Mark Herring. Raised nearly $100,000 since January. Has $150,000 on hand. Smart, popular, and effective.
Mike Kondratick. Raised over $15,000 since January. He has nearly twice that on hand. I just met his campaign manager, and she is on the ball and ready to roll.
David Butler. Experienced elected official, has already raised over $8000 raised over $11000 in the last report and has over $22,000 on hand [thanks for the update Dave!]. I haven’t met his primary opponent, Jim Magner, and he’s too new to have filed a report.
Jennifer Wexton. She raised over $9000, and is off to a great start. Her resume and her attitude will help us be rid of the embarrassment that is Jim Plowman.
Valdis Ronis. Raised nearly $7000 over $12,000 [I was looking at Cash On Hand]. Planning Commissioner. Architect. Well-known and well-liked.
Al Nevarez. Raised OVER $7,000. I just met his campaign manager, and I think that this is the team to beat Delgaudio. Also, he did very well in last night’s debate with Dan Lloyd and Barry Aliriza.
Speaking of Dan Lloyd, I thought he also did well, and any of the three of them would be a better choice than Delgaudio.
And I haven’t even touched on Malcolm Baldwin or Kelly Burk.
So the Dems have a pretty exciting line-up this year. I’m looking forward to walking for most of these good folks this season.
Yeah, well, we ALL come from a part of the country where pro-choice folks have been harassed, or shot and killed. We ALL come from a part of the country where LGBT folks have been harassed, or shot and killed. We ALL come from a part of the country where pro-union people have been harassed, or shot and killed.
Often by law enforcement.
So you’re not going to get a whole lot of sympathy out of me about wanting to donate anonymously because you think your causes might be unpopular.
Not to mention that I come from a part of the country where people have been shot and killed by union goons for their public support of Right to Work. It’s so bad even union leadership were convicted and sent to prison.
Because some donors to political causes are threatened and harassed. We already have a situation where a citizen who chose to speak out publicly on our behalf had his small farm threatened by officials.
That’s why the Supreme Court and federal law protect such a right, and it is why every court we file suit in, regardless of the judge’s ideology, in rules in our favor.
If a person feels strongly enough about a cause to support it with money, why would they not want to announce that fact?
I support NARAL Pro-choice Virginia (am on the board), WAMU, the LCDC, Heifer International, Doctors Without Borders, and many other causes. I am pleased to let the world know about my support for these causes.
I am also pleased that the causes I give to MUST list their donors. I like being able to prove that it’s not just a handful of people with deep pockets who support the causes I believe in, it’s hundreds of people, or thousands, or millions.
I apologize for managing to write a vague clarification 🙂
No, if you’ll review our court cases (www.AmericanTradition.org and http://www.ATInstitute.org) I am referring to your right to donate to a 501(c)4 citizen lobbying group, such as the Human Rights Campaign or American Tradition Partnership without an Eric Rudolph or Ted Kacyznski type being given your address, a First Amendment right the Supreme Court has already upheld.
Do you mean that you are actually arguing against public disclosure of political contributions? Against the right of the people to know who is funding the campaigns of candidates for public office? Wow. Please tell us more.
* Clarification: The right I am defending is of you to freely donate as much as you would like to whomever you wish, not to be publicly named and your address given out so you can be harassed or threatened by political opponents.
So, citizens engaging in political speech through political contributions is “corrupt?”
If “corruption” is measured in political contributions, seeing as you are named in many of the reports (an inalienable right of yours I am defending in several courts) doesn’t that make you a sleaze merchant?
That makes the Republicans twice as corrupt as the Democrats which isn’t true. They are one to two orders of magnitude more corrupt.
“The first campaign finance reports of the 2011 election season filed with Loudoun and state election boards show Republicans nearly twice out-raised Democrats.”
Loudoun Times-Mirror, Apr. 27, 2011, “Election 2011: The money war begins,” Lede sentence
Actually, I raised close to $11,000 in the last report (http://www.vpap.org/candidates/profile/home/99901) and now have over $22,000 cash on hand.