2018-02-01 – I’m writing postcards to get out the vote.
The 2018 Illinois primary is only a little over a month and a half away (March 20) and this will be our first chance to #resist at the ballot box. So last night I went to a neighbor’s house for my first meeting with a group called Swing Left Northside Chicago (on Twitter @ChiNthSwingLeft). We’re working to flip the House from Republican to Democratic in the 2018 election.
Last night’s meeting was the first time since 1987, when I sat in a room with other volunteers and made calls for Harold Washington, that I’ve signed on for the ground game in an election. That’s over 30 years ago. And I’m not the only one to come out of retirement. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here!
How’s that for the State of the Union, Donald Trump.
You all know that I like to talk and write about politics. I like to get people to think. Maybe I’ll change a mind or two. That’s the long game in politics. It may not pay off immediately. And I’ve written about how the Democrats fall down in not playing the long game.
But the short game is important as well. When the election draws close, it’s all about getting out the vote. Democratic voters have a bad history of staying home on Election Day. When we come out, we win. Hell, we won in 2018, but not in enough right places to win the Electoral College. I hope we learned our lesson.
Last night’s meeting was about the short game. There was no woe-is-me over policy. It was about reaching out. How do we write postcards? How do new people in the arena learn about fundraising? How do we get people involved?
2018 will be the first test we will face in taking the country back from Donald Trump’s GOP. I’ve been looking at helping out in several nearby district, two in Illinois, and one in Wisconsin (Paul Ryan’s district is only about 90 minutes away).
The target of last night’s meeting is GOP Rep. Peter Roskam. Once a Democratic candidate is selected in the March primary, we’ll be all in for him or her.
Let me know what you’ll be doing for the election!
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Hello Steve! I am helping out at Northside Chicago Swing Left too. I Live in far off Japan but will do some fundraising. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm to flip Congress. I am excited too. Good luck and keep up the good work.
Hi Stuart! How did you get connected to Chicago Northside Swing Left. I originally went to the website and they said that I should work in IL-, but my neighbor was having a meeting for the Northside group, working on IL-6. They mentioned someone working from Japan at the meeting. It must have been you.
Yes, Steve, I must be the American in Japan. I lived in Northbrook, IL, for about 15 years and am still registered to vote at that old address. I too was shocked by the presidential election results in 2016 and decided I had to do something. Swing Left seemed to have a good strategy of targeting winnable districts that are now Republican. My district IL-10 already has a good Democrat Brad Schneider, although his seat is not exactly safe. Well, there were no Swing Left chapters up there, the nearest was the Chicago Northside one. In this age of the Internet, one is only as far as the nearest PC to wherever one wants to be! I want to see if I can send some postcards from Japan to get people to vote there in IL-6. Maybe they would get a thrill to get a postcard from Japan. How many postcards did you write?
I tested it out with 20, which I mailed the next day. Then I asked for 30 or 50 more. I forget which. They haven’t arrived yet.