Three for your money - Powers, Northington and Welsh

Federal candidates are making a push for funds by the end of the month.   You will see many diaries asking for financial assistance.  I want to use my diary today to urge you to support three, all of whom have a connection with dailykos. Two still have primaries, and th third, running for the 2nd time, has a race that is winnable if only he can get sufficient funds.

Jon Powers faces a self-funding multimillionaire who lost the race last time.

Jerry Northington is our very own possum, longtime participant at dailykos

Barry Welsh is taking his second run at a now very vulnerable Mike Pence in Indiana.

Let me tell just a bit about each.

Jon Powers is, like me, someone who has taught social studies.   He is a veteran of Iraq.  His primary opponent, Jack Davis, who was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate in the 26th CD in NY in 2006, just won a Supreme Court decision which overturned the millionaire's exception on campaign finance.  That means Jon remains limited to 2,300 per contributor in the primary while Davis can flood the airwaves.  Had Davis been a stronger candidate he would have won the seat last time.  Further, Jon is committed to the netroots.  On his website you can read about troops who served with Jon in Iraq and are supporting, that he has the support of the building trades council, that he is working together with two good candidates who ran last time  Dan Maffei and Eric Massa.  Those who were at Netroots Nation in Austin got to meet Jon, who while there spent time helping pack the care packages for the troops.  

Possum, aka Jerry Northington, is a Vietnam veteran who is a veterinarian.  He has been endorsed by the Progressive Democrats of Delaware.  If we help him get the nomination, he will be running in the most heavily Democratic congressional district currently represented by a Republican, and would have a real shot with Obama running so strongly of picking off this seat, something that might become even more likely were Biden the VP pick or likely Secretary of State.  Delaware is heavily Democratic, and Jerry is very much one of our own.  He is one of the original voices at Never in Our Names, and would be a strong respresentative of progressive democratic values.

Barry Welsh came to Yearlykos last year.  For those who don't know, in 2004 the Democratic candidate got only 28@ of the vote against Mike Pence.  Last cycle Barry, a Methodist minister and former radio show host, had no headquarters, had only $50,000 while Pence spent 1.5 million, and raised the Democratic share to over 40%.  While that might still seem like a longshot, consider this:  in that general election Barry got 73,000 votes.  In the May primary he got 94,000, more than twice as many as voted in that primary for Pence.  Barry has said that his target vote count to win the district is 127,000.  Pence was part of the McCain trip to the Baghdad market, you know, the one with the 100+ troops and the helicopters overhead.  Pence said upon his return that it was like being in a farmer's market in Indiana.  That made him a bit of a joke.  In the meantime, when a registrar assaulted a reporter at the close of registration for the primary, Barry intervened to save the reporter, himself getting injured, and got a lot of positive press coverage as a result.  I have heard from sources in Indiana that Barry is already running close to even with Pence, who is under the magic 50% reelect number.  Barry proved last time he does not need a lot of money to be competitive.

I know there are many requests for your money, as there are for mine.  Even if it is only nominal, please, please, consider making donations to each of these three worthy candidates.  We will need every vote we can get in the House (and also in the Senate) to help repair the damage done in the Bush administration.

I thank you in advance for your cooperation.

UPDATE:  per a request from lava20 in the comments, here are the Act Blue links:

Jerry Northington

Jon Powers

Barry Welsh