The Money Problem and State Legislative Challengers in the Lehigh Valley
One of the Major problems Democratic Challengers for State Legislative offices in the Lehigh Valley have is money. I may have mentioned this before in another of my posts, but I figure I should probably go into this more now. In politics Money seems to be a the last and final determiner of viability, and if you don't have it you aren't viable and it's hard to get it. (This is also why we don't have the best selection of candidates running, or challenged primaries or in some cases candidates at all.)
So what do candidates do well,
They are told go to your families and friends for money, go to the unions, go to this group got to that group. The simple fact is when most of the candidates go to their friends and family they can only scrape together a few bucks maybe a few hundred maybe a thousand or a little more. Most of these candidates don't have deep pockets and neither do their friends and families.
It's been made clear by their action and statements, that the Unions simply don't have the means to help with funding state legislative Challenger candidates the way they use to in addition to funding the federal and statewide candidates, and the Hdcc really has no interest in funding challenger candidates in the valley and probably will have even less of an interest in funding races after the last election. Unless the candidate is polling gangbusters right off the bat, or already has a ton of money.
The Final group that candidates go to is the bloggers well for Federal candidates this seems to work but there seems to be little taste among bloggers to help State candidates in pa outside of Philadelphia. On avg most State candidates got many 150 to 200 dollars from the net.
So What can be done, that is the question I've been racking around in my little green head for a few weeks now.
It can't keep going the way it is if we expect to win any more seats back from the republicans in the valley any time soon.
I came up with a number of options to deal with this.
1. The Lehigh and Northampton county parties could get together and create a Lehigh county Legislative fund raising action committee for State Democratic Challengers that would be there for these candidates as start up money once we know who the candidates are after the primary.
We have two of the best fund raiser in the Democratic party in the Valley. I can't imagine if the party asked them nicely they wouldn't help in this en devour or they could find someone else in the party to do this with Fund raising skills. I'm not talking about the 1k donation i'm talking about 10-20k starter funds per candidates
2. The counties could do this separately
3. The clubs could form state pacs and do the fund raising for candidates.
4. something I'm sure I'll hear the most howling about is put together a group of donors for candidates to go to they know will give them money, beyond just unions.
Which ever option we choose one thing that simply isn't an option is the status quo. If we want to win seats ever again in the Lehigh valley.
So what do candidates do well,
They are told go to your families and friends for money, go to the unions, go to this group got to that group. The simple fact is when most of the candidates go to their friends and family they can only scrape together a few bucks maybe a few hundred maybe a thousand or a little more. Most of these candidates don't have deep pockets and neither do their friends and families.
It's been made clear by their action and statements, that the Unions simply don't have the means to help with funding state legislative Challenger candidates the way they use to in addition to funding the federal and statewide candidates, and the Hdcc really has no interest in funding challenger candidates in the valley and probably will have even less of an interest in funding races after the last election. Unless the candidate is polling gangbusters right off the bat, or already has a ton of money.
The Final group that candidates go to is the bloggers well for Federal candidates this seems to work but there seems to be little taste among bloggers to help State candidates in pa outside of Philadelphia. On avg most State candidates got many 150 to 200 dollars from the net.
So What can be done, that is the question I've been racking around in my little green head for a few weeks now.
It can't keep going the way it is if we expect to win any more seats back from the republicans in the valley any time soon.
I came up with a number of options to deal with this.
1. The Lehigh and Northampton county parties could get together and create a Lehigh county Legislative fund raising action committee for State Democratic Challengers that would be there for these candidates as start up money once we know who the candidates are after the primary.
We have two of the best fund raiser in the Democratic party in the Valley. I can't imagine if the party asked them nicely they wouldn't help in this en devour or they could find someone else in the party to do this with Fund raising skills. I'm not talking about the 1k donation i'm talking about 10-20k starter funds per candidates
2. The counties could do this separately
3. The clubs could form state pacs and do the fund raising for candidates.
4. something I'm sure I'll hear the most howling about is put together a group of donors for candidates to go to they know will give them money, beyond just unions.
Which ever option we choose one thing that simply isn't an option is the status quo. If we want to win seats ever again in the Lehigh valley.
posted by Greendogdem at
6:04 PM
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