As you know, we've been fundraising for Scott Kleeb's Senate race in Neraska. (And you guys gave over $10,000 in just 48 hours!) Well, he just got a big newspaper endorsement. More from DKos. And feel free to keep contributing to Scott's campaign by clicking on the blue box at left.
This week is Scott Kleeb web in the blogosphere. By this Friday, I'd like AMERICAblog to raise $10,000 for US Senate candidate Scott Kleeb, from Nebraska (click the blue box below to reach our donation page for Scott). DailyKos has set themselves a one-week goal of raising $20,000 for Scott. Atrios has been pitching in as well.
I know we're all fixated, and/or fed up, with the Hillary vs. Obama saga, but, our congressional candidates need us now. Please help Scott, and the other candidates we're promoting. ActBlue, the folks we're using to channel donations to Scott and other Democrats, has raised $40 million for Democratic candidates over the past four years. Your credit card is safe with them. So please consider helping out with a donation to our endorsed candidates. We'll be highlighting new candidates all the time between now and the election. Again, click on the blue box to donate to Scott, and feel free to read more about Scott's race here.
You all remember Scott Kleeb. He's our Nebraska cowboy who ran for the US House two years ago as a Democrat, and gave the Republicans such a run for their money (in a traditionally Republican district), that the Rs had to send George Bush himself in to save the day for Kleeb's opponent. (And that gives you an idea as to how conservative it is, as George Bush was still considered an asset a little over a year ago.)
Well, Scott is running again, this time for Nebraska's open seat in the US Senate. He's running in the Democratic primary against a Republican. Yes, his opponent in the Democratic primary is a Republican - and a friend of Bush, at that - who switched his party affiliation to Democrat two days before the filing deadline. His opponent has just put nearly half a million dollars of his own money into the campaign. So Scott could use your help - the primary is next Tuesday - you help matters now. I'd like to ask you to click the blue box in the upper left corner and donate to Scott's campaign. Scott is a proud Obama supporter and could really use your help.
The folks over at DailyKos are holding an online telethon for Scott between now and Friday. Their goal is to raise $20,000 for him by the end of the week. I'd like us to join in. One of the great things we all were able to accomplish during the 2006 congressional elections was to raise a heck of a lot of money for Democratic House candidates. Markos raised over $1.5 million, and even little old AMERICAblog pulled in a hefty $100k in only two weeks. I'd like to see us do that again. And wouldn't it be nice to have something we can all unify around, for a change :-)
So, if the spirit moves you, please click on the blue box in the upper left hand corner of this post, and donate to Scott's campaign. I've set us an optimistic goal of raising $10k for Scott by this Friday. We raised around $22,000 for him, I think, in the last campaign, so let's see what we can do this time. Again, Scott's Democratic primary (against the Republican) is next Tuesday. He needs your support now. Thanks as always, JOHN
You all remember Scott Kleeb, America’s favorite cowboy. Scott is running for the open Senate seat in Nebraska. Scott ran for the US House in 2006, and while he didn’t win, he did so well that he forced George Bush to come to the state to help his opponent – Nebraska shouldn’t even have been competitive, but Scott made it so! Scott is a good Democrat, and about as good of one as we’ll ever have in a red state like Nebraska. So please give him your support (if the donation link isn't working, you can give via securely and safely via our ActBlue page here).
UPDATE: Speaking of Nebraska, check out this great blog someone just sent me. It's called Smith Watch, and is devoted to keeping an eye on the new GOP congressman from Nebraska 03, Adrian Smith (he's the guy who beat Scott Kleeb, the cowboy). It's really really really good.
Now the Republicans are actually using Democrat Scott Kleeb's voice and calling people several times an hour in order to harass them, and tick them off against Kleeb. This has been happening across the country simultaneously. It's been happening in states where the Republican party hired a specific company that makes these kind of calls. This is a coordinated nationwide effort by the Republican party to suppress voting through fraud.
I want these people in jail. And if the laws aren't strong enough to catch them, then we strengthen the laws when we take over congress. No one should be allowed to defraud voters of their vote - not Democrats, not Republicans. Either party does this, you go to jail for a long time. It just happens that this election, all the fake calls are targeting Democrats.
Had enough?
This is from Nebraska's "The Independent" (I'm not linking because you have to register to see the content, and the registration is impossible to navigate - so they lose.)
Just because it's Scott Kleeb's prerecorded voice on the other line, doesn't mean his campaign is behind the phone call, according to his communications director.
Prerecorded telephone messages supposedly from Kleeb, a Third Congressional District candidate, have been repeatedly calling people in Central Nebraska, and Ben Lumpkin, Kleeb's communications director, is concerned about the effects.
The messages, known as robocalls, are designed to inform voters about certain candidates. However, Lumpkin said he has received numerous complaints about the prerecorded messages calling repeatedly -- as many as six times an hour....
"We've had a couple of people who said they were tired of the harassing phone calls and wanted us to stop calling," she said. Some of them said they weren't going to vote for Kleeb, or at all, as a result, she said. "It's creating a bad environment for our volunteers," she said. "The point is to depress voter turnout."
Quirk said Kleeb's campaign isn't behind the repeated calls and she worries about the robocalls' impact. "They'll probably find out who's doing this, but it won't be today or tomorrow, and by then it will be too late," she said Monday....
One of the people who had complained about the calls is Jack Sandeen, a HastingsÂ? resident who volunteered with Kleeb's campaign this summer.
Sandeen came into the Adams County Democratic Party headquarters Monday to tell Quirk about the calls and even spoke to Kleeb, who stopped by the office while in Hastings. Sandeen said he and his wife had received five calls between Sunday evening and Monday. His wife listened to one of the calls in its entirety and, since she told her husband about the call, he hung up when they got another one....
He thought it was odd they received more then one call and said the recording was of low quality, like a recording of a recording....
According to the Associated Press, in at least 53 competitive House races, the National Republican Campaign Committee had launched hundreds of thousands of robocalls, which had sparked a handful of complaints to the FCC.
FCC rules say all prerecorded messages must state clearly the identity of the business, individual or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call, and that statement must be at the beginning of the message, according to the Associated Press.
As we enter election day, I want to take a moment to remind you all of what you've done here. In only 10 days you gave over $100,000 to 17 congressional candidates. That money provides campaigns with not just a financial infusion, but an emotional infusion as well. It tells a campaign that their message is getting through in spite of the barrage of bull. And it helps give campaigns the confidence in their message to end the election on their terms and on a positive note.
In Colorado's 4th District, we raised nearly $33,000 alone for Angie Paccione. Your money helped more people see this last, positive ad:
In Nebraska your money helped Scott Kleeb end his campaign on a positive upbeat message.
Your money has helped great Democratic candidates talk to more people. You had a voice in this election, larger and louder than had we all simply stood by and watched instead of getting involved. For that you should be proud. Thank you.
President Bush will come to Nebraska on Sunday to try to help Republicans save an endangered House seat they’ve held for 48 years....
The presidential visit was arranged in the wake of polling last week showing Scott Kleeb moving within reach of the first Democratic congressional victory in western and central Nebraska since 1958.
Lil 'ole Scott Kleeb has the White House in panic mode. If that doesn't show the kind of influence this guy will have in Washington, I don't know what does.
As desperation increases in the Republican former-strongholds of Colorado and Nebraska, Bush is visiting over the next few days to help beleagured House candidates Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado (running against Democrat Angie Paccione) and Adrian Smith in Nebraska (running against Democrat Scott Kleeb).
Great. I hope the press will ask Bush about the White House's weekly calls with Ted Haggard, a man accused of using meth and frequenting a gay male hooker. And I hope they'll be asking Marilyn Musgrave and Adrian Smith whether they agree with Mr. Bush that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have done a "fantastic job."
Markos is reporting that the DCCC (the Democratic organization that helps elect Dems to the US House) will be dropping new ads, money, and other support in a number of additional races, including Scott Kleeb's race in Nebraska 03, and a number of other races that we've been pushing the past week.
Among the races we've been talking about, and fundraising for, that the DCCC is now going to be offering more help:
WA 05: Peter Goldmark MN 01: Tim Walz NY 25: Dan Maffei IL 10: Dan Seals NV 02: Jill Derby NE 03: Scott Kleeb KS 02: Nancy Boyda
It is obvious now. The late injection of national Republican money and TV ads into Nebraska’s 3rd District congressional race is confirmation the GOP fears it may be about to lose a “safe” House seat in eight days....
No one is sharing results from the Republican poll, but it’s clear they were sufficiently alarming for the GOP to send in the cavalry with TV ads attacking Kleeb.
One recent private poll in the district showed Kleeb moving into a narrow lead....
The Sidney Sun-Telegraph, which chose Pete Ricketts over Ben Nelson in the Senate race, endorsed Kleeb with this observation: “As we watched Kleeb speak at the Sidney Community Center, we could not help notice just how many Republicans came out to meet the Democratic candidate.”
We’ve got a race to the wire out there with a week to go.
Kleeb on horseback in TV ads; Smith riding an elephant.
Let's see how much you can donate to the AMERICAblog-endorsed candidates above - and don't forge the 13 new candidates posted in the left-hand column - before Blogger dies again.
On that front, Colorado Republicans are increasingly freaking out - they're in full meltdown mode, and our Angie Paccione is helping fuel the meltdown. Also, I hear that the anti-farm-subsidies Club for Growth and the Republicans are probably going to be kicking in nearly a quarter of a million dollars to take down our favorite cowboy, Scott Kleeb (D-NE).
And they should be. You'll recall that Scott Kleeb was the first candidate we raised money for last week. Seems we may have been prescient.
From the Lincoln Journal Star:
In the surest sign the 3rd District congressional seat is up for grabs, the National Republican Congressional Committee may be poised to commit resources to the race....
If the GOP congressional committee enters the race in the final 10 days of the campaign, it would be confirmation that poll numbers have uncovered a tight struggle between Republican nominee Adrian Smith and Democratic nominee Scott Kleeb.
The 69-county 3rd District seat had been considered safely Republican at the beginning of the campaign.
Western and central Nebraska hasn’t elected a Democrat to the House since 1958, when Don McGinley won a single term.
Kleeb, 31, a Dunning ranch hand with two post-graduate degrees from Yale, has raised more than $700,000, far more than any previous Democratic candidate in the district.
If you can spare any more change, please help Scott out. I've met him, he's good. We've already raised $12,000 for Scott, let's see if we can make it a cool 15 or 20 by the end of Sunday (more on Scott here), and keep you contributions coming in to the other candidates (links at the top of the site). Thanks.
Your donations over the past week are detailed below (the smaller figures, under $3,000, are for candidates who we just added yesterday). And remember what I wrote earlier, the crucial time for last-minute donations is between now and Monday. After that, yes the campaigns can use donations, but for their last-minute ad buys, it's good for them to know the cash-on-hand they will have by Monday, if possible.
Give to our new list of 13 candidates here. Or us the links at the top of the blog to give to one of premiere candidates: Jill Derby (D-NV-02), Gary Trauner (WY), Angie Paccione (CO-04), and Scott Kleeb (NE-03).
If you're from Nebraska, be very afraid. The Club for Growth is all about eliminating farm subsidies, and they just bought the Republican candidate in Nebraska's 3rd District to the tune of over 40% of all of his money raised in this campaign.
Yes, you heard that right.
40% of all the money received by Republican candidate Adrian Smith in Nebraska 03 is from ONE SOURCE - an organization devoted to eliminating farm subsidies, the lifeline of Nebraska. And the word on the street is that the Club for Growth is planning on dropping another $100,000 in Adrian Smith's lap.
Now, imagine that one guy pays over 40% of your salary. Do you think that one guy is gonna have any influence on you? You don't need to be a big Washington lobbyist to figure that one out. Vote for Smith and you'll find out fast.
Scott Kleeb is Smith's opponent. Kleeb isn't beholdened to corporate special interests, he's beholdened to regular people, regular Nebraskans.
Thank you so much everyone. Over $10,000 for this kind of race - in a rural state where ad buys are actually affordable as compared to NYC - is huge.
I've checked with friends who do such ad buys for a living, and they tell me that $2500 a day is a good TV advertising buy in this market, $4000 a day is a huge buy. Well, we've already given Kleeb enough to have four good days, and two and a half great days. And with only 18 days left in the race, that's rather huge.
Or in other terms, look at it this way. Kleeb has raised around $600,000 for his race to date. We've just added 1% to his total take - that's not insignificant.
And one final comparison. John Kerry's PAC gave Kleeb $4,000. You've already given him over $10,000.
Let's have one final push to donate. Then tomorrow we'll start highlighting other key races in which your money can and will make a difference.
The DCCC continues to expand the list of races that are in play. Yes, expand the list. This is the time of year when the list of races in play tends to shrink. That's true for the GOP as the post below shows. But it's not true for the Democrats this year. Now is the time to give a major Hat Tip to Chris Bowers at MyDD who has been saying since November 2004 that Democrats need to run candidates in every single district. 2006 is the manifestation of why that is critical.
The DCCC has two lists going. Red to Blue are the top targets. They've added two "waves" to their original targets.
I love the Emerging races list which "is made up of candidates who have taken traditionally non-competitive districts and, through the strength of their campaigns, put themselves in a position to win in November." Take a look at these candidates, the districts and the opponents. These races have some of the nasty, seemingly safest, GOP members of Congress. It's amazing that these races are in play, but they are.
Now is the time to redouble our efforts. If you live in a target state of district, you're already volunteering, right? If not, pick the district of one of your least favorite members (Musgrave? Reynolds? Schmidt?) and do something for those campaigns.
You can always volunteer for MoveOn's Call for Change. With them, you can call from home in to target districts.
The DCCC added five more candidates to this list today. It's actually inspiring to see the whole list -- these candidates are really, truly on the front lines:
