Money pours in to Shimkus challenger

[deadparrot]

When congressional challenger Dan Stover went to bed Sunday night, his online fundraising account was barely over $1,000.

Less than 48 hours later, as national headlines screamed sex scandal in Congress, that amount had more than quadrupled.

Granted, that seems like a paltry amount, considering Stover faces Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, who sits on a $1.1 million war chest. But Stover and his supporters call it a glimmer of hope in a race that political prognosticators had all but written off.

It was the classic challenger's scenario: an upset believed possible only with help of a scandal. Now Shimkus - the clean-shaven West Point grad, former Army Ranger and high school teacher - risks being caught in the fallout from the debacle surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who abruptly resigned last week after he was confronted with salacious electronic messages he reportedly sent to a teenage congressional page.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/metroeast/story/8100AD42524D4AB9862571FD0017CD07?OpenDocument

[aquart]

1. Risks??? He's hip deep.

[TAPat]

2. Shimkkkus, Shamecuss, Chimpkiss

it's all the same to me! This guy is (oh, how I hate to say it) the R rep for my area. BOO HISS!

Yay, Stover!

[EST]

4. Hey, TAPat!

East Jefferson county, here.

[TAPat]

5. Hey! Newish transplant to Alton...

We moved here to look after my partner's 92 year old father who is a raging Faux Noos/Rush loving loud-mouth R. We keep ourselves sane by holding on to the giant irony that it's us hard core Dems taking care of his lame Publikkkan ass :)

To his credit, he does treat us very, very well - he thinks I walk on water!

Nice to meet ya' neighbor :hi:

[EST]

3. The asinine comment of one of his "constituents" to the effect

that he didn't believe Shemp could be involved in a coverup is the very worst kind of head in the sand political ignorance, especially since that voter said it won't make any difference-they intend to vote for him anyway.

The sad truth is that ol' Shemp is involved in the coverup, even if only through stupid, publi-con neglect, and is in it up to his skivvies.

If he's actively involved, he needs to be removed from congress for his misdeeds and prosecuted. If he's involved only through ignorant publiclown arrogance and narcissism, he is not fit to serve and should be removed from congress for sheer incompetence and possibly prosecuted.

He does have one positive point: he does reply to about one out of five of the scores or perhaps hundreds of letters and e-mails I have sent him.

Of course, he always tells me I'm not smart enough or learned enough to understand the issues and he knows more than I do so I am wrong--so piss off--but be sure to vote for me.

I don't like him.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. Links: where to give to Stover's counterparts in other districts

Here's my list of Democratic challengers to Republican incumbents who may be most vulnerable to calls for resignation in the Predatorgate Coverup.

I went to http://www.fec.gov and http://www.thegreenpapers.com and clicked through to state General Election voter information pages. Here are the incumbent names, states and districts, Democratic challengers, and campaign homepage URLs:

R Incumbent (State-District) ....... Democratic Challenger
Homepage

Mark Foley (FL-16) ..................... Tim Mahoney
http://www.timmahoneyforflorida.com

John Shimkus (IL-19) .................. Danny Stover
http://www.stoverforcongress.us

Thomas Reynolds (NY-26) .......... Jack Davis
http://www.jackdavis.org

Rodney Alexander (LA-05) ......... Gloria Williams Hearn
http://www.hearnforcongress.com

John A. Boehner (OH-08) ............ Mort Meier
http://www.victimsofjohnboehner.org

Denny Hastert (IL-14) ................. John Laesch
http://john06.com

Roy Blunt (MO-07) ..................... Jack Truman
http://trumanforcongress.tripod.com

Here's where DUers can surf to help some of these candidates. Most of these Democrats have been on their own with very few resources.

IMO, what they need most is help with local media, press releases, photo-ops, etc. IMO, their only hope of gaining office for themselves is to ignite local media feeding frenzies to bloody up and then devour the coverup leadership. You can even find lists of links to their local media at the bottom of General Election webpages for their states at http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G06/LA.phtml (for states other than Louisiana, substitute a different postal abbreviation (IL, NY, etc) for "LA").

[Pachamama]

9. If every DUer donated even just $10 to each of these people, that

could help them raise atleast $500K overnight.

I'm going to go ahead and donate to these guys, especially Laesch and Mahoney who are challenging Hastert and Foley directly in their districts.

I think they have a real shot (where they didn't before) and some money to help them over the next 30 days will help them fight those big RNC war chests....

:kick:

[Kurovski]

7. It looks like Shimkus did bad. Real, real bad.

Now it's time for all that talk about personal responsibility the Republicans engage in to actually mean something.

[shain from kane]

8. He was a schoolteacher before Congress. He knew the

issues, and should have yelled bloody murder. Big time. He failed.

[Kurovski]

10. I was very pleased with his bill to designate the former Joliet Arsenal

as the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, and it's a beautiful one.

But I'm disappointed to say that one of my relatives who is interred there would have been especially outraged and saddened at his negligence in the Foley matter.

[MGKrebs]

11. I say "Shimkus" should be be a verb now.

"Let's Shimkus this one" (bury it).

Even in hockey: "That goalie is doing a Shimkus back there!" (Not letting anything through). (Is that a verb?)