I recall reading that Newt Gingrich advised Republican candidates who lost House races by less than 10% to run again in the next election; some of the infamous Class of '94 freshmen who rode the Republican wave into the House had run close races in '92, and some of '94's losers won seats in '96.  I think this is one Gingrich idea we need to adopt -- and further, we need to push the DCCC to adopt it as well.

What I would ideally like to see is a petition with a huge number of signatures delivered to the new DCCC chair on his or her first day on the job.  I think Moveon.org would be the ideal forum for collecting signatures -- on-line petition drives are a large part of what they do, and their mailing list can generate literally millions of signatures in a matter of days.

If anyone on MyDD has contacts in the management of Moveon.org, I would greatly appreciate your help in bringing this to their attention; I intend to submit it via their feedback form after incorporating any comments or suggestions from the MyDD community which seem useful.  I'd especially appreciate any information on who the new DCCC chair is likely to be, what the selection process is, and when we'll know for certain.

(petition text below the fold)

I've never donated money to a political candidate before. Mostly because I've never had the money. But now that I have a job, although it doesn't pay too much, I have a little extra cash kicking around, so I decided to take the plunge and do it. I sent $20 each to two candidates:

* Phil Kellam is running against Bush's Hampton Roads hand puppet, Thelma Drake, in VA-02. Yes, he's a Blue Dog, but he's about the only candidate that has a chance of winning in this red district that I moved to this year.

* Jon Tester needs no introduction here, but he's going to need help from as many people as possible in order to counteract Conrad Burns's piles of Republican money.

And now, the hard sell: What I want to ask now is that anyone reading this who has never contributed to a candidate before, find one you like and give them some money. Even if it's only $10 or $20, it's still better than nothing. We all need to come together and support Democratic candidates, because the price of inaction is too great.