With Matt’s great post this morning, we are officially starting up our Bush Dog campaign on Open Left. This campaign has both short-term and long-term goals. In the short term, we aim to help progressives win the next fights in Congress over FISA and Iraq. Over the long-term, this is part of a broader effort that touches on the core of the purpose of Open Left: building a progressive governing majority.
The administration's warrantless wiretapping program looks set to be the subject of renewed and bitter wrangling between Congress and the White House when lawmakers return to Washington in September.
A new group of prominent conservatives plans to begin a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign Wednesday to urge members of Congress who may be wavering in their support for the war in Iraq not to "cut and run."
The group, Freedom's Watch, is rolling out television, radio and Internet advertisements in more than 20 states and 60 Congressional districts.
Ari Fleischer, President Bush's former press secretary and a spokesman for the group, said it would initially spend $15 million on the effort, which will also encourage voters to put pressure on their representatives for continued support of the war.
Mr. Fleischer declined to say in an interview Tuesday which members of Congress were on its list, but he indicated that it would include some Republicans as well as Democrats.
Considering that the group contains many former White House officials, this is clearly a Bush administration front group. Further, Fleischer may have declined to indicate which members of Congress are being targeted, but in the extended entry I provide a partial list of 15 Senators and 18 Representatives who are targeted in the campaign. Notice that at least two Bush Dogs, John Barrow (GA-12) and Mark Pryor (AR-Sen) are included in this partial target list. The White House itself clearly feels that conservative Democrats are key to maintaining its ability to govern, and it is targeting them with television advertising accordingly.
The point I want to make here is that both the Iraq and the FISA fights are not taking place in the weeks and months down the road. For all intents and purposes, both have already been engaged. As such, we must have equal urgency in out campaign to combat the Bush Dogs, and bring an end to the conservative governing majority in Washington.
In the extended entry, you can see just a partial list of what we are up against in these fights over Iraq and FISA. By reading Matt’s post, profiling a Bush Dog in your area, and signing up to receive email alerts on this campaign (upper right corner of the page), you can start to fight back.
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