Playing it safe

I just got some mail from Howard Dean asking me to contribute to the campaign of a candidate in a congressional election in the LA basin. His story is that Debra Bowen is running for Jane Harman's recently-vacated seat. She's a progressive. We should help fund her election. A little research shows that this is not the case. Debra Bowen is not a progressive. She's a status-quo Democrat. She supported Enron. I don't mean to say she's a bad person, but that shows poor judgment.

There's a real progressive candidate running for Jane Harman's seat in the primary: Marcy Winograd. She's in favor of cutting military spending. She's in favor of enforcing international law without playing favorites. If I were living in her district, she'd have my vote.

If you got that email from Howard Dean, I suggest you ignore it. I asked to be removed from the mailing list--the last thing I need is people asking me to do things that I wouldn't do if I knew all the details. I usually don't have time to check, so I can't afford to trust a source that's given me bad information.