It's Not Too Late To Make A Real Difference-- And There's A Lot On The Line

Look at the list of potential 2024 Democratic candidates that the media keeps repeating— nothings and failures with no organic national followings like Kamala Harris, Mayo Pete,Gina Raimondo, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker… even Hillary! They all have a single word in common: neoliberal. How about a progressive contender? Ro Khanna says he’s not ready yet. And I don’t think AOC thinks she is either. Bernie will have already turned 83 on Election Day and Elizabeth Warren will be nearly 75. (Trump, who is extremely unhealthy and very likely to die before then, would be 78.)

One name that keeps being bandied around as a progressive potential candidate-- on a grassroots level but never by the establishment media-- is author and public intellectual Marianne Williamson. She’s been quietly raising funds for progressive congressional candidates for the last 4 years. The video above that she recorded yesterday points to the 6 who have made it through the grueling, anti-progressive primaries this cycle, Christine Olivo, Angelica Dueñas, Maebe A. Girl, Derek Marshall, Steven Holden and David Kim.

A new poll, released yesterday by Data For Progress, indicates that inflation is foremost on voters’ minds— more than twice as much so that abortion rights. Yet the same poll shows that 46% of voters say they have hear a lot of Democratic messaging on abortion but just 27% say they have heard a lot of messaging on Democratic plans to improve the economy. Just after Marianne published the above video on her CandidateSummit website, I called her and asked her about how she and the candidates she works with talk about the inflation problem.

“The primary factor in inflation,” she told me, “is corporate greed, and Republicans (much more than the Democrats) is the party of entrenched corporate greed. In addition, if people had universal health care, no medical debt, no college loan debt and also free college, the effects of inflation would be far less severe. The Democrats lean much more into those things than Republicans do, and they should be making that point loud and clear.”

The candidates Marianne has been helping are doing just that. Is it a little late in the game now for contributions to be meaningful? Not at all. This is a time when candidates are scrambling to reach their field plan goals and their Get Out The Vote plans. Derek Marshall, whose district is mostly in the San Bernardino suburbs, told me that it costs them about 3 and a half cents to make a voter outreach call. He has a large phone banking operation reminding Democrats and independents to vote and to vote for Derek— and for the same reasons Marianne was talking about. "Contrary to popular belief,” said Derek yesterday, “last minute fundraising dollars probably have the highest impact outside of early money to a campaign. For us, every dollar that we bring in right now is allowing us to reach more people. For example, every dial that we make costs 3.5 cents. So if we want to have a last minute phonebank— a $100 contribution is the difference between whether we can make an extra 3,000 calls or not. In a race as close as ours, that is the difference between whether or not we flip the district or not. Whether or not we hold the House of Representatives or not.”

Spencer Slovak or Mycorrhiza Digital is working for several of these specific candidates. Yesterday he told me that “Most campaign expenses are pre-paid: mailers, emails, texting, signs and literature. That leaves the leftovers in the final weeks for pay-as-you-go expenses: mainly digital ads. That's an important leftover! We know how important social media ads are in today's elections, and an influx of funding in the last couple weeks can make the difference in turnout for the young and minority voters so important for progressive campaigns.” He’s working on a new ad for Angelica Dueñas right now in the hope that enough last minute money comes in that allows her campaign to run it. Please consider clicking on this link and contributing what you can to help these six progressive candidates.