Campaigning For Congress-- In The Midst Of The Pandemic

Asshole without a mask campaigns among men all wearing masks

Right before the shutdown, an unsymptomatic campaign volunteer gave everyone on a congressional campaign COVID-19-- as well as the candidate's entire family. No one died. But it sure screwed up the campaign. Yesterday, the Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel, said Señor Trumpanzee is no longer welcome in the state after he adamantly refused to wear a mask in public as part of a campaign stunt. "He is a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules. This is not a joke." Michigan has been a hard-hit state that is working very diligently to flatten the curve by encouraging-- not discouraging-- everyone to wear a mask. Michigan's 53,510 caseload increased by 501 cases while Trump was in the state yesterday and 69 more people died, bringing their total deaths to 5,129. (Yesterday there were 5,358 cases per million people, worse than every European country other than Spain.)

A political consultant friend of the blog, Eric Hogensen, wrote up some suggestions for campaigning during the pandemic for his clients and shared it with us. "The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting changes to our lives," he wrote earlier this week, "have altered politics. In addition to moving election dates, restrictions on the usual messaging tactics have changed campaigns, possibly for the rest of the year."

Digital

With canvassing is limited or unavailable, social media will become more important and valuable this year. Online videos, both planned and live, can be used by the candidate to get their message out. A candidate can also host question-and-answer sessions that connect a candidate to a voter. Organizing a virtual night based on any one of the main issues taking place in the district you are running in, is a great way to reach voters. Also, utilizing more apps with platforms such as Nextdoor to reach voters in your district directly will greatly benefit your campaign.

Branding

The typical political messages may seem less appropriate during these challenging times, so messages should be inspiring and hopeful. It’s important to remember not to change your brand as a candidate during these times. You can pivot with creative messaging and expanding your brand but don’t change who you are.

Field

Instead of canvassing door-to-door, phone banking will become more important. Use community mapping by starting with who you know and identifying who is influential (such as local leaders). Build a list of these individuals and then ask them to introduce you to their connections. Predictive dialer services should also be utilized even more during this cycle. Also, the targeting for different constituencies through phone calls should be looked at with a closer lens to evaluate your support as you begin your outreach. With volunteers making calls from home, it can actually be easier for calls to get made. Set up weekly goals and a leaderboard so volunteers can reach enough voters.

Although these are challenging times, candidates should recognize that there are still alternative ways to reach voters, and that it is important to spread the message of hope and unity during this crisis.

I asked some of the Blue America-endorsed candidates how they're coping with keeping a campaign moving forward during the pandemic. Indiana progressive Jim Harper was the first to respond: "Our campaign acted early to make sure that we were doing no harm. I haven't shaken a hand for months, and we quickly cancelled our in-person events even before stay-at-home orders were issued. We have switched our focus to phone calls and digital outreach, but also work to make sure that we as a campaign are giving back during a difficult time. Every week, we engage in multiple service activities. This is a good opportunity to remain connected with our community, while lending a helping hand."

If Jennifer Christie wins, she will have flipped an open red seat in the suburbs north of Indianapolis. There's a crowded field of Republican-lite Democrats and Jennifer is the only one running on a straight-up progressive platform. This morning she told us that "We started knocking doors right after the New Year. We were out several times per week long before any other campaigns had started canvassing. We knocked in thr sleet and snow. Then the pandemic hit. We stopped knocking with an abrupt halt to keep our team and constituents safe. We immediately switched over to phone-banking, text-banking, and zoom-events. We are on the phone daily and it’s going really well. Because people are home more, we talk to a lot of people. And we get overwhelmingly yes commitments with enthusiasm for our truly progressive campaign and the chance to send a scientist and a mom to Congress."

The Newark, Elizabeth, Bayonne, Hoboken, Weehawken, Jersey City district that Hector Oseguera is running in is very different from IN-05. For one thing, the district is as blue as it gets and the electorate is 65% Hispanic. The winner of the primary is the next member of Congress. Hector is campaigning hard against an entrenched, machine-backed incumbent, Albio Sires. Earlier today, Hector told us that "Incumbents normally hold a tremendous advantage over their challengers, having much better access to funding and to influential groups within their districts. This new reality has quickly leveled off this traditional power disparity, as both elected officials and their challengers adapt to life in lockdown. This campaign specifically, has shifted to online advertisements on platforms like Facebook, which can have as much impact and reach as traditional television and radio ads at a fraction of the cost. Letter writing campaigns offer remote outreach opportunities that give voters a personal, one-on-one experience, while maintaining social distancing. Even our activism need not grind to a halt. I've participated in a number of COVID-safe rallies at ICE detention centers, where activists drive around prisons, honking profusely, to let the inmates and staff know that we are aware of the unsafe conditions inside. All this chaos can provide creative, tech-savvy campaigns a much needed advantage on a traditionally skewed playing field. How campaigns adapt to this new world will vary depending on the contours of their districts; but the old Latin proverb, Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat, hold true today... fortune favors the bold!"

"In the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Rochester, NY candidate Robin Wilt, "our campaign first off transitioned to mutual aid efforts. We saw the communities that were most engaged in our campaign suffering, so we started making deliveries for a local food pantry, which turned out to be one of the few food pantries in the county that has continued to operate during the crisis. We also transitioned our phonebanks to include senior check-ins. In addition to mutual aid efforts, we knew that our original strategy would depend a lot on direct voter contact, so since we didn’t have that in our toolbox anymore, we transitioned our outreach to social media, and we began doing weekly COVID-19 community check-ins. These are updates where we highlight the issues facing our frontline and most vulnerable community members to raise awareness and build action around moving forward through this pandemic together, with no one left behind. We have now done these public forums and outreach to the arts and self care communities, for those that are housing insecure, the immigrant, migrant, and refugee community, the incarcerated community, the climate justice community, the mutual aid community, educators, voting rights advocacy, etc. Yesterday, we hosted a call with Medicare for All advocates. We promote them via Zoom on Facebook Live, and it’s a means to engage voters around the priorities that matter most to the electorate."

"So, basically," she concluded, "our team has shifted to a strong digital outreach effort through social media channels. The results have been terrific, reaching an average of 60,000 voters each week. We’ve also never strayed from our activist roots. What we’re finding during the pandemic is that raising awareness and taking action to support our frontline communities is the best mechanism to spread our message.

Mckayla Wilkes is taking on Pelosi's #2 (and K Street's #1)-- Steny Hoyer. "Prior to COVID-19," she told us today, "we were knocking on over 10,000 doors a weekend so when we had to suspend canvassing we were obviously a bit concerned as to how we would continue to get the word out about our campaign. But thankfully, we were able to transition fast due to our committed volunteers. Since we shut down canvassing, we’ve made hundreds of thousands of calls, seen an increase in volunteers by 1000%, raised over $300k and see no signs of slowing down. Just yesterday, we launched our first TV ad campaign throughout the district!"

Congress Needs New Leadership-- Replacing Steny Hoyer With Progressive Democrat McKayla Wilkes Would Be A Great Start

There are still 8 crackpot Republican governors who deserve to be removed from office for jeopardizing the lives of their states' citizens. None of these jerks will follow the Surgeon General and White House guidelines asking governors to impose stay-at-home orders. Other than swing state Iowa, this is the deranged Trumpist heartland

• Arkansas-- Asa Hutchinson
• Iowa-- Kim Reynolds
• Nebraska-- Pete Ricketts
• North Dakota-- Doug Burgum
• Oklahoma-- Kevin Stitt
• South Dakota-- Kristi Noem
• Utah-- Gary Herbert
• Wyoming-- Mark Gordon

Leadership matters-- and while Trump was celebrating the Dow Jones' bull trap yesterday, the NY Times revealed a government study Trump has suppressed which show projections that find stay-at-home orders, school closures and social distancing greatly reduce infections of the coronavirus, but lifting those restrictions after just 30 days will lead to a dramatic infection spike this summer and death tolls that would rival doing nothing. The risk they show of easing shelter-in-place orders currently in effect in most of the country undercut recent statements by President Trump that the United States could be ready to reopen 'very, very soon.'"

I wish I could say all the bad leadership comes from Republicans and all the Democrats represent the good leadership. But I can't. That's why that new McKayla Wilkes video is up top. If you haven't watched it yet, please watch it now. McKayla is running for a southern Maryland congressional seat occupied by Steny Hoyer and the video is very compelling, very powerful. McKayla is running on a largely Bernie platform-- from the Green New Deal to Medicare for All and free state colleges.

This morning, former Florida Congressman Alan Grayson reminded me that "One of the things that the Left used to be good at was setting the agenda-- from 1930 until around 1975. From then on, it was tax cuts for the rich, 'deregulation,' anti-abortion zealotry, whatever the NRA wanted, benefits cuts, military spending increases, and more tax cuts for the rich. What Bernie Sanders has tried to do, very patiently, is to try to take back the agenda from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and replace it with a new utilitarian agenda: the greatest good for the greatest number. He gives regular pols something to talk about. That a very influential position to have." And Bernie has influenced a large number of young men and women with values like his own-- AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib as well as candidates like Shan Chowdhury (NY), Audrey Denney (CA), Harper Morgan (OH), Tomas Ramos (NY), Shahid Buttar and, of course, McKayla.

Hoyer represents K Street, not the people living in Prince George's, Charles, St. Mary's and Calvert counties. Here he is, one of the most powerful member of Congress but without having ever addressed the housing crisis in his own district-- nor anywhere else. He has no plan and no interest and it isn't even mentioned on his website. McKayla, on the other hand, is campaigning loudly and clearly on affordable housing, promoting the national Housing Guarantee which includes a national cap on rent increases; federal loans and grants to municipalities and counties for the construction of twelve million new units of publicly- or communally-owned social housing over the next decade; renewing the nation’s commitment to public housing as a critical source of housing for our lowest-income communities reversing decades of disinvestment and privatization and fully funding the backlog of maintenance and repair needs; providing assistance to vulnerable communities and communities impacted by housing discrimination and unjust federal policies such as "redlining."

McKayla is also a proponent of providing meaningful foreclosure relief for homeowners impacted by predatory financing practices, unforeseen personal circumstances and environmental or economic disaster; providing federal rewards for localities that lift zoning restrictions in areas zoned exclusively for single-family housing; promoting Community Land Trusts, limited-equity co-operatives and other alternative, community-based ownership models as vehicles for developing affordable housing.

Yesterday, she told me she has been going even further, advocating measure to seriously tackle homelessness-- like instituting a Renters Bill of Rights to protect all renters from unfair eviction and sharp price increases. She would like to introduce a federal Right to Shelter, whereby the state is legally required to provide shelter for all, regardless of cost. She also supports increasing the accessibility of Universal Housing Vouchers by simplifying eligibility requirements, eliminating red tape and increasing funding for outreach and case support services ." So how about Steny? Crickets. He supports what the lobbyists tell him/pay him to support-- always has, always will.

Please consider hitting the 2020 Blue America congressional thermometer above and contributing what you can to McKayla's campaign. She's needs to get that video out widely and whatever you can afford will be completely appreciated.

Blue America Endorsement: Mckayla Wilkes (MD-05)

There's a big primary on April 28-- a kind of Northeast mini-Super Tuesday-- featuring New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island and Maryland. For the sake of argument say Bernie sweeps all 6 states. That could be the biggest news of the day, unless there's a major upset in Maryland's 5th district. The 5th, the southern part of the state, one big DC suburb that includes all or part of Prince George's, Charles, St. Mary's, Calvert and Anne Arundel counties. The district is very blue-- D+16. McCain, Romney and Trump, all won around a third of the vote. So what's the upset that could outshine the presidential race?

MD-05 has been the home base for the congressman from K Street since 1981. That would be Steny Hoyer and that would be far too long for anyone to be in Congress. Hoyer stopped representing his constituents long ago and is the most lobbyist-oriented member of Congress. As majority leader, he slows down anything and everything that smacks of progressivism-- and his opponent this cycle, Mckayla Wilkes, is all about progressivism. Blue America officially endorsed her campaign today and I asked her to tell Blue America members a little something about herself. If you'd like to help her replace Steny Hoyer-- and put someone who backs Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal, criminal justice reform, free state college, money in politics reform... into the House where an incumbent who opposes all those things is now, please consider clicking on the Blue America 2020 congressional thermometer on the right. 





Running To Take Power Back From Special Interests
-by Mckayla Wilkes

My name is Mckayla Wilkes. Growing up, I didn’t believe in politics and I didn’t trust politicians. My father was murdered before I was born, and so my aunts helped raise me. After I lost my Aunt Sharon in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon, I needed help. I needed someone to talk to. Instead, I was incarcerated for skipping school. Like so many people across the country, I’ve experienced firsthand the exploitation of our healthcare and criminal justice system. Profit is centered instead of people, and corporate politicians are more beholden to their donors than their constituents.

My congressman, Steny Hoyer, takes money from the fossil fuel industry, private health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and the war machine. He refuses to support Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal, or ending the War on Drugs. Just this past year, he referred to cannabis as a “gateway drug.” As someone who was arrested for possession of marijuana, I know the toll that the racist and misguided War on Drugs has had on our communities. I’m the right person to represent Maryland’s 5th District because I can resonate with so many of the ordinary, working-class people here.

While Hoyer may have large corporate PAC donors, we can defeat him. Since 1990, no challenger to Hoyer has raised more than $6,000. I’ve already raised over $150,000 and I’m outpacing Hoyer in small-dollar donations 4-to-1. Moreover, we’re actually out in the community; I’m holding 8 town halls around the district this winter, and my team and I knocked on over 6,000 doors last weekend alone. Everywhere we go, it’s clear that Marylanders are fully ready for change. If we can speak to enough people before April 28th, we will win.

  I’m running because I believe it will take a movement to pass Medicare-for-All. It will take a movement to pass a Green New Deal, to end homelessness, to reform our criminal justice system, and to end the endless wars. I’m running to be a part of that movement and to bring in people like me who didn’t trust the political process. I’m running to take power back from special interests and be a representative who is responsive to her constituents. Above all, I’m running to create a fairer, more just, and more compassionate world. All I need is your help to do it.

Unlike Ordinary Voters, Steny Hoyer Doesn't Think The House Democrats Are Corrupt Enough

Voters hate both parties-- the Democrats a few points less than the Republicans. But apparently, the Democrats would like to catch up with the Republicans in the low esteem department-- and before the election. This week, The Economist released a new poll by YouGov that asked respondents what they think of both political parties. Among registered voters 46% have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party and 52% have an unfavorable opinion. The same voters said they have a 44% favorable opinion of the Republican Party and a 54% unfavorable opinion. Not that much different. Sad!

One of the most corrupt scumbags from either party-- Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer (80)-- is pushing a plan, along with retiring House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (82), to reintroduce, albeit gradually and less toxically (at first), bringing back earmarks. Everyone hates earmarks-- except corrupt politicians. Politico reporters Ally Mutnick and Caitlin Emma wrote up the bare essentials of a potentially explosive story that could send the Democrats right backing the minority. They wrote that the Hoyer-Lowey plan "would allow members to secure cash for some pet projects at home."

There's a growing concern among the political staff to some swing-seat members that this could hurt them in November and undercut their campaign promises of fiscal responsibility. And it comes after the Democratic-led House unsuccessfully attempted to secure a congressional pay raise last year-- another vote which freshmen deemed politically risky.

Members from both parties have long stressed that reinstating earmarks doesn’t have to mean a return to wasteful and highly criticized pork-barrel spending in which federal funds flow to thousands of niche projects.

Instead, they contend that a system with improved controls could help lawmakers better deliver on their districts' needs. President Donald Trump even endorsed a return to earmarks in 2018, saying that it led to “great friendliness” among Republicans and Democrats.

Still, even a watered-down version of earmarks could provide Republicans with all the fodder they need to make biting political ads.

“We’re not going to have a majority if we bring back earmarks,” said a top aide to a freshman Democrat who flipped a GOP-held seat in 2018. “This is not what we came to Congress to do. Voters made it clear years ago that they were tired of pork and special interest spending in Washington and sweetheart deals.”

Advertising spots that aired prior to 2012 often reminded voters that their member of Congress supported the use of taxpayer dollars for pet projects in states hundreds of miles away. And some Democrats who voted in favor of a 2011 earmark ban taped ads touting their work to curb government spending.

...In a letter to fellow lawmakers last February, Lowey announced that “there is currently not the necessary bipartisan, bicameral agreement” to revisit the contentious practice of specifying that federal dollars must go to certain projects.

But the New York Democrat added that legislators in both chambers “must discuss the issue of earmarks in our respective caucuses and conferences to determine member preferences, solicit ideas to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, and when applicable, change rules to permit members to request earmarks.”

I spoke with two young women, both progressive reformers-- whose campaigns revolt around very anti-corruption messaging-- how they took the news about Hoyer trying to resuscitate earmarks. Mckayla Wilkes is running for the suburban south Maryland seat occupied by Hoyer. She told me that "House Democratic leadership considering a return to earmarks flies in the face of what Democratic voters have been calling out for: no more back room deals, no more influence peddling, no more payoffs. A return to earmarks threatens vulnerable freshman members, who must then explain to their progressive constituents why the party is returning to this corrupt practice. Steny Hoyer has been notoriously shifty in his efforts to maintain a moderate majority in the House. We all remember the notorious call to Levi Tillemann where Hoyer encouraged him to drop out in favor of the more moderate DCCC backed candidate. Not to mention Hoyer’s DCCC blacklist, which cuts off DCCC business to any consultants working on behalf of a primary challenger. This shady tactic serves to prevent dissenting progressive voices like mine from having the tools, staff, data, comms and fundraising needed to compete against incumbents. If it wasn’t for grassroots donations of money, talent, and time, I would be unable to compete, and Hoyer’s sleazy tactics would be successful. We as a party can’t let this continue."

Rachel Ventura's suburban and small town district is west of Chicago and she's also running against a corrupt conservative, New Dem Bill Foster. Rachel told me that "We must have a government and economy that works for everyone. Earmarks further corruption and special interests. Instead we need to use our tax dollars to help close the wealth gap through a federal jobs guarantee, living wage jobs, and infrastructure investments all across this country. Passing the Green New Deal ensures our dollars ARE going back to our communities to help everyone, not just a few pet projects. We need to pass policies that help everyone like Medicare for All and as your next congresswoman of IL-11, I plan to push for these two bills my first term in office."