(Send Harper's campaign some love. Minor formatting edits done for promotion... - promoted by michael in chicago)
With our critical fundraising deadline just hours away, I want to share a short video with my friends in the blogging community to highlight how far our campaign has come. 2008 is going to be a watershed election for our country, and with your help, it can be a special time for our district as well. With your help, we can absolutely win this race in November.
Across the country, people are rallying around the cry, "Yes we can!" and have created momentum that puts every race in play. A front page story in the Washington Post recently highlighted the collar counties outside Chicago, stating that, "Affluent suburbs that were once solidly Republican have edged toward a split or turned Democratic." (Washington Post, 6/29/2008).
We saw it with Bill Foster earlier this year and we’re seeing right here in the 13th District thanks to the unprecedented grassroots support from people like you.
So please, watch our newest video after the jump...
the reality is setting in. barack obama is going to be the democratic presidential nominee, and he will have long coattails here in illinois. how long? well, we read that county commission candidates are worried:
"I could lose to Barack Obama," the board member whispered.
and they would be several slots down on the ballot. who's next, after the presidential nominees? yep, those congressional races. and the collar counties -- those counties that surround cook -- will be the places where an excited democratic activist and voter base will be felt the most.
If you missed it from the previous diary here's where Scott Harper's opponent Republican Judy Biggert of IL-13 voted against our veterans. Scott held a press conference today along with veterans of the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm to condemn Judy Biggert's recent vote against the GI Bill. In response to her vote, they've started an online petition urging Congresswoman Biggert to begin assisting our veterans. You can read the petition and sign it at Scott's website here.
It rare when the Blue Dogs, like Bean, are more in the authoritarian direction than many of the Republicans, but that's the case with this one. And Republican Biggert is not even pretending to be moderate. She still must not be aware of just how strong a candidate Harper is and that she's in a close race in a tough year. OK, we'll take over-confidence, it works for us.
After the jump the complete press release.
H R 2642 YEA-AND-NAY 15-May-2008 3:45 PM QUESTION: On Agreeing to the Senate Amendment With Amendment No BILL TITLE: Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and
It is a political campaign maxim, particularly for non-incumbents, that campaigns must jealously focus on their own race to win - and that any 'distraction' from their campaign comes at great or even unbearable cost. While examples may exist, how often have you heard of an underdog congressional campaign taking their volunteers to canvass for a neighboring congressional candidate? Perhaps more uncommon, how often have you heard of a congressional candidate taking their volunteers out of state to canvass for a presidential candidate in a party primary? It may be unconventional strategy, but 13th Congressional District Democrat Scott Harper has taken campaign volunteers to support neighboring 14th District Congressman Bill Foster in his historic win, and just last weekend was canvassing for Barack Obama in Lafayette, Indiana with his volunteers.
a year ago, i am told, harper sat in a room full of illinois bloggers at yearlykos and started thinking about what he could do to help defeat bush republicans. thursday, scott harper, democratic candidate for il-13, met with a room full of labor leaders to talk about his campaign to defeat judy biggert. it was clear that not only scott, but dreams for throwing out a dupage gop congress, had come a long, long way.
labor leaders representing iam, the carpenters,unite-here, the building trades,ibew and others came to hear scott speak about his race and his take on various labor issues. before the meeting began, scott worked the room vigorously, introducing himself to those he did not know, saying hello to those he did, and engaging everyone in conversation. people talked about the war, biggert's support of check card legislation, recent democratic and labor meetings, how scott's fund-raising is going.
scott was given a lengthy introduction by his host from iam. he talked about the importance of grassroots activity and fundraising to winning campaigns. "that's how we win," he said simply in his remarks. he talked about judy's distance from union issues, that she has a 13% support rating on union issues and that "she won't even talk to us, even local union members." unions are basically shut out in the biggert office.
The Democrat Scott Harper campaign against IL-13 Republican Rep. Judy Biggert invited some bloggers to sit down with their campaign manager and their candidate Saturday over coffee and rolls. I came away with the feeling that this is going to be the sleeper race in November, that Scott can actually beat Biggert. Indeed I think he has a better chance than Democrat Jill Morgenthaler does against IL-6's wing-nut Roskam. The demographics are shifting our way and this district went 46% for Kerry all of four years ago now.
They have already raised more money to this point than did recent previous opponents to Biggert in their entire race. That's good sign number one. Since this is a first time run for Scott he is quite cognizant of his need for professional help and recently stream-lined his organization at the advice of his new manager whom he selected for her depth of experience. Professional campaign manager and streamlined organization is good sign number two. And that the campaign is reaching out even to the netroots can count as good sign number three.
The discussion was mostly nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts, how-to kinds of things. So unfortunately I never got into the area of why Scott is running and what he hopes to accomplish with his run. So I have not gotten a chance to ask any of my standard questions like will he be joining the progressive caucus and how will he be approaching globalization and trade agreements like NAFTA. Partly that's a consequence of not thinking he had a realistic chance of winning. Why worry about the beliefs of a like loser?
We may have to start paying more careful attention now that he is doing what needs to get done to win. There are two ways to inspire the volunteerism needed to field a ground campaign. Either with inspiring progressive messages or an inspiring populist style. Naturally, the best is both. Reaching out to the netroots requires a lot of appealing to issues to get us to become enthusiastic.
Anyway it's a race to pay more careful attention to. The easier that Seals race in 10 becomes and the easier that Halvorson's race in 11 becomes, and the more swamped the Republicans become in general and nationally, then the more this race has to potential to be another Illinois pickup. Scott Harper is doing what needs to be done so far. He is ready to ride a wave, but he may also be ready to make his own.
[Posted at the request of the organizers. The poll is mine; everything else is from them. -GK]
JUST VIEWS
Fri 12/14/07--7:20pm:
Candidates for U.S. Congress at Just Views on Politics of Fear & What's To Be Done
All Candidates for U.S. House of Reps IL 13th District have been invited, and at least three are coming, to discuss issues fear mongering, violence and manipulation; also truth telling and fair play -- as raised in this BBC documentary about the Cold War, and beyond.
The Power of Nightmares trilogy explores how politicos and their media have fanned fears of evil ones -- from communists to terrorists -- to rally and steer the public. This hour entitled Phantom Victory includes examination of the 1980s' strange collaboration between two groups with differing motives and ideologies -- neo-conservatives and radical Islamists -- to remove the Russians from Afghanistan. Violent and clandestine means to seek oil, territory and preeminence -- used then and up to the present -- have bred much suffering, upheaval, insecurity, fear.
While most of our sitting reps and senators don't have much to say about "Small Price" Boehner's comments Scott does.
This is the first of what I plan on being many diaries here from the Scott Harper campaign. After the jump is an open letter we just sent to all the local papers in the IL-13th. We'll see if any print it.
In the coming days I'll be writing a bio piece about Scott whom I met at Yearly Kos and helped recruit to run against House non entity Judy Biggert. Scott will also be posting again in the near future himself.
Read on for more info and if you'd like to learn more about him or send some cash his way (we're gonna need a lot) here's the webpage:
(Added "How we can Make IL-13 Competitive" to the title. - promoted by wegerje)
Il-13 truly has a viable, ideologically correct candidate with the means to focus all of his energies on the campaign for the next 13 months.
Now the unpleasantries. Although on this web page we are all into ideaology, in the outside world viability is measured by the funds one raises. The magic "attention getter" is about $100,000 early money on the FEC report. September 30 is the end of the next reporting period. Scott Harper has loaned his campaign $50,000. The rest of us need to match that--and we have a bit over two weeks to put our money where our mouths are. We've griped for years that we did not have credible candidates(Yep,I was even griping in 2004):). We have one now. Many PACS and Senators will not even talk to candidates until they know they can raise funds. We have no time to discuss whether or not that is fair. If 500 people give $100. each you in the next two weeks you may end up with a democratic Congressman. If you can give more-do so--and no donation is too little--because the number of donations is also listed on the FEC report. If you fund a candidate you will vote for them-ultimately votes become the bottom line.
In 2002 with little campaining the d received 29% of the vote, in 2004 with $35,000 the candidate received 35% of the vote---and last election Joe Shannon received 42% of the vote after spending $50,000. A well funded well managed campaign can win. Scott Harper has an MBA, a successful business background and a management team in place. The demographics have changed in the district. Will County's population has been growing and they have elected more and more democrats. DuPage is ready to turn and was just waiting for a real candidate. You have one. Fund him.
DeKalb's 3rd Ward alderman was assisted in his campaign last spring by Joe Wiegand. If his name sounds familiar, it's because Wiegand ran Jim Oberweis' gubernatorial campaign last year (see blueollie's post on the campaign's use of fake news headlines) and Chris Lauzen's winning state senate campaign in 1992. He is a former DeKalb County Board member, a personable guy, excellent speaker and arguably the P.T. Barnum of the far-right faction in DeKalb County.
Another person who helped the 3rd Ward effort was Jon Zahm of Maple Park, a political consultant and associate of Wiegand's. Maple Park is situated on County Line Road so part of the town lies in Kane County, part in DeKalb County--he dabbles in both and more. Zahm was behind a dubious Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made to City Hall that culminated in a smear of the incumbent alderman and associated lies that perhaps contributed to his 14-vote loss in the election.
Because of his involvement in a campaign so blatantly slimy that it may yet result in an aldermanic recall ordinance, Zahm's activities have been on my to-do list and last weekend I had the chance to check on some of them. The result was discovery of the Illinois Center Right Coalition (ICRC), an organization formed to unseat Democrats and Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) at all levels--yet is not a registered PAC.
(Well, this level of responsiveness toward the on-line community is certainly refreshing. - promoted by michael in chicago)
PSB, thanks to Carl Nyberg, has been talking about having candidates answer our own questionnaire. In the course of the thread, yinn posted the following yes/no questionnaire from Huffington Post. I've answered the questions yes or no (with some hedging on some of them), but in most cases I've added commentary, or used them as a launching pad for a discussion of aspects of the issue that in my humble opinion are not sufficiently considered.
It may interest you to know that it took me about 2 hours to write this. I'm not sure that I would fill out every questionnaire, or at least in this degree of detail, nor would I be comfortable sharing in such an open forum answers that had to fit into the questionnaire's pre-formatted answers. But as I mentioned in a comment in the questionnaire thread, I think that what's great about the netroots is that there is a real dialogue that can take place, and for you to judge a candidate, you have to have a sense of him or her as a person. Canned answers don't contribute to that process.
I'm sure that everyone won't agree with every specific thought I bring up; we are Democrats after all, and a free exchange of ideas is what we are supposed to be about. The goal is to get a conversation going, and if people get excited about my candidacy in the process, so much the better. See below the fold for the questionnaire and my responses.
(Check the comments where Scott Harper joins in the discussion. We should have promoted this sooner. Oh well... - promoted by wegerje)
Last night I had dinner with Scott Harper. It was a strange path to my door. He heard about Naperville's Drinking Liberally from some people at YearlyKos and decided to join us last Sunday. After a couple of conversations, he's hit the ground running. He was introduced to the State Central CommitteeWoman Julia Kennedy Beckman and she's been running him around to the precincts.
I only got to talk to him for a couple of hours and there was a lot of "what does it take to start up a campaign" conversation. What I did learn was that he was born and raised in Naperville and sold his media biz a few years ago and decided pursue a PHD.
Starting at YearlyKos, he cant be all bad! It's a tough district, but if someone is willing to do the work to expose her true record, she can be beat!
It wasn't until I was organizing statistics of the gains Democratic challengers had made in '06 over '04 that I noticed the 13th CD.
That guy Shannon gained more than 8 points over his predecessor. Great! but who is he?
I participated in 10 and 11 (and the primary in 6); I heard about 19, 14, and even 15. I heard absolutely nothing about the thirteenth district and assumed -- therefore -- that there wasn't a strong challenge in that race. Obviously, I was wrong.
Did anyone on this blog participate? Does anyone have any information?
DCCC.net has taken down the URLs of the unsuccessful chalengers.
On May 16, 2006 the Daily Herald published a letter by DuPage GOP Chair Kirk Dillard that the Herald titled, "Reasons to be proud of DuPage GOP." The letter was Dillard's response to Herald Editorial Columnist John Zimmerman's May 7th article, "Putting out an APB for missing DuPage County Republicans," criticizing the DuPage GOP as "Grand Old Pretenders." Here's some of what Zimmerman wrote:
Winfield Democrats Hold Congressional Candidate Forum Monday, February 27
The Winfield Township Democrats are holding a Congressional Candidate Forum tomorrow, February 27th at 7:00 pm. See the Democratic candidates running for Congress in the 6th 13th and 14th Districts at the I.B.E.W. Local 701 building, 28600 Bella Vista parkway in Warrenville. The forum is being moderated by the League of Women Voters-Wheaton.
Democratic candidates for office spoke yesterday in a forum at Jackson Middle School in Villa Park. The forum was co-sponsored by the York Township Democratic Organization, the DuPage Democratic Club, and the Progressive Democrats of Illinois. Most of it was filmed on a digital videocam, and we hope to have DVDs available if anyone wants them.
(Hiram Wurf has one of the best fingers on the pulse of DuPage county of anyone around. Normally we would comment on an article rather than just forward you to it. But in this case we'll leave further comments to you all. - promoted by wegerje)
