Hi, folks. Stephanie Taylor, one of my PCCC co-founders, just sent out this email to our members.
She's on a plane, so I wanted to share it with the OpenLeft community which was such a big part of the Bill Halter movement experience:
Hey everyone,
Last night was a really tough night. You've probably heard by now, but Bill Halter lost the Arkansas Senate primary to Blanche Lincoln in a squeaker.
The Democratic Party establishment and the White House teamed up with big corporations to protect one of the most corporate-owned senators in America -- and they barely won.
Today in news reports, the political insiders are gloating. They're proud that they beat thousands of people fighting for change.
But what the political establishment doesn't realize is that the progressive movement built power in this election.
Bill Halter started nearly 20 points down. He wasn't taken seriously by most insiders. But he gave Blanche Lincoln the scare of a lifetime with the help of a vibrant progressive movement -- thousands of people who committed time, talent, and small-dollar donations in the fight for change.
We formed the PCCC last year to create a new model for supporting progressive candidates. This race was an important building block:
To shake up the U.S. Senate we need to give vulnerable Republicans the boot.
Republican Richard Burr in North Carolina who votes like a zombie for anything Republican leadership tells him is a perfect example. After all this Senate seat has changed hands from one person to another 7 elections in a row.
You don't need me to tell you why Senator Burr has to go. Look at his record. Burr is anti-choice, anti-marriage equality, and supports the death penalty. Of course, he also supported Republican attempts to filibuster healthcare and worked against the public option.
And just last night, he stood with the rest of the Republican Party again to filibuster Wall Street reform like every other right-wing zombie.
The good news is that not only can we beat him this November; there is a strong progressive Democrat we can support to make it happen.
That's why today, Democracy for America announced our endorsement of Elaine Marshall for U.S. Senate.
From Rachel Maddow's interview tonight with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:
Maddow: "The private insurance company writ large hasn't done a great job. That's why we want a public option to compete with them. These 18 Democratic senators want to bring that back into the fold. If that happened, would the administration fight for it?"
Sebelius: "Well, I think if it's...Certainly. If it's part of the decision of the Senate leadership to move forward, absolutely."
Wow. That's news.
What will Reid do? If it's up to Nevada voters, the answer's obvious. From reporter Jon Ralson in today's Las Vegas Sun:
Nevadans overwhelmingly against previous health care reform package, but support reconciliation, public option
Those are the results of a poll conducted for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has been pushing for a public option and its pollster, Research 2000, previously has done work in Nevada to pressure Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Research 2000 also polls in the state for the Reno Gazette-Journal. The poll.
Highlights from the Nevada poll (commissioned by PCCC/DFA/Credo):
34% support for current Senate bill (32% of Independents)
58% support for public option (61% of Independents)
55% support "reconciliation" on health care (64% of Independents)
In related news, at WhipCongress.com we've gone from 0 to 4 to 18 senators in two days on Sen. Michael Bennet's letter -- calling on Harry Reid to pass the public option through reconciliation.
Voters are watching. Democratic senators are watching. President Obama is watching. Will Leader Reid lead?
This week's Training Tuesday post revolves around a repeated mantra from Kendra-Sue Derby, this week's trainer- It's All About The Numbers. Before you start worrying about anything else in your campaign, you have to know how many votes you need to win. This seems relatively self-evident, but it is a number that often goes overlooked.
What Digby said. She has the transcript of Gov. Dean's appearance on Hardball with Matthews, with Matthews essentially sticking his fingers in his ears and refusing to believe, in the face of polling by Democracy for America and PCCC demonstrating otherwise, that the progressive base was sending a message. Their polling showed that voters in Massachusetts think the health care bill isn't strong enough, and that 73% of Obama voters who switched to Brown believed Obama isn't following through on the change he promised. Check out the entire transcript.
The central point to me is that Villagers have their preconceived notion of what any defeat means: that this is a center-right country and voters were saying that Democrats went too far to the left. Whether or not that matches up with polling or facts is irrelevant. It's why I'm so concerned that the rest of the progressive agenda- immigration reform, repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, ENDA, and other "hot-button issues" will be thrown under the bus until after the election, if at all. Our side has to push back quickly and wherever possible against the conventional wisdom parade. That means LGBT leaders have to take to the airwaves and op-ed pages with their own numbers demonstrating how LGBT voters will stay home in 2010 if change isn't delivered, making threats. Same on immigration- I found out the other day that, according to Pew, 50,000 new Latinos turn 18 every single month. This movement forward on stuff like the deficit-reduction commission and Gerry Connolly and Harry Mitchell calling for the extension of the Bush tax cuts will only be the start in terms of the shift towards what will and will not be done in 2010 unless there is pushback from our side.
This week's Training Tuesday takes us back to Democracy for America's Campaign Academy in Gettysburg, PA 2009. For the last couple weeks we brought you lessons from the Organizing 2.0 conference, and we still have plenty more to come.
Anyways, first things first, a little history on the DFA campaign academy:
Last week, we covered the basics of managing and organizing a campaign budget. If you know little-to-nothing about campaign finance but would like to, or if you are just about to start putting together the budget for a campaign, you should definitely check out last week's Training Tuesday. Today is not for the basics. Instead, we are using this Training Tuesday to share with you four very important tips that will help you out along the way:
This week, Training Tuesday will focus on another very important constituency: volunteers. As an organizer, building a strong volunteer base is your most important responsibility. The quality and quantity of the effort you get from your volunteers can make or break a campaign. They not only are giving you work for free (but don't tell them this!! See 'seizing an opportunity' below) but they are your direct representative to your most important constituency: voters. So their work is not only necessary, it must be done to a high standard and you must take it upon yourself to insure they are up to the task. From the Democracy for America (DFA) training manual:
You are a leader. Your job is to get your staff and volunteers to follow you. You set the tone. An energetic and enthusiastic leader will beget a focused and motivated volunteer base."
Our videos today will cover some of the basics of recruiting volunteers and building a lasting network. The DFA is truly an authority on this subject, so without further ado...
This week, we have a few clips from another session at Democracy For America (DFA) Campaign Academy's 'Grassroots Campaign Training' held September 26th and 27th at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA. This session, called 'Your Field Plan: Vote Goals, Targeting, and Field Strategy', explains how a campaign can best prepare their own operation for electoral success by creating a specific and detailed field plan.
Last week, the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) and Democracy for America (DFA) took to the metro with Representative Gerry Connelly, well, a cutout of him anyway. Volunteers asked passing metro riders if they would like to take a picture with the cutout for fun, and make a call to Representative Connolly and Senator Warner in support of a public option and a health care reform bill. The event made for some great hangin-with-Connolly interviews (with some unexpected street-side musical accompaniment)...
Matt Blizek, of Democracy for America (DFA), was kind enough to allow Sum of Change to bring a camera to the recent DFA Campaign Academy in Gettysburg, PA. The Campaign Academy was founded in 2004, and serves to "focus, network, and train grassroots activists in the skills and strategies to take back our country," We will be bringing you highlights from different panels for the next several Tuesdays, but for this first Training Tuesday we have something special. This is the only training session that we will be airing in full. We will still bring you highlights from many other trainings, but if you would like to see more of them in full, you will have to attend a DFA Campaign Academy.
Media reports and insider buzz make it increasingly clear that key people at the White House have become obsessed with Olympia Snowe on health care, and are willing to do pretty much whatever she demands in order to get her on board. The price is looking more and more like this incredibly bad trigger proposal she has been pushing, a trigger that quite literally is written to automatically never trigger a public option. You see, Senator Snowe is writing language into an amendment that is literally a Catch-22. The legislative language says that a public option will be set up in a state in which health care is not affordable to 95% of the state's residents, but it defines affordability as after the new tax credits that are written into the bill to make health care affordable. Not only would this be an incredibly weak public option (doing it in one state will mean it can't get the market power to compete with the big insurers), but it would be a public option that is written by its definition to never be triggered. This is a trigger specifically, intentionally designed to kill the public option.
Some senior White House staffers are now beginning to try to sell this trigger to progressive groups as the compromise version of a public option, saying the White House doesn't want to have a floor fight in the Senate, and that they can always fix it in conference committee. That way they can pick up Snowe, satisfy that desperate urge for being officially bipartisan (even though Snowe can't bring a single other Republican with her), and not have to worry about procedural hassles in the Senate. But by finally winning Snowe over, the White House is risking something far more politically dangerous: an ugly fight within the Democratic Party, further erosion of Obama's standing with his base, the specter of more primary fights.
The AFL-CIO, Howard Dean and Democracy for America, bloggers, MoveOn.org, progressive media figures, and the tens of thousands of people coming to Obama rallies and cheering wildly for a public option will figure out quickly that this trigger proposal is a farce specifically written to kill any chance of a public option. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus already are angry at having legal immigrants thrown under the bus by Baucus, all will explode.
As someone who spends every single day working hard to build and strengthen the bridge between the progressive community and the White House, I feel like the White House is triggering a bomb to blow the bridge up from under me (pun fully intended).
This trigger will never trigger a public option, but I can tell you what it will trigger: a civil war inside the Democratic Party just when you most need unity to pass health care reform. I am convinced that there are deals that can be struck that will bring progressive and moderate Democrats, House and Senate Democrats together on a good strong health care bill that will pass. But a trigger designed to never trigger isn't even close to being one of them.
Hi, folks. Meet Nancy Randolph from Maine -- a very nice lady I've talked to a lot in the last week as we prepared a new TV ad released today.
Before her first husband died of cancer, they thought they had great health insurance...until their insurance company denied him needed care. That drove them into bankruptcy.
Now, the senator who Nancy voted for -- Republican Olympia Snowe -- opposes the public health insurance option. And Nancy has something to say about that.
Click here to see the PCCC and DFA's new TV ad featuring Nancy holding Olympia Snowe accountable.
Then, help put it on TV.
Our goal is to flood Maine and DC with $100,000 worth of these ads -- to really ramp up the pressure on Snowe. In just a few hours, we're $32,000$34,000$36,000 $45,000 of the way there -- but we do need your help.
As you know, this a critical time to put pressure on Snowe.
All week, the powerful Senate Finance Committee will take important health care votes -- including on whether to include a public option. Snowe will be a key vote on the Finance Committee.
Markos' recent poll shows Maine voters favor a public option 2 to 1. Among independent voters, it's 3 to 1. Yet Snowe urged President Obama to take the public option off the table "because it's universally opposed by all Republicans in the Senate."
Olympia Snowe represents a progressive state -- and she needs to be accountable to her constituents. Click here to help the Progressive Change Campaign Committee & Democracy for America put our new accountability ad on TV in Maine right now.
(DFA has been doing a lot of important work in progressive infrastructure space. Throw them some coin if you can to help make this possible for more folks - promoted by Mike Lux)
I can't say enough about how great Netroots Nation was last week.
It was an incredible experience for me and an ever better opportunity to network, train, and learn from some of the best in the business. (I also played a lot of poker -- lost, but still had fun!) But I wouldn't have been able to go without a sizable investment in me politically by Democracy for America.
Joining great new media activists like Daily Kos' own slinkerwink, Future Majority's Mike Connery, and our movement's 15 year old wiz kid Karl Singer (populista), I was among some pretty great bloggers and activists. But, more importantly, none of us would have been able to afford it without DFA.
I just finished penning a thank you note to the team over at DFA with a $20 check I hope will go to funding the scholarship program in 2010. I've attached it below and I encourage you to do the same.
