Contribute to netroots candidates
So, yesterday I was able to attend a catered, shi-shi fundraiser for
Joe Sestak out in the suburbs. I have only given $100 to his campaign, but because you guys have chipped in so much via
the combined netroots page, I was welcomed with open arms. In fact, I may have been considered the biggest contributor there. Still, wearing a "blog" tee shirt and a pair of slacks, I stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd. Everyone else was either wearing a suit or a smart-looking, semi-casual outfit of some kind. Forget blogger ethics panels--maybe what we really need are blogger dress codes. I hope I didn't end up making a poor impression of you guys in the process. BooMan, who I ran into at Drinking Liberally later that night,
had a similar fashion experience at an event for Patrick Murphy.
Mark Warner was at the event. I can tell you right now: he is going to raise a ton of money in 2008. He really knows how to communicate with this type of crowd. Joe Sestak came after Warner. Since I spent a little more than a decade closely connected to the literature and poetry world, his speaking style immediately struck me as crossing between the two world I have lived in. Sestak makes his delivery very much in a poetry reading / spoken word style, specifically with the cadence of his voice (several people I talked to said the same thing without me even prompting them). I have never seen anything quite like it in politics before (maybe on the West Wing).
I spent most of my time talking with staff for the various campaigns in attendance:
Forward Together,
Olivia Brady (who I very very impressed with and who has a great chance to retake a state legislature seat in the Norristown-Collegeville area) and, of course, Joe Sestak. I was tremendously buoyed by what I heard from the Sestak staffers--this is a very energetic campaign. The event I attended was the fourth of six campaign events for Sestak yesterday alone. Every morning at 5:30 they spend time canvassing at local train stations and such. They have hired a local media firm, Doc Schweitzer, to do their media (Schweitzer worked for Brad Miller in 2004 and won tons of awards for his work on Governor Richardson's campaign in New Mexico in 2002). They have far more energy and excitement about them than the
Curt Weldon campaign does--exactly what I wanted to see out of a challenger.
It certainly was interesting being on the other side of the curtain. I have virtually no experience with fundraisers like this, but they clearly play a huge role for candidates all around the country. It strike me as a very, very different political crowd from the progressive movement types I am used to traveling in, but Sestak is clearly comfortable in both arenas as evidenced by his performance at Yearly Kos and that he has received huge netroots support and significant big-donor support. Again, that is absolutely something we need in the short term, as the most successful Democrats this year will have the support of both the movement and the establishment. The more candidates and campaigns like Sestak's that we can line up in districts that have not been competitive in some time, the closer we come to stopping the conservative movement in its tracks.
Please, help out Joe Sestak's campaign anyway you can.
