Looking Down the Ticket

What’s a disgruntled conservative blogger to do this election?

A: open up the five hundredth “Lesser of Two Evils” should-I-actually-vote-for-that-squish-McCain debate, or

B: Look around for some actual conservatives to back?

You might not find any at the top of the ticket, but the real conservatives are out there, running for Congress all around the country. I was thinking about writing a post summarizing some of the hotter races, where some support from bloggers and local activists and small donors could make a big difference.

But then some guys went and started up a whole blog dedicated to exactly that subject: Down The Ticket.

Which is pretty cool. They’re covering some of the races I’m interested in: Harris in Maryland, McClintock in California, Barletta in Pennsylvania, and several more.

I’d point out that they’re missing Florida’s Allen West, who I would really like to see in Congress.

I’d also recommend they follow Keith Fimian in Northern Virginia–not so much that he’s a rock-solid conservative (he might be, I just can’t tell yet) as that his Democratic opponent is Gerry Connolly, who as Fairfax County supervisor maintained a sanctuary policy for illegal aliens and also backed the county’s relationship with a Saudi-funded radical Islamic school.

So even if Fimian turns out to be a RINO who makes McCain look Reaganesque, I don’t think there’s any reason to let this district go to Connolly. And even if it is trending a little Whole-Foods soccer-mom nanny-state around NoVa, Connolly’s spent a lot to win his primary and he’s made those very bad decisions on illegals and madrassas that Fimian’s campaign–or his surrogates–ought to be able to exploit.

Anyway, conservatives. They’re out there, and they need some lovin’. I’m not big on telling you what to do, but if you were to ask my advice, I’d say to pick out a name from Downtheticket’s list–or maybe one of my additions–and send them twenty bucks along with a short note explaining why you’re doing this and which issues are important to you.*

And when your paycheck comes in next month, do it again. Repeat until November.

We’ve got plenty of time to decide what to do about McCain, and frankly I’m already tired of him. But we can never have enough principled conservatives in Congress. Even if we don’t reclaim a majority, we’ll need stalwarts in there who will do their best to delay and disable the new shamnesty bill that will be headed our way pretty soon–under either new president.

*If you do this, please mention where you got the idea–because if these candidates aren’t reading this site, they should at least know that their donors are.

Also, this doesn’t constitute an “endorsement” of any of those candidates, for whatever that’s worth. I’m just saying it’s a pretty good list. If you know of anybody who ought to be added to it, let us know in the comments.

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