On Wednesday, we asked Swing State Project readers to help ensure that Donna Edwards and Charlie Brown get at least 100 new donations before midnight on Saturday, when candidates must close their fundraising books for the quarter and begin readying their second quarter fundraising reports for the FEC. As I write this, the DailyKos, MyDD and SSP communities have managed to step up to the plate, with 118 new donations for Charlie Brown, and 113 for Donna Edwards since the start of Wednesday.
Now, can we up the ante? Can we get raise the goal from 100 to 150 new donations for each candidate?
I say: we can. I say: we must. 2008 represents a crucial opportunity to not only expand our majority in the House, but also strengthen it. Donna Edwards and Charlie Brown represent two great opportunities to reach for this goal. As Laura says, we have the chance to replace John Doolittle, a guy who treats his campaign accounts like a slush fund for his wife, with Charlie Brown, a man who is giving 15% of all contributions made through his ActBlue page before the end of the quarter to Tahoe area fire victims.
In Donna Edwards, we have the chance to unseat Bush-collaborator and problem Democrat Al Wynn. Jonathan Singer over at MyDD has a great interview up with Donna that I encourage you all to read. The essence of her candidacy, and why Wynn needs to go, is summarized well in this exchange:
Singer: In case there are some folks particularly on MyDD who maybe were absent during the last cycle when Matt was writing so much about your race or missed Matt’s write up of your race just a couple of weeks ago, what’s the argument? Why does Al Wynn, someone who’s a Democrat – this is a Democratic district – why does he need to go?Edwards: First of all, let’s be clear – it is solidly Democratic district. So what that means in our district is that we can actually have one of the most progressive Democrats in the Congress.
And instead we have the reverse. We have somebody who during the time of the Bush administration has voted with the President on really key issues, more conservative than this district deserves. He supported the President on the authorization to go to war when many of our Congresspeople here in Maryland actually didn’t support that authorization. He supported the President on the energy bill that gave billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil and gas companies the other Democrats in our district didn’t support that. He supported bankruptcy reform, which rewards credit card companies over consumers. The Democrats in our district didn’t support that. He supported a repeal of the estate tax, which took $50 billion out of the treasury benefiting one half of one percent of income earners.
That’s not our district. We don’t just need any Democrat. It matters what kind of Democrat we have. We need Democrats who are going to be leaders, who are going to stand out in front for the American people and for the people of the fourth district, and Al Wynn’s not that guy.
Like what you hear? So do I.
Let’s give a crucial boost to Brown and Edwards. Can we increase our total amount of new donations from 100 to 150 before the end of Saturday?
Let’s do this thing!
