Tom Davis, in my reasoning as explained below, has just become another vulnerable GOP incumbent.
It seems that with 4 months to go before Election Day, only 37% of his district would +óGé¼+ôdefinitely re-elect+óGé¼-¥ in a recent poll. This great news was reported by Raising Kaine from a poll conducted by Globa Strategy Group LLC for the Andy Hurst Campaign
In addition to this, Tom Davis has been getting a lot of negative attention in the Virginia Blogosphere and Andy Hurst seems to be the new favorite candidate of the Virginia Blogosphere (after Jim Webb of course).
Recently, Tom Davis was quoted in the Local Press as saying
+óGé¼+ôI+óGé¼Gäóve never taken a nickel from oil companies,+óGé¼-¥ said Davis. +óGé¼+ôMoveOn.org has been widely discredited ... It+óGé¼Gäós going to be a long [campaign] season."
In fact, Mr Davis has taken $117,360 from Oil Company PACs alone, not including execs and lobbyist writing personal checks. This story was front paged at MyDD a few days ago.
Last but not least, Andy Hurst is out raising money in amounts never before seen in the VA-11 district. And he+óGé¼Gäós doing it the hard way. Andy is running a campaign to reform Washington and the ethics problems (and was running on this subject long before Abramoff became a household name). As an example, he is refusing to take PAC money because PACs can be used to circumvent max donor requirements and can be used to funnel money. While I disagree with him on this stance, I understand why he is doing it.
Yet, he has raised over $175,000 already. It is important to note, that in 2004 the Democratic Candidate raised a total of $75,000 through Election Day, Andy has already crushed that total.
There are three ways you can help.
1) Head over to the MyDD posting of this diary, and use the comments to let the folks that run the netroots combined fundraising page that you believe Andy Hurst belongs to be on that page
2) VOLUNTEER. Andy has been knocking on doors since August 2005 and truly understands people powered politics.
3) CONTRIBUTE. We need to get Andy+óGé¼Gäós message out to folks that don+óGé¼Gäót read blogs, and if you live outside of the district or can+óGé¼Gäót volunteer, this is a great way to help spread the message of reform.