I'm very pleased to let you know that Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak, candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, will join us at Senate Guru tomorrow, Thursday September 10, at 5pm Eastern Time for a live blog session. I'm sure he will update us on how his campaign is going, discuss a variety of issues, offer his thoughts in response to tonight's Presidential address on health care reform, and, of course, field your questions.
I hope you will be able to join us for the first candidate liveblog session of the 2010 cycle at Senate Guru. Bring your questions for Congressman Sestak and invite your political junkie friends to join us. (And, if you're really excited for the conversation, support Congressman Sestak with a contribution via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page.)
Right now, 14,000 people are losing their health care coverage every day because our costs are skyrocketing. Meanwhile, too many politicians in Washington, who seem to be ignoring the lessons from Wall Street, would rather leave our health insurance reform up to the insurance companies. No matter what the final bill looks like, we deserve to know how our Representatives and Senators will vote on a public option - up or down!
As many of you know, over the last five days, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, in partnership with a number of progressive organizations and blogs including Senate Guru, asked those in the netroots, "Should a Draft Sestak movement be created to take on Sen. Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary?"
The results are in and they are overwhelming. 85% of Pennsylvanian respondents and 86% of respondents nationally want Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak to challenge Arlen Specter in the 2010 Democratic Senate primary. The poll has even gotten the attention of Congressman Sestak, as the PCCC points out:
"I am honored that so many of you took the time to vote in the recent grassroots Straw Poll. Let me tell you, I and many others were paying attention. If I decide to run it will be in large measure because of the grassroots energy of so many people like you. Until I and my family make that decision, please accept my thanks and my best wishes as you continue be active participants in our people-powered democracy. Thank you so very much!"
Due to such an overwhelming response, a Draft Sestak Fund has been created on ActBlue. To contribute and further encourage Congressman Sestak to enter the race, click on the image below:
If you need any additional motivation to contribute to this effort to draft a real Democrat to oppose Specter in the primary, consider Specter's actions since announcing his Party switch:
1) Specter opposed the Obama budget.
2) Specter opposed the "cramdown" mortgage/bankruptcy reform, siding with banks over families.
3) Specter reiterated his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.
4) Specter reiterated his opposition to President Obama's nomination of Dawn Johnsen to the Office of Legal Counsel.
5) Specter announced his support for Republican Norm Coleman over Democratic Senator-elect Al Franken in Minnesota's Senate race.
6) Specter promoted a website that appeared to raise money for cancer research but, in actuality, simply raised money for his campaign.
7) Specter denied reports that he told President Obama that he would be a "loyal Democrat" despite multiple reporters sticking to their story.
The netroots have displayed overwhelming support for Congressman Sestak to take on recently-Republican Arlen Specter. Help the effort by contributing to the Draft Sestak Fund.
(While Chris Myers whines about bloggers, John Adler's campaign focuses on building a volunteer base for what will undoubtedly be one of the best field operations in the country. - promoted by Scott in NJ)
(While Chris Myers whines about bloggers, John Adler's campaign focuses on building a volunteer base for what will undoubtedly be one of the best field operations in the country. - promoted by Scott Weingart)
Did you know we passed a milestone this weekend?
Just yesterday -- Saturday -- marked 100 days until election day in November.
At the Adler Campaign we marked the occasion with a "mobilize for change day."
That meant dozens and dozens and dozens of volunteers pounding the pavement and manning the phones for John Adler (and Barack Obama.)
Chris Myers is the GOP candidate in NJ-3rd Congressional district. Given his lackluster fundraising thus far, you can forgive him for being a little cranky. But his outright contempt for the progressive Netroots even caught me by surprise.
Myers seeks to trivialize the Netroots as:
Radical, liberal bloggers who spew angry partisan tirades from the safety of their home computer.
Myers is peeved at his Democratic rival John Adler's description of bloggers as "citizen soldiers in terms of activism" in the video below.
Myers goes on:
"These radical liberal bloggers are in no way, shape or form "soldiers," and referring to them in that way is an affront to the brave men and women in uniform fighting to defend our freedoms around the globe."
Myers singles out dKos and BlueJersey by name which is particularly rich since the founder of Daily Kos is a Veteran and BlueJersey had a Vets voice on the front page since day one!
Myers thinks we're a bunch of unpatriotic pajama warriors, huh? So much for free political speech, right Chris?
Let's all show Chris Myers what we're really about and send him a punitive shout out at the same time by donating to Adler on ActBlue.
Feel free to crosspost far and wide. I know I will!
"They are the new journalists, they are the new citizen soldiers in terms of activism, in terms of the spreading of information, the sharing of ideas... They're such fantastic people, they're good caring Democrats that really want to move our country forward," Adler explains on the video.
The Myers campaign sent out a press release attacking Adler saying he offended troops, veterans and just about anyone else breathing by praising the netroots. Apparently they think our soldiers and veterans will confuse his support for us with a lack of support for them, not like Myers would ever give Adler credit for supporting the troops in the first place. Nonetheless, they went on with the attack saying this:
Chris Russell, campaign manager for Myers, said the video shows Adler is out
of touch with the people of the 3rd District
"They are the new citizen soliders in terms of activism"
--Adler on Bloggers
New Jersey has one of the most robust Netroots communities in all the land. We also have several Congressional seats in play this November. Happy coincidence?
It was awesome to win back Congress in 2006 but none of that red-to-blue action took place where WE live. Hopefully that's all about to change.
When John Adler announced his run for NJ's 3rd Congressional seat, he had a lot of bloggers (self included) urging him on.
Fast forward to present day, and Adler finds himself in a battle royal to flip this seat and send a Democrat to Washington to represent NJ-3.
Of course, Adler is not the only seat that New Jersey may "flip" this November. Linda Stender is a co-favorite in NJ-7 and Dennis Shulman continues to surge way up in North Jersey. Even Josh Zeitz is turning heads with his thoughtful message and impressive fundraising.
If 2006 was the era of "horseradish on melba toast" then 2008 is all about milk and honey. Jersey style.
MoveOn.org will endorse Barack Obama after their members picked him over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 70.4% to 29.6%. [MoveOn email]:
Something big is clearly happening. A few weeks ago, MoveOn members we surveyed were split. But with John Edwards bowing out, progressives are coming together. [...]
To be clear, we won't always agree with all of Obama's positions. And MoveOn members said overwhelmingly that, regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, we'll work hard to win the White House in 2008. Whatever happens in the primary, we'll push the Democratic nominee to campaign progressively and then we'll push them to fulfill their promises after they win.
MoveOn tells Blue Jersey that they have over 88,000 members in New Jersey alone.
Last week Congressman Mike Ferguson, the Rep. from NJ7 who loved Tom DeLay and worshiped embryos, announced that at age 38 he was retiring from Congress after four terms. His stated reason was to spend more time with his family, but suspicions have been raised that it was either an emerging sex scandal or the upcoming brutal campaign against Linda Stender that pushed him out.
Others suggested that a blog I mostly wrote, called Dump Mike, was a primary reason. Matt Stoller over at Open Left wrote:
The first candidate-centric blog I ever saw was DumpMike.com, targeting Ferguson (congrats, you did it). There were many times when Ferguson was embarrassed by the site, but my favorite post was when DumpMike caught Ferguson with a whites-only website.
For five straight months, John Edwards has killed the entire Democratic field in the Blue Jersey straw poll. That's great news for those of us who support John Edwards, but it isn't going to do a single thing about making him the next President of the United States.
New Jersey moved its primary forward so we would have a say in determining the Presidential candidates - but this primary looks to be over fairly quickly at the turn of the year. It's time to get serious about putting the best Democrat forward and that means organizing, fundraising, and educating people about the '08 Presidential race.
(Stender is taking the campaign to Ferguson. Help her out! - promoted by huntsu)
I want to thank the netroots for being so generous to me and my campaign. In the last week the Netroots endorsement alone raised more than $7,000 from more than 400 people. That's amazing! I keep telling our volunteers that it doesn't take a lot from any one person, but it takes a little from everyone. This is a perfect example of that message.
New Jersey's 7th district is a hard nut to crack for a Democrat. We've been trying for quite a few years, and redistricting in 2001 didn't make it any easier for us. Our campaign knows that we are going to get out-spent by Mike Ferguson, but there is no way we are going to get out-worked.
In addition to the netroots pushing our message on the blogs and raising money for us (almost $20K now on ActBlue alone!), we have a team of grassroots volunteers making calls, going door-to-door, writing letters to the editor and basically working their tails off every day of the week. It is a powerful combination that will, I believe, spell victory on November 7.
UPDATE: With 5 minutes to go before the midnight deadline, can you help get Stender up over $16,000 total raised from Netroots? Toteboard's at $15,964.54... right... this... second...
Midnight + 2 minutes: Banged that right out: $16,000.10!VERY pretty.Didn't get in on the action in time? Blue Jersey's $5 Friday is just 2 days away...
If you're up late tonight, you can help Linda Stender pay for a few more radio spots to fight back against Mike Ferguson's mind-numbingly stupid Stender is a Spender ads.
MyDD, Daily Kos and Swing State Project are clocking down the last few minutes of a wild pre-Labor Day fundraising drive for all their Netroots-endorsed candidates. And that includes Stender. She's picked up an amazing $6,432.82 raised, 354 new donors. That was at the 9:10pm update. The number jumped $40 just since I started writing this.
Toteboard says $15,683.39 at 10:38pm with 82 minutes till midnight
.
The Netroots fundraiser ends at midnight tonight. There's still time to get in it, my sleepless political junkies.
Inspired by the book Crashing the Gates, bloggers from the dailykos will travel the country to film net/grassroots activities in support of netroots supported candidates. They list Linda Stender's campaign in the 7thCD as one of the destinations and are asking for local bloggers assistance.
"CRASHING THE STATES: The Netroots in Action" will be both a documentary feature film, and an interactive journey into the heart of netroots campaigns across America.
The first thing we need is your participation. This project isn't about the two of us visiting campaigns; this project is about you, the netroots--and it's not going to be nearly as exciting without you. We'll be announcing our arrival at each of these locations ahead of time, and WE NEED YOU TO SHOW UP! Volunteer with us, show us around the community, blog with us. Introduce us to the local bloggers. Let us interview you. Flex your netroots power on film.
If you're interested in being a fellow "statecrasher"--even if it's just showing up at a campaign office for a few hours--email us at statecrasher@crashingthestates.com.
Local blogs are where all the action is. Even with a state-level site like Blue Jersey with multiple people blogging simultaneously, it's impossible for us to cover everything going on. That's where even more local blogs, like Dump Mike, come in. Dump Mike was the first district-level blog in the entire country and it's effect has been profound. It's because of Dump Mike, Blue Jersey and the local netroots support in place that Linda Stender was recently endorsed as a netroots candidate by national-level blogs, who since they can't possibly follow every race in the country, take their cue from the local netroots in each state. Because of that endorsement just a few days ago, 328 donors have contributed over $5000 to her campaign (you still have a few hours to make a contribution before the end of the quarter).
That's why I was excited to learn today of the newest district-level New Jersey blog, Retire Garrett:
Scott Garrett has made a mockery of the term, Representative. Radical Republican Scott Garrett is a danger to our country and does not represent the mainstream, sensible, and compassionate views of the people of the 5th district of New Jersey. This blog, which I have started, is dedicated to defeating Scott Garrett for reelection in 2006 and electing Paul Aronsohn our next Congressman.
We'll be keeping an eye on Retire Garrett throughout the campaign and we've added the link to our blogroll, too. If your town/county/district isn't being covered anywhere, why not set up your own free blog? Let us know about it so we can link to you. If you don't want to run your own blog, you can write about it in the diaries here. Whatever you do, don't underestimate the importance of local blogs.
Thank you all so much for your support. Thanks to the BlueJersey community’s faith in my campaign, and to a larger extent, in me, I have received the Netroots endorsement from MyDD, dKos, and Swing State Project. Thanks to your lobbying on my behalf, you have raised awareness of my campaign to a national level, and turned the eyes of progressive activists across the country into District 7. Thank you. I will not let you down.
This endorsement comes on the heels of so many other endorsements we have received (the full list can be found at my website), but this endorsement is unique. This is not an endorsement from a single-issue group, or an organized labor group, but a real grassroots effort. Your commitment to my campaign is proof that the netroots are effective organizers, and have the ability to impact campaigns in an entirely new way.
While this endorsement is sure to bring grassroots support into my district, it means so much more than that to me. What you have done is to propel my campaign into the national spotlight, garnering attention from the national progressive community, print media, television, and radio, which is something that money just can’t buy.
I am confident that with your help, we can defeat Mike Ferguson this fall. It’s this sort of connectivity and word-of-mouth communication that will enable us to change Washington for the better, and I can’t express how much this means to me.
I will continue to keep an open dialogue with you all. While you may not hear from me every single day, one thing you can be sure of is that I am listening. Call, write, or email me anytime; my campaign is YOUR campaign, and together, we can win in November.
The New Jersey netroots - including Blue Jersey, Dump Mike, Blue7th PAC, Blanton's and Ashton's, The Center of NJ Life and others, have been supporting Linda Stender's candidacy for months. Partly due to this local base of support, Linda yesterday became the latest candidate to earn a spot on the national Netroots ActBlue page, a site maintained by Daily Kos, MyDD and Swing State Project. All three blogs asked readers to nominate candidates, who were chosen based on numerous criteria (and hey - #4 uses Blue Jersey as an example!). The following list of characteristics were considered favorable, though not required:
The candidate has a strong record as a Democrat.
The Republican opponent is an easy target. (Think Tom DeLay or Curt Weldon.)
The candidate is running in a blue-leaning district or state.
There's a strong netroots presence in the area. (Example: BlueJersey in NJ.) Our ability to make a difference is strongly impacted by the quality of our information flow.
The campaign itself has shown an interest in grassroots & netroots outreach.
The race fits into a larger strategy or theme (eg, Northeast Strategy, Culture of Corruption, etc.), or can in some way be "nationalized."
House races are strongly preferred. Non-federal races (such as state legislature seats) will also be considered. Again, as per the above, we can have a bigger impact in smaller races.
It's easy to see how Linda's campaign is nearly a perfect fit for all these criteria, but the most impressive part is the candidate herself. She is a proven leader with 20 years of service to the public, having served as councilwoman, mayor, freeholder and Assemblywoman.
Linda is a strong candidate and a self-described progressive. Her campaign has already out-raised the two previous challengers combined and she's attracted the endorsements of EMILY's List, John Kerry's PAC, DFA, Sierra Club, AFL-CIO and others. Bush's "invented war" was the motivation for her candidacy and she's not afraid to say that "Bush took us to Iraq on a lie."
The contrast between Linda Stender and Mike Ferguson, who took over $54,000 from Tom DeLay and his PAC, is stark. Linda has been a strong advocate for stem cell research. Mike Ferguson opposes it. When Ann Coulter attacked the Jersey Girls - the widows who lost their husbands on 9/11 - Linda Stender didn't hesitate to respond to her hate-filled bile, while Mike Ferguson remained silent. Linda Stender supports net neutrality. Mike Ferguson votes against it and co-sponsored the telecom bill which lacks protections for it.
All the pundits agree that the district is in play, and Linda represents the best shot at electing a much-needed Congresswoman from New Jersey. The timing of this endorsement is perfect - Linda's campaign continues to build momentum, and with the June 30th filing deadline for the quarter just days away, there's no better time to give than now. Contribute through Blue Jersey's ActBlue page or the Netroots ActBlue page. This is when it counts, so don't wait until next week.
