Following the campaign, September 20
From Karin Caifa:
GRASS-ROOTS GOLD IN PEACE PARTIES?
The story speaks to the question of whether or not there’s room for the kind of grass-roots campaigning that has defined this bid at the national level. This campaign is run on a shoestring — no media buys planned in the major primary states, no huge entourage on a bus or plane, not a huge staff, but a heckuva lot of full-time volunteers going door to door canvassing. This Sunday, the Kucinich campaign holds its biggest nationwide fund-raising initiative yet. Over 1,000 supporters in all 50 states (mobilized in just two weeks) will hold house parties celebrating the U.N.-named International Day of Peace and raising funds for the Kucinich campaign. Although the overall movement hasn’t registered widely in the national polls and it hasn’t attracted much media attention, it has picked up a lot of supporters, mostly by word of mouth. Can a genuine grass-roots campaign still survive in this day and age of big money politics? The campaign hopes to raise at least $1,000 at each of the parties, a minimum of $1 million. That amount pales in comparison to Dean, but Kucinich raised just $1.5 million in the entire second quarter and $175,000 in the first, so it would be a huge night for him.
THE NEXT STEP
The campaign’s next round of national fund-raising parties will be either Oct. 25 or 26. They will be “Patriot Parties” in protest of the controversial legislation. Each partygoer will be given a pocket-sized version of the Bill of Rights [ed. note: this appears to have been replaced by the announcement parties]
STAFF SWAPS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
As I reported earlier this week, New Hampshire State Director and New England Campaign Coordinator Trevor Elkins resigned to launch his own bid for Ohio State representative. Also leaving the staff this week is Ted Wells, Merrimack Valley coordinator, who is going to start his own business in Manchester. These were the first two staffers to jump on board Kucinich’s campaign in New Hamsphire. As I also noted, National Field Director Amy Hochadel is holding down the fort in the Granite State. She will oversee the opening of a new office in Keene on Wednesday, coinciding with a visit from the candidate. Hochadel downplayed the significance of the staff changes Friday, saying that both Elkins and Wells were toying with these ventures before they hopped on board with the Kucinich campaign. “We’re opening new offices, we’re getting things off the ground,” she said. “There’s so much going on here. After he (Kucinich) leaves, I’ll need to crash for two days.”
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