Next Time I Give, I'd Appreciate Some Candor

OK...I did the "right thing."  I dug down and contributed to candidates I believed in...candidates who were challenging the status quo....candidates who were battling entrenched DINOs and who clearly needed help from small contributors to get things rolling.

I pulled my automatic contributions to the Democratic Bond fund after I watched the party march in lockstep with bush on continuing the war, FISA rape, habeas corpus and on and on and diverted those funds to selected candidates.

And just what did I get for my money?

So far, it seems, not a great deal.  Lipinski was a walkover in suburban Chicago against Mark Pera and it appears Donna Edwards did better but still failed to unseat incumbent Wynn in Baltimore.

OK...I accept the challenges of overcoming incumbency and the power that comes with it, including the power to call on party bigwigs like Pelosi to come campaign for you and raise funds even though everything you have done for the past X years has been a violation of what the party is supposed to stand for.

OK...I accept that it was a gamble and I was backing an underdog.

But what I don't accept is that after I gave my modest contribution, as the campaign drew closer to election day, I began to ask pointed questions about how those candidates were doing and all I got was....silence.  Oh I could find someone who could tell me an "anecdote" about how someone said they were switching their vote after a canvasser talked to them, but when I asked repeatedly for hard polling data....nothing.   If there was any response it was that there hadn't been any polling and that was plainly and simply nonsense.  I don't care who you are today.  If you are running a serious campaign for Congressional office you ARE polling from start to finish.  If you aren't, how can you possibly know whether your message is working.

And as soon as I began to get no response to my questions, it became pretty clear that things were not going well....but nobody had the decency to say so.

Ok...so you need to maintain a charade...fine.  But I stood up and contributed and I am disappointed that those to whom I gave my trust couldn't be honest in return.