I keep forgetting to let everyone know about this, so apologies for the timing, but this weekend is Rootscamp. If you're in DC (or live nearby) I highly recommend coming down. It's put on by the New Organizing Institute (the same organization that sponsored in part my trip to work on No On 1 in Maine), a key cog of progressive infrastructure. They do lots of good webinars Chris and I have been on, media trainings in which I've participated, and provide funding streams for bloggers and online activists who couldn't otherwise do their work.
Rootscamp is an "un-conference" where you come and organize discussions about pretty much anything progressively political. Some of the best minds in progressive politics are there talking about everything from online activism to labor-led field operations to e-mail copywriting to Latino organizing to low-dollar fundraising and more. Every year I learn a dozen new things.
I'm co-leading a few discussions, including one with a few of my fellow organizers on the ground in Maine regarding the No On 1 blogger team and a model of offline/online collaboration.
Registration is just $10 and, I'm told, is still open. More info and a list of attendees is here. Even if you can only come for a half-day, it's worth it. Hope to see you there.
I love the four other candidates in the Air America contest. They are all great bloggers and a couple of them I am delighted to call friends. This is an election, though, and I like competing in elections, so I thought I would give you reasons you should consider voting for me in spite of the high quality of my competitors. I am not going to call it my top ten reasons, because I might think of others later that are even better, but for today, here are ten:
1. Progressives fight for underdogs and I am a serious underdog in this race. The whole nature and mission of the progressive movement is to fight for the underdog, and I am a really serious underdog. The other bloggers have more traffic on their sites. Karl has the whole massive organization backing him up, for God's sake. Digby is the huge favorite, because she is well, Digby. OpenLeft is just this modest little blog devoted to helping the movement get stronger, so I don't have much of a natural base by comparison. And speaking of reasons for being an underdog...
2. I am an evil insider. I know, I know, this will actually be seen by many of you as a reason to vote against me. But here's my argument: if I win this contest, I think it will give me added leverage with the insiders I am trying to push in a progressive direction. Right now, the people in DC who talk to me do so because they know me - I have worked with them on campaigns (issue and electoral), I have served on boards with them, I worked with them while in the White House. But if I am also seen as an influential blogger, it gives me that much extra leverage when I am leaning on them to move more to the left.
3. OpenLeft is an important blog and deserves attention. OpenLeft is one of the most important blogs in the progressive blogosphere, a place where important new projects get launched, other bloggers and movement leaders get influenced, DC insiders take notice, and progressives really engage each other in the debate. My winning this contest would really boost OpenLeft's exposure to new readers.
4. I played a role in launching Air America and getting other progressive radio/TV hosts off the ground. A few short years ago, progressives had almost no presence in radio or cable talk. I am proud to have played a role in changing that for the better:
The 501(c)(4) organization I founded and chaired, American Family Voices, hosted a conference of progressive donors and strategists in the spring of 2002 where the idea of Air America got hatched.
I served on the board of Democracy Radio, a non-profit group that helped launch the Ed Schultz Show and other progressive radio shows.
Leo Hindery and I sent a memo to the top management at MSNBC in 2004 laying out the reasons and metrics of why they should go to more progressive talk, suggesting that with Fox dominating conservative Cable news viewers, and CNN taking most of the mushy middle, there would be a bigger audience potential if they had some strong progressive voices on the air. While our strategic ideas did not take hold immediately at the station, over time they became convinced we were right and began moving in that direction.
5. I have helped some other cool organizations get started:
MoveOn.org. Wes Boyd described me as the first insider who understood what MoveOn was trying to do, and who helped them in their early days.
Center For American Progress. I played a big role in the early days of launching CAP.
Progressive Majority. I was one of the three founding board members.
Ballot Initiative Strategic Center. Was a co-founder, housed them in my office, raised their initial seed money, and was the first chair.
USAction. Housed them in my office, and helped them get off the ground.
Americans United For Change. Was a founding board member.
Center for Progressive Leadership. Was a founding board member.
I am currently working with Darcy Burner to launch the Campaign For A Progressive Congress and the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, the new 501(c)(4) and PAC organizations that are working with the CPC.
6. I have been attacked by name by Rush Limbaugh at least 3 times. Once when I was working in the Clinton White House, once when AFV held a conference of progressive donors, and once when AFV did phone calls to Republicans about the Foley/page scandal. Pretty cool, huh?
7. I helped save school lunches. In early 1995, Newt Gingrich was on a rampage, getting much of the Contract With America passed through Congress without breaking much of a sweat. Democrats were demoralized and ineffectual in their initial response. The first issue we were able to put them on the defensive with and then beat them on was the school lunch issue. I was the White House point person for getting a coalition organized in opposition to the Republicans on that issue.
8. I got on the air one of the most effective ads against Bush in his first term. After 9-11, Democrats were generally scared for many months afterwards of going directly after Bush. But when he decided to go to Wall Street and give a speech on corporate elites, I couldn't resist. I dug up some of the old records from Harken Energy and Haliburton, and did an AFV produced and paid for ad directly attacking Bush and Cheney for their hypocrisy on that whole corporate elite thing. The White House made the mistake of calling a press conference within 3 hours of our ad going up, and attacked it repeatedly, causing the cable and broadcast network news programs to run it repeatedly on and off for weeks afterward. The ad and the ensuing media flap drove Bush's approval ratings down 15 points over the next 6 weeks, marking the low water mark for him before the 2002 elections, and giving momentum to get the Sarbanes-Oxley financial regulations bill passed.
9. Lord of the Right Wing. On December 17th, 2003, ironically on the 6th anniversary of the day voting ends in the Air America contest (is that fate or what?), a new PAC I founded launched one of the biggest political web videos of all time. (I bet you didn't know that about me, did you?) Called Lord of the Right Wing, and released the same day as the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie, it was a cartoon of George Bush as a Gollum-like character grasping for power. It ended up getting over 8,000,000 views over the next few weeks.
10. I know when to stop. This post has gone on long enough. I hope I convinced you. Vote here.
I am surprised, delighted, but mostly humbled to report the news that Air America is reporting that I am currently 3rd on their list of nominated bloggers going into their contest's Dec 3rd deadline for deciding which five bloggers make it into their final round for being selected. I am especially surprised given my evil DC insider status, and that I haven't been blogging as long or as much as many other deserving folks, but I am extremely grateful to those of you who nominated me.
I am letting you know for three reasons. The first, quite honestly, is that I am tickled pink by the news. Given all the wonderful bloggers out there, to even be on the list blows me away.
Secondly, I wanted to let those of you who think that an evil insider like this myself should never win something like this a fair chance to vote me down. When I think of some of the great folks who made their top 20 and the amazing people like Chris Bowers from this site that didn't make the top 20 list but should have, I would understand if you decide to vote for someone else.
But third, since it's an election and I'm in the running, I hope I can get your vote. Perhaps you like the idea of a surprise underdog choice like me, relatively new to the blogging game, winning this thing. I know I would be an unconventional choice because I am not the kind of person one usually thinks of when one thinks of bloggers, but I actually think that it is a great thing for the blogosphere that someone like me made the list, because what so many conventional wisdom followers in DC is that there is only one kind of blogger: the proverbial pajama clad, long-haired, Cheetos-eating geek sitting at home late at night in front of their computer.
What the CW stereotypers don't realize is that bloggers come in all shapes and sizes and colors. They include economists, lawyers, businesspeople, scientists, local activists, and yes even political insiders. They include some of the smartest and savviest folks I have ever met. Being a blogger is certainly not my main identity, but I am proud to have it be a big part of who I am now, and I hope you will consider me in part because I break the stereotype.
And, hey, I've never been on a cruise ship before, so that would be very cool. And I promise to be very strategic with all the people I meet on the cruise. I go to a number of retreats and conferences each year, and have helped produce a number of key progressive infrastructure pieces as a result. So it's not just a cruise- it's an opportunity to build progressive power.
Thanks if you gave me an early vote, and if you haven't, please go vote now (just enter my name and OpenLeft.com) by clicking here.
Back in college, I did a lot of organizing around the 2004 Presidential election. In particular, I organized large out-of-state canvass trips to Pennsylvania and Ohio for America Coming Together. The logistical barriers were enormous in terms of cars, class schedules, and so forth, but none as large as money.
At the University of Rochester, like many colleges, everything revolved around "Flex" money, which was money you or your parents/guardians put on your ID card. Flex purchased you anything from textbooks to food to concert tickets on campus. It was frequently the only kind of currency any student had. We set up tables to sell anti-Bush merchandise to raise money for our trips, and the first question out of students' mouths were whether we accepted Flex or not. If not, the population to which we could sell literally plummeted.
Because political travel out of state wasn't a U of R-sanctioned activity, we could not raise money for our trips via Flex. Students did not have checkbooks, many did not have credit cards. Many had parents willing to donate online, but we had no place to accept such a donation. Sending checks in the mail took time. I'm not even sure if PayPal was around then, but it was unheard of. Fundraising was an enormous barrier.
I'm writing about all of this because ActBlue, partnering with TravelForChange.org (the organization that helped Obama volunteers travel to swing states last year), has a new tool that allows you to create a personal fundraising page to cover your travel expenses to Maine. This may seem simple, but I actually consider it an amazing leap forward. Much of the population willing to travel are young people, particularly college students willing to miss a week of class, and more spontaneous (no children, fewer hard commitments, etc.) In my organizing experience, young people have the most willingness to go, but the fewest resources in terms of finances to support travel. This helps break down that barrier. And it's not just for young people. You can set up a page and blast it around to friends, family, etc, utilizing Facebook and other means we didn't have five years ago. TFC.org cuts you a check, and that's that. No questions asked. Spend it on gas, food, interstate tolls, any other travel expenses. You can also do a joint page with friends if you want to carpool.
Here's Shai Sachs (of MyDD fame) and Ben Gonzalez, both of whom came up to volunteer. Ben explains how he used TFC/ActBlue to raise money to support his travel here from Southern California.
Talking with campaign staff here, the biggest need we have for the remainder of the campaign is volunteers. The polls are still tight. We're two weeks out today. If you're up for coming to Maine, but need a little financial help, get in touch with either myself (adambink at gmail dot com) or fill out the form here to get started.
I was delighted to read recently at The Albany Project that not only is David Sirota's column being printed in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (the city's biggest newspaper), but he's being considered for a regular op-ed slot.
A little personal background on me, I attended the University of Rochester from 2002-2006, during which time I interacted with the D&C quite a fair amount. We worked with on them when organizing against the start of the Iraq war, organizing to pressure the U of R administration to bar ROTC recruiters from campus before the Supreme Court decision, organizing in favor of same-sex marriage. The editorial board is wholly right-leaning, and even many of the staff writers are not very independent, and very dismissive of anything progressive. Like the op-ed page in the Buffalo News (my hometown paper), there are far more George Wills and Kathleen Parkers printed on a daily basis than Paul Krugmans.
And if you'd like to see David's column improve your own staid, center-right newspaper, he left some instructions for doing so in a recent post at OpenLeft:
The column relies on grassroots support -- and because of that support, it is getting wider and wider circulation (a big thank you to all who have helped with that). So if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.
Mike posted on this about a week ago, but I want to make sure folks saw it. There's two new great documentaries out, and one great way to support our work at OpenLeft.
The first is about the growth of MoveOn.org and its projects through the years, documenting its multi-issue approach to politics versus other single-issue siloed groups existing at the time. It's called MoveOn: The Movie.
The other is Robert Greenwald's new film- Rethinking Afghanistan- based in part on his recent trip there. Derrick Crowe- whose work is paid in part by Brave New Foundation- is going to be doing a fair amount of reporting here and elsewhere on the state of Afghanistan, so if you find it interesting, you'll like Robert's new film- and you can support Derrick's blogging at the same time.
The part I especially wanted to let you know about is that we here at OpenLeft have partnered with Brave New Foundation to help promote both our work and theirs. For each DVD you purchase, we'll get $5 towards our projects. If you purchase one of each, we get $10. It's a great campaign that helps build the kind of progressive infrastructure we care about, and I hope you do too. We're going to be expanding capacity in some new and exciting ways over the next few weeks- particularly on the Senate whip count Chris is heading up- and it helps us pay for the resources to carry that out. If you want a strong, robust public option in the health care legislation, we're working with you to make it happen.
You can click here to purchase MoveOn: The Movie, and here to purchase Rethinking Afghanistan. The two new buttons in the upper right hand corner are also where you can go. Please help us out. And from all of us, thanks for helping support our continuing work here at OpenLeft.
Why are we all so excited about Rachel Maddow? News of her being tapped for own MSNBC program has excited the progressive grassroots/netroots, leading Living Liberally's blog to be "All Maddow, All the Time" today in her honor.
So what's the big deal?
Well, first of all, Maddow demonstrations that someone can graduate from the world of "progressive media" into a role in the "mainstream" media. People across the country know Maddow -- if not from her stints on Air America, then from her confrontations with Pat Buchanan and take-down Joe Scarborough. She has become a brand, a recognizable name and face, and -- according to that ultimate arbiter, the bottom-line of business-driven MSNBC -- a bankable commodity.
This is a great success for progressive media, and the components of it that had promoted Maddow at different parts in her career. And it's a signal to other smart, funny, liberal personalities that there is an avenue to advance their careers and their ideas.
When we've asked her to participate, she's participated. That's a great quality.
And finally, it a strong, left-leaning voice will reach the homes of many more Americans. Yes, there are satiric news programs that do a great job challenging right-wing dominance, and some broadcasters like Keith Olbermann who challenge the administration, but we're still short on proud progressive personalities in the spotlight. The right has them. Now we have one more too.
Part of building a progressive movement is ensuring there are structures that recognize and promote talent: whether candidates, organizers or commentators. Maddow's next move shows that some of these structures are in place...we need to keep making them work.
And we need to tune in to MSNBC on Monday, September 8th at 9pm to help keep Maddow on the air.
There's a huge amount of chatter about Obama's remarkable fundraising apparatus, most of it themed around the idea of, well, '$&*@$# that's a lot of money'. And consultants are licking their lips, thinking about how to get their hands on a slice of it. Yet Jose Antonio Vargas in the Washington Post gives a glimpse into the reality of what this fundraising means, which is not about cash totals but about participation. Vargas tracks a Food network watching mother who gave a few dollars online to the Obama campaign, and then rose to become a local organizer, an Obama delegate, and soon-to-be candidate for office.
This kind of participatory increase is widespread and, while not unrelated to Obama, is part of a larger cultural shift. Just as Google and Facebook did not create the search engine or the social network, the Obama campaign is sitting on top of a network that is, as Joe Trippi told me last week, "five times as big as it was in 2004". In fact, the Obama campaign's massive centralized bottom-up fundraising apparatus is unusual not because it is such evidence of a 'new' way to raise money - Barry Goldwater in 1964 had more than a million donors, Dean raised huge sums online in 2004 - but because it alone is being noticed because of the enormous sums involved (Update: Actually, this probably isn't quite right - it has to do with his elite and mass organizing.)
I put up a picture of Actblue crossing the $50M threshold, because that, along with what Vargas put out there, is the missing part of the story. Actblue is a clearinghouse for Democrats on a state and Federal level, providing a neutral platform for thousands of candidates who use innovative and milquetoast strategies to raise online. These are the candidates who don't have the media glare, who have to scrabble for attention, press, and hope to fill small rooms with a dozen people to listen to their state educational plans. To put it in web terms, it is the 'long tail' of candidates.
NEW YORK-The Open Society Institute today launched a fellowship program to enable outstanding individuals from around the world to pursue projects that will inspire meaningful debate and shape public policy.
The Open Society Fellowship will award $2 million in 2008 to scholars, journalists, activists and others working on national security; citizenship, membership and marginalization; authoritarianism; and new strategies and tools for advocacy.
Have you heard about TED? The Technology Entertainment Design conference has been held annually since 1990. It's a kind of Bildeberg group for smart people. It was pretty secretive until 2006 when they began posting selected talks from their invitation-only no media intimate conferences on their web site (I certainly hadn't heard of it!).
They're up to over 200 talks posted online and the subject matter varies greatly but there it is a goldmine of new thinking and leading edge innovation in a variety of fields. There's no overt ideology to the place, but the defacto alliance of science, empiricism and rationality with liberalism makes it pretty friendly for the most part from a progressive perspective. I think part of building a governing progressive majority in America involves linking up with progressives worldwide. I may write about this in future, but conservatives got a leg up on us through globalizing commerce and goods and leaving out civil rights and labour mobility. The answer is not to go protectionist and put the shields back up, it's to globalize our issues too. I think we were beating them domestically so they took the fight globally. I think if we do the same, we'll beat them globally too.
Early last summer BlogPac.org and OpenLeft put out the call to "find the five best new, grassroots progressive infrastructure projects in America, and provide those projects with the money, exposure, and connections necessary to get off the ground."
The response was pretty massive, but finally in mid-August winners were announced and BlueJersey -- where I blog -- was one of five sites to share the top prize.
We like to think we've made the most of this opportunity.
Fifty-two Tuesdays from today, Americans will go to the polls. As the campaigns and other big institutional players spend hundreds of millions to get us to vote, there are lessons from past cycles that we hope they keep in mind: that they don't need to reinvent the wheel, that effective electoral initiatives should support lasting infrastructure and...in the Living Liberally spirit...that some of the best ways to get people to vote are social.
Below are a few projects that got it right. These programs in particular aren't necessarily the right ones for 2008, but they each had elements that make voter engagement and turnout effective, lasting and fun.
I'd also love to hear projects you all recommend that aren't included below.
Democracy in the Park - In 2004, a New York-based group realized that phonebanking didn't have to take place in a union hall or law office...you could organize your own call-in campaign from your cell phone. Volunteers used weekend minutes as they hung out in Central Park. It expanded, to include Democracy in the Quad (the campus version). The positive energy generated from these sessions kept volunteers involved after the '04 race, as Democracy in the Park joined New York's ACT-Now, which still continues to mobilize activists (unlike ACT, the national group from which ACT-Now originally took its name, which disappeared soon after the election).
When MoveOn created a brilliant tool to allow anyone to phonebank from their own phone in 2006, they did another smart move: they empowered anyone to host Calls for Change house parties. While the freedom to phone voters on your own time is great, the opportunity to do so in the company of others helps commit you further. Nothing wrong with a little positive re-enforcement and maybe some snacks while you work.
TheBallot.org - Just as ActBlue has allowed anyone to become a fundraiser, this program allows anyone to become a vote-getter -- giving you the tools to create your own voter guide. Created by the League of Young Voters, it's a fun idea -- in San Francisco yesterday, someone handed me their personalized ballot for today's city elections and initiatives. When there's a candidate or issue the major organizations are overlooking, a passionate individual can create her own guide...and help educate friends along the way. (You can also find other guides that folks have created on the site). When it comes to voting, peer encouragement goes a long way. And shaping the voter guides shouldn't be left to large advocacy organizations and political clubs anymore.
It's a project that hasn't been too widely used yet, but has great growth potential. And hey, it told me why Prop A is good and Prop H is bad in today's election.
Parties at the Polls - Community-oriented celebrations can boost voter turnout. That's the concept behind this project that Working Assets (now CREDO Action) helped pilot last year, which organized social events with food, entertainment, guest speakers and kids games near polling stations on Election Day. The idea is to draw people out, create a positive environment around the election and give them every incentive to vote.
In test precincts, it has worked, boosting turnout among unlikely voters and giving community groups a non-partisan way of engaging in Election Day. If you want to poke around at the resources and rationale behind last year's pilot program, check out the 2006 site.
Do More Than Vote - Volunteering needs to be easy. Furthermore, with so many organizations out there doing great work, sometimes the best thing you can do is point people to the right outlet rather than creating a new structure yourself. That philosophy powered this simple, direct menu of volunteering opportunities that pointed you directly to campaigns and organizations in your area. In the final days of the '06 race (which the website still shows), the effort was to plug people into field operations. But throughout the summer and fall of '06, each page promoted a range of ways to get involved: whether you had one hour (Calls for Change), one evening (a local phonebank), one weekend day (trips to contested areas) or longer, there were ways you could Do More Than Vote.
I was directly involved in DMTV and the Poll Parties, and big fans of the other programs. All of them got it right. Whether they should be created again for '08 is a separate question, but empowering individuals, making volunteerism fun and easy, and supporting infrastructure that will last beyond 52 weeks from now should be priorities for everyone.
So go ahead and use these ideas. Bring them to your effort, your campaign. Let's make this election year work for the progressive movement.
The Republicans are well known for their GOTV and messaging infrastructures. Progressives certainly come up short. But we have seen that when we put our money and energy together we can accomplish a lot. I am working on a project and an ActBlue page to make it easier for us to fund long term projects and long term messaging campaigns. I plan to begin by starting an ActBlue page focused on groups working to strengthen the progressive backbone in this country. Again my major objectives here are:
1) Donate to groups which are not with the Democratic Party
2) Donate to umbrella groups--not groups which are single issue oriented.
3) Focus on message and strategy
4) Think Long Term.
I need your thoughts and suggestions. I don't want to create a list of 5-10 random groups. I hope to build up a good list and then run a poll in a later diary to get a collective sense of who should be on this page. Below is a list of groups I am thinking of, please offer comments about them or add suggested groups below. Part of what ultimately gets chosen will depend the types of groups ActBlue can donate to.
According to a new Migration Policy Institute report released yesterday, low-wage, often undocumented immigrant workers are increasingly joining the union shop - and showing how the future of our nation's unions lies in the hands and hearts of immigrant workers.
The numbers speak for themselves: according to the report's analysis of Census (Current Population Survey, for those stats junkies out there) data, the number of foreign-born union workers increased by a whopping 30 percent between 1996 and 2006. That's over 2 million immigrants who are represented by a union - 400,000 more who are saying 'union yes!' (in various languages, and in growing numbers.) Mind you, this all happened while the number of native-born union members tanked by nearly 10 percent.
After last year's large-scale immigrant rights protests and this year's failed bid at humane and comprehensive immigration reform, immigrant activists and workers' rights groups such as New York's stellar Chinese Staff and Workers Association are noting an upswing in the number of immigrant workers collaborating with legal groups like the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund on lawsuits and protests aimed at exploitative employers like New York City's Saigon Grill. These workers, who regularly make as little as $1.65 per hour slogging in chi-chi restaurants and grocery stores in urban meccas like New York and Los Angeles, are increasingly telling owners they've had enough - and joining the picket line and the union hall.
In fact, the Saigon Grill protest started with only 30 workers, who've been joined in solidarity by hundreds of other immigrants on the picket line.
Employers are well-advised to pay attention to this trend: unions certainly have. Immigrant and labor advocates remember the earth-shattering (and long-sought) victory in the late 1990's when the AFL-CIO came out to support comprehensive immigration reform. Despite the divide and conquer effect of this spring's immigration reform proposals (can anyone say horrid guest worker program?), all the major unions (including SEIU,the AFL-CIO, and Unite Here) supported legalizing the nation's 12 million undocumented immigrants.
Immigrants have [also] emerged as the cavalry in the United States' flagging labor movement, which is embracing a group of people long assailed by union members for driving down wages.
Slowly but surely, unions have realized that if they go to bat for immigrant workers, those workers can in turn help revitalize the shrinking union movement in this country - particularly in an age of growing income inequality and shrinking pensions. And once immigrant workers are unionized, they'll no longer be bringing down wages.
Hmm, wondering why that sea change actually happened? DMI has written before about how and why unions get it. More specifically, that's meant understanding immigrant rights is (in addition to legalizing undocumented workers already in the country and honoring their contributions to the American economy) fundamentally also about workers' rights. Once workers are legalized, employers don't have a leg up on their undocumented workers - and won't be able to force them to accept substandard wages and working conditions. As a result, American workers won't have to compete with the rock-bottom pay and unsafe work conditions imposed on immigrants, because legalization will have leveled the playing field by taking immigration status out of the equation.
Clearly, immigrants get the nexus between immigrant and workers' rights as well. What's new is how immigrant workers are forging their own brand of union politics - melding secret union drives and picket lines with filing lawsuits against exploitative employers - and how it's actually proving effective. The 'who' piece of this story is also different: this time it isn't auto workers or stevedores taking a chance on the picket line, it's restaurant delivery workers and others at the bottom of the economy's caste system. It's these folks who are the most at the mercy of shady employers, and who also have the most to gain from unionizing to demand fair pay and working conditions from their employers.
Stay tuned for more on the (literally) changing face of the union movement. And get ready for some real change.
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