Or "Why it’s ‘personal’ for me, too, John"

With every passing weeknight, it gets harder and harder to watch Hardball. In fact, it was playing in the background as I drafted this diary. I’ve become particularly annoyed by Matthews’ Wednesday night segment, "The Big Number". So, imagine my surprise when last night’s big number was "7" and it was related to John Edwards! Could it be?

Now, I’m not a particularly superstitious person but I’m going to have to revisit that belief (or lack thereof). The Edwards supporters here at The Daily Kos have embarked on the daunting task of setting a new single-day fundraisingtally for John Edwards, eclipsing the single day record of $6M currently held by Ron Paul. What’s our magic number? 7...that is, $7Million.

If you can, please donate what you can on Friday, January 18, to help us raise $7Million for John Edwards. You can click here to be taken to the campaign donation page.

Why the number 7 is "personal" for both John Edwards and me, after the jump.

Our "Warrior for Justice", TXSharon, originally reported on this issue. I know that she's overwhelmed with last minute issues running up to 11/7, so I'm going to make an attempt to do her justice in my first diary posting. I'm also expanding significantly on a post by PDiddie from earlier this morning.

Over the weekend the story was picked up by several newspapers and also the Associated Press. Today, the Austin American Statesman finally decided to weigh in on the story, albeit in what I consider to be a highly unusual manner.