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( – promoted by Clark)
Alright, it’s time for the Missouri netroots to put up or shut up. Kay Barnes, the former KC mayor who is running against Sam Graves in the Sixth Congressional District, is going to raise $50,000 online in the next 10 days.
For those of you unfamiliar with Graves and his hatchet man Jeff Roe, they are about the dirtiest campaigners in the business. Unfortunately, the have also been incredibly effective at turning NW Missouri red at the local level. But Kay Barnes poses the first top-tier challenge Graves has had since winning his seat in 2000.
Dick Cheney is coming to KC to host a $10,000 a plate fundraiser for Graves, and the Ds need to respond. Let’s spread the word and help out Kay Barnes on this one.
I got two e-mails on this (one at work and one on my personal e-mail) and I was really annoyed. I deleted them both and asked to be taken off of their list. I had no idea who Kay Barnes was but it clearly wasn’t someone running anywhere near where I lived.
First, what I want to know is how they get all of our e-mail addresses? Do they have ANY idea how annoying it is to get political spam at work?
Second – if you are going to ask people who are not in your district to give to you – it might be good to have a different e-mail that explains who in the hell you are right up front. Because, trust me on this, I get so many e-mails asking for money that I don’t read beyond the first two lines.
I set up an ActBlue donation page for Mayor Barnes. Here is the link
MaryB – if you want to know about Mayor Barnes, you can get an intro from diaries I have posted here, and I will be happy to answer any questions I can. She was my Mayor for 8 years.
apparently one of the big name bloggers thinks Emily’s list may have made a mistake picking Kay Barnes. He doesn’t actually say this – just makes a list of Emily’s list endorsements that include Barnes and then goes on to complain that they only pick establishment candidates who presumably don’t need Emily’s list:
Well, if Claire won MO-06 then it must have suddenly turned into a safe seat? Sheesh.
He says:
Don’t ask me what IBM means? Irritable Bowel Movement?
Then he says:
Of course he doesn’t really SAY that Barnes doesn’t need the help but …
Only proving to me (once again) that certain Big Name Bloggers don’t have an absolute freakin’ clue when it comes to midwestern states.
Maybe Mike Lux will set him straight? I always like when those two argue. And my money’s always on Lux.
And I’ll give him credit – He’s just made me think about this race and decide that, hell yes, I AM giving her some $$.
he’s always miss.
But I admit that I do not read him on a regular basis (not when he was at MyDD either). My intense dislike of his blogging makes it hard for me to read more than 2 paragraphs of his. So I usually skip his posts. But then I run across him in comments of other posts where he spends his time insulting people. I read this one because the name Kay Barnes leaped out at me so I decided to see what he said.
My favorite moment was when he informed Mike Lux that he wasn’t a blogger. Only Stoller would start a blog with someone and then tell that person that he wasn’t a blogger. LOL.
It makes sense to me that anyone interested in seeing Missouri with more Democratic influence would help support the election of Kay Barnes to Congress. Although she has name recognition and is supported by DCCC, she is up against a candidate who has a track record of getting more money than he needs from corporate sponsors. So far, Barnes has outpaced Graves in personal contributions, but the election is still more than a year away and Sam’s corporate backers will start cranking up his war chest to keep their personal representative in office. In the last election (2006) Sams corporate backers and the extremist groups who fund him were responsible for handing Sam over a million dollars.
This was complete overkill as he was running against a candidate with no record of public office or name recognition who was underfunded. In addition to outspending the Democrat many times over, Graves utilized a campaign manager who created a false scandal to discredit Sam’s opponent. She was a retired woman in a wheelchair. Graves treatment of her was shocking in its calous disregard for decency, fairness, or honesty. If that isn’t enough to gag you, he voted with Bush 94% of the time. A nearly perfect record of incompetent, irresponsible and America damaging votes. Don’t take my word for it, check it out yourself by going to three good reasons for supporting Kay Barnes below.
1) Sam Graves voting record- http://www.vote-smar…
2) Sam Graves Campaign financing disclosure- http://www.opensecre…
3) Sam Graves Position on the issues- http://www.vote-smar…
Oh… and don’t ask Sam about Social Security because he’ll spin until he drills a hole in the floor rather than admit that he wants it turned over to the sharks on Wall Street.
I’ve been involved in politics since I was a child and I don’t need you to tell me “cold hard facts”.
Let me say more nicely what I was trying to say in my above post (I admitted below that I was crabby yesterday – but you know what? People that you are asking for money are sometimes crabby. Deal with it. Sometimes it makes them more honest and you can learn something from it).
If a candidate REALLY wants to raise money from strangers who do not live in her district and do not know her from adam – she needs to figure out a way to send e-mails (or mailings or make phone calls) that EXPLAIN in the first two sentences who she is and WHY a person who does not live in her district should give $$ to her.
Candidates in the past did mass mailings to people in their districts. Today they treat e-mails as if they are the same mass mailings they’ve always done. Except that they’re e-mailing on a national basis. And to not take into account that you are e-mailing people who do not automatically recognize your name is just dumb.
I reserve the right to say that receiving these types of e-mails is annoying. Why not. Most people who get them think they are annoying as hell. Might as well face reality. And maybe work to make them LESS annoying and more productive.