Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

Help Good Candidates Ride the Big Red Wave

Jerry Stratton, October 13, 2010

I’m getting overwhelmed with all of the new challengers getting profiled in the blogs I read. So I’m going to try to make sense of them here. I’ve got three categories: candidates who can win but are clearly underdogs, candidates who are in a close race, and candidates who are currently running ahead but are drawing fire.

I have not given money to all of these candidates. I have given far more money this year than all other years combined.

I will be updating this page (and bumping it to the top when I do) whenever I get new info or new profiles.

Other resources

40 Phone Calls From Home
“You can do something—right now—to rescue your Country. If you have a phone with you, you can do it from where you are sitting. The question is: will you?”
Be The Wave
A still-in-progress project by Ace of Ace of Spades HQ, and others. Keep an eye on it!
Fire Fifty: Tea Party Supported Candidates for Congress in 2010
Saw this over on Ace of Spades: a compilation of potential pick-up seats, with the hopes of firing fifty members of congress this year.
If it’s going to be hand-to-hand combat, let’s go prepared.
If you want to specifically help veterans, californiasam has compiled a list of competitive candidates who are also “tested warriors”.
Take Back the 20
SarahPAC has identified twenty House districts that voted for McCain/Palin in 2008 and whose representatives voted for the health takeover. That’s very smart targeting, as each of those incumbents should be vulnerable to a good challenger. If you want help take back the 20, they’ve got the tools to help you help the challengers!
Vets for Freedom
Vets for Freedom has a targeted list of ten candidates who can win with your help. If the other list was too long, and you want to help some veterans run for office, take a look at this.

Hang tough, underdog!

These are my favorite candidates, because who doesn’t love an underdog? But they are also good candidates with a chance to win. They’ve been putting on good campaigns and in most cases are far closer than anyone would have expected. But they will need your help to pull themselves over the line!

Sean Bielat (MA-4)
What can I say except, When he’s not killing terrorists, he’s building fuckin’ robots! If we want real reform next year, it will help a lot if Barney Frank, the guy who enabled the mortgage meltdown, is gone.
John Dennis (CA-8)
Will he win? Conventional wisdom says no. On the other hand, conventional wisdom also says that when your opponent isn’t even in the race, you have a good chance for an upset. Fun ad from Ladd Ehlinger.
Mattie Fein (CA-36)
If the CA-36 Republican party is anything like San Diego’s, it’s a mess of corruption and back-room dealing. They say power corrupts, but helplessness is just as bad—the difference is, you can work on fixing your cluelessness, and Fein is doing a good job of forcing the Republicans to take notice.
Carly Fiorina (CA Senate)
You have to read Fiorina’s life story to believe it. She went from secretary to CEO, turned a failing company around, got stabbed in the back by the old guard in that company, survived cancer, and now is mounting a credible campaign against Barbara Boxer as a fiscal conservative—in California. I fully expected Boxer to hold that Senate seat until she died.
Marty Lamb (MA-3)
From R.S. McCain, reporting from Massachusetts: “Marty Lamb doesn’t just talk about the American Dream, he lives the American Dream. He’s a small-town lawyer, a citizen who felt the call to serve, with no ambition to become a career politician. And unlike Jim McGovern, Marty believes in the Constitution.”
Jason Levesque (ME-2)
To quote Slublog on the Ace of Spades: “Michaud’s inability to say no to Nancy Pelosi has helped lead this country into frightening levels of debt. Help send a fiscally conservative small business owner to Congress and take away one of Nancy Pelosi’s Blue Lapdogs.”
Linda McMahan (CT Senate)
I used to watch WWF sporadically back in the eighties. As I recall, it was the Hulk Hogan era. If anything can prepare a businessperson for the shenanigans that go on in congress, having to deal with those hormonally-imbalanced prima donnas ought to do it.
Kristi Noem (SD-AL)
“The best government is that which governs least.” I think that’s Zen. No, seriously. And it’s smart Zen, too. Wow! GOP South Dakota Superstar Kristi Noem Raises $1.1 Million in 3rd Quarter
Christine O’Donnell (DE Senate)
No, the polls aren’t good. But Delaware is a small state, and a dedicated candidate can talk to a lot of people in four weeks—if she has the money and volunteers to do it. O’Donnell has shown that she can take on the establishment; people seem to have quickly forgotten that she beat the establishment in the primaries when nobody thought she could do it. She ran a strong ground campaign against Mike Castle. The only reason she’s not doing as well as some of the others on this list, in my opinion, is that this earned her the ire of the party elite on both sides of the aisle.1 Normally, that’s the kiss of death, and it might be in this election as well—but if there’s any year where that might be a plus, it’s this one.
I also can’t help but see a huge generation gap here: the main strikes against her in the media are that she was goth in high school and took a long time to pay off her college bills.
Star Parker (CA-37)
Just a bit north of me. Parker’s clearly an underdog, but she’s one with style, class, and a whole lot of energy. Listen to her speak and you’ll think she’s going to win. With your help, maybe she will! Or, as La Shawn Barber wrote, “A woman who thinks like that needs to run for office.”
Morgan Philpot (UT-2)
Philpot wants to help restore fiscal common sense in Washington.
Joel Pollak (IL-9)
Only 44% of voters say that Schakowsky deserves to be re-elected… This is a race that was supposed to be a cakewalk in one of the most Democratic seats in the nation.” And you have to like this from the candidate’s web site: “We should fix the economy before creating new prohibitions or spending money on new entitlements.”
Nick Popaditch (CA-51)
I’ve been following Nick for a while now—he’s running just south of me. And I agree with Matt Burden’s assessment over at Blackfive: Where do we find such men? He’s a dynamic person and a real star at Southern California tea party events.
Jacob Turk (MO-5)
Proud to be a tea partier.

Close races

These candidates are winning in some polls. But they are in close races and need every extra vote they can get to keep from going into a recount. For some reason that leaves mathematicians baffled, Republicans don’t tend to win in recounts.

Sharron Angle (NV Senate)
Angle is running a grassroots campaign against the most powerful man in the Senate and she’s holding her own. But she’s going to need a lot of help on the ground to win with the margin needed against a politician like Harry Reid.
Fran Becker (NY-4)
Ace: “Republican internal poll shows challenger for NY-4, Fran Becker, on the verge of taking out McCarthy.”
Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25)
From R.S. McCain: “The Cook Political Report just downgraded Maffei’s seat from likely Democrat to lean Democrat, and if you’ll go support Ann Marie Buerkle, it might be rated a toss-up by the time we get there.”
Sam Caligiuri (CT-5)
The last sane man in Hartford? I think that was a Simon and Garfunkel song. As mayor of Waterbury, he “dismantled the system of patronage that was awarding the bulk of the city’s legal work to politically-connected lawyers.” True ethics reform is a good thing.
Francisco Canseco (TX-23)
Oh my. I believe they call this red meat: “I believe the massive growth of the federal government comes at the expense of our personal liberty, responsibilities to ourselves and families, and the ability of entrepreneurial Americans to create job opportunities through a free and open marketplace.”
Renee Ellmers (NC-7)
Ellmers supports the fair tax to replace the income tax and get rid of IRS paperwork and “April 15th hell”.
Bill Flores (TX-17)
Flores will vote with us.
Chris Gibson (NY-20)
Hey, according to DrewM, He’s a fellow Cornell alum. He’s also going against a “blue dog” who gave in to Pelosi and voted for the health takeover.
Andy Harris (MD-1)
Doctor, Navy man, husband, father, and strong advocate for free markets and free citizens.
Ron Johnson (WI Senate)
Russ Feingold seems to be forgetting about campaign ethics now that he’s in a tough fight. Of course, since his “reforms” were all about keeping incumbents in power, he probably didn’t expect to have to worry about a candidate like Ron Johnson.
Jesse Kelly (AZ-8)
Quoted on Ace of Spades: “Bipartisanship in Washington means Republicans selling out their conservative principles in order to appear nice on MSNBC.”
Mark Kirk (IL Senate)
This race is seesawing back and forth in the polls; which may be an indicator of how unreliable polls are this year, or it may be that this is Illinois. This is technically President Obama’s seat, but of course, “It was never really Obama’s seat per se. I mean he only sat there for two years.” (Dr. John Brehm, University of Chicago political science professor, to the Daily Caller)
Ruth McClung (AZ-7)
Challenger Ruth McClung, a real life rocket scientist, were in a dead heat, even though Washington prognosticators have declared the deep-blue seat safely Democratic.
George Phillips (NY-22)
You want bipartisanship? You want George Phillips.
Dino Rossi (WA Senate)
He supports the number one true reform for health insurance costs: “Give individuals the same tax deductions as businesses.”
Rob Steele (MI-15)
“The difference in a lot of these out-of-nowhere contests is the ground game. ” That’s where you can help.
Allen West (FL-22)
“Hell with a can of gasoline.”

I lived in New York for several years. Upstate New York is a beautiful area, and in my dreams the political climate gets enough better that I can choose to move their. That’s why I take a bigger interest in New York candidates. But don’t worry if you live elsewhere, I’ve got a whole bunch more close races coming.

Running ahead in dangerous races

These candidates are ahead, but it’s a bit of a surprise that they’re either ahead or in the race at all. Some of them, such as Joe Miller, have really pissed off the establishment. Others have only pissed off the media. If helplessness corrupts, the media is feeling mighty helpless right about now. They are going to try and kill these candidates by any means necessary, whether it’s rigging polls to favor write-in candidates or just making shit up and hoping it sticks until November 2.

Ken Buck (CO Senate)
The media is desperately trying to pin something on Buck, even taking smart and compassionate prosecutorial decisions from his time as district attorney and twisting them out of context.
Matt Doheny (NY-23)
Doheny appears to be running well ahead of Owens, but Owens is trying the same tricks he tried last year: promise that he’ll be a conservative.2 We can expect that New York voters have learned their lesson, but it would still be nice to see Doug Hoffman’s endorsement carry some weight in this district. Make sure Matt Doheny wins NY-23.
Joe Miller (AK Senate)
Alaska is producing some great libertarian-centrists, if I can coin a term. I’m still not sure the Republican establishment wouldn’t prefer to see Miller go down. However, it’s the media leading the charge against him, mainly by running polls that list his write-in opponent as if she weren’t a write in, artificially inflating her poll numbers. They’re trying to give her a momentum she wouldn’t otherwise have. This is a critical election for those who believe Senate seats don’t belong to royal families. The media was caught by surprise when Brown won Massachusetts, but they have learned.
Jeff Perry (MA-10)
Another Massachusetts politician running on repealing Obamacare.
John Raese (WV Senate)
Yes, he’s running ahead, but we’re talking Robert Byrd’s seat here. It’s been Democrat since 1949. Byrd himself held the seat since 1959. The more Raese pulls ahead, the more dirty tricks we can expect.
  1. Unfortunately, some writers who should have known better bought into it at least temporarily. That was all the cover the ruling class needed to go all in without fear of ridicule. And the potential for ridicule is obvious: Maher discovers goth 25 years later, panics! This just in: college is expensive shit! Media criticizes LinkedIn UI, Film at 11. It’s all bullshit.

  2. You know, they keep telling us how liberal Delaware is, too. And yet I just finished watching the debate and Coons was falling all over himself running to the right, especially on immigration.

  1. <- Doug Hoffman, Conservative
  2. Traffic ticket lottery ->