August 4, 2009

Does Joe Sestak Have A Chance?

Used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user EAWB

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In 2006, when recently retired Naval Admiral Joe Sestak announced his candidacy to represent Pennsylvania’s seventh congressional district, he knew he’d be fighting an uphill battle. He was a Democrat and a political newcomer facing 10-term GOP incumbent Rep. Curt Weldon in a traditionally conservative district. But first Sestak bested his opponent in the fundraising race, and then he beat him at the polls, becoming only the second Democrat to win that seat since the Civil War. On Tuesday, after serving for little more than two years in the House of Representatives, Sestak announced that he would run against Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary.  Can he defy the odds once again?

Well, maybe. But it won’t be easy. When Sestak pulled off his upset victory over Weldon, he was helped by the fact that his opponent was the target of an FBI investigation. Specter, by contrast, is a 30-year incumbent with some major Democratic heavyweights standing behind him—including President Barack Obama; Vice President Joe Biden, who helped broker his party switch; and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. So far, the only big(ish) Pennsylvania pol to jump on board for Sestak is Joe Hoeffel, the former congressman and current vice-chair for the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, whom Specter defeated in the 2004 election.

Specter also has a huge name recognition advantage, years of Senate experience to sell to Pennsylvania voters, and a long track record of appealing to both independents and moderates. Sestak, by contrast, isn’t a household name outside his district.

Still, the news isn’t all bad for Sestak. For all of Specter’s many years in politics, he’s not crushing Sestak in the fundraising battle. In the last quarter, Sestak hauled in $1 million compared to Specter’s $1.7 million—but Specter has pledged to return contributions from GOP supporters who no longer supported him after he switched parties.

The big wild card in this race is the shifting allegiances of Pennsylvania voters. James Carville once memorably said that Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. But there are now 1.2 million more Democrats than Republicans registered in Pennsylvania. At least some of those are newcomers to the party who were formerly moderate Republicans, Specter’s traditional support base. Be prepared for this fight to get ugly.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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