Steve Young and staff may be the only ones working on the race this next two days as the California Statewide Special Election, where we expect to bloody Gov. Muscles nose, is tomorrow. The Unions, Teachers, Activists of all sorts are full time on that election until 8 PM tomorrow night. There is a good chance The Gov will be embarrassed right out of the race for '06.
Regardless of that reality, we've been busy virtually every day. Our ground campaign has been hitting the streets into high propensity Democratic neigborhoods to drive the turnout up, the Candidate has 3-5 events a day where he speaks and picks up support everytime. We have innovative technology to deploy after the Statewide election.This is new, different and never seen before. It may make the difference. It will certainly be noticed.
This campaign will never give up and we will continue to find new and innovative ways to present The Candidate to the voters.
But know our slogan is simple:
Enough is Enough!
Yesterday he found himself with a standing ovation from an audience of largely middle class and wealthy Republican Latino's. Amazing for a guy who really is a very liberal Democrat. He's very, very good in one-on-one or in a crowd. After all these years of campaigns, I have to say he's the best in front of a crowd I've ever seen.
We face Jim Gilchrist, the Minuteman Project Anti-immigration guy, who we are convinced is hording money for a lasts minute media blitz.
Our Republican opponent is Rubber Stamp John Campbell, a multi-millionaire, who is so confident of his victory that the night before the first debate of the General election he is appearing in Washington DC at a fundraiser chaired by VP Dick Cheney, (yep the Darth Vader of the Admin who is himself under investigation), Roy Blount (the one who took Tom Delays place and may be under investigation) and others. (We have eyes watching to see if Delay attends. I'm sure he will.)
Price per plate: $2,100 if you give to Campbells campaign committee. But if you give to one of the co-sponsoring PAC's $2,500 per person. No reason you couldn't do both of course. No reason the PAC couldn't give Campbell $5000.
There's a beauty to all this, of course. Jim Gilchrist pulls from the right. We pull from the Left and this will be a very, very low turnout election. That leaves Campbell with a problem. He has few if any volunteers. He's tried to hire doorknockers and hasn't been able to get it done. So he's dependent on mail and TV. And right now he's not doing either.
While it may seem amazing that The Democratic Nominee, Steve Young, is still fighting hard and gaining ground with an admitedly much smaller set of resources, we in the Young Campaign understand that a minor shift in turnout can change the result of this election.
Unlike any election I've ever seen, a few percentage points of participation that results in getting the Dems and Indys off the couch and out to the polling places could make the difference.
Of course, we need that last 10 days media blitz too and we are planning some major fundraisers too. But we don't have our 'stars' from the Party firmly booked yet so those are up in the air.
Is it getting late? You bet. Do we need every Democrats support, ie: cash help, that reads this post? Yes. But we haven't given up on the larger sources either. We are still in discussion with Party sources at all levels that are trying to help. It's just such a damn unusual race.
But if we, the Grassroots, mean really mean No District Uncontested then we have to give the people of the Districts that have proven themselves worthy the tools to fight.
We have fought a race so hard we've had repeated attempted website break-in's, push-polls and more dirty tricks that I can even remember. If we weren't making headway why would they bother?
I may have hard real news on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. Look for an update then. If it's the news I expect....it will be BIG.
