[statecom-discuss] Re: [candidate-development] Re: [IPPN] CounterPunch 7/24/07: "Why I'm challenging Pelosi" by Cindy Sheehan

[Ron Francis]

I agree with Jamie, but would say do it at an even lower level.

Try school committee or city council or zoning board if there is one.

Best to establish some kind of base in your own local community before taking on people that usually already have some base.

Even better is to establish yourself on some issue, for a couple of years, and also get yourself known in the community as "a player" and then use that status to make a move.  Some of the "progressive" democrats have done that and have been effective.

We need to put our laps in before jumping into the pool against serious contenders or else risk having a negative experience rather than a building experience.,...we also build trust among residents when you are a known quantity rather than just running out of the blue.

Cyndi Sheehan is a good example of someone who has a passionate issue, and thus a passionate following behind her.    She is in a good position to run at the lowest possible level on federal issues (Congressperson);  She is a great model; her people will be with her as she runs.  She has an easily identifiable reason why people should vote for her and not Pelosi.

And also, there is no upsurge for running for the State legislature because there is no surge in issue activism among party members at the staterep level.  I am working on encouraging that by organizing people (Local Organizing Initiative) in their own Staterep districts / cities with a bias toward ballot questions.   We'll see what happens; it would be great if we had 5 or 6 ballot questions and some common ones too ....

If anyone is interested in starting up a local using the LOI technique, then let me know.

Ron

Mike Heichman <mikeheichman at verizon.net> wrote: Hi Jamie,

Maybe 13 candidates for the state legislature would be better than one 
candidate for Congress.

The problem that I see is that right now it might be a lot easier to 
"find" one person to run for Congress than 3/5/7 people to run for the 
state legislature. Who knows what's really going on out there with the 
members of our party? As of now, I don't detect an upsurge of candidates 
for the state legislature. There is some talk for the national 
presidential election, the US Senate race, and John W talking about 
Congress. However, I haven't heard anything relating the state 
legislature. Hopefully there is an upsurge that my radar hasn't picked up.

As for me, I want to encourage everyone to run.

So, I say this to John Walsh: "RUN! JOHN! RUN! And now, you have an 
additional incentive to be nice to everyone-you just announced your 
potential candidacy.

Mike


Jamie O'Keefe wrote:

> On 7/25/07, John Walsh  wrote:
>
>> Draft Chuck Turner to run against "Cappie" in the 8th CD.
>
>
> Chuck has a lot to do on the Boston City Council.  Better to run more
> candidates in Boston.
>
>> In fact I may take another stab against Jimmy McGovern in '08.
>> With Grace's support in an all out assault on Jimmy from her City
>> Council perch, I  bet I could beat the Prince of Pork in '08.
>
>
> I said this in 2003 and I will say it again in 2007, running for US
> Congress gains us nothing, but takes a huge effort.  For the effort it
> takes to get one US Congress person on the ballot, we could get 13
> State Rep. candidates on.  Plus if half fail to get on, we still have
> 6-7 who did get on.  With US Congress it is all or nothing.
>
> Jamie
>

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