Today’s Chicago Sun-Times published an article about Christine Cegelis’ run for the 6th Congressional District seat in Illinois in 2006. (Christine, as you may remember, ran a strong grass-roots powered race against Henry Hyde in 2004.)
The article made many positive points about Christine and her campaign – her determination, her work ethic, her credentials and the fact that she “is not allied with and is independent of any of the various Democratic Party bosses in the state.” In other words, she is sort of a white, suburban Shirley Chisholm – “unbought and unbossed.” She does not shy away from her progressive values when it comes to foreign policy, privacy, workers’ rights or anything else. She has strong grassroots support from around the country. Bloggers contributed a great deal to her fund-raising last quarter. But, apparently not enough.
DCCC head, Rahm Emanuel, still is not impressed. He seems not to care at all about Christine’s credentials and her values. It is all about the money.
Emanuel is the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and part of his job is recruiting strong candidates. Emanuel uses one major yardstick to measure political viability, and that is fund-raising.
Hopefully the Sun-Times is wrong. It sounds as if Emanuel would support an amoral chimpanzee if it could raise enough money. And if the Sun-Times is not wrong, then things stink to high heaven. Unfortunately, there seems to bit of a rank odor in the air.
Liberal activists have been besieged by calls to donate money for candidate after candidate and cause after cause. Some days it seems overwhelming. But as Steven D. Levitt points out in his book, Freakonomics, Americans spend more money on chewing gum every year than they do on federal elections. So I guess it is up to us to show the Beltway crowd that candidates who share our values are valuable to us.
If you can spare the price of a pack of gum or two, please donate to Christine. Donate to as many outstanding candidates as you can. And if you would like, let Rahm and the DCCC know that a candidate’s value is not determined by the size of his or her war chest.
I want my country back!
When is the primary?
March 2006. Not sure of the day.
Thanks. I still think it’s a bit early for campaigning beyond the basic website info, local meet-&-greets.
Campaigns go on far too long as far as I’m concerned. But as the Sun-Times article indicates, if Christine doesn’t raise enough by the end of September to satisfy the DCCC, the Dems hope to get a “self-funder” into the race against Christine. It is all boiling down to the money.
She is going to be supported by DFA is the latest word, but they won’t endorse until 06. It is confusing. A lot of us will donate, but we are afraid she will be forced to drop out.
It is a squeeze play really. I feel uncomfortable for her. She got 44% of the vote as a first-timer.
I sort of get tired of the people who say don’t worry, anyone can run. This is not taking into account the pressure put on by the party leaders who hold the purse strings.
I wish her good luck. It just looks to me like the DCCC would say, Ok, you got 44% of the vote last time, you are organized….we will back you. Logical. But it is all about the money.
It is all boiling down to the money.
Weird. For most of us, I think, it all boils down to the candidate. And after reading the interview, and her site, she’d have my vote if I weren’t in California. What floridagal says above.
At some point she may have to decide if she’s running for the people, or the party.
I have little doubt that she is running for the people. Unfortunately, without party support it will be that much harder. Large donors often take advice from the “Insiders” about which candidates they should donate to.
My concern is whether the Democrats are running for the people — or for themselves.
Large donors often take advice from the “Insiders”…
Sorry to keep buggin you, but I’m not very conversant with campaigns from the inside. I think the system is broke, and it may be the right time to change the rules.
No need to apologize. It is good to hear your point of view.
Agreed. Time to change. Only way that will happen is if enough small donors support candidates of integrity whose values coincide with there own. Christine’s situation is being played out many times over. We’re the only ones that can change it.
Alrighty then.