Ed in NJ7!
In the case of Blue America endorsed candidate Ed Potosnak who challenged Wall Street shill Rep. Leonard Lance in NJ's 7th District he pushed back against the Red Tide mightily to match the Democratic performance in 2008. Ed spent less than 10% of what Democrats dumped into the race during the last cycle with approximately the same results. What could his campaign have accomplished with 20% of '08? Simple: a victory. His campaign was a winning campaign: well run, consistently on message, grass roots, and energized. As a candidate, Ed was articulate [View his first debate here], knowledgeable, engaging, and hard working. Equally important, he was on the right side of the issues that matter most: jobs and the economy, healthcare, education, financial reform, and improving America's competitiveness.
The lack of engagement by the DNC and DCCC in Ed's race and races like his across the country, may have cost us control of the House of Representatives. They turned their backs on true progressives to support losers (literally) who ran campaigns (and ads) promising to fire Speaker Pelosi and who have been trashing the Democratic brand for years. Good job DCCC; your strategy sucked! Here at Blue America we have not only been critical of their model we stepped up and worked actively to support the right candidates.
May I add that the NJEA - which is actively calling for teachers to run for political office! - did not endorse Ed in the NJ-7 race against Leonard Lance. Even though ED IS A TEACHER AND A MEMBER OF THE NJEA!!!
To give you a sense of the enormous lift Ed accomplished with our help you need not look far to other races in New Jersey. Ed received over 70,000 votes, this is nearly the same number of votes as his 11th term incumbent Democratic neighbor, Congressman Frank Pallone in NJ's 6th. In 2008 Rep. Pallone pulled 67% and this year that dropped more than 10 points to 55%. Rush Holt's performance was also significantly diminished by 13%. Further down state, Rep. Adler (a very conservatove Democrat who voted no on Heathcare) went down by 3% and lost to Tea Party candidate John Runyan.
Let's stop being losers. Let's get behind our best candidates. Let's take the fight to them.
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