Houston Democrats

I met some of you when I was down in Houston in December visiting Melissa and doing a few days of volunteering at the HDCP headquarters office. Now I'm going to ask you for a favor. You can view the following post with picture on my blog by clicking or going to, http://www.thisiswhatdemocracylookslike.com/mcnerney-volunteers

As a grassroots activist I sometimes feel powerless against the Washington insiders. That all changed as Christine Cegelis and her volunteers proved it is possible for us to have a fighting chance against the beltway bureaucrats. Cegelis proved that the grassroots candidates are competitive in 2006 and I'm here to tell you the primaries aren't over yet!

Just like kid oakland blogs about how "We all live in Richard Pombo's district", I felt like I also lived in Christine Cegelis' district. I followed Cegelis' race closely because I'm a grassroots volunteer for Jerry McNerney, running for congress in CA-11. Jerry's Democratic primary fight is similar to that of Cegelis'. In 2004 Cegelis and McNerney stood up to incumbent Republicans when no other Democrat would. Now, in 2006 they both face(d) Washington supported primary opponents. Another similarity that pisses me off to no end is that the last time I had checked, both candidates couldn't get their biographies and pictures posted on the DCCC candidate site while their Washington supported opponents did.

Here are Joe, Jody, and James, a few of my grassroot volunteer buddies on the McNerney campaign. They put me behind the camera because my name didn't start with J. We're working hard to continue the momentum the Cegelis campaign built so we can continue to show that our grassroots candidates are extremely competitive. But all our volunteer hours will be for nought if we can't continue to raise enough money to remain competitive against our primary opponent's Washington insider hosted fundraisers.

When I was in the McNerney campaign headquarters volunteering yesterday, I learned that they have an end-of-quarter goal of raising $50 each from 500 supporters. In fact, I received this e-mail from the campaign today. Can you help our candidate, Jerry McNerney, reach his Friday, March 31, end-of-quarter fundraising goal by contributing $50 or whatever you can afford at: http://www.securedpayments.com%2Fjerrymcnerney%2Fcontribute.asp

I know the McNerney campaign finance dude will not be happy with me for saying this, but I guess that's the advantage of being an unpaid volunteer:-) There's a grassroots approved way to make your contribution to the McNerney campaign. We've got a lot of bloggers out there writing stuff about the CA-11 race, and it would be great if you could make your contribution to the McNerney campaign as a statement supporting blue bloggers. Jerry does have a blog too and you may have caught his posting about "The Real Fighting Dems" a few months ago. Matt, at the Say Not to Pombo blog, has an ActBlue contribution page where you can contribute your green grassroots bucks to Jerry McNerney. Scroll down to the bottom and make sure you contribute in the correct box for Jerry McNerney. Make your contribution with 11 cents added so Matt knows we are showing him some grassroots green. As an example, you would enter $50.11 in the Jerry McNerney box at:

http://www.actblue.com/page/saynotopombo

I can't say enough about how great it is to work for a campaign that really is grassroots. Jerry McNerney has hired not just one, but two, yes T-W-O, of the Bay Area DFA 1.0 and 2.0 people as paid campaign staffers. Many of you may have heard of Vicki Cosgrove and Eden James from Northern California and Oakland DFA. I thought I knew a lot of people in the area, but they are amazing.

I know from reading the posts that there are some people who want to give up on the Democratic Party, but we're not ready to do that. We volunteers are not only fighting to put a great candidate in office, but we're also fighting for the future of our party, so let's get to work. We have only a few days till the Friday deadline.

Thank You.

Thom Kunselman
Hayward, California
http://www.ThisIsWhatDemocracyLooksLike.com

P.S. OK, I know the Finance Director is really going to kill me for saying this if/when he finds out, but wouldn't it be neat if we could get 500 grassroots contributors for Jerry McNerney on Matt's Say No to Pombo blog ActBlue page? http://www.actblue.com/page/saynotopombo

P.P.S. If you have your own blog, why not consider putting this Jerry McNerney advertisement on your blog? Then you can fill out an in-kind contribution form for donating advertising to the campaign. Just make sure you fax the form in before the March 31 deadline. I figure putting the advertisement on my blog is worth a $50 per month from April through November as an in-kind contribution. Let me know if you have any suggestions to improve the advertisement. It's the first one I ever made to donate to a campaign.

Cut and Paste the following source code to display the image and link on your blog <a href="http://www.securedpayments.com/jerrymcnerney/contribute.asp"><img src="http://www.ThisIsWhatDemocracyLooksLike.com/images/mcnerney-volunteers.png" alt="We're Grassroots Volunteers for Jerry McNerney. Please contribute to our candidate." width="151" height="250" border="0"></a>