Here on the ActBlue blog we’ve highlighted our ActBlue Democratic Nominee Funds a couple times before. These funds allow for the collection of money against Republican-held seats for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and even U.S. President which then get disbursed to Democratic candidates once there is an official nominee. Donors don’t have to “pledge” to donate- they can do it directly and ActBlue directs it to the right people at the right time!
Some people have used them in conjunction with “Draft” efforts, others use them to start collecting funds for a candidate who is expected to enter the race shortly, while others make their 2008 contributions a year early since they plan to support anyone who wants to take more Republicans out of office.
John Kerry asserted today that it’s not just the President that stands in the way of his efforts to set a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq- it’s other Republican Senators. He’s taken his cause to his email list to kick-start the 2008 Senate elections against 4 targeted Republicans. And he’s used 4 ActBlue Nominee Funds to make that happen.
He’s already raised tens of thousands towards those efforts- money that will be held for the Democratic nominees.
Senator Kerry and his fundraisers are offering an incentive to
encourage candidates thinking about running to commit since now they
know that national attention and interest exists to support them. They are also ensuring that the winner of contested primary has an immediate boost when these funds are released headed into the general election.
From John Kerry’s email…
So
we’re launching a unique campaign to pressure the critical points in
the GOP caucus. We are targeting a few key Senators for this message:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senators Sununu, Collins,
and Coleman. The last three are already top races for 2008, and Senator
McConnell is the bulwark of the GOP leadership on this.This is
an extraordinary campaign; to my knowledge, nothing quite like this has
ever been done. But this money can make all the difference in each of
these races, and these Senators will know it. Senator McConnell is
secure in his belief that no one will be able to raise the money to
challenge him. We can show that he’s wrong. The other Senators are
already top targets in 2008, but they hope the power of incumbency and
fundraising can save them. We can show them that the power of
Washington won’t stand against the power of the people.
Sen. Kerry is right that this is extraordinary. We at ActBlue are glad to make it possible through Democratic Nominee Funds. These elections, even the primaries, are next year but Sen. Kerry knows that this is not a standard election cycle and people are ready today to take the fight to Republicans and build upon our 2006 Democratic victories.
P.S. As we’ve seen from comments in Sen. Kerry’s post on Daily Kos there are lots of people interested in expanding this beyond just these 4 states. ActBlue is here for anyone (bloggers, state parties, other officeholders) to make use of this technology. …maybe you’ll be the one to send e-mails state by state for the other 17?
