Flip a District UPDATED
Bill Maher is running some damn thing called Flip a District, where he and his fans will attempt to oust a sitting congressvarmint.
Lt. Col. Wesley Reed
He wants it to be someone who has a chance of winning. While we have some excellent congressional candidates in Texas to take on Republicans, including Louie Minor in District 31 who is a real comer, the one who probably has the best chance of winning against a real certified dead solid perfect Republican son of a motherless goat is Wesley Reed.
He’s running against Ducky Jammie Boy Blake Farenthold. Watch the You Tube at that second link.
If Lt. Col. Reed had some money, he could take this seat back. He is an outstanding speaker, has a gorgeous family, is smart as Rice University with a 50 pound dictionary, and with just a little help, he can an will win. He is personally a very charismatic guy with a compelling life story who is comfortable in his own skin.
So is Maher in looking in Texas, and he’s crazy if he doesn’t, this is the race to win. And, boy howdy, the laughs Farenthold would provide!
UPDATE: One of his volunteers sent me a better picture. Did I mention that he’s mighty easy on the eyes, too.
UPDATE: I just talk to Wesley. His website will be update professionally by this Friday if not before. It just so happens that Bill Maher is com in to Corpus Christi this weekend to do a show. Corpus is in the district. Wesley’s supporters are putting together a packet to give Maher. MOSTLY, Wesley thanks you for your donations.
Have you alerted Maher, J.J.? Would love to see this happen.
1Maryelle, you’re absolutely right — someone, or better yet, all of us at the salon, need to let Bill Maher know about this. JJ, how can that be done?
2From Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/31/bill-maher-congress-race_n_4701727.html
UPDATE: Maher informed viewers Friday night that the new initiative would be named “Flip a District” and encouraged viewers to use #FlipADistrict to explain why their congressperson should be ousted.
3Sadly the DCCC will ignore Mr. Reed, unless he is a blue dog.
4Looks like the contact info is #Flip a District on twitter.
5Permission to come aboard, LtCol Reed? HELL YES!
I am going to do whatever I can for Wesley Reed.
My second abode is in the 27th. No, I can’t vote there yet, bet I could if I was a Reptaliban; but I can donate and volunteer. My grandkids go to Flour Bluff schools, while a daughter and SIL serve our nation at NAS-CC.
HELL YES! I’m in this one.
Anything to stuff that pasty, corpulent Farenthold back into the crack in the woodwork he crawled out of.
Looking at Reed’s webpage, I can see the need for a savvy professional manager.
Let’s raise enough to do as JJ advocates, and build Wesley a first class campaign organization to beat the stuffing out of Blake!
I only mention this to be helpful, Reed’s homepage merely lists a newspaper article, which discusses Reed’s entry into the race; while having entirely too much emphasis on his competitor, etc., IMO. It needs a professional’s touch to maximize the effort, this district should be WINNABLE.
It will take some serious GOTV effort, that is why Ortiz got sandbagged, terrible D turnout, IMO; granted, gerrymandering has changed it a bit (not that Ortiz was worth much, I voted for him from his very first run when I lived in the Valley, but had to hold my nose from then on). And I’m not a pro, just a longtime political observer.
6I think Bills’ efforts would be better directed at ousting Darrell Issa, though. Not that Texas hasn’t fielded some goofballs, but Issa is downright dangerous and a much larger waste of Federal resources.
7I’ve recommended “Ducky Jammies” Farenthold at #flipadistrict on Twitter. Lord help us, our state is a target rich environment.
8I’d feel a whole lot better about Mr. Minor if he put that he’s a Democrat on his web page. Maybe I can understand why he doesn’t, but what’s the point if everyone knows his opponent is a Republican?
9I know. So many nutcases, so little time, energy and money. I’d love to see Louie go but you can’t grow candidates on trees and Farenthold seems like a good one to pick.
10Just donated to Wesley – hope he kicks ducky boy right in his quacker.
11Good point JJ. Just donated to Wesley, he looks danged good!
12As a mother, sister and aunt of Marines, I’m sending Wesley a check because I also want to send him a note.
13Ducky-pajamas Under-age-girl Squeezer vs. Lt. Col. Handsome America! It almost seems too easy.
14Bill can have his pick in this state. Steve Stockman, Joe Barton, and the kingpin of all idiots, Louie Gohmert come to mind, right off the bat.
15Don’t leave Randy Neugabauer out of that worthless twit category. His latest TV ad has him pontificating about how proud he is to have been given a (0), as in zero, rating by both Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, and an F from the Sierra Club. On the other hand, if Maher were to take off on a campaign to unseat Gohmert, the press would go crazy with covering that imbecile. . . Congressman Issa needs to go, and in the California media market, the coverage would be phenomenal… which of course, is what Maher is also looking at…. return on investment.
16I gotta say, you Texans have a whole lot of nincompoops who truly deserve to be “flipped,” but I have to go with Issa. The guy is just dangerous. And I have to admit I’d kind of miss Gohmert’s shenanigans and lunacy, plus he’s just about as worthless and harmless as my own congressvarmint.
17I have to disagree. After seeing the daily groundswell of democrats coming out here in Williamson county alone, I think Louie Minor has an excellent chance of winning. #Flipadistrict choosing either race would be of huge benefit to the people of Texas.
18WA Democrats are letting him know that Cathy McMorris Rodgers should be on the list, after her stellar performance the other night, and the lack of representation of her district as she clings to Boehner’s coat tails. Reminiscent of the Dump DeLay campaign, a Dump Cathy movement is rolling out in Spokane, with calls for No Mo McMo Ro!
19More states thinking to go Blue like Texas?
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/fundraising-losers-103001.html
9 of the 10 are on my wish list for losing. Missed the mark on Miss Lindsey Beauregard. He has quite the campaign chest. But there’s still a ray of hope. For all their cash, the Koch Bros backed more losers than winners.
20Crazy Steve Stockman has put himself out of Congress with his doomed Senate grab hasn’t he?
21Tweeted, I did.
22How about Grimm, who threatened Roseanna Scotto’s little brother (she’s a Fox anchor in the NYC market) on NY1? I’d really like to understand WTF he meant by “break you. like a boy.” Sounded like the threat of a rapist to me.
23Zyxomma, it was all of that and more. After the pawn clown Reagan was elected the duplicitous imposter and those “hopefuls” following him have duped their way into elected office, let’s hope the game is up.
Republicans and failed Trickle Down with the faucet turned off, are not the lesser of two evils. They are simply evil. The Democratic Party is not perfect, but at least they will keep the tap open.
Elizabeth Warren, Wendy Davis, Leticia …. to Senator Patty Murray, progress is women and we men & women who appreciate them.
Go Blue Texas! Go Blue America! We white boys are (hopefully) done wrecking our country and ready for those willing women and men to serve and fix the mess.
24If you get bored you might have fun researching Koch bros. and Farenthold or Kbros and Darryl Issa or koch brothers and US postal service or Koch brothers and internet connectivity or……
25You sure know how to pick em. Am making contributions to both the LTC and Captain. Both of these hombres seem to represent what’s still good about Texas.
Keep up the good work Susan.
26I agree with the comments regarding his site – it needs a message and a professional’s touch.
Bigger questions:
Do we have any polling data? It’s going to take 60,000 votes to unseat him in an off-year. And that means turning out unlikely voters, not likely ones.
Is there a primary challenger? Where do the Ortiz’s stand with him?
Has he done oppo on himself? Is he a blue dog? Is he a DLC or third-way guy? Is he an unabashed liberal?
What is his current bank? How big is his donor list? Has he been to Washington to meet with the DCCC? Has he reached out to the various Dem Super PACS? Has he reached out to big Dem donors?
Unless Farenthold is caught in bed with a live boy or a dead hooker, ducky pajama pictures in and of themselves are not going to get the job done, especially in this redrawn district.
27Cannot wait until Maher gets his hands on the Duckie Pajama Boy snapshot! What hoot that would be!
28Because I’m both a suspicious once-bitten-twice-shy voter who’s been hornswoggled by a few DINOs before, and a fellow Marine veteran, I sat down and emailed Wesley Reed to ask his position specifically on points of great interest to me. He emailed back w/in 24 hours, answering straight up on every point to my satisfaction (so VERY unlike every Republican supposedly representing me I’ve written in the past decade…my Congresscritter, the Senators, the Texas legislators…none of whom engage with the issues I bring to them.)
I suspect that like a lot of military-background candidates, he’s a little more naive about all the ins and outs than someone who’s been fighting his way up from what used to be called precinct chairperson to candidacy, but he’s an actual live candidate willing to put himself out there, he’s responsive to direct contact, and he strikes me as a good’un.
Suggestion: Write him. If there’s stuff on his site that strikes you as potentially costing him the election, show him you’ve got the background to know something about how it works, and suggest what you think is wrong. I don’t classify Dems the way the more experienced of you do (blue dog? DLC? third way? what the heck are those? Unabashed liberal I do understand.)
What I specifically asked for his views on:
Health care, including women’s right to reproductive choice and services
Immigration
Job creation and unemployment
Voting rights
Environment, including climate change
Minimum wage and equal pay for women
So ask him what you want to ask him. But let’s don’t write him off because this is his first political rodeo.
Sometimes the rhinestone cowboy wins.
29Elizabeth, I’m not writing him off. I’m just asking from the standpoint of a former paid political professional the questions that need to be asked. I left a Lt Colonels’s congressional campaign in IL 06 after the primary in ’08 to run 2 counties for Obama in Ohio. I worked Franken’s recount in MN. I was campaign manager for the mayor of Toledo in ’09. I advised a campaign in OH 05 in the disastrous 2010 campaign.
There’s nothing on his site that will cost him an election. It’s just that there’s nothing on there that will help him win one.
30daChipster and Elizabeth at 27, 29, 30:
Exactly, I have some questions and reservations too, but Reed seems genuine. Sure hope he wouldn’t be an SOB like Pena (Hidalgo county, ran as a Dem, then flipped shortly after taking office…#$%$#$%.!!!)
I sent an email yesterday too, but haven’t heard back, guess it fell into an ISP spamtrap :[ .
daChipster, need a job? Sounds like you would be an asset to Reeds’ campaign effort.
I’m thinking if he’s serious he’ll have to take a sabbatical from work and be all over the district like gravy on a chickenfried. Real difficult to unseat something like Ducky, the incumbent, probably unlimited bucks, staff, etc.
31I’ve wondered how they can do it, does a challenger candidate draw a salary from the campaign? Hard to feed a family if not.
I try not to interrupt y’all’s conversations because you’re all a whole mess smarter than I am, but here goes…
I don’t want to holler out the numbers right here in front of Pete Olson (Hi, Pete!) and his Aunt Bea, but this is one of the more winnable seats in Texas. None of them are a cakewalk but this can be had.
I heard him speak at a Democratic rally in Victoria, Texas, and he blew the socks off everybody. You had to wait in line to get your picture taken with him because everybody knew this guy is a comer. The Texas Democratic Party has a staffer who I trust in the district and one of my favorite activists is in Corpus doing the Wesley Reed Happy Dance.
He is refreshingly new. He is willing to learn. Hell, yeah, he might disappoint us but we know for a fact that Farenthold will disappoint us, screw us afterwards, and laugh all the way home.
As far as the DCCC is concerned, I never give them more money than I can afford to put in a brown paper bag and set fire to. Which is another beauty of this race – Wesley goes in without owing them.
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