There are 725 days until Election Day 2008. Right now in Altoona, and Duncansville and Claysburg and bunch of other small Pennsylvania townships that most of you never heard of, a very weary group of stalwart volunteers is organizing a letter writing campaign. We will be writing to Rahm Emanuel, we will be writing to Howard Dean and you will see diary after diary on this page and more than a few others asking for your support of Democratic Congressional Candidate in the PA-09th Tony Barr.

For those you who missed it or ignored it. Tony Barr is the Special Education Teacher from Claysburg PA, who started a write-in campaign for the PA09th. We needed 1000 write ins, we got 1,900. From May to November, we raised only $45,000. Not much by political standards but for PA-09 Democrats it was unprecedented. At a cost of $.57 a vote, we got nearly 79,000 votes in November. While that is a paltry 40% of the total PA-9th vote it is a huge number by PA Dem Standards. We won 3 counties; winning one would have busted a 100 year old record. We won the City of Altoona; unprecedented. We nearly doubled Democratic turnout, also unprecedented, in Cambria county Dem turnout was 82%, yes that’s eighty-two percent. It’s a big first step, but only a first step.

Now for the next step

For those us who worked on this campaign, it was our first. We learned hard lessons but learned them well. I believe that those us who are at the core of this campaign have become that small, thoughtful, committed, group of citizens that Margaret Mead talked about.

We believe in the 50 state strategy .If the Fifty State strategy is to work, Pennsylvania has to be about more than Philly and Pittsburgh. If Democrats are going to root out corruption in Congress, Bill Shuster (R-PA09) must be on the hit list of seats to be turned blue. If The Democratic party is to truly fight for every seat in every state, we must venture into the reddest heart of Republican darkness and that means the PA-09th.

If the Fifty State strategy is to truly mean anything, it's got to be applied to districts like the PA-09th. Even here, small groups of committed democrats are working very hard to re-build the party. Tony Barr's candidacy is helping to do that. In Huntingdon County, and Juniata County, and Bedford, and Somerset, and Blair Counties, we few, we brave few, are trying to break 210 years of Republican domination.

If the Fifty State strategy is to truly mean anything then its districts like the PA-09th that need support and encouragement and well...money dammit! That support and encouragement, money and publicity must come from the Blogoshpere. This means you Chris Bowers and you too Mark Kos

We know we can't expect the DCCC to swoop down on a white donkey and rescue us. We know we have to put in the work here on the ground, and we've worked, harder in these past few months than we ever thought we could, as we are ready to do it all again.

You can still read Tony’s positions on line, those of you who have read Tony’s diaries or seen our 06 campaign website were positive in your responses. Tony Barr is the kind of candidate that the Netroots has always supported. Should we expect less with a Democratic Majority in the house and the Senate? I hope not.

I know the glamour is in the fight for president, I just hope we can avoid running yet another stiff but Congress is where the real action is and we must hold our majority and increase it, if we are to heal the wounds and clean up the mess of the past 6 years. We need candidates like Tony Barr.