Grassroots for Cegelis, Part II

Bill T posted this in the comments last night, and I thought it was worth sharing on the front page...

Wanted to comment on the Christine Cegelis thread. Hope this is the right place to do it -- don't really understand these blog thingies (I'm an e-mail person myself).

I first started volunteering for Christine in the summer of 2004. Really got hooked when she was the only candidate or officeholder to march in our inaugural Disability Pride Parade (I was already legally blind when Howard Dean got me involved in actual campaign work). Nothing has changed since -- I've signed up to coordinate a handful of precincts in the run-up to the primary.

I'm not angry about the Beltway types' decision to run a candidate against her. A bit shocked, maybe. But my basic reaction is that if we're going to have the playoffs before the regular season, we simply have to buckle down and win. And I think there's a good chance we will. The Republicans have for decades dominated a district that is coming close to being evenly split because they put shoe leather on the pavement. Christine is doing that. Duckworth isn't -- her Web site doesn't even give people an opportunity to volunteer. Her advisers think they can win with a pure air war. I think otherwise. And when Christine wins in March (yes, I said March), she'll be that much stronger for the fight against Roskam.

A lot of Christine's volunteers are from Democracy for Illinois Linkups. That was especially true of the early volunteers in 2004 (how I initially got involved). And I've lost track of how many have endorsed her and are sending volunteers this time around. At least five I can count. Somebody commented that they didn't see much about her on the Democracy for Illinois Web site, but if you look you'll see her name at the top of the candidates' list and most of the events listed being related to her campaign. That's about the most you can expect from an organization that doesn't even exist on paper. If you don't see her near the top of the news posts, that's because this is old news in Illinois.

I had been concerned that DFA --meaning Burlington -- would move too slowly to have an impact on the primary. That was reinforced by the fact that in 2005 they didn't make any endorsements at all until Illinois elections were past. But on the conference call with Jim Dean last Tuesday I had a chance to bring up Cegelis and Dean's response was extremely positive. I expect to see an endorsement -- soon, too, since I was able to remind Dean that Illinois early voting started in just six weeks.

Someone has said, "Victory is the best revenge." That's our motto in the Cegelis campaign. It would be great if people here could help. And donations aren't the only possibility -- phone banking and data entry are things that can be done from anywhere in the country. If you really want to stick it to Rahm Emanuel, as well as prove that the grassroots has a place in American politics, go to http://www.cegelisforcongress.org/

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