It's been a while since we last spoke, and there is quite a bit I would like to update you on. Just last week, I attended the Take Back America Conference in Washington, D.C. It was a tremendous experience to meet so many Democrats committed to a message of progress. Earlier in the week, I spoke with the Philadelphia chapter of Democracy for America and with members of the Chester County Democratic Party. This campaign prides itself on having a conversation directly with the grassroots; we will defeat Rick Santorum because we are taking our case directly to the people of Pennsylvania--especially appealing to those with a demonstrated ability to knock on doors, make the phone calls, and get out the vote.
This race will not be won in the banquet halls of high-dollar fundraising events, smoke-filled backrooms in the State Capitol, or in the editorial boards of newspapers. There is so much more I want to offer about where this campaign has been, and where it is headed, but today I want to ask you to participate directly in a project much like the one you helped with on March 4, 2005.
That was the day the "mainstream media" was sent a powerful message about the level of grassroots support behind my campaign to become your U.S. Senator.
On that fateful Friday, Bob Casey Jr. entered Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race amid much fanfare from the media and political pundit class. Before the evening ended, our campaign faced its first test of organizational strength. Despite spending a lengthy amount of time on the phone with the Associated Press, they omitted our campaign from their article, going as far as to cite a party spokesperson saying that no one else would enter the race.
We had no choice but to test the muscle of our budding campaign structure, putting out the call to our growing email list, and to local and national bloggers, asking them to contact the AP and voice their opinion about the omission. Chris Bowers put the call on the front page of MyDD. John Aravosis of talked about the omission on AmericaBlog, and Atrios responded quickly as well.
I can't even guess how many calls and emails they received over the weekend, but that following Monday I received a phone call from an editor that simply said, "We got the message." We have been in every AP article since.
We need your help again today.
While some large papers like the Philadelphia Inquirer and Allentown Morning Call consistently write about our campaign, others still do not, despite receiving consistent, timely, and relevant press releases.
We have created a new landing page at our website that has the contact information for 25 newspapers across Pennsylvania along with contact information for each of them. Please see if your local paper has written a piece about our campaign, and if they have not, please drop them a line asking them for fair and responsible coverage of the U.S. Senate Primary Election. If they have, please send them a note thanking them for their coverage.
I understand that many of you reading this aren't from Pennsylvania. If that is the case, I would ask you to write to the following papers: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Doylestown Intelligencer, Erie Times News, and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. This is a national race, and the damage caused by Rick Santorum is not confined to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Please help us in our grassroots effort for fair press coverage
It's time to flex our organizational muscle again, and this time we have the might to expand our reach statewide. Keep your letters short, and be sure to include your name, address, and phone number if you wish to be published. When you are done, send us a copy so we can post some of them on our blog (info at chuck20006 dot com).
Elections should not be settled in smokey backrooms or editorial boards or newspapers; democracy demands that they be settled by a well-informed electorate participating in free and fair elections. Please help us make sure the people of Pennsylvania understand that there is a clear choice in the 2006 U.S. Senate primary and general elections.
Yours in solidarity,
Chuck
http://www.chuck2006.com/info.asp?content=presschallenge