I received a fundraising letter from Congressman Leonard Boswell’s campaign recently. It contained a healthy dose of the misleading spin I have come to expect from Boswell’s mailings this year.
I’m not going to retype the whole text, but this passage made me laugh (emphasis is in the original):
My republican opponent has had four months to raise money and plan for the general election; an election that I am only able to focus my attention on now. While I was competing against an opponent for the Democratic nomination, the republicans were getting ready to once again challenge us in this competitive district. This time they have the advantage of a large head start.
Get real. Iowa’s third Congressional district is not on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s list of 2008 targets.
CQ Politics has rated IA-03 “safe Democrat”, in part because the Republicans are not targeting the seat.
The latest Cook Political Report of competitive U.S. House races makes no mention of IA-03, which means that seat is considered safe for the incumbent.
Similarly, IA-03 is nowhere to be found on Swing State Project’s list of competitive U.S. House races.
What about that big “head start” the Republicans supposedly got while Boswell was facing a primary challenge? The most recent Federal Election Commission reporting, based on the May 14, 2008 filings, show that Boswell had raised about $1.16 million this election cycle and had about $709,000 cash on hand.
Republican candidate Kim Schmett had raised about $54,500 so far this year and had just under $33,300 cash on hand.
Let Red Brannan and the others who funded the smear campaign against Ed Fallon replenish Boswell’s campaign coffers.
Democrats in the third district should vote for Boswell in November, but don’t be a sucker–plenty of other Democratic candidates need and deserve your donations more.
Speaking of which, I have given Becky Greenwald $100. Go here if you would like to contribute to her campaign. A strong fundraising number at the end of the second quarter would give her a boost against Tom Latham.
UPDATE: Another worthy candidate is Iowa native Heather Ryan, who is running against a horrible incumbent Republican in Kentucky’s first district. RDemocrat’s latest post on that race is here.
4 Comments
Speaking of Becky Greenwald
What’s up with her campaign website? It still hasn’t been updated since the primary. I was going to make a donation to her campaign. But if you are not even able to update your website more than 10 days after the primary, I’m a bit concerned. Maybe her home flooded or something, I don’t know.
rf Sun 15 Jun 9:36 PM
I agree, they should be on top of that
I don’t know what is going on there.
desmoinesdem Sun 15 Jun 10:23 PM
greenwald and fundraising
RF — You are absolutely right…they need to focus on the website. In Greenwald’s defense, they have been focusing very hard on face-to-face fundraising since the primary. She needs to show that she can fundraise on her own before the DNC will get involved to target the district, so I can see why they have been focusing on that. On the other hand, if they don’t focus on the web too, they won’t attract new websavy people who they will need to win the general election, and they may very well be missing out on web donations.
I did email her campaign after seeing your comment. Her campaign manager emailed me back and agreed that it needs to be a focus and promised that there would be an update soon.
lorih Mon 16 Jun 1:17 PM
I contacted the campaign
and found out that they are redoing and relaunching the website soon. So they are aware of the need for new content.
desmoinesdem Mon 16 Jun 2:41 PM