There are candidates out there, though qualified and potentially competitive, who don’t get the attention they deserve. Then there are candidates who got played by Rahm Emanuel and the Beltway elites.
Jim Marcinkowski, candidate for Congress in MI-08 is both. The New York Times profiled him today as “the thankless underdog”.
Let’s show the New York Times and Rahm Emanual and the DCCC that this is a race that can be won if it gets the support and attention it deserves.
Below you will find quotes and link to the article, a link to a newly created ActBlue page for Jim and the link to his website. Follow me below the fold!
The New York Times article is very revealing as to how the power brokers in Washington see Democratic candidates out their as mere pawns. Read this abstract:
He says many of the Democrats who enticed him to run abandoned him after his fund-raising lagged and they deemed other races to be more winnable. “Sometimes I feel like the marine who they sent charging up a hill,” he said. “Then the marine looks back over his shoulder and wonders, ‘Hey, where’d everyone go?'”
[snip]
Mr. Emanuel’s deputies from his committee phoned him relentlessly, he said, asking “how many calls I made, how many people I contacted, whether I’d hit up all my relatives, neighbors, friends from high school.”
He raised more than $130,000 in the first quarter of 2006. Not bad, except that Mr. Rogers had about $1 million in the bank from past campaigns. Mr. Marcinkowski hired a small staff, recruited volunteers and bought local television, cable and radio advertisements. In June, Congressional Quarterly even moved Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District to the Republican Favored category from Safe Republican.
But eventually, Mr. Marcinkowski said, the calls reaped less and less money. His donors focused on higher-profile races. The calls from the Congressional committee’s officials pretty much stopped. “I fell off way their radar,” he said, adding that he “really misses those phone calls.”
The sudden silence left him “scarred,” he said, and added that no one at the committee even sent him flowers to say goodbye. He suggested that his story could be called “The Spy Left Out in the Cold.”
When did he last hear from Rahm Emanuel?
“Rahm who?”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Emanuel and the Congressional committee declined to comment.
You can read the entire article here.
Jim Marcinkowski is the kind of candidate you would want in a district like this one. He was in the Navy and the CIA, he turned his back on the Republican party that has betrayed him and so many more people in this country and also in his district. He stands up for other people’s rights as was the case in the Valerie Plame case:
Jim spent five years serving as an operations officer both in Washington, D.C. and overseas; he received a CIA Exceptional Performance Award for his work. While in the CIA, Jim met Valerie Plame, a classmate whose identity as an undercover CIA officer would later be exposed by the Bush White House. In July 2005, Jim joined two other former CIA agents in testifying at a Senate Hearing on the serious consequences of the leak.
Still the DC insiders let him fall like a hot potato cause he didn’t “perform” like they wanted him to. This is why Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy is so vital!
The ignorance of those in Washington is best displayed by the Hotline’s Chuck Todd who’s rankings everyone reads:
Chuck Todd, editor of Hotline, the online political tip-sheet, asked whether he was “that guy who played quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons in the 1980’s.” (No, that was Steve Bartkowski.)
I mean this is his job. And he only knows the top 50 races and ignores everything else. And we actually give a damn about his judgement?
Let’s show the DCCC and the beltway insiders that this is not the way to treat candidates, that every race can be won.
Let’s support the New York Times “underdog”.
Let’s join Jim Marcikowski in asking “Rahm who?”
I know you probably have already given to one or more candidates and most of you are strapped. But with as little as $5 you can join Jim in saying “Rahm who!”
Contribute through the Support the New York Times “Underdog” ActBlue page.
And visit Jim Marcinkowski’s Campaign Website.
cross posted from Daily Kos