Thanks for reading this free post from the Lowdown! If you enjoy what you’re getting here, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription— here’s why other folks have made the jump to support our work:
Paid subscribers get full access to all posts, the ability to comment on everything, invitations to live events with Hightower, and a fuzzy glow from helping in the fight for genuine, “small-d” people’s democracy. We’re glad to have you with us! In 2006, I went Walzing across southern Minnesota in support of a “nobody” named Tim Walz. At the time, he was running an upstart, underdog congressional campaign as a plain-spoken progressive populist in what was then considered a solid-red rural district. He didn’t have a chance against the lobbyist-funded, Bush-backed GOP incumbent. Except… Tim won! He did it the new “old-fashioned” way: By being himself, appealing directly to working class families, unabashedly confronting corporate power, and rallying volunteers in a door-to-door grassroots campaign. Some Minnesota friends asked me to do a bit of stumping with him, and it was both exciting and great fun to team up with such a genuine, down-home Democrat. I later learned that while he was a first-time candidate, he came prepared—he had honed his political organizing knowledge by going through Camp Wellstone. That was the unique, highly-effective, how-to school for progressive candidates and activists, created by the family and staff of my friend Paul Wellstone (the sorely missed US senator, joyful anti-establishment agitator, and grassroots strategist). Those Wellstone camps produced thousands of local people across the country skilled in the nuts and bolts of good, “litte-d” democratic politics. Sadly, Paul is gone, but we sure need to revive his camps! (Two great places to start: these resources from RuralOrganizing.org, and our friend George Goehl’s Fundamentals of Organizing.) Here's a short piece about Walz/Wellstone that Susan DeMarco and I highlighted in our 2008 book, Swim Against the Current:
Walz is not a pig in a poke, but a proven progressive in his years as a lawmaker and governor. Dare we risk being enthusiastic, rallying to push the democratic values and political potential of the Harris-Walz ticket? Yes. |
UNDER CONSTRUCTION - MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW 3 https://middlebororeviewandsoon.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, August 6, 2024
Tim Walz—Yes!
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