The Darcy Burner (WA-08) campaign just keeps getting hotter and hotter. Yesterday
EMILY's List announced their endorsement of Darcy Burner.
This comes while the Burner campaign is in the midst of a fundraising drive that they hope will bring in $75,000 in 10 days. As of this writing they've raised $47,888 with less than 2 days to go. You can track the progress of the fundraising effort via their visual tool.
It is crunch time people!
The Burner campaign is also encouraging others to place their widget on your blogs and Web sites. Simply insert the following tag in your page (note: remove the space in the "http" part I added here - necessary so the complete
src path would render):
<script src="h ttp://www.darcyburner.com/donation_widget.php" type="text/javascript"></script>
There will be more opportunities to use this after this particular drive is over, so it is never too late to do so.
In the same vein, I've created a sidebar widget that tracks ActBlue donations, and for Darcy Burner's campaign, also tracks the Netroots ActBlue donations:
The widget numbers are updated every 5 minutes, and you can
obtain and configure a version for your page
here. I've created so that it can be used for any candidate listed at ActBlue. So far I have it set up for Darcy Burner,
Richard Wright (WA-04) and
Peter Goldmark (WA-05). You can use these widgets to help bring in donations for all three of these great Washington candidates, or others you might suggest.
You see, I can do things like create this little tool. Others can do other things. Every contribution helps, be it money, time, skills. We must all try to do what we can, however we can.
Darcy was announced as netroots endorsed by Matt Stoller on May 23, yet her netroots numbers since that date lag the accumulations of other netroots candidates, such as multi-millionaire Ned Lamont, Jon Tester and Francine Busby, by more than $7,000 during the same period.
The netroots - we - can do better! We must do better than that! Netroots fundraising needs to be something we all participate in, not just through our own donations, but by leveraging the power of our own blogs if we have one, and hosting such widgets will help us spread the message.
Well connected Seattle based blogger Goldy has stated,
I heard pollster Celinda Lake speak in Seattle a couple weeks ago, and she bluntly said that if the Dems can't win in a district like WA-08, they can't take back the House. We have the candidate. We have the momentum. Don't let the power of the presidency hold on to this seat through sheer financial advantage.
Goldy reiterates this statement in a
recent Huffington Post entry:
We are witnessing the emergence of a powerful new force in American politics, and we should expect Rove to do everything he can to crush it before it gets off the ground.
Another prominent local blogger,
Lynn Allen at Evergreen Politics has this to say on the matter:
Karl Rove, national political strategist for the Republicans, knows what happens in every county in this country. He plays at the local level, working through the state Republicans in every state. As long as the Blogosphere, as we on the progressive/liberal/left are called, is a force only at the national level, we are not a sufficient challenge to Rove and his political manipulations.
But once we take on the Republicans and wed the local netroots to the local grassroots progressive organizations, which we are starting to do from both sides, watch out. We will be unbeatable and we will take back and rebuild our democracy.
The Burner campaign needs your support to counter the
fundraising prowess of George Bush and his recent trip to raise money for Darcy's opponent. By fundraising for Dave Reichert, Bush and Rove have targeted a netroots candidate for the first time, and how we react to that will help determine how confident they will be over the next few months in targeting others.
Make no mistake about it: they will try to crush us if they feel threatened.
We can't expect people to make 400 donations of $1,000, or 40 of $10,000 that might go to multiple candidates, but we should be able to come up with thousands of smaller donations of $25 and I challenge everyone to consider ways in which we can do that, and help spread the message on our blogs, at gatherings like Drinking Liberally, at our local district meetings, with our friends and our neighbors. We cannot role over and let them buy seat after seat without a fight!
Incumbents always have an inherent traditional media advantage in elections, and this race is proving no different. Contributions can help buy advertising, but our voices can help attract traditional media attention. The NW blogosphere has already played a big part in providing the Burner campaign with local buzz, Darcy's netroots endorsement has set the stage for taking this race to a nationally prominent level, and sites like Daily Kos and MyDD are key components these days of any nationally recognizable campaign. Dave Reichert may not stir up emotions like Tom DeLay, Bill Frist or even Joe Lieberman, but his voting record is every bit as bad as DeLay's was, and his seat is every bit as important if Democrats are to win a majority in November.
Let's blaze a trail and raise some dollars for Darcy, and help spread the message about her campaign. This seat is one of the top seats Democrats must win in November. The DCCC and Rahm Emanuel know this. The very active and increasingly influential NW blogosphere know this as can be attested to by the content accessible at the Pacific NW Portal and the PNW Topic Hotlist, two services created by NW bloggers for NW bloggers and our readers.
Now it is time that the national blogosphere realizes this and people across the country start tracking this race as if it were in their own back yard.