Awhile back, I made a suggestion on this blog about holding a fundraiser for a candidate. We had just held a successful informal meeting for those who blog in St. Louis, a face-to-face meeting of people who normally talk only online, most about politics. About 30 people showed up, all of them partisan Democrats, and we all mingled and chatted for hours with people we had mostly never met in “real” life. All in all, a smashing success.

Bloggers in California have already taken this “bloggers meetup” to the next level. Once every quarter, they do the exact same thing we did in early October, except they ask attendees to give a little bit of cash toward electing a pre-selected candidate. In our case, if we had asked everyone to pitch in $10 or more, we would have raised at least $300. It’s not Sinquefield money, but it’s not an amount any candidate would turn down, either, and not bad work for hanging out at a bar on Tuesday night. Plus, it doesn’t have to be confined to one bar in one city – other people in other parts of the state can do the same thing at the same time to raise money and have a good time doing it.

So let’s do this. In early February, we’ll have another bloggers meetup, and this time we’ll ask attendees for a voluntary contribution. The big question is: who will be the recipient for the collected money? The criteria basically boils down to a good Democrat who faces a close race in November, and preferably a challenging an incumbent Republican. We had thought about Chris Kelly, who will be fighting to represent the 24th District in Missouri’s House. We could also think of a few people in the St. Louis area who would love some support. But what do you think? Anyone have any suggestions from KC? How about outside the STL-Columbia-KC axis?