|
U.S. HOUSE — 3rd Congressional District of WA |
|
Campaign War Chests of Incumbents 10/22/2008
It has taken me a while to figure out just why minority candidates must be run year after Even Year against Congressional Incumbents who couldn’t be dislodged with a keg of dynamite.
There probably are a good half dozen reasons, but I can only come up with two:
1. It is always the hope of the Other Party to drain this Congressional Powerhouse of at least some of his or her Great Treasure;
2. It helps the local economy in the form of totally unnecessary advertising.
In the case of Brian Baird, our 3rd Congressional US House Representative, here in my, and his, adopted home of Southwest Washington, the latter is far and away the bigger practical reason.
Now don’t get me wrong. Michael Delavar has a great team of plucky friends and family. I totally admire how those “NO BAILOUT” signs of his sprung up over the landscape, after Baird caved into the Highwaymen of Wall Street. It takes a lot of physical work from your core group, to create such physical happenings, as those signs don’t really just “spring up” out of nowhere.
But Match Brian Baird in terms of Cash, and drain him percentage-wise of much of his Million Dollar More or Less Campaign Treasure Trove? No way.
This came home to me in a big mathematical way upon reading our local daily, The Columbian. A few weeks ago, The Columbian reported on both candidate’s campaign funding. Baird had accumulated a million or so, as is typical of him. Delavar some $13,000. The dollar contrast was even more striking, if you thought about it: just one big donor or two—and I’m not counting organized “special interests” like unions—each gave almost as much to Brian Baird —some $12,000—as Delavar had raised totally.
But as to the number 2 reason. Well, you just have to consider it almost an act of kindness for Baird Baird to keep on funding those big family political ads of his in The Columbian, now that the local daily is facing such hard economic times.
There is the school book reason, of course, why there must always be an Oppositional Candidate, who has so little practical hope of obtaining 50% Plus One of the votes. It has something to do with Democracy, and trying to keep even the Shoe-In Incumbents accountable to The People who presumably are supposed to matter.
So hats off to all those candidates who keep running against those powerhouse incumbents, with so little chance of unseating them. Both we and democracy need you! Thank You for all those efforts you all contribute, year after year.
Brian Baird — Act Locally; Think Globally—Has Baird struck the right balance? 10/24/2008
And . . . Why Don’t You Love Us, Too? Continued — 10/27/2008
There are so many issues in Southwest Washington — just in Clark County, alone — that I want the Congressman of the Third Congressional District to be concerned and worried about. Yet he doesn’t even speak about these things. Not even when they land smack in the middle of federal jurisdiction.
It’s not that Brian Baird hasn’t done anything for this district, and that he isn’t hard working.
But we seem to give him a free pass on some issues, that are particularly nettlesome. Its as if we don’t want to bother the great man, while he’s fretting about the Iraq War or the Environment.
A US Congressman SHOULD fret about these Big Things.
But isn’t he supposed to care about us, his constituents, sometimes too, and our particular concerns and problems? You know, the little things, the little guys. Like, well . . . Joe the Plumber . . . from the 3rd Congressional District? |
|
Page 1 |
