So I got an email from Dan Savage the other night. This was perhaps the highlight of my year. I love Dan Savage’s column and I love his books and I want to adopt a kid too, and all in all, Dan Savage is my kind of gay guy. So just getting the email from him was pretty cool. What was cooler was the news that Dan Savage is giving Philadelphians Against Santorum $2,100.

Why? Because we’re a kick-ass organization running an explicitly anti-Santorum field campaign to turn out new, young, and infrequent voters, right? Well, maybe.

The reason we’re getting the dough could also be because Bob Casey didn’t want it.

Say what? Click “read more” below to learn more.

Savage himself has blogged about this in more detail (check out his post here), but in a nutshell:

Six weeks back, Savage, one of the most vocal Santorum opponents (to the man, not the sex byproduct) in the country gave Casey $2,100 from his ITMFA PAC (you’ll have to google to find out what that stands for). Casey folks were excited, but then, just this week reversed course and gave the money back.

Here’s what Jake Perry, finance director for Bob Casey had to say to Dan:

We appreciate your willingness to support Bob, but my higher ups… people above me… they think that we may wind up spending more, you know, money then the contribution is worth. But we appreciate your willingness to support us.

They then suggested other Democratic groups that Savage could give the money to—Philly Against Santorum was, incidentally not one of them. Savage ignored their suggestions and gave to PAS instead.

I think he gave us the money mostly because we have been bugging the shit out of him for months. Member after member has sent Dan email asking him to get behind our work. Which, actually, illustrates the difference between PAS and the Casey campaign so well: where they run from validation of their campaign by a crazy, gay, sex columnist, we beg for his support.

Seriously though, I do get asked, especially by older, possible donors what the point of Philly Against Santorum is. There are two answers I always give:

1-A lot of people don’t want to work directly for candidate campaigns. Candidate campaigns are fussy, and media–driven and not always a whole lot of fun for volunteers who are looking to make the most out of the time they have to contribute. This fussiness is taken to the N-th degree when poor old Dan Savage gets kicked to the curb.

2-We can’t win elections with messaging—we have to pound pavement. In close races (and this race is going to get very close when all that Santorum money starts to get spent), neighbors talking to neighbors, friends talking to friends, peer-based contact, it all works better than anything else to turn out people who don’t normally vote.

For these two reasons, Philadelphians Against Santorum can play a vital role in making sure that the most evil senator ever is sent packing in the fall. As such, I am really pleased to have Dan Savage’s support and if you are in a position to add to his donation and give yourself, please donate here.

Money isn’t everything of course, and we sure can use some help talking to voters. Give a few hours to our campaign and sign up to be a block captain here.