Putting Together A Progressive Election Team

There are a lot of reasons I've grown to admire Alan Grayson over the years. He's an intrepid world traveler (and gave me the exact right tips for where to stay in Bandiagara and Sangha in Mali); he's a Joni Mitchell fanatic; he's as compassionate as he is brilliant; he never finches from a tough fight; and, most of all, of course, because of what he stands for in terms of the ordinary working families who can't go out and hire lobbyists to get their needs met in Washington. He's also the most astute political strategist I've ever met.

Blue America is trying to help Keith Ellison and Mike Obermueller, two Minnesota progressives, raise campaign dough this week. Keith has no reelection opposition and his constituents respect and admire him. Mike is in a grueling second run-- again with no help from the DCCC-- against entrenched right-wing extremist John Kline in the district just south of Keith's. Keith needs the campaign cash to help him climb the leadership ladder so his pro-family perspective-- rather than Debbie Wasserman Schultz's, Steny Hoyer's, Steve Israel's and Joe Crowley's Big Buisness perspective-- gets heard behind the closed doors where decisions are made in the Democratic Caucus. And he asked us to include Mike in the fundraiser.

The way this type of fundraiser is successful is to get as many progressive allies as possible to ask their own supporters to contribute-- not to your own campaign, but to someone else's campaign. We reached out to almost everyone we've ever helped raise money to help us with this. Grayson barely let me finish the request before he was asking me which day would be most useful and introducing me to his crack team of internet wizards to help. Yesterday he sent out a request and helped bring in over a thousand dollars in the first 30 minutes. He put it like this:

Depeche Mode: the most popular electronic music band in the world. 

Rep. Keith Ellison: the very popular Co-Chair of the House Progressive Caucus. 

…Blue America PAC is connecting those two dots this week, to raise some much-deserved contributions for Rep. Ellison's campaign… Whether or not you're a Depeche Mode fan, please help us make Minnesota bluer (Farewell, Michele Bachmann!) by contributing to Keith Ellison's and Mike Obermueller's campaigns. You'll be proud to support both of them.

Raul Grijalva was as enthusiastic to help and he's timing his own letter for tomorrow. But that was about it. Most of our other allies were all busy with their own campaigns. One even wrote me back, "can't help this week but can you do one of these things for us next week?" All those senators and congressmen we helped raise almost $3 million dollars for in the last few years. OK, you gotta do what you gotta do. But it really touched me profoundly today when Rob Zerban, a struggling candidate who the DCCC worked to undermine last year when he ran against Paul Ryan and still refuses to back this year, said he would be happy to send a letter to his own list of supporters. Today he did. He forwarded the Blue America letter to his very large mailing list along with this message:

I'm running for Congress because I know how important it is to fight for the values and beliefs that we share. Turning those values into policy solutions, however, is a team effort. That's what makes organizations like Blue America such an essential component of the progressive community.

  Blue America sent me the following email and I thought I'd pass it along with a quick message: We need more people in Congress willing to fight for the middle class like Rep. Keith Ellison does, and I'm confident that Congressional challenger Mike Obermueller will live up to our high expectations.

I hope you'll join me in supporting these two outstanding individuals as we continue to work together toward a bluer America.

That contest is still on and you can get into it here. If you want to help elect team-players Alan Grayson and Rob Zerban, they're both on the same Blue America 2014 page-- and we are so proud of both of them. Who remembers Sham 69? This is a way of saying "thanks" to anyone who contributed tonight: