4th District. Read below the fold for why we should help him out.
For far too long, we have played to the strategy that we can only afford to be competitive in a handful of districts, and should therefore concentrate resources on those key races. Howard Dean's 50 state strategy in 2006 at least partially debunked the myth that most districts and races should be written off due to incumbency return rates.
Not that it's not somewhat true. In this case however, 33 year old Jay Clough, a former Marine who speaks a few different Asian languages, who has lived extensively abroad and plans to run a campaign on job creation and trade ties has a decent shot at unseating Hastings, IF he has adequate campaign funds to do it with.
It'll be tough - a midterm election in an R+10 district where Obama isn't so popular right now. But every dollar we donate to Clough's campaign, every step closer we put him towards being competitive, draws Republican dollars away from other races so that they can defend a seat they have long taken for granted.
Every dollar that goes to Clough makes Republicans nervous, challenges them on their home turf when they would like to go on the offensive. It keeps them off balance. As Dean proved, this is good strategy.
Not to mention, for those of us who have long lived behind Doc's enemy lines, who have been misrepresented for a decade and a half, it allows us to believe we haven't been completely disregarded and forgotten by the other Democrats we campaign and donate to all the time. We deserve better.
The earlier Clough gets this money, the more seriously he'll be taken. The more newspaper interviews he'll get, the more donations will flow in from traditional sources.
Let's moneybomb this guy. An ActBlue fundraising site was set up for him the other day, and six eager souls (OK, this eager soul and five others) generously put almost $600 in his campaign within 24 hours. Can you give $10 a month from now until the election? Can 1000 of us Kossacks do that? If so, that's $100,000 we'll put into his campaign, enough to attract other donors and to buy a decent amount of airtime in the valley.
Whaddya say, Kossacks? Kos? Mcjoan? Help us out here in the 4th District of Washington, and kick Doc Hastings and the Republicans in the shins at the same time.