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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Boxer's PAC Wants to Know Whom to Support

Posted by DavidNYC

Sen. Barbara Boxer is doing exactly what every safe, flush incumbent should be doing: She's putting her resources to work to help raise money for those who need it. What I like is that Boxer isn't simply having her PAC make a donation (which would be capped at $5K), but rather she's asking her community of supporters to contribute as well. The best part is, she's asking for our vote. You get to pick ONE House incumbent and ONE House challenger. And man, it's a tough choice! First, the incumbents:

Rep. John Salazar (CO-3)
Rep. Jim Marshall (GA-8)
Rep. John Barrow (GA-12)
Rep. Leonard Boswell (IA-3)
Rep. Melissa Bean (IL-8)
Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA-3)
Rep. John Spratt (SC-5)
Rep. Stephanie Herseth (SD-AL)
Rep. Chet Edwards (TX-17)
Rep. Rick Larsen (WA-2)

Hard to pick on this list. I'd say Boswell probably needs the cash most, perhaps followed by Jim Marshall. In terms of pure vulnerability, I feel like Edwards is most at-risk. Herseth, meanwhile, has a total nobody for a challenger. Now for the challengers:

Harry Mitchell (AZ-5)
Francine Busby (CA-50)
Joe Courtney (CT-2)
Diane Farrell (CT-4)
Ron Klein (FL-22)
Tammy Duckworth (IL-6)
Brad Ellsworth (IN-8)
Baron Hill (IN-9)
Heath Shuler (NC-11)
Patsy Madrid (NM-1)
Eric Massa (NY-29)
Charlie Wilson (OH-6)
Lois Murphy (PA-6)
Joe Sestak (PA-7)
Nick Lampson (TX-22)
Peter Welch (VT-AL)

This list obviously has most of the excellent races and is also tough to choose from. However, I'm gonna use a somewhat different metric here, which is one you've seen me use before: Marginal effect. That is, where are our dollars likely to go the farthest? For races where challengers have already raised a million dollars, clearly we can have less of an effect. In "cheaper" races, by contrast, we can have a much greater impact.

I think the lowest-dollar races on this list is Eric Massa in NY-29 - he's raised in the low six-figures. Most of these challengers have actually already raised over a million dollars (Lampson's raised over two). Those who haven't include Harry Mitchell (who got a late start), Joe Sestak (same), Joe Courtney, Heath Shuler, Brad Ellsworth and Peter Welch. Charlie Wilson hasn't, either, but with his primary situation still totally up in the air, I can't advise voting for him. And I'm not sure about Baron Hill - I can't seem to find his totals on the FEC site. Of course, Francine Busby ($1.5M so far), unlike the rest of these folks, faces her next election in little over a month (not counting any primaries).

I think it'd be pretty hard to choose wrong on this list - almost all of these people are good candidates. And regardless of how much they've got in the bank, I'm sure every campaign would appreciate some more help. So go vote.

Posted at 11:26 PM in 2006 Elections - House | Technorati

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Comments

Ditto for Boswell in the first group. Of course I'm a little prejudiced on the matter since he's my new Congressman.

In group two, I'm leaning towards Diane Farrell since she'll need to do her advertising in the pricey New York City market and will need as much mullah as she can get to take out Shays, who's not gonna be caught off guard this time like he was in 2004.

Posted by: Mark at April 26, 2006 01:44 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Melissa Bean voted for CAFTA. Stephanie Herseth voted for the corporate written Bankruptcy Bill.

Posted by: Samson at April 26, 2006 09:06 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Ummmmm, where's Linda Stender (NJ7)?

Posted by: njwatcher at April 26, 2006 09:59 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

It annoys me that Herseth is even on the DCCC "most endangered" list, and I ruled her out immediately. I went for Chet Edwards. I'm worried about him.

Like you, I found the challengers list a tougher call. It was hard to focus, not on the candidate I like the best, or on the race where my hopes are keenest, but simply and purely on the one where *money* is the most critical.

I ruled out Ellsworth because he already has more money than the incumbent, much as my hopes are high for that race. I ruled out Sestak because the national party machine will roll in for him. I have no quarrel with your choice, but in the end I picked Patsy Madrid, because her opponent is a tenacious money-raiser and a very skilled campaigner.

In any case it's good to see Boxer adopt this approach, and two candidates will get both publicity and financial support.

Posted by: Christopher Walker at April 26, 2006 11:44 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Im in for Boswell and Sestak.

Posted by: DFLer22 at April 26, 2006 11:46 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I'm assuming that DCCC list with Herseth on it was compiled before the South Dakota GOP failed to find a single credible opponent for her. It still blows my mind that the GOP let us have a freebie here. Could be a nice development for Tim Johnson in 2008 if SD Republicans keep hidden underneath their rocks come filing deadline day.

Posted by: Mark at April 26, 2006 12:07 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

As others have said, a tough decision and lots of good people -- but I decided on Chet Edwards and Harry Mitchell. Edwards very well be living on borrowed time in that district, but he's proven himself politically fearless, and perhaps the most effective advocate for military families in all of Congress. And I think it's just kind-of funny to have President Bush's Congressman be a Democrat. The bit I know about Mitchell I like. This seems to be a tough but winnable district that might be trending Democrat. It's probably going to be really expensive -- and I'd love to see that bloated, frat-boy reject Hayworth bounced from Congress.

Posted by: IndianaProgressive at April 26, 2006 12:18 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

>>>I'd love to see that bloated, frat-boy reject Hayworth bounced from Congress.

LOL!!!

Yeah, I am with you, IndianaProgressive. I don't like rodeo clowns in Congress and I think Harry Mitchell is perhaps THE very best person they could have gotten to run within that district.

Posted by: boyblue at April 26, 2006 04:08 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I've thought about this for a while now. Put money into CT-05 a poll came out showing Murphy with a 10 point lead over Jhonson. Nancy however still has a lot of cash like 2.5 mill so I think we should help Chris out in CT-05 with the money gap.

Posted by: D in FL. at April 27, 2006 12:14 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I think the clear choice is Joe Courtney (CT-2). His district is the most democratic preforming of all republican held seats.

Posted by: shoetzie at April 27, 2006 09:49 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment