Howie Klein is just a force in progressive politics.  He's smart, learns quickly, and will be a major lever pulling the party towards our values.  I trust his judgment, and he's asking all of us to help fund a campaign to help Tony Trupiano.  I don't know Tony Trupiano, though I've been told that he's extremely progressive and running a good campaign on a really cheap budget.  One of the best admakers in the country is making an ad for Blue America to run in the district, and Blue America is going to run it.  Here's Howie.

A couple days ago one of the most impressive TV ad makers in America, Lars Sandvik , sent us an ad he had put together for Jim Webb. Only Webb isn't using it. I asked him if he could adapt it to one of the Blue America progressives. He said "yes" and, like everyone who works on Blue America, Lars has done everything pro bono and made sure everyone else involved would too. So which campaign would most benefit? John, Jane and I don't have any fancy Beltway consultants -- thank God -- but we have something way better: Markos. We got Markos to go over all the races with us and figure out which race would be most likely to benefit from this particular ad and where our limited budget would actually do enough... not just enough to send a message, but enough to swing a few points and win an election. In the end the four of us all came to the same conclusion: Tony Trupiano.

Tony's opponent is a posterboy for the whole concept of being a rubber stamp. He is one of the least independent-minded congressman in Washington, even to the point of being a bit of a laughing stock. A complete mama's boy, he became hysterical at the one debate he had with Tony and wound up making an idiot out of himself and then refusing any further debates. Since he actually gerrymandered the district for himself as a state legislator, he feels quite certain he's got this baby in the bag. He must be reading MyDD because he just gave away 80% of his campaign warchest -- all those legalized bribes for so many favors to so many corporations- to the RNCC.

Look at the Blue America ActBlue page. You've raised nearly half a million dollars and every $5 and $10 and $20 donation was pure grassroots. This is probably the last time we'll come asking for help in this cycle. If you have anything left you can spare, please consider going to the Blue America PAC and donating for television time buys for Tony now. We have to pull the trigger on Monday. So whatever we can raise between now and then, we put on the air.

Blue America is more ideological than the netroots page.  The netroots page is about supporting local blogospheres and candidates overlooked by DC insiders.  Blue America is about supporting progressives and getting to know candidates through blogging.  Both are extremely helpful to the values we all share, and this small campaign is part of introducing progressive professionals (like real admakers) into the political world.  All in all it's a good political value.

If you have any coin left, Howie will put it to good use.  I'm putting in $50, and Blogpac is going to make a donation.  Consider this an early Halloween trick on the Republicans.  It's a scary season for them.