Challenger to “You Lie” Congressman Cashes In After Speech
  • September 10, 2009

Challenger to “You Lie” Congressman Cashes In After Speech

Challenger to “You Lie” Congressman Cashes In After Speech

The words "you lie" will live in infamy for Joe Wilson, the overheated Republican Congressman who shouted at President Obama during his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Beyond criticism and a swift apology, the incident has already provided a fundraising bonanza for Wilson’s opponent, Rob Miller, a Democrat and Marine Corps veteran.

Miller raised over $50,000 in just a few hours after Wilson’s outburst, after activists and small donors flooded his page on ActBlue. Bloggers and readers at Daily Kos, a popular liberal blog, also used the site to instantly create a dedicated fundraising page highlighting the incident. The portal, titled "Defeating the man who yelled ‘liar’ at Obama: Goodbye Rep Joe Wilson," has already raised $35,000 for Wilson from over 1,050 individual donors.

Miller welcomed the spontaneous support on Wednesday night, sending a message to supporters on his Twitter feed: "55K raised, let’s double THAT in 12 hours."

Ari Melber
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The words "you lie" will live in infamy for Joe Wilson, the overheated Republican Congressman who shouted at President Obama during his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Beyond criticism and a swift apology, the incident has already provided a fundraising bonanza for Wilson’s opponent, Rob Miller, a Democrat and Marine Corps veteran.

Miller raised over $50,000 in just a few hours after Wilson’s outburst, after activists and small donors flooded his page on ActBlue. Bloggers and readers at Daily Kos, a popular liberal blog, also used the site to instantly create a dedicated fundraising page highlighting the incident. The portal, titled "Defeating the man who yelled ‘liar’ at Obama: Goodbye Rep Joe Wilson," has already raised $35,000 for Wilson from over 1,050 individual donors.

Miller welcomed the spontaneous support on Wednesday night, sending a message to supporters on his Twitter feed: "55K raised, let’s double THAT in 12 hours."

Adrian Arroyo, an official with ActBlue, noted that Rep. Wilson’s antics struck such a strong chord, references to "you lie" on Twitter even surpassed Jay-Z, the popular musician who has led chatter on the site in anticipation of his new album debuting this week.

ActBlue, which has served as a clearinghouse for grassroots fundraising for Democrats and insurgent challengers for several years, just passed the $100 million fundraising mark last month. Organizers stressed that most of the money came from small donors — 700,000 individual contributors with a median donation of $50 — and empowered activists to create their own fundraising drives around issues and events that stoke public passions. As it turns out, heckling the president with false, hypocritical attacks from the House floor can energize a lot of people.

UPDATE: By Thursday afternoon, Miller’s haul topped $300,000 from over 8,000 donors. President Obama also addressed the issue breifly after his cabinet meeting on Thursday.

In response to a reporter’s question, Obama said he fully accepted Wilson’s apology. "I’m a big believer that we all make mistakes," said the President, according to a pool report. "He apologized quickly and without equivocation. And I appreciate that," Obama continued. "I do think that we have to get to the point that we have a conversation without… assuming the worse in people."

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Ari Melber Ari Melber is The Nation’s Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine’s blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at [email protected]. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” “The Joy Behar Show,” “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004).  His reporting  has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review.  He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.  


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