Hi everyone, I’m not dead yet. I really want to mobilize effective activism, but there isn’t much to say right now. Nancy is doing good work in the House. The bottleneck to what should be everyone’s number one priority, the election security bill H.R.1, is Joe Manchin. If you live in West Virginia then you need to call his office, just like you should do every day since Joe Biden took office. If you don’t live in West Virginia then I’m sorry to say that you are a passenger on this ride. Please don’t bother calling Manchin’s office, it just wastes your time and annoys the staff. His job is to answer to pepperoni roll-eating Mountaineers fans and only them. It doesn’t really matter how progressive or enlightened your Senator is, and Republicans are singularly useless all the way from Rand Paul to Mitt Romney. If you live in AZ of course you should call Kyrsten Sinema; personally I get the feeling that she won’t hold out if Manchin doesn’t but every bit counts.
On the Republican side, Lisa Murkowski is about the only ray of hope we’ve got. Mitt Romney loathes Trump but he doesn’t have much interest in Democrats succeeding either. I will keep poking Pat Toomey’s office but I think he’s already counting his post-Senate weekly checks from Americans for Prosperity.
Do you have better ideas? Dish! I could use them.
[EDIT]: Here’s a picture of an old dog playing tug with the leash. My discipline habits have gone to hell as we both get older.
OzarkHillbilly
Not saying it’s better, but it is an idea: Drive to WV and get a burner phone. Then call a Manchin office and lie.
AnotherBruce
Didn’t Portman retire? Who can fill that seat? make Ohio blue.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Better idea? No. Some idea? an ActBlue page for the state parties where Senate seats are or might be gettable?
Here’s a page set up for House Dems in swing districts in ’22.
Ksmiami
Punish the perpetrators of the Insurrection- get on every media station and call out the thugs…
MazeDancer
Your pup is still adorable.
And calling has to be done.
Easy for me, in NY, to say. But, no matter, has to be done.
Percysowner
Arizonians should probably push Sinema to decide that they can carve out an exception to the filibuster for this one issue. She supports the bill, but seems to be pretty set on keeping the filibuster intact.
trollhattan
Max!
zhena gogolia
Love that dog.
Mary G
Max! I am so happy to see him again.
I have started budgeting for donations to incumbent senators and representatives who are in tight races starting with Raphael Warnock, and several organizations working on GOTV next year. I hate this new timeline where every election means the death of democracy. Also the Wisconsin and Maricopa Democrat parties. Are the Pennsylvania Democrats any good? I worry about Fetterman and Kenya that slugging it out in the primary.
smith
@Mary G: Which GOTV organizations do you recommend?
Geminid
@AnotherBruce: Congressman Tim Ryan of Youngstown will run. I think he has announced, and he is meeting with small groups of Ohio Democrats. An Ohio commenter was one of them.
VeniceRiley
Registration orgs. Look around for who is active NOW.
WaterGirl
A post from Tim! Yay!
Not unrelated to this, i just put up a post to let you guys know that we have an Ask Me Anything set up with the folks from FOUR DIRECTIONS.
You likely remember that we had a BJ thermometer for them last year – they do boots on the ground work related to ballot access for Native people – and they made a real difference in 2020.
Join the thread tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 7:30.
Geminid
@Mary G: Pennsylvania may not stay a two person race. I think one or more of U.S. Representatives Madeleine Dean, Chrissy Houlahan(sp?), and Conor Lamb will run. Or at least that’s what I’ve read.
Tenar Arha
@VeniceRiley: I second registration organizations, and add anyone suing Iowa, Georgia, Arizona, Florida etc. over their new voter suppression, & the overturning elections by crooked GOP legislative fiat laws.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Streaking!
Mary G
@smith:
Here’s my philosophy, I think the reasons the GOP did so much better than expected in 2020 that Republicans said the hell with covid and did a lot of voter contact, including canvassing, that got more people to the polls than Democrat’s remote contact did. Also, I was very disappointed that I spent a lot of my life savings donating to Cal Cunningham, Sarah whoever in Maine, Jaime Harrison, the woman in Texas, as did a lot of other Democrats, and got squat for it. I don’t want my money going to know-it-all-consultants to spend on their friends’ businesses. The wins in Georgia and Arizona were partly due to good old shoe leather door knocking, voter level, contacts. So I’m trying to cut out the middleman wherever I can.
Four Directions, which WG is going to spotlight, did great work on Indian reservations that had a lot to do with D wins in Arizona.
Very impressed with The New Georgia Project – Stacey Abrams gets all the credit, but there are many hands in the work.
Beto’s Powered By People is a monster – look at their web site and see all the canvassing, training, and phone banking they are doing right now, today. I know people think Texas is a lost cause, but Georgia turned and all the Californians moving to the sun belt (lol, no) will start to tip the balance. I stopped my donation to them, because there’s no Senate race, but I may change my mind.
Woke Vote holds GOTV boot camps in different regions of the country
Let America Vote, started by Jason Kander, did amazing work in 2018, but he’s moved on and a lot of what I get from them now is just “send more money” emails, so I am not sure I can recommend again, but I haven’t paid enough attention to say yes or no.
Movement.Vote is a clearinghouse that collects money and sends all of it on to local mostly Black-led organizations. They are giving to 41 right now in AZ, CO, lots in FL, GA, MI, MN, NV, NC, PA, TX & WI. Each one is listed so if you want to give directly or volunteer you can find them.
There’s also the oldie-but-goodie Vote Riders, and more, but I think I’m out of links.
Ohio Mom
AnotherBruce:
Portman announced he’s not running again in 2022. That means he’s in his seat until January 2023, being as incorrigible as always.
And since this is Ohio, no guaranteeing that whoever takes his place is any better. Unless Sherrod Brown figures out how to bottle his magic. If he can, he will surely share it with the Dem candidate.
Another Scott
Hey Tim! Hey Max!!
I agree that out-of-staters should not beat up on Manchin. He specifically said once that he welcomes out-of-state attacks because they make him stronger.
I’m definitely in for any thermometers that are being setup. We have to fight for every potentially gettable seat. I’ll be sending Jamie Harrison and the DNC some money monthly starting next month as well. I think he knows what he’s doing and every little bit helps.
We need to crush the GQP in Virginia this fall, also too…
Cheers,
Scott.
chopper
TIIIIIIMMMMM
Procopius
On Rising today, Krystal & Saagar said Joe was proposing to pass H.R. 4, which is renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, instead, and he actually has found one Republican he says has promised to vote for it. This would be a big help if it could be done. Not as good as H.R. 1, but still restoring a proven good tool against voter suppression. I’d like to see the Dem leadership push for this. I don’t think Joe is going to find the nine more Republicans he would need, and then he might change his mind on the filibuster and on H.R. 1, or maybe he could find them and maybe enough Democrats would vote for it (not at all sure, by the way) and we would have a real achievement. I don’t think we can get H.R. 1 through the Senate except by reconciliation, and we can’t use reconciliation unless every single Democrat votes for it. I just want to point out that it’s not a lock, even if Manchin and Sinema vote for it.