Five months from now it will be too late. The primaries will be over and the new House of Representatives chosen. I feel certain that the Democratic wave will have swept Republican Trump enablers across the country out of office. The fellow at the blackboard up top is Trump rubber stamp and Wall Street puppet Bruce Poliquin (R-ME). He will face off against a fighting progressive-- Jared Golden, who has proven his leadership skills on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan and as the majority whip of the Maine House of Representatives. Jared is a blue collar union guy and he's facing off against Poliquin because Maine voters chose him as their nominee instead of an elite careerist with nothing much to say beyond the regular DC consultant palaver the DCCC spits out. The Democratic Party and the United States need as many Jared Goldens as we can get, not Republican-lite fake Democrats. Democratic voters in Omaha, Nebraska, in Pennsylvania Dutch country, in Lexington, Kentucky, and in California's 45th district in the heart of Orange County picked 4 progressive women, reformers, who the DCCC either ignored or were hostile to.Tomorrow there are pivotal primaries in New York, Colorado, Maryland and Oklahoma that pits progressive reformer against the Old Guard, DCCC status quo conservatives. What a difference it would make to wake up tomorrow morning to find out that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fiery 28 year old Latina and Berniecrat from the Bronx has taken down Joe Crowley, the most corrupt Democrat in Congress! Nor is NY-14 the only crucial battleground in New York today. On Long Island, an effective and proven leader for progressive causes, DuWayne Gregory is up against someone with many empty promises and no accomplishments for the right to face Trumpy-The-Clown enabler Peter King. Upstate there's a better candidate, Dana Balter, running in Syracuse than, Juanita Perez Williams, the DCCC pick. The best candidate to beat Faso in November is Jeff Beals.In Colorado, we have we have crucial congressional primaries for Congress in Denver (Saira Rao) and the Denver suburbs (Levi Tillermann) and for a state legislative seat (Emily Sirota). The full-blown progressive in Oklahoma City running for the nomination to face reactionary Steve Russell, is Tom Guild. And in Maryland the most progressive Democrat for governor is Ben Jealous.Chose wisely today. It makes a real difference. Last week, in the middle of most frenzied part of her campaign, Alexandria Ocasio flew down to Tornillo, Texas, to, in her words, "protest the barbaric practices of this administration at a joint-action event outside of the first ICE detention center... sitting on the sidelines as ICE continues to terrorize people across the country and tear families apart just wasn’t an option."Yesterday she sent a note to her supporters noting that "every part of our campaign is in overdrive. We’re spending everything we have to send out canvassers to talk to voters, help national volunteers make calls, and put out ads to help people get to their polling booths."
But we can’t get complacent-- because Crowley’s fighting us with an massive corporate war chest. He's buying TV ads, sending dozens of letters to his steadfast supporters, and trying to drown out our progressive message.In these critical last 48 hours, it’s more important than ever to take a real look at what’s fueling these machines.Joe Crowley has raised $1.1 million this cycle from 250 corporate PAC donations alone-- not even counting his donations from party elites.In contrast, our campaign has received exactly zero dollars and zero cents from any corporations or corporate PACs.We don’t need corporate money-- our progressive message that fights for social, economic and racial justice has encouraged over 10,000 unique donors to contribute to the cause....I know it might feel like donating this late in the game won’t help as much-- but it’s more important than ever. This is our last chance to make sure that we can convince first time voters to come out and vote.Every cycle, 3% of the voters in this district choose the path for the rest of us. That’s a broken democracy, and it’s time we fixed it.
Levi Tillemann's last minute message to his supporters was also inspirational. "Washington power brokers," he wrote, "are running scared-- and going to extraordinary lengths to try to blunt our momentum! Last weekend, This American Life announced it was running a piece on DCCC interference in Congressional primaries. We were interviewed extensively for that piece. Well, the insiders cried foul and put extraordinary pressure on This American Life to write us out. In response, This American Life delayed its air date (to eliminate its impact on primaries), changed the episode’s name, and rewrote the content. Think about that: It’s kind of INCREDIBLE! It’s also OK, because we’re going to win."All of today's independent-minded progressive candidates are in the same predicament. They have to keep funding their get-out-the-vote operations. It's worth helping them; it makes the difference between winning and... a weak and ineffective Congress. If you'd rather give to upcoming races, like for Kaniela Ing in Hawaii or Randy Bryce in Wisconsin, or if you want to send contributions for folks who already won their primaries and are already battling Republicans (like Jared Golden, Kara Eastman, Katie Porter and Jess King), all of these candidates are on the same Blue America 2018 congressional elections page on the right. Please take your pick and consider contributing what you can. Remember, there's no such thing as a contribution that too small. Now's the time to make a real difference when we have an opportunity to decide which kind of Democrats run in the general election in November.