Back in October of 2006, Chris Bowers started the "Use it or Lose it" campaign to lobby Senators and Representatives up for election with no or token opposition from a Republican opponent. By the time the election was held, the netroots-wide campaign had successfully convinced these safe Representatives to part with $2.2 million from their coffers to help Democratic challengers across the country.
It's now two years later and some of the same people involved in the original campaign have decided to start a new "Use it or Lose it" campaign for 2008. The initial diary identifies 126 Democrats--again, with no opponent or a token opponent--with $83,468,647 cash on hand as of 9/9. As that diary states, "Just ten percent of that would drop more than $8.3 million into tight House races across the country."
This year, however, the call was ignored by the community. The diary above received 28 recommends and seven comments. It was Rescued at least, but that didn't do much to improve its visibility or start the campaign.
In 2006, Kos himself promoted Chris Bowers' diary here to the front page with an endorsement of the campaign. And this year? Silence.
In 2006, we managed to convince safe members of Congress to contribute $2.2 million to Democratic challengers. This year, the pool of available contributions is even bigger, to the tune of $33 million. This time, we don't have to ask for 30%. We just have to ask for 10%!
What are we waiting for? This is money that has already been contributed but is sitting in the coffers of members that are going to be reelected without a fight! Why are frontpagers like Kos posting multiple diaries a day begging for contributions from cash-strapped middle-class activists when there are millions of dollars--that have already been contributed and are sitting unused--a phone call away?
The diary to launch the campaign this year was published on September 12th. It is now October 16th. In 2006, we started the campaign on October 19th. We've wasted valuable time to convince members to contribute from unneeded reserves, and even more valuable time in which we could have used that money in close races.
Why haven't we revived this campaign this cycle? Was it not effective last time? Did members resent having to give their money to other campaigns? Did the DCCC not disburse the money to appropriate races? Was there some other structural or timing issue that made the campaign ineffective?
Where's my fucking campaign, Kos?