A few weeks ago we did a Blue America contest to award $5,000 to a congressional candidate. Our winner, Annette Taddeo (D-FL) wound up with over $36,000 (including matching funds from Chris Van Hollen and some other DCCC leaders). This week we started a week-long contest to pick a Senate candidate to give the same $5,000 check too. A donation of $1 -- or $1,000 -- counts as a vote and you can vote here. Since we started on Saturday afternoon, there have been over 250 votes and more than $8,000. Right now Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is ahead although both Andrew Rice (D-OK) and Tom Allen (D-ME) are starting to catch up.
Like we explained on Saturday, these are the tough races -- not the low hanging fruit -- but the races that will determine whether or not McConnell, McCain and the rest of McLunatic Fringe will be able to filibuster and obstruct Obama's program for change. But, believe me, we're not the only ones who have figured this out. Today's Roll Call is calling attention to the fact that right wing GOP front groups are dumping millions and millions of dollars into the Senate races now, panicked that the reactionaries could lose their ability to obstruct progressive legislation. And they are heavily outspending independent progressive groups -- $23 million to $3.3 million.
The misnamed neo-fascist billionaires club, Freedom's Watch, has been on the warpath as have other ring wing advocacy groups like the national. Chamber of Commerce, Associated Builders and Contractors Free Enterprise, America's Future Fund, Employee Freedom Action Committee and the Club for Growth. Freedom's Watch is spending heavily to save rubber stamp Republican Gordon Smith in Oregon and the Club For Growth is pouring money into Alaska to save the most corrupt member of the Senate, Ted Stevens.
Of course the good news is that this right-wing cash isn't going to McCain's campaign. The bad news is that our Senate candidates need help. Andrew Rice for example, is being viciously attacked by a corporate sleazeball incumbent who has millions of dollars in corporate cash flooding into his campaign coffers for a ceaseless barrage of negative attack ads. You may feel good -- and you should -- that grassroots activists have helped raise nearly $1.5 million dollars for Andrew Rice's campaign. But Inhofe has already spent twice that total and has $2.5 million on hand. This year he's the second biggest recipient among non-presidentail candidates of legalized bribes from Big Oil ($351,750). He's taken over $150,000 from lobbyists, over $180,000 from the kinds of bankers and investment firms he's been voting to deregulate over the years, nearly $100,000 from the Real Estate Industry, over $50,000 from the Insurance Industry... all the folks who he's been serving instead of the citizens of Oklahoma. Almost every cent of the contributions Andrew has gotten has come from small individual donors looking not for special favors but for decent representation for Oklahoma and a fair shot for working families for a change. Donating to Andrew's campaign will help him keep ads like this one -- debunking Inhofe's lies and distortions -- on the air:
Don't forget to vote -- in a contest with all excellent choices.
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