Helping Donna Edwards now matters for the reasons below.
Maryland is an important state. Reasons include: MD hosts NSA headquarters, residences of many Washington DC movers and shakers, House Dem #2 Steny Hoyer (and birthplace of House Dem #1 Nancy Pelosi, whose father was a local politco) along with Presidential (and/or Vice-Presidential) candidate Martin O’Malley; MD recently gave us the nationally important Baltimore example of police brutality and rioting, and the recently prominent Benghazi committee ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings,
MD-Sen is an important position, especially for women. Barbara Ann Mikulski will step down after 30 years, making her the longest-serving woman in the history of the United States Congress.
Donna Edwards is an important candidate. A very progresssive, smart, hard-working and attractive Black woman, she won DailyKos support in 2006 but narrowly failed to beat the entrenched conservadem incumbent. Then in 2008, she came right back and beat him. This is a model for every first time Progressive candidate for Congress who falls short of victory, unless their first-time loss reveals major weaknesses and a stronger Progressive candidate is available the next time. In the senate, Donna would serve as a role model (and doubtless a mentor and campaigner) for other potential Black woman senators (there has only ever been one). If building a Progressive bench and/or a Black Senate bench means anything, it means helping people like Donna move up from Congress to Senate, freeing up her House seat for another Progressive to follow in her footsteps.
October 31 (tomorrow) is an important fundraising deadline. • A strong showing by Donna would help deter a candidacy by Elijah Cummings, and enable Donna to retain her polling lead over Chris Van Hollen (who enjoys a big fundraising lead). Van Hollen seems to have relatively Progressive positions on many issues (notably environmental/climate change), but he has been notably mainly for his strong fund-raising and (not unconnected) quick rise into the Democratic House leadership (notably chairing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the period before and during Democratic losses in 2010). He is no Donna Edwards, but he has enough money to reverse his initial polling deficit against her. • Cummings has said he will decide soon whether to enter the race. Cummings now has national visibility from his battles with Benghazi witch-hunt leaders Darrell Issa and Trey Gowdy. If Cummings joins the race, he probably becomes the favorite, and, as a Black man, certainly splits Black voters with Edwards (Van Hollen is a White man). Cummings too is no Donna Edwards and, at 64, would not have Donna's (a very trim and athletic 57) potential for a lengthy Senate career (Van Hollen is 56). • A high-spending three-way race between relatively Progressive candidates, with the most Progressive of them suffering from a substantial funding disadvantage, is not a scenario we should encourage. If Cummings gives up his senior position in the House, I'd rather see him use his national profile to fix Baltimore as its new mayor.
My favorite place to contribute to Donna Edwards is through Blue America's Actblue page linked here.