Criteria 1) The VA-05 is a district buzzing with netroots activism (Waldo is sort of the blogfather around here) and a 75-80% Democratic stronghold in Charlottesville (UVA) with a strong DFA, MoveOn presence.

Criteria 2) Al Weed is a 42-year veteran and a farmer running as a populist progressive in every single way, against Virgil "MZM-Scandal" Goode, a socially-backwards, xenophobic bigot embroiled in scandal. He ran in 2004 and was skewered for his reasonable defense of gay marriage, and strong opposition to the war. Now the district is tired of Jerry Kilgore politics and suffering terribly from republican leadership (Martinsville I think has the highest military enrollment rate in the country).

As for criteria 3, this district went for Kaine in 2005, and Virgil was elected as a Democrat. In an electorate dominated by independents, no one noticed when Virgil switched parties, but they notice what's going on in the country today.

Al has been campaigning for three years, started a thinktank to promote Switchgrass and National health care in rural Virginia, and outraised Virgil in Q1. Your money will go twice as far in this district, if not farther. First of all, it's a cheap district in which to run an election, much cheaper than most northeastern states (We're talking about $700k, not 1.4 mil, and Al raised 500k last time around); second of all, Virgil is hurting from MZM, awaiting further implications out of the Wade confession, and needs nothing more than some voter education to get himself kicked to the curb.

Suck up resources or have strategic implications? Virgil is going to have to run a lot of smear ads to distract voters from his vote-selling practices, and he can certainly spend a lot of republican cash; plus, every voter turned out for Al will vote for Jim Webb in an area he has not focused much on so far.

(FD: I volunteer for Al when I'm not being a student, but I don't get paid. I write a blog to encourage people to get involved with his campaign.)