Are any of involved in local elections, running, supporting candidates, whatever? I’d like to promote local elections as much as I can this fall.
Here’s an idea I had: how about if let commenters send me a blurb about a local candidate they like and I do a small fundraiser for them (say $500)? That might be a nice way to raise a little money and also raise awareness and excitement about local elections.
I’m too busy to do much of anything in terms of canvassing, since I have a young baby, but we have some very exciting local elections this fall here in Monroe County. You might have some interesting local elections too.
Raoul
I’m supporting the re-election of my friend Gary Anderson for Duluth, for a second city council term. He’s an out gay man from a working class background (former UPS driver/teamster, among other things! He’s now a yoga therapy practitioner since city council is a poorly paid part time gig) who is a powerful leader in opposing copper-nickel sulfide mining. He’s also a total sweetheart, his hubby is a dear man, and both are big into giving back to their communities up in the Northland of MN.
Boosting him five hundred bucks would be meaningful for a race of that caliber, and Gary already knows the Duluth Chamber has their sights set on him, so having a strong early fundraising quarter sends a message to a potential (fellow Dem?) challenger. Election is this coming November, endorsement convention is this summer some time, maybe August?
clay
Sunny Gettinger is currently in a run-off for the Jacksonville, FL city council. She’s impressively smart and charming.
The run-off election is May 14, so I don’t know if a cash infusion would help at this point, but you never know!
EDIT: Whoops, forgot the blurb! She went to Yale, the Kennedy School at Harvard, and worked for Google for a decade. She’s chaired several important Jax organizations. She wants to focus on infrastructure, safety and smart zoning, it seems.
PVDMichael
One of the things I love about Doug! posts is recognizing a semi-obscure song lyric from my yoot.. desperately trying to come up with the cadence and then melody… and finally arriving at the artists. Love me some Squeeze!
meander
Great idea!
I don’t have any concrete suggestions but will offer that Postcards To Voters has been running campaigns for local offices — city council, state reps — so check them out if writing postcards interests you: postcardstovoters.org/
chris
Some might find this subreddit helpful.
“Vote Blue is a subreddit dedicated to promoting and helping elect down-ballot Democrats all across the United States of America!”
See among other things the list of upcoming elections in the right hand sidebar.
reddit.com/r/VoteBlue/
Doug!
Ok, I’ll do all of these.
Hidalgo de Arizona
I have a candidate that I’d like to put forward; in my home town of Tempe, Arizona Corey Woods is running for mayor. He’s a great progressive candidate focused on affordable housing and helping the homeless and, if he’s elected, he’d be Tempe’s first African-American mayor.
All around he is so. much. better. than mediocre white guy Mark Mitchell who is our current mayor. You might recognize that name because he’s former congressman Harry Mitchell’s son – he just inherited approximately none of the charisma that Harry had.
Royston Vasey
Squeeze, Cool For Cats (1979)
Thanks, DougJ!
:-)
Mike J
Whoever is running against Matt Shea in LD 4 (Spokane) for the WA house. He’s an actual Nazi. Even the right wing rag Seattle times says he “doesn’t deserve a place in the Republican party.”
I don’t know if there’s a candidate yet, but the WA Dems would probably be happy to distribute it. wa-democrats.org/
Also, I used to annoy one of my coworkers by singing Up the Junction every morning as we went through Clapham Junction for the week we were working in Croydon.
Bobby Thomson
What a slap and tickle in the face.
Ocotillo
Not a request but more of an observation, San Antonio is having mayoral/city council elections at this time and early voting is going on. Mrs. O is an election judge and it appears the conservatives are out in force (le sigh). The big issue? City Council voted to not have Chick Fil A at the airport and that is what has people riled up.
We do not have party affiliation shown on the ballot for city elections and when some voters discover that, they stop and go do research to find out which party the candidates are from and return to vote.
She is a judge in a red area of town so hopefully others are getting out and voting. The guy trying to unseat the mayor has been married three times and has domestic violence reports in his background. Very Trumpy.
BruceFromOhio
MrsFromOhio is doing social media, photography and print graphics for the mayoral race in our fair hamlet, but is keeping it on the down low because we are dirty dope-smoking hippy liberal Democrats adrift in the red sea of this fascist enclave. The town council is evenly split but cordial, and since it’s all non-partisan the candidates can let their freak flags fly. The current guy is terming out, and has kept the peace while getting things done. His hopeful successor is a good guy, probably a Dem, but we are all in the political closet just feeling each other up. At least one of his opponents is a fucking MAGAt and lives down the street. If he knew what we were up to, we’d probably end up burning each others houses down. Hence the discretion.
Ellen
Might get more bang for the buck donating here runforsomething.net/donor/
Miss Bianca
@BruceFromOhio: Damn, that sounds like being a Democrat in the ruby-red section of rural CO where I reside! Where two of the three reasonable (ie, RINO) candidates were recalled by the screeching reactionaries organized around the right-wing rag in town.
Lavocat
A Squeeze fan! Slap And Tickle, baby!