Only two hours before the quarter ends and the candidate emails diminish by an order of magnitude candidates find out how much money they have to spend on their campaigns going forward. We want our Democratic candidates to win; unfortunately, that takes a lot of money. In order to get their message out, to hire effective staff, to stop opposition messaging before it takes hold, they need resources.
In some cases, we have better Democrats who we want to win their primary so we have a chance to improve the quality of our representation in congress. Jennifer Brunner will be so much better than Lee Fisher in Ohio; ditto for Bill Halter as opposed to Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas.
I've been somewhat lax in my donations so far this year, but it's time to start draining the exchequer helping worthy Democratic candidates this cycle. That means money: and you can make me donate more by ponying up some money yourself. $500.00 is up for grabs, and you get to be grabby over the jump. Hey! Come back with that presidential dollar!
The generosity on Daily Kos has been astounding. In just one example, Adam Bonin (aka Featured Writer Adam B) has raised over $45,000 from Kossacks for his second We've Got Your Back ActBlue page, which raises money for "potentially vulnerable House Democrats" who voted for health care reform. He's hoping to get to $50,000 by midnight.
So I have $500 that I want to give tonight, before the quarter closes at midnight eastern. Between now and 11:55pm EDT, I'll match up to $50 for any candidate donation (max of $250 per donor) on one of the following three pages: Orange to Blue 2010 (Bill Halter), We've Got Your Back, or from my just-created (alphabetical) list, if you have donations you want matched. (Sorry; it's got to be on one of these three ActBlue pages.) Any money left over will go to those candidates on those lists you want me to contribute to (one choice per Kossack). If I'm feeling exceptionally foolish generous, I might go over $500, but I'm trying to be sensible.
There is a moderate amount of overlap between Adam's list and mine; you can donate in either place for dual-listed candidates. I have no ego about my page; as it says there, I set these pages up every two years because it's far more convenient to donate to multiple candidates on a single page than it is to put through multiple donations. Especially tonight, when the minutes count.
I should also take this opportunity to note that the ActBlue servers live in the Eastern time zone. Regardless of where you live, your donation needs to be made before midnight eastern time to be counted as part of the first quarter. It is possible that some of the candidates in other timezones may have set things up to allow them to use their own local time (not yours), but don't count on it. If you want to be sure your donation counts for the current quarter, get your money in before midnight eastern.
Do I have any suggestions? Well, a few.
There's Jennifer Brunner running for senate in Ohio. She's been a fantastic Secretary of State since winning in 2006, and made sure that the state counted all ballots and provided paper trails and equal access to voting. After Blackwell, she was a breath of fresh air, and withstood attacks from the right when she made sure recounts were accurate and fair. You can donate to Jennifer here. I'll match a $100 donation to her tonight from the first person who does so; she'll be so much better than Lee Fisher. (She's the only one who gets to exceed the $50 per person per candidate limit.)
Paul Hodes has been an excellent member of congress since 2006 in NH-02, and now he's running for senate. Taking the seat currently held by Republican Judd Gregg would be a wonderful thing, and Paul will be a great senator. You can donate to Paul here.
Carol Shea-Porter is all kinds of wonderful, and has had hard-fought victories in 2006 and 2008. She also attended Netroots Nation last summer. I cannot say enough good things about her. She's on Adam's page and mine; pick either and give.
There are many others, but I'm out of time. We've Got Your Back has twenty-one House incumbents; my page has five senate candidates, three of whom are trying to take Republican seats, one of whom wants to hold a Democratic seat, and one of whom is an incumbent; and Orange to Blue 2010 has Bill Halter, who's trying to turn Blanche Lincoln's Arkansas senate seat true blue.
The ball's in your court. Or the wallet's in your hand. Just make sure to spend some of what's in my wallet, and we'll all do our bit for Democratic victory in November.
Note: The reason I specified 11:55pm as the deadline for telling me about your donations is that it takes time to put through three donations, and five minutes is cutting it pretty close here to get them all in before midnight.
~~~~~
Donations of top comment nominations were respectable today, and we were still able to match them; since we don't have quarterly Top Comment reporting, there was no last-minute rush to get them in. We always greatly appreciate all those people who take the time to send along their favorites in advance of the 9:30pm Eastern Time deadline. The address of our mailbox for top comments submissions remains:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can send great comments to our address. Be sure to include the direct link to a comment—the URL—which is available from that comment's date/time; we need that to find your choice. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. I say again: both link and username are important; someone today forgot both. If you send a writeup with the link, we are able to include that, too, though we reserve the right to edit if necessary; should you only provide the link, then you have to take whatever writeup we create...and we can be excessively extremely creative. Today, I had matchless moments of creativity.
From ChocolateChris:
There was lots of fun in this diary, but this comment by Bob Johnson beat all the rest.
From KVoimakas:
This comment by Aristodemus submitted for the eloquence used in stating what is the consensus among most of us in the RKBA group.
From rexymeteorite:
Commenter Bill O Rights responded beautifully to a comment I made about Tom Coburn's "Sweetheart deal" at C-Street in La Feminista's diary.
From trashablanca:
In a wildly unnecessary diary, Mr Magu sets it up and rockhound delivers.
From MsGrin:
In the diary Breast Cancer Gene Ruling Underscores Patenting Travesty of Lyme disease organism, davewill has a question about DNA ownership.
From sardonyx (your end-of-quarter diarist):
I like this quote cited by jotter; I hope it is factual rather than fuzzy.
Upon reading banderson's diary Palin tries to fake having a black friend, gets caught, quits, StonyB asks about a proper comparison.
In mcjoan's front-page post HIR Round Two: The Regulatory Fight, Aaron Michael gives us the very useful Regulation Writing 101.
In TheFatLadySings's excellent diary, Morning Feature: Chuck Grassley, "Medicaid Fraud" and the IRS, LI Mike talks about how New York State handles the uninsured and pays safety-net hospitals.
pelagicray points out the difference between the 1774 tea partiers and today's poseurs.
After BarbinMD dings Ret. General John Sheehan for his grossly inaccurate testimony before the senate on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Calouste quotes the Dutch Ministry of Defense on Sheehan, which took no prisoners.
~~~~~
Finally, we have today's top mojo using my revision of the cskendrick-devised mojo-to-Excel process.
First, Top Mojo excluding Cheers and Jeers, miscellaneous cute animals, search-identifiable tip jars, and first diary comments:
1) This one's very personal to me. by RenaRF — 248
2) Rahm Emanuel has done more... by CT Hank — 152
3) "Even handed" hardly comes into this. by Mike S — 149
4) Trying to buy some GOP votes by LaFeminista — 143
5) this is one issue by Turkana — 136
6) My favorite pic from an NYC tea party by MinistryOfTruth — 131
7) Rove Playbook by Puffin — 127
8) Rec'd for the title. Hilarious! n/t by fou — 123
9) Well done mom by icemilkcoffee — 113
10) Next up by johnny71 — 97
11) Our society demeans children and teens by Maggie Pax — 93
12) "I know a colored! You betchya'!" by Bob Johnson — 93
13) I was bullied because of my deafness. by slinkerwink — 88
14) You put this well by eugene — 83
15) Poor, poor Caribou Barbie by googie — 80
16) Torn by d2 at 43rdstateblues — 77
17) The public defender thing maxed my Irony Meter. by briefer — 77
18) I noticed the sign the little girl by ontheleftcoast — 76
19) Born here by JesseCW — 74
20) And yet by eugene — 72
21) I cant be evenhanded by LaFeminista — 72
22) thx for the legwork on the drilling quotes by NamelessGenXer — 71
23) Your story by dew — 70
24) I really don't want to talk about this by Moody Loner — 67
25) I told my daughters that... by QuestionAuthority — 67
26) My point stands by CT Hank — 67
27) Compare and contrast these images by blue aardvark — 66
28) This describes my take well: by bethcf4p — 66
29) President Obama is the Great Pre-Compromiser by slinkerwink — 66
30) Agreed by Zurvan — 64
31) Funny. But you know LL's been acting for by publicv — 64
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) Tip Jar by banderson — 527
2) Tip Jar by RenaRF — 503
3) Tip Jar by thealater — 499
4) Tip Jar by elishastephens — 418
5) Tips for Fighting HATE, FEAR and LIES by MinistryOfTruth — 360
6) I'm trying to be evenhanded, but it's hard by RLMiller — 323
7) Tip Jar by indiemcemopants — 320
8) Tip Jar by blackwaterdog — 274
9) A long geeky diary. by TheFatLadySings — 254
10) This one's very personal to me. by RenaRF — 248
11) Tip jar by NLinStPaul — 181
12) Perhaps this is not how to start another day by teacherken — 156
13) Rahm Emanuel has done more... by CT Hank — 152
14) "Even handed" hardly comes into this. by Mike S — 149
15) Trying to buy some GOP votes by LaFeminista — 143
16) this is one issue by Turkana — 136
17) Hat Tip goes to Oke for finding this article by navajo — 131
18) My favorite pic from an NYC tea party by MinistryOfTruth — 131
19) Rove Playbook by Puffin — 127
20) Rec'd for the title. Hilarious! n/t by fou — 123
21) Tip Jar by FrankCornish — 114
22) Well done mom by icemilkcoffee — 113
23) Tips for love. by StateOfGrace — 102
24) Next up by johnny71 — 97
25) It would just be better if all Republicans by Colorado is the Shiznit — 94
26) Our society demeans children and teens by Maggie Pax — 93
27) "I know a colored! You betchya'!" by Bob Johnson — 93
28) I was bullied because of my deafness. by slinkerwink — 88
29) You put this well by eugene — 83
30) Propinas (tips) by Deoliver47 — 83
© sardonyx; all rights reserved
All quotes are the property of the original authors or the websites that held them