For obvious reasons, most campaign-related activity was shut down around here last week. Though there is still much to do to clean up and recover from Hurricane Ike, campaigns have begun to resume. Like it or not, Early Voting starts in less than four weeks (October 20), so the show must go on, and it's as important now as it was before. Maybe even more so.

And campaigns still need money. Clearly, contributing to relief efforts or to the Red Cross is a higher priority. But if you have the room for it, campaigns still need your help, too.

So with that in mind, here's the announcement of the Blue America Senate Contest, which follows on the heels of their very successful effort for the House. One reason why I'm happy to tout this is that any amount you contribute to the Blue America Senate contest page on behalf of one of their candidates counts as a vote for that candidate - yes, even $1 counts. And as before, the candidate who gets the most such votes will receive a $5000 check from the Blue America PAC. Which brings me to another reason why I'm mentioning this - Rick Noriega is one of their candidates. Noriega himself has been kind of busy lately, so something like this would be very welcome. Voting runs through Saturday, so please if you can go visit the Blue America Senate contest page and vote for Rick Noriega. Thanks very much. And for more on Rick Noriega and what he's been up to, check out his statement on the bailout and his video statement about Hurricane Ike.