Remember that the Geoghegan campaign still needs contributions, phone bankers and Get Out The Vote volunteers.
I’ll let Kathy Geier (who someone should hire to be a campaign blogger or speechwriter) tell you more about Tom and why you should try to help in these last few days. I’m just going to highlight some portions of her piece, but I urge you to read the whole thing:
If you were to ask me why I’m supporting Tom Geoghegan in the IL-05 special election for Congress, the answer would be simple. I’m supporting Tom because he is the truest progressive in the race.
What, you may ask, is a progressive? A progressive is someone who “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable” — someone who, above all, will fight for the rights and the dignity of ordinary people, even — especially — when that means taking on the most powerful institutions and entrenched interests in our society. Given that so many injustices derive from economic inequality, the cause of economic justice will always be at the center of a progressive vision. But economic justice is by no means the only vitally important progressive value. A true progressive is someone who signs on to the entire progressive agenda — not just the bits and pieces of it that happen to be popular at any given moment, or happen to coincide with his or her own self-interest. And finally, a progressive is someone who is committed not merely to advocating incremental change, but to advancing big, bold, and sometimes quite controversial new ideas.
By those measures, Geoghegan is far and away the most progressive candidate in the race. He has bloody well spent a lifetime “comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable.” He’s filed lawsuits against employers who illegally discriminated against workers or prevented them from joining unions. He’s won back pensions, health care, and lost wages for thousands of people. He’s gone to court to enforce child labor laws, and to crack down on predatory payday lenders.
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There are three main items Geoghegan is running on: enacting single payer health care, increasing Social Security benefits, and re-instating usury laws by capping interest rates on bank loans and credit cards. Tom believes that having the government pick up non-wage labor costs like health care and pensions is crucial, if we are to become globally competitive and get America moving again. The economic policies he advocates are not only just, but they will be more economically efficient as well.
This is an ambitious platform, to be sure. I don’t hear any of the other candidates showing this kind of leadership, or imagination, or calling so forcefully for such big changes. Instead, I hear a lot of the usual mealy-mouthed, hackish, politician-y bullshit about how “I’m on your side” and “I’m fighting for you” — with no specifics or concrete proposals attached.
But at many candidate forums, Geoghegan gets more spontaneous applause than any other candidate, because people are hungry to hear what he has to say. Voters realize that this country is in one hell of a mess, and that bold solutions are required — solutions that get the economy out of the grotesque imbalance it is currently in, so that the interests of ordinary people, not Citibank, come first. Tom is very much advancing the national conversation toward this end, and moving the ball forward in terms of the progressive agenda. None of the other candidates are doing this — certainly not to anywhere near this extent.
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For Geoghegan, it’s been clear – as a progressive, he’s been all about the people party. This is readily apparent in Tom’s economic agenda. Economic justice will always be the cornerstone of a progressive politics. That’s not only because economic security is a basic human right, but because powerful political appeals and coalitions can be built upon the economic interests of ordinary working people. Even groups that are divided by other issues can unite around a politics that advances their economic well-being. Which is why Geoghegan’s progressive economic agenda is not only morally just, but it’s strategically savvy as well – it appeals not just to the lakeside liberals in the IL-05 district but the working class folks in its western end, as well.
Another example of the Geoghegan’s campaign’s use of smart politics to advance a progressive agenda is its mobilization of the netroots. If you look at ActBlue, and other sites that track campaign donations, you’ll find that one thing is clear: more than any other candidate, Tom’s campaign has relied on small donors. On ActBlue alone, Tom has raised over $204,703 from almost 2,202 donors. The average donation to his campaign is far lower than for any other candidate in the race.
In past elections, a candidate like Tom Geoghegan would have had no chance whatsoever. He’s not independently wealthy. He doesn’t know a whole lot of wealthy individuals. He’s not an elected official, so he doesn’t have a donor base, or relationships with political interests with whom he could trade favors deriving from his elected office, in return for political support.
But with the netroots, Tom has a fighting chance. He has a base from which to raise funds for a progressive politics that supports the interests of ordinary folks, against the interests of the moneyed few. The power of the netroots, in mobilizing small donors, and getting people as far away as Wasilla, Alaska, and New York New York, and back, passionately involved in each and every political campaign, is thrilling, and potentially an extraordinarily powerful thing. It is an indispensable tool toward advancing the people party, and defeating the money party.
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As Geoghegan keeps saying, we are in a big change moment. Part of advancing a vigorous, and effective, progressive politics is recognizing such moments when they come (because they are rare), and then seizing them, and making the most of them. Tom’s doing that. None of the other candidates seem committed to much more than a tepidly left-of-center status quo.If you’re serious about supporting the candidate likely to do the most to bring big progressive change in our lifetime, Tom Geoghegan, in my opinion, is the only real candidate in this race. Imagine if we all woke up on the morning of March 4th to the news that voters choosing a successor in Congress to Rahm Emanuel had replaced him with Tom Geoghegan! I can’t imagine a more powerful shot across the bow, or message to the powers to be in Washington, than a Geoghegan victory in this race That’s why I think that we, as progressives, should do all we can to support Tom in this race. So by all means — donate to Tom’s campaign. Do some phone banking for him (remember, you can do it from home, from anywhere in the U.S.). And volunteer for the campaign — either to do canvassing this weekend, or to participate in the all-important get-out-the-vote effort on March 3rd.
read on …
Geier knows Geoghegan and has devoted the last few months to trying to get him elected. But she isn’t the only one who feels this way. Staunch liberals from all over the country are excited at the prospect of Tom Geoghegan in the congress.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a politician so suited to the moment.
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, the film opens with an attractive, 20-something African-American couple waking up and performing their morning ablutions. We quickly glean the sense of a polite, yet awkward deferment between the two as they wordlessly descend the stairs of a very large house that displays ample evidence of a previous evening’s revelry. Once they find their shoes, and the inevitable “So what was your name again?” formalities are dispensed with over coffee, Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Jo (Tracey Heggins) share a cab ride. After Jo enigmatically requests to be dropped off “at the corner”, the two appear to go their separate ways. Of course it doesn’t end there (otherwise we wouldn’t have much of a film). Micah spots Jo’s purse on the floor of the cab, and learns (to his chagrin) that she did not give him her real name. And so we’re off.
