Show Some Third Quarter Love to a Congressional Candidate

Tomorrow night marks the end of the third quarter reporting period for political campaigns. If you have any notion to help one of the Ohio Congressional candidates, this would be a good time to do it. The more the campaigns raise at this remove from the election, the more they look viable to the big money. If we want Dem funders and DCCC to take Ohio races seriously, we need to show they are serious.

Here are the candidates who seem to be in the best position to make use of some early dough:

Bill O'Neill, 14th District.
O'Neill was an appellate court judge until he stepped down to take a run at Steve LaTourette in the Fourteenth. He's also the 2006 candidate for the Supreme Court who vowed to take no campaign contributions from anyone. My friend Jeff Coryell was there when O'Neill Met the Bloggers and reported that this is a serious race. The district has some swing potential, loaded as it is with suburban independents, and O'Neill has the chops to give LaTourette his biggest challenge in years.

Rosemary Palmer, 10th District.
Recently a commenter snidely pointed out that the reason Dennis Kucinich won't debate his challenger is that he is running for President. Um, he's running for Congress as well. And if he isn't, he'd better note that he has opponents who are. Of the two, I like the notes Palmer is hitting -- basically she and Dennis agree on many issues, but she is more interested in actually improving things than grandstanding. It's like she was trying to appeal to a militant pragmatist or something.

John Boccieri, 17th District.
State Sen. and Air Force Reserve Major John Boccieri is running for Ralph Regula's seat. Depending on what day you read the paper, Boccieri will run against Regula, OR the seat will be vacated by Regula's retirement and State Sen. Kirk Schuring will run, OR he'll run against the winner of a bruising primary between Schuring and State Rep. Scott Oelslager OR the Republicans could face a three way primary if term-limited Sen. Ron Amstutz enters and Amstutz could sneak in as the two Stark County. In any event, the Dems have one candidate and he's a solid guy with party support behind him.

I give honorable mention to Mary Jo Kilroy and Dave Woolever. Kilroy would make the list if she actually had an opponent. Woolever might if he didn't -- he's a much more interesting candidate if the incumbent holding the seat makes good on his retirement talk.

So you have three solid candidates who can build effective campaigns if the money comes in now. Surf over and give generously. And when the Ohio congressional delegation turns blue, you can say you helped out back when.