I’ve been doing this every month since July. I summarized how much and to whom I’ve given in my September post. I continue to get a blitz of emails asking for donations. I’ve been staying at about $20/month, except in September I gave an extra $5 to the advocacy group Fair Fight 2020.
I note that in September Cory Booker made a plea to get a certain amount of donations or he would have to drop out of the race. I ended up giving him $5 last month, although not because of his plea, and he met his goal and has stayed in the race. I see (through multiple text messages), that Julian Castro has made a similar plea to Booker for this month. I have generally been a fan of Castro and gave $5 to him back in August. But last month’s donation to Booker was because he was in my top 4 and I can’t say the same about Castro now. In fact, he’s one of the candidates that I think should drop out and endorse someone. I just don’t see him with a path to winning and I’m not in to throwing good money after bad. So, no donation for Julian this month.
The top 4 in my last ranking were Warren, Buttigieg, Booker and Biden. Last month I just gave my 4 donations to the top 4, but I don’t think I’m going to go that way this month. First, Pete has oodles of money and is nipping at Warren’s heels in Iowa according to a poll out today. If he ends up the nominee, I’ll donate to him in the general to help defeat Trump. I’m sure I’ll even get on board with him enthusiastically if that’s the case. But til then, I’m going to tactically donate and NOT send him money to help, in my little way, Warren win the nomination. The same for Biden. I’ll throw him some money next summer if he’s the nominee, but helping to keep his money reserves low now helps Warren overtake him nationally.
Until we get the great winnowing of candidates, I really only feel like donating to two candidates – Warren and Booker. I’m gonna throw them $5 each. What to do with the other $10? I’m thinking I’ll dip my toes into some Senate races. I’ve got a few races I’m following. I want to see Mitch McConnell go down and I like his potential opponent – Amy McGrath. I’m just not sure she can beat him. I’m waiting to see if Matt Jones jumps into the race before I offer my endorsement. I like Hickenlooper to beat Gardner in Colorado, but I think that he’s pretty well funded and he’s favored to win. I’d rather throw a couple of dollars at candidates who have a shot, but might need the resources. So I decided to give $3 to the Astronaut Mark Kelly running in Arizona against Martha McSally, $3 to Cal Cunningham running against Thom Tillis in North Carolina and $4 to Sara Gideon who’s trying to get Susan Collins out of office. I considered a donation to take down Joni Ernst, but I need to see how that race develops before I jump in with my money. That’s probably enough for this month. See you back here in November.