Have you ever opened a seldom used drawer and discovered a folded $20? Maybe a suit you wore last fall had something in the pocket. It's called 'found money'. It's kind of like playing a scratch lotto game. You really don't know what to do with the cash so you blow it on something and you feel better.
Well, I found some money a couple of weeks ago and now I need to figure out how to get rid of it.
I thought you'd follow me over the jump with that tease. First, what I found. Back in 2008 I changed brokerages for my employer's stock plan. There was some shares left in the old account that I apparently forgot to transfer. A few weeks ago I was going thru my account information to put some money aside for property taxes and I noticed the old account still had a balance. Neat, I logged on and 'discovered' over 250 shares of stock I had forgotten about. After some smiling and thoughts of buying something silly I realized there was a better use for the money. Donating it to campaigns were it could make a difference. We're not talking huge numbers but $5000 is a nice chunk of change.
Here's where you come in, As I said I want to donate it to races where it can make a difference. But frankly there are too many close races and I don't really know all the candidates that well. To help me decide which races to target I went to Nate Silver's site and found the US House races that were the closest. There were 28 races with less than 4% separating the good from the bad. More than two dozen races where the Democrat in the race could use a push to help keep Pelosi as Speaker of the House. I can't stomach the thought of Speaker Bo... No, I can't even type it.
So what do you need to do? Click your mouse. That's all, for each recommend on the comment for the candidate I'll donate $5.00 to their campaign (to a maximum of $500) until the money is all spent. The candidates ActBlue page, other contribution page, or home page for their campaign site appears in those comments. If you can, please donate your own money. I'm not going to arm twist or coerce you into donating, there's enough of that going on. But remember, Speaker Boe... Now how's that for a scary Halloween story?
One final note. Yes, there are Blue Dogs in the list. You don't have to donate to them but consider their opponent, it could easily be a Tea Party zealot (OK, that might be redundant), and would you rather have the Teahadist or a Blue Dog in that seat? So fellow Kossacks, grab your mice and start clicking!
Update 1 - In less than an hour you've helped me burn thru a quarter of the money. Just over 250 clicks for $1250 in donations! Keep up it!
Update 2 - Well, this is a fine kettle of fish. Not even $2000 has been given away. Come on! Click those mice! Do you all have carpal tunnel syndrome?
Update 3 - We're closing in on $3000. Can you help me blow all of this loot? At least of one of these candidates should make it $500 in donations! Who will it be? Grayson? Grijalva? Kuster? Murphy?
Final Update - The voting is done and the totals calculated. All told I'll be donating $3,480 dollars to these close House races. Thank you to all who participated. And while money is the lubricant of campaigns it's the work of folks knocking on doors, calling voters, and everything else we can do to GOTV that will make the difference come Nov. 2nd.
p.s. I saw that the Big Dog is doing a campaign stop for Tarryl Clark so I threw in some extra for her. Defeating Batsh*t Bachmann would certainly be a great bonus prize!
Colleen Hanabusa (HI-01) | $60 |
Rick Larsen (WA-02) | $100 |
Kurt Shrader (OR-05) | $115 |
Walt Minnick (ID-01) | $110 |
Jerry McNerney (CA-11) | $180 |
Raul Grijalva (AZ-07) | $315 |
Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08) | $95 |
John Salazar (CO-03) | $80 |
Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23) | $100 |
Tarryl Clark (MN-06) | $200 |
Leonard L. Boswell (IA-03) | $65 |
Phil Hare (IL-17) | $80 |
Bill Foster (IL-14) | $70 |
Dan Seals (IL-10) | $185 |
Mark Schauer (MI-07) | $100 |
Gene Taylor (MS-04) | $55 |
Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (GA-02) | $55 |
Ben Chandler (KY-06) | $65 |
Baron Hill (IN-09) | $90 |
Charlie Wilson (OH-06) | $85 |
Alan Grayson (FL-08) | $270 |
Ron Klein (FL-22) | $65 |
Jim Marshall (GA-08) | $50 |
John Spratt (SC-05) | $60 |
Mike McIntyre (NC-07) | $50 |
Larry Kissell (NC-08) | $70 |
Bryan Lentz (PA-07) | $50 |
Patrick J. Murphy (PA-08) | $220 |
Michael Arcuri (NY-24) | $65 |
Ann Kuster (NH-02) | $235 |
Timothy Bishop (NY-01) | $55 |
John Hall (NY-19) | $85 |