Chop Wood, Carry Water 8/24
Hi, all, and happy Wednesday!
It is pretty happy, actually.
Y’all, the election results in New York yesterday were VERY encouraging. If you haven’t heard, Democrat Pat Ryan scored a huge special election upset by defeating Republican Marc Molinaro 52-48 in New York’s 19th District, a swing seat in the Hudson Valley that everyone expected to go to Molinaro.
I mean everyone.
In an excellent reminder that polls are wildly unreliable, an early August DCCC poll found Molinaro leading 46-43, while the Democratic firm Data for Progress released its own poll on Election Day giving him an even larger 53-45 edge. The DCCC put no money into the race. It was a write off to everyone but the voters and activists in the district (and to the thousands of Postcards to Voters volunteers who wrote for this race—thank you!). But Ryan was a great candidate, and he ran on abortion. Hard. It worked.
I hope we all take several lessons from this:
First, Democrats are outperforming expectations everywhere and will continue to if we do our jobs and remind them to vote.
Second, “It’s the abortion, stupid.” I’m telling you. This is the wedge issue that will destroy the GOP. We should be talking about it constantly, reminding voters in every phonebank and at every door that Republicans support a nationwide abortion ban (and, in many cases, a ban on birth control.) It’s a hugely winning issue.
Third: Don’t listen to polls. Not when they’re good. Not when they’re bad. If we learned nothing else from Donald Trump’s win and all of the subsequent Election Day “shockers” let us learn this. Polls. Aren’t. Facts.
We are. We make the facts with our actions.
So let’s go create some more “shockers” right now. Welcome to history, folks. You’re making it.
Call Your Senators (find yours here)
Hi, I'm a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is ______.
I’m frustrated and saddened by the way the USPS is declining under Louis DeJoy’s leadership. I want the Senator to ask President Biden to appoint two new USPS Board members in December—when two seats will become vacant—who will vote to remove DeJoy. Will s/he do this?
Also, I want the Senator to vote yes on S.190 Ethan’s Law, a common sense child safety gun law, and S. 736 the Assault Weapons Ban Act of 2022. Common sense gun laws are a top priority for me.
Call Your House Rep (find yours here)
Hi, I'm a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is _______.
I’m frustrated and saddened by the way the USPS is declining under Louis DeJoy’s leadership. I want the Congressmember to ask President Biden to appoint two new USPS Board members in December—when two seats will become vacant—who will vote to remove DeJoy. Will s/he do this?
Extra Credit ✅
Send this to President Biden through his web portal or by texting SIGN PAQTBW to 50409. [H/T]
The Seaport Oil Terminal (SPOT) and Texas Gulflink are two massive crude oil export projects proposed for the Gulf of Mexico Coast.
With just 7 miles between them, SPOT and Gulflink would consist of a crude oil storage facility, onshore and offshore pipelines, and an oil export terminal where crude oil would be loaded onto Massive supertankers called VLCCs for export.
SPOT and its VLCCs would load 2 million barrels/day of oil -- more crude oil than is currently produced on all the Gulf Coast offshore drilling platforms annually. Since the crude oil export ban was lifted in 2015, there's been a rush to develop and esport more and more crude from Texas and the nearby Permian Basin -- driving up prices at the pump, and global warming pollution at the same time.
Unless you stop it, President Biden, SPOT will increase fossil fuel production and global warming pollution from a region that's already the largest carbon bomb on the planet.
Please, we have no time to waste. Stop this and every other “carbon bomb” project before we lose everything. Nothing moves forward on a dying planet. Only you can save us. Stop SPOT now! Thanks.
Get Smart! 📚
Field Team 6, an organization obsessed with registering new Democratic voters, is having an incredible “Meet the Candidates” event on Thursday, August 25, 2022 | 5pm PT, 8pm ET. It’ll be hosted by Brian Tyler Cohen.
The guests will be (* means that they're in incumbent running for re-election):
Katie Porter (CA-47)*
Jeff Jackson (NC-14)
Dan Pastore (PA-16)
Christy Smith (CA-27)
Antonio Daza (GA-11)
Annette Taddeo (FL-28)
Will Rollins (CA-41)
Doug LaFollette (WI Secretary of State)*
Mike Collier (TX Lt. Governor)
Adrian Fontes (AZ Secretary of State)
Aaron Ford (NV Attorney General)*
Plus, they’ll have Lauren Harper, the Coordinated Campaign Director for the Texas Democratic Party. Sounds awesome, right?
Win Races by Postcarding! 💌
Activate America will be starting a new campaign in AZ in support of Mark Kelly. It will focus on the Inflation Reduction Act and its benefits.
If you would like to participate please write to linda@activateamerica.vote and tell her how many cards you’d like to write. Minimum is 20. She will provide you with addresses and a script. You’ll need to provide your own postcards (I like to order from here).
Tell her I sent you. 🥰
Win Races by Texting! 🗳
Oooh do I have texting opportunities for you! Check ‘em out, and pick a way to help us win!
TEXTING TRAININGS:
Sign up to train to text for Beto O'Rourke in Texas HERE. (Once you get trained there is texting available every day via their Slack channel)
Sign up to train to text with the DNC to protect our majority in Congress HERE.
Sign up HERE to train to text for NextGen. (They also have regular texting campaigns once you’re trained).
TRAININGS AND TEXTING EVENTS
Textbank to Wisconsin women on Thurs Sept 1 from 3-5:00 PT. Training provided. Sign up HERE.
Movement Labs is texting every day. HERE is their schedule, including Abortion Defenders texting in 12 states.
Text to register voters in swing states with Field Team 6 every Thursday. BYOP (Bring Your Own Phone.) Sign up HERE.
Resistbot Text (new to Resistbot? Go here! And then here.)
[to all 3 reps] [H/T Win Without War] [quick send text SIGN PNLXFM to 50409]
I’m writing to ask Congress to put immediate limits on the president's authority to start nuclear war on demand.
The consequences of nuclear war would be horrific: instant annihilation for thousands, followed by environmental destruction, famine, and death of tens of millions in the fallout.
Which is why reports from the The Washington Post that “classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence” are especially unnerving.
Presidents have sole authority to launch nuclear weapons -- even Presidents that are so careless with nuclear weapons that they take classified documents about nukes to their country club after leaving office. This is too dangerous an authority to be held by one person.
Right now, with the threat of nuclear war looming, I want Congress to put immediate limits on the president's authority to start nuclear war on demand. Never again should someone like Trump have the unilateral ability to end humanity. Please fix this now! Thanks.
OK, you did it again! You helped save democracy! You’re amazing.
Talk tomorrow.
Jess
Thanks for pointing me to texting. I responded to about 150 today related to reproductive health. Easy to do but you were right, per activism 101. A lot of swearing. Happily I knew most of the words.
As one of the activists in CD19 canvassing to get out the vote for Pat Ryan, polls weren’t really relevant: we still knockef on doors to get voters to vote - in this case mostly Dems, sometimes “unaffiliateds,” aka independents. In our small town, we knocked in about 300 doors during the six week campaign. How many votes did we produce? We’ll never know but definitely some. They mount up from town to town. Postcards may be easy and satisfying; phone banks I find frustrating because as one person whose door I knocked on said, I never answer. Canvassing is the best. It is sometimes challenging but usually fun and often moving. People like to talk and tell
their stories! So give it a chance this fall. Most campaigns have a place to sign up as well as many organizations. Try Mobilize.us where Dems post their Volunteer opportunities. You’ll never regret irbid you do it; you might regret it if you don’t.