[statecom] SUNDAY - A CALL TO ACTION

[Jill Stein]

Greetings all.

We are weighing in on the question of attendance at the State Com
meeting, and sharing some sobering news on petition signatures. In
short, the numbers just in show us well behind on where we ought to be.
An optimistic count puts our current signatures somewhere in the 2500
ball park. Allowing the usual 2:1 margin of safety for raw:certified
signatures, we need 10,000 signatures to qualify for the Treasurer and
Secretary races, and 20,000 signatures to qualify for the Gov and Lt Gov
races. So you can see we have a ways to go, and must pick up the pace
many times over.

The concern is we have only three and a half weeks (8 weekend days) left
to collect signatures. Rain could easily cut petitioning days by 25-50%.
A major commitment all around is needed if we are to securely qualify
all four candidates for statewide office. The repercussions for the
party will be very serious if we do not qualify. If we do not pull out
all the stops starting now, we fear there is a real risk we will not.

The campaigns have been very active in advancing our message.  Grace's
campaign is well up to a hundred media pieces across the state, many
thousands of fliers, tens of community events and of course the three
big gubernatorial forums and more confirmed to come including two
post primary debates with major media outlets.  Jill and Wendy have
participated or will participate in candidate forums as well and have
been
very active in getting our message out.

But truth to tell, having our campaigns stop because we do not get
on the ballot is a drop in the bucket compared to the incredible leap
backwards - and loss of credibility - this would mean for the party
and what we are fighting for!

If the quorum for Sunday's State Com meeting is in doubt, we would urge
consideration of postponement till after the signatures are due. Perhaps
instead we might have a phone conference on the petition campaign on
Sunday morning, and spend the day petitioning - and/or recruiting others
to help in the effort. If, for example, every member of the State Com
committed to gathering 150 signatures over the next 3 weeks, (in
addition to the 70 or so petitioners already on line), we'd be far more
likely to make it. It seems there is little to lose by delaying State
Com for a couple weeks. There is A LOT to lose if we fail to get on the
ballot. For us, this trumps many times over the proposals many of us
were hoping to discuss on Sunday.

Our future as a credible player - certainly at the state level - is at
stake. A major failure at the state level will have implications for our
credibility at the local level as well. We urge everyone to do what they
can. Starting now. Please consider postponing Sunday's state com
meeting, grabbing a clip board, and making hay while the sun shines.

If you decide to postpone the statecom meeting, please let us know if
you'd like to have a conference call Sunday morning. In any event,
please email Pat Keaney at pkeaney at netway.com and Michael Cooper at
revmichaelcooper at yahoo.com to let them know if you can commit to helping
collect signatures (and how many), and to connect on strategy for
getting our candidates on the ballot.  

Thanks for all you're doing.

Grace, Wendy*, Jill, Jamie, Pat Keaney (petition coordinator)

[* Wendy's at work, so she hasn't actually seen this yet. But we're
taking the liberty of presuming she's on the same page. - jill]

-----Original Message-----
From: statecom-bounces at green-rainbow.org
[mailto:statecom-bounces at green-rainbow.org] On Behalf Of Merelice
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 1:12 PM
To: statecom
Subject: [statecom] Are you coming Sunday?

Greetings,
Writing in haste. Are we still trying to determine whether we can get
-- and keep -- quorum at this Sunday's scheduled StateCom meeting? If
the seated delegates now number 31, that means we need at least 16
attendees for the full day. I am taking a stab at guessing, based on
earlier communications, who expects to attend. I could well be leaving
out people which is why your response would be very helpful. I believe
the following are coming:

Owen
Colby
David R.
Annie
Bill C.
Elie Y.
Jen
Merelice
Mike H.
Dan M.?

Many more are going to have to attend to make this work.

Is someone putting together the agenda and packet?

Is someone willing to make phone calls to see who is coming? I would,
but I'm on deadline preparing for a work meeting at 2. Maybe if
someone makes calls and people are not coming, they could be asked if
sometime in August (after signature gathering) would work.

Merelice
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