As you know, I’m thrilled we have a person running to represent the 5th district of North Carolina, Billy Kennedy, who has a real chance to topple the anti-gay, wingnut, ignorant embarrassment Virginia Foxx.

More from Billy:

I will not run a wedge campaign. I want to focus on what all of us can do to improve our lives. I plan to listen to my constituents and hear what’s important to them because I respect other people’s points of view. I will not allow my opponent to play “gotcha” politics on these questions of individual liberty.

I want to make it clear. I support freedom and equal rights for all people. I will protect all individual constitutional rights, without allowing politicians to pick and choose which Amendments deserve to be taken seriously.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, in cooperation with Blue America PAC, want more progressive challengers elected in districts where there is a rich opportunity to move the ball forward. You can cast your vote for your favorite progressive candidate.

Join progressive champion Jerry Nadler’s leadership PAC and Blue America PAC in supporting up-and-coming progressive challengers.

Vote with your dollars! The candidate who gets the most “votes” (in the form of online contributions) wins the $2,500 1st prize from Jerry’s PAC. Both a $1 donation and a $1,000 donation count as one vote. And one vote is allowed per e-mail address.

The candidate who garners the largest number of contributions on this page between now and 3PM EST/12PM PST on Saturday 3/20/2010 wins an extra $2,500 contribution from Jerry’s PAC.

Additionally, to recognize the candidate who raises the greatest sum of money in the contest, we will award the runner-up a contribution of $1,000 from Jerry’s PAC. (Note: if the candidate who wins first place also has the highest dollar amount raised, the runner-up prize goes the candidate who raises the second highest dollar amount.)

The candidates are:

Bill Hedrick (D-CA)

Billy Kennedy (D-NC)

Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH)

Natalie Mosher (D-MI)

Doug Tudor (D-FL)

Jerry has generously offered his support to these five challengers– if you know of a single Democrat in Congress who has reached out to five progressive challengers, please let us know; we haven’t found one, not a single one– and his PAC is awarding $3,500 to the challengers we select. That’s right, he’s leaving it to us.

And how do we let him know? Simple! The candidate who gets the most “votes” (in the form of online contributions) wins $2,500 from Jerry’s PAC. A vote is a donation and that means a $1 donation is the same as a $1,000 donation– although only one vote per e-mail address counts. On the other hand… Congressman Nadler understands the realpolitik of getting elected to office and he wants to encourage some big money contributions too, so he’s offering a runner-up contribution of $1,000 for the candidate who winds up with the biggest total contribution.    

Please join us Saturday at Crooks and Liars to hear what Congressman Nadler has to say about the State Secrets Act and please “vote” in our contest. The contest will be open for one week and the winners will be announced a week from Saturday, at The winners will be announced at the end of the week at Crooks and Liars, Digby’s Hullabaloo and DownWithTyranny..

Thanks for all you do,

Digby, John, Howie and the Blue America team

So cast your vote. I’m surfing over to vote for Billy Kennedy. We can’t have Virginia Foxx back in office.