Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Boxer's PAC Wants to Know Whom to Support
Posted by DavidNYC
Sen. Barbara Boxer is doing exactly what every safe, flush incumbent should be doing: She's putting her resources to work to help raise money for those who need it. What I like is that Boxer isn't simply having her PAC make a donation (which would be capped at $5K), but rather she's asking her community of supporters to contribute as well. The best part is, she's asking for our vote. You get to pick ONE House incumbent and ONE House challenger. And man, it's a tough choice! First, the incumbents:
Rep. John Salazar (CO-3)
Rep. Jim Marshall (GA-8)
Rep. John Barrow (GA-12)
Rep. Leonard Boswell (IA-3)
Rep. Melissa Bean (IL-8)
Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA-3)
Rep. John Spratt (SC-5)
Rep. Stephanie Herseth (SD-AL)
Rep. Chet Edwards (TX-17)
Rep. Rick Larsen (WA-2)
Hard to pick on this list. I'd say Boswell probably needs the cash most, perhaps followed by Jim Marshall. In terms of pure vulnerability, I feel like Edwards is most at-risk. Herseth, meanwhile, has a total nobody for a challenger. Now for the challengers:
Harry Mitchell (AZ-5)
Francine Busby (CA-50)
Joe Courtney (CT-2)
Diane Farrell (CT-4)
Ron Klein (FL-22)
Tammy Duckworth (IL-6)
Brad Ellsworth (IN-8)
Baron Hill (IN-9)
Heath Shuler (NC-11)
Patsy Madrid (NM-1)
Eric Massa (NY-29)
Charlie Wilson (OH-6)
Lois Murphy (PA-6)
Joe Sestak (PA-7)
Nick Lampson (TX-22)
Peter Welch (VT-AL)
This list obviously has most of the excellent races and is also tough to choose from. However, I'm gonna use a somewhat different metric here, which is one you've seen me use before: Marginal effect. That is, where are our dollars likely to go the farthest? For races where challengers have already raised a million dollars, clearly we can have less of an effect. In "cheaper" races, by contrast, we can have a much greater impact.
I think the lowest-dollar races on this list is Eric Massa in NY-29 - he's raised in the low six-figures. Most of these challengers have actually already raised over a million dollars (Lampson's raised over two). Those who haven't include Harry Mitchell (who got a late start), Joe Sestak (same), Joe Courtney, Heath Shuler, Brad Ellsworth and Peter Welch. Charlie Wilson hasn't, either, but with his primary situation still totally up in the air, I can't advise voting for him. And I'm not sure about Baron Hill - I can't seem to find his totals on the FEC site. Of course, Francine Busby ($1.5M so far), unlike the rest of these folks, faces her next election in little over a month (not counting any primaries).
I think it'd be pretty hard to choose wrong on this list - almost all of these people are good candidates. And regardless of how much they've got in the bank, I'm sure every campaign would appreciate some more help. So go vote.
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