The shit really hit the fan when I wrote a blog diary about Senator Michael Bennet calling me at home the other day. I knew most of my progressive friends were still celebrating Andrew Romanoff jumping into the race, so I had no idea how much I was stirring the pot to praise Michael Bennet on health care insurance reform.
I have three kids, and I am always telling my youngest,
"If you want to play with the big boys, you might get hurt, because they can play rough. I know it's a lot more fun. If you decide to play with 'em, don't come crying to me when you get knocked down."So, I humbly take my own advice. You guys are the big boys in my world. You hang out at the state capitol (for fun), follow every piece of legislation, and can cite litigation history without having to look it up. You were following Barack Obama's political career when I was still oggling over the Clintons. (And some of you seem to be giving up on him long before I ever will.) I take my Aretha Franklin-style-Obama-inauguration hat off to you.
So why me, countless friends asked. "Why would Michael Bennet call you?". I had some friends suggest such crazy, contorted political strategy scenarios, I had to laugh.
Here's the truth.
I live out in the belly of the Republican beast, the south metro suburbs. Moving from Ann Arbor, MI to unincorporated Arapahoe County twenty years ago was like landing on the moon, politically speaking. My family and I have endured being represented by Bob Schaffer, Tom Tancredo, Mike Coffman, David Balmer, and a host of other conservatives so politically frightening, it would make your flesh crawl just reading the entire list. And yet, over the years, we Arapahoe County progressives have secretly found each other, met in-cognito over a a glass of wine now and then, and stuck together. When Obama was elected, we ripped off our nose glasses and came out of the closet. We celebrate our new-found liberty every Monday night at Bistro Al Vino.
And we canvass. We worked our proverbial tushies off turning Arapahoe blue, and if we rest for even a single day, we might lose everything we worked so hard for. (So did amazing folks in Douglas County and elsewhere, by the way, who so rarely get the credit they deserve because they have so much farther to come.)
Here's my second attempt at progressive blogger suicide: you guys in Denver and Boulder have it easy. You don't know what it is to have seven signs in a row taken off your lawn by big guys in trucks with gun racks and old W stickers on their windows, in broad daylight. You don't know what it is like to send your kid to school in an Obama shirt and have them come home scared at lunchtime because another kid threatened to beat them up for being a "baby-killing socialist". You don't know what it is like to have your car doors kicked in and the police not give-a-rip because you didn't see it happen, and you can't prove it had anything to do with your Democratic bumper stickers.
I digress.
My progressive friends and I out here on the front-line (bordering insanity) have been going to health care rallies, town halls, meetings, and other events every week for months. I challenge anyone besides Bennet campaign staffers, SEIU/Change That Works, OFA, and Health Care for All Colorado, to say they have been to more. (I hope I didn't leave any major groups out. If so, I apologize.) We had a Q&A event in my own home and called it a "People's Town Hall" because my Republican State Senator, Nancy Spence, doesn't have any (if she does, only Republicans are invited, and they are not listed on her website). Fifty people showed up. Not bad.
The guy that introduced Barack Obama in Grand Junction? One of our Arapahoe County guys -- Nathan Wilkes. The folks that have had countless meetings on health care reform since January -- Arapahope Community Team's Dr. Carol Blackard, Todd Mata, Donna Galassi, Donovan ODell and others. Know former CO Media Matters Editor Leslie Lyon? She lives out here, too, and breaks her butt every week helping us with health care reform events, when she should be looking for a new job. I am not saying all of the health care reform ninjas are from Arapahoe County, but a disproportionate number of them are. There is nothing like living under the rule of Tom Tancredo to make a progressive spittin'-mad.
If you don't believe me, check out my facebook photo albums. We're everywhere.
Every high-visibility event I we've been to in the last three months demanding health care reform (most of us were originally single-payer, but like many people here, reluctantly settled on the public option), the Bennet campaign staff has been there, too. They canvass for supporters for Bennet, we canvass for health care reform.
Michael Bennet himself has been to some of them, too. Young Dems/Arapahope Community Team in June? Bennet spoke on the need for health care reform. Denver Dems picnic? Bennet was there speaking on the moral obligation for health care reform. Highlands Ranch, Castle Rock, north Denver, 47 counties around the state? Bennet spoke on the urgency of health care reform.
I have seen young Bennet intern dynamo Chris Rork more often than I see my own husband and kids. Need a pen? Ask Chris. Lost your water bottle? Ask Chris. Need to arrange a carpool? Ask Chris for help. Need a friend when a crazy tea-bagger screams in your face that Barack-Obama-has-an-all-lesbian-army-that-is going-to-make-your-daughter-have-an-abortion,or steal-your-identity-by-taking-your-photo, ask Chris.
Likewise, when word got out State Senator Shulthies's tea-baggers were planning to infiltrate David Canter's private home party for Senator Bennet, we called our Douglas County friends to provide back-up. Bennet's got our back, we've got his.
We also developed a tight relationship with SEIU/Change That Works. When trying to get activists in Denver and Boulder to care about Mike Coffman's Town Hall in Highlands Ranch, our buddies at SEIU, as well as Bennet's office, had our backs. They helped us get out some 800 reformers from all over the front range to show up to a meeting in a district where most Dems gave up 60 years ago.
There are lots of great people working on health care insurance reform all over the state - Patty Sullivan in Denver, Diana Caile in Boulder, Jody Visconti Clow in Grand Junction, etc. Too many to mention! There's a guy up in Ft. Collins -- can't remember his name, who sometimes stands alone on street corners with his health care reform signs. They know what I mean - Michael Bennet has been where they live too, talking up health care reform.
Bennet's folks helped us get out the people to the OFA bus tour rally just last week where National OFA Director Mitch Stewart came up to us and told us later, "Geez, Colorado rocks. You guys really know what you are doing here." John E. didn't make the photos for some reason, but he was there, too.
The Bennet folks and Arapahoe County health care reformers have been in the trenches together. We've bonded. We're tight. We've got each other's backs. We have since early June. When the Bennet campaign's high school and college volunteer interns went back to school and there were only two field folks until they trained more, and those two were so swamped they were working 24 hours a day, they still took all my calls. Chris Rork IM'd me at three in the morning one night, "How many volunteers do you have for tomorrow?" I IM'd him back, "Holy shit, Chris. Go to bed." (Yes, I was up and working on it, too.) There was never a minute Bennt's folks have not been there for us.
That means something.
I don't care how many blogs WN can write on in 24 ours (very impressive, by the way), saying Michael Bennet is not committed to health care insurance reform. Saying it over and over will never make it true. Michael Bennet and his staff have been there since day one, and he's said hundreds of times now he not only supports the public option, but it is a "moral imperative". What his "financially responsible" language means, I have no idea. I will leave that up to the political wonks who study this stuff all day long. I'm just Nancy-down-the-block with the clipboard and the hippy skirt.
So, Senator Michael Bennet probably asked himself not long ago, "Who is this lady that does not have a Bennet staff shirt that I see at every single event I go to on the front range, and hugs my staffers when she sees them (my guess)?" Then he called me to thank me, and to ask me to pass the word to my friends out here in Arapahoe County that we are on his health care reform radar. He appreciates us.
The fact that he called me when I was waffling over supporting one of Colorado's greatest progressives and our current Senator, was definitely a factor in my support. I have only met Andrew Romanoff in person once. I admire his courage, his brilliance, his progressive stand on just about everything, and I have followed his political career in awe. I have never seen him at a rally though, nor a picnic, nor a "people's town hall" in Centennial, or anywhere else. He's never come to any Living Liberally or Piney Creek Progressives event. Bennet's staff has -- many times. And yes, I have sent Andrew Romanoff facebook and email invitations more times than I can count.
That's about it. Not a sexy story. No exciting political secrets. No conspiracy theory. No complex political strategy. Just a so-called "Conservadem" who takes care of progressives in Arapahoe County, 'cause he notices us.
Now where the Hell is Mark Udall? Anyone check the Appalachian trail?
P.S. There's another big rally tonight, Wednesday, September 2nd, Confluence Park, 6:30pm. Hope you'll all be there!
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