I would like to make a major push for Iran at this blog. I want Iran to become my primary focus at this blog now going forward. I want to get some work done. (Iran, Obama 2010, Reshma 2010)
Working on a democracy movement is a very different mindset. It is more intense, more on the edge. Working on a democracy movement is a different skill set. So much so I wonder if being good at it makes you less good at something slower like legislative moves. It is perhaps a specialization. You are a doctor, but a doctor of what?
Iran features prominently on my mental heat wave map right now. Iran has implications.
In January of 2006 I predicted a "French Revolution" in Nepal with an organization that was the first organization I landed on after moving to the city, having been a Deaniac from 2004. (The French Revolution And DFNYC) These people had been driving me impatient. I was asking them to do small things like maybe raise a thousand dollars - one fucking thousand dollars! - and get some elected officials to write letters of support to the democracy movement in Nepal, and they would not budge! It was a we-simply-don't-care-one-way-or-the-other attitude. "Stuff happened in Rwanda, and I was not bothered" was one comment.
I was trying to argue that this was not just about Nepal. This was about the War On Terror. The only way the War On Terror is going to end is when all Arab countries have been turned into democracies. And we can get there the Bush way, a trillion dollars per country, or we can do it my way like in Nepal. This Nepal work boosts the progressive cause in America. All that logic fell on deaf ears. So I bootstrapped. I did what I could. Fundraising never having been one of my core strengths, I struggled.
The French Revolution did happen. In April 2006 over a course of 19 days one third of the country's 27 million people poured into the streets to completely shut the country down until the dictator bowed out. Every single village, town and city poured out.
I was of course holed up that entire time. I lost weight, I did not need to. I had to get glasses in the aftermath. I was too busy monitoring the situation. It was an intense experience. When it was over, I emerged. I showed up for a DFNYC event in Brooklyn. I was living in Brooklyn at the time. This was my first DFNYC event in Brooklyn. At the time I still had my car that I moved into the city with. I drove over. I had no idea what had happened in Nepal had also taken over the news spectrum in NYC. I had been trained by DFNYC to think people in NYC just did not care about Nepal. Nepal was too far away.
I saw Leila Noor at the event. I said, hey, thanks for that article on Nepal you forwarded to me over email. That was much appreciated. Told me you knew.
What are you talking about, she said. Everyone knew. It was a hit me moment. I then realized Nepal had been on TV, Nepal had been in the New York Times, Nepal had been everywhere.
Subsequently Howard Dean showed up at a DFNYC Mixer and this guy Josh was doing crowd control on me. I was the reason Howard Dean showed up in the first place and this mofo was doing crowd control on me! Mandela calls it "a thousand little indignities" in his book.
Barack
This was a much easier prediction to make. I predicted at the beginning of 2007 that he was going to be president. (Jupiter And Obama) Barack has this messiah quality to him. He even looked like one to me at the Washington Square Park rally with the bright lights in the background. (The Largest Rally In US Presidential Campaign History) When I watch a speech from him, it feels like a cool breeze is brushing against my face. It is a spiritual experience to watch him in action. He is Gandhiesque.
John
I was at John's victory party last year, and the thought first occurred to me. I remember thinking, this guy could be Mayor in four years. I blogged about it. At his inauguration he was still unsure because the smell of Thompson was still in the air, but no more. For now John gets to deliver the labor bosses to me, if possible.
Reshma 2010's victory on September 14 is going to be the biggest political event in New York City since Barack almost won Brooklyn in February of 2008. In many ways bigger because I don't hold that against him but Barack is a Chicago guy. September 14 is the day this country gives birth to The New Woman. The New Woman wants to, is able to, and takes equality for granted. The New Woman does not rest until that same has been achieved for women across the world.
Reshma was a White House intern as a college student at the Harvard of the Midwest, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I have walked around that campus, by the way. The Quad is so beautiful. Larry Ellison dropped out of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign like Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. (Larry Ellison, Larry Ellison's Personal Life, Larry Ellison's 1995 Network Computer Vision, Rich People's Kids) It bothers me when people only talk about Harvard and Yale when talking about Reshma. That East Coast bias has to go. She organized for Clinton Gore 96. She organized for Gore 2000. She was one of John Kerry's top 10 fundraisers in the country. She was a big shot with Hillary 08. This woman is not made for the legislative branch. This woman is custom made for the White House. But a run for the White House can not be your first run, and hence Congress. She is going to do the FDR thing of putting a New Yorker in the White House. She is going to do the Lincoln thing of going from the House to the White House. She is going to end the global trafficking of women like Lincoln ended slavery.
But I would like to mess up with her House to White House trajectory. I am going to make a case with Barack.
"Look, I suffered for you, I went on the cross for you. (The First Time I Heard The Obama Name, Obama, Reshma, Charlie Rangel: Motherfucker, Rangel Has Gone Radioactive) I want my woman on the ticket in 2012. Trust me, Joe will understand. He no longer has the foreign policy advantage that he once had if he ever did. You are a seasoned world stage player in your own right. By the way, can I take a look at your Nobel medal? Because I would like one for myself. You did construction work as a student in New York City and you have goat herder heritage. That is as working class as it gets for me. Barack the glass ceiling, I mean break the glass ceiling, put a woman on the ticket. (Barack The Glass Walls, Ceilings, Smash 'Em) It is about time. Putting Malia and Sasha into the White House has not just been about the self esteem of black children, it has also been about the self esteem of young girls across the world."
Reshma 2016 is the biggest rationale for Reshma 2010. If it is about Reshma, she could run in 2016, 2020, 2024 all the way to 2040. But it is not about Reshma. It is about the country and the world. And that makes 2016 her year. 2016 will be time for the first woman President Of The United States, and the top woman to watch in New York City is that woman. (Reshma Saujani: Top 10 Women To Watch In America)
I read the Ted Sorensen book Kennedy when I was in middle school. It is a thick book. I read it cover to cover.
Right now Reshma 2010 takes up a lot of my time. It has been a healing experience for me. It feels to me like slowly but surely I am regaining my health, I am regaining my sprint. And a Reshma 2010 victory on September 14 will allow me to pick up where I left off with Barack. June 2008 to August 2010 will have been a long gap, but better late than never. I am beginning to feel the November victory already. A victory in November would be to defy history, but then this dude defied a much bigger history trajectory in November 2008. I see him doing it again. And I intend to play my part.
Reshma 2010 is my on ramp to Obama 2010. Reshma 2010 is going to merge fully with Obama 2010. The national effort is going to become Reshma 2010's primary focus after September 14, because her district is comfortably Democratic. The Republican candidate does not stand a chance. And her national visibility is only going to add to her November inevitability. It is not like her national involvement will come at the expence of her personal chances in November.
But I am a Third World guy, a Global South dude. The political challenge that my heart really, truly aches for is the democracy movement in Iran. I need to do some fundraising to be able to pour myself into that.
I have still not figured it out yet, I have yet to codify it, but there sure is something to Barack's new kind of politics, and at some point it needs to be codified. It allowed him to become the first black president. It allowed him to achieve FDR status. Presidents had been trying to pass health care reform for half a century. How did he do it? There has been a method to the madness. I have a much clearer idea of the results than the actual method. I felt the same way when he won in Iowa in 2008, and when he started winning primary after primary, caucus after caucus. I remember thinking, whatever this guy is doing surely is working.
Obama 2008 injected positivity into the national political discourse. I was a slow convert to the idea, if I ever fully converted. But I sure am a believer and a student. I want to learn.
Reshma 2010 has been about excellence. When she could raise the kind of money she could in the fall of 2009, you knew it was not from name recognition, she had none. And she raised twice as much as Maloney that quarter. That came from the sheer craft of fundraising. When I read some of her articles at The Huffington Post where she talks about the jobs, companies and industries of tomorrow I was like, oh my god, this reads like a 2016 agenda. (Reshma Saujani At The Huffington Post) I do understand the science of it all, but I do marvel at the engineering behind Reshma 2010's field work. That is an untold story that perhaps will only get talked about starting from September 15. Reshma 2010 is using digital tools that Obama 2012 is going to borrow from.
It is still very much in formation, but I think the Reshma style is excellence. This is not to suggest Obama lacks excellence or Reshma lacks positivity. I am just trying to point out their defining qualities as I see them.
Positivity is great, and excellence is great. But you can not ignore the dark matter. Crime is like unemployment. You can lower it down, maybe lower than conventional wisdom says is possible, but there perhaps always will be some crime, some poverty, some dark matter, some evil.
You have to realistically see dark matter when it exists, when it acts out. You can not be in denial. And you have to understand the mechanics of dealing with dark matter are different. You have to give dark matter the positivity and excellence options, but then you have to objectively observe as to how the dark matter actually behaves. Dealing with dark matter is a specialized skill set, and it is necessary to have some people on the team who are adept at identifying and dealing with dark matter. The advantage of doing that is you get to keep the dark matter's share of the circle as small as possible.
1989, 1997, 2008 were my personal experience in dark matter, but someone of my tilt necessarily has to turn the personal into political. Autobiography makes for bad politics. What you want is a passion for objective assessment of large realities, and the kinetics to go deal with them. It is not about you, it is about lots of other people. It is both. You should be able to take an issue and run with it. You should be able to team up with others who will run with you.
One New York representative said he could not make it because he had to march in a local firefighters’ parade. Another said that, as much as she wanted to go, she had to visit family out of town. Yet another just sent his regrets, saying he would be traveling that day — in Connecticut.
In Search of a New Playbook the Democrats have been failing to delineate the differences between themselves and Republicans, to remind voters what Republicans would do if returned to power and how little their policies have changed from those during the two terms of President George W. Bush. ...... Recently, this has started to change. President Obama has become uncharacteristically combative, delivering a series of ardent speeches that other Democrats would do well to imitate. .... They don’t have a single idea that’s different from George Bush’s ideas — not one. Instead, they’re betting on amnesia.” .... Protections for patients against insurance companies. Rules keeping adult children on health policies, and requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions. A new consumer financial protection bureau to fight lending abuses. The preservation or creation of nearly three million jobs, averting Depression-level unemployment. ...... For most voters, the only real issue is high unemployment, and it is here that Democrats seem to have set aside bold thinking and fallen into the Republican trap of placing deficit fears ahead of job revival. ...... the myth that the deficit is causing unemployment, and advocate using government in ways that might re- inspire voters.....As the economy recovers, there will be money available for sane and careful deficit reduction, territory the Democrats know far better than their opponents. A House or Senate controlled by Republicans, leading to longer stalemates and years of political posturing, is not the way to get there. Instead of shrinking from their accomplishments, Democrats should use their remaining time to build on them.
New York Times: Guest List for Rangel's Birthday Bash Shrinks Organizers reserved the gilded main ballroom at the Plaza Hotel, booked Aretha Franklin to serenade Mr. Rangel and sent out an elaborate video invitation featuring a testimonial from Bill Clinton (who, as it happens, was also invited but said he had to be in Arkansas that day).
I think I left more than 100 voice mails during my Sunday stint at the Reshma 2010 headquarters earlier today. This past week I have been trying to put extra hours into phone calls. I showed up on Tuesday, I showed up on Saturday.
People on the Upper East Side seem to be like me. They don't pick up the phone. They n-e-v-e-r pick up the phone. But I was trying to imagine it was a new voter each time, and so leaving the same voice mail over and over again is still a unique experience each time, but you can take that only so far before your brain goes numb. And I was trying to have fun with the wording of the voice mail. I think the final version went something like this.
"Hi. My name is Paramendra. I was one of Barack Obama's earliest and strongest supporters in New York City. Today I am calling on behalf of Reshma Saujani. Reshma is running for Congress and you can learn more about her at her website online at reshma2010.com, that would be r-e-s-h-m-a-2-0-1-0-dot-com. I strongly urge you to vote for her on September 14 in the Democratic primary. Like I said, Reshma is running for Congress. She is running against Carolyn Maloney. Carolyn Maloney is like Al Sharpton, Reshma Saujani is like Barack Obama. I think you should vote for someone who is like Barack Obama, and that is Reshma. Thank you."
But at some point I ran out of steam for the day. I guess there is a limit to how many voice mails you can leave in one day, in one sitting. After each hour I would get up and go into a corner and do some push ups. To those who looked at me curiously I said, "Making phone calls is a physical act."
Your mouth runs dry, you drink water. You take your restroom breaks. You take a break to go stare at the wall. That is when I found out there are so many community events scheduled for the month.
I am going to drastically cut down on the phone calls now. I am going to focus more on the digital activism part, and the meeting people in person part. Blogging is the big part of my digital activism, but not the only part. And I am really, really looking forward to meeting people in person. Like really.
I think as we move closer to September 14, there are going to be more and more news articles and blog posts about Reshma and my blogging activity is going to have to keep pace with that.
There is this Upper East Side newspaper called Our Town. They had an article a few days back. I replied to it at my blog, and then posted a link to my reply post in the comments section of that article. I see me doing more of that. I might reach more voters that way than by making phone calls.
So today for my phone calls my point person was Paul. Here's my Paul story. In Kentucky once someone asked me,"Can we call you Paul?"
"No, you can't call me Paul," I replied.
I have been showing up for the Reshma events wearing the red, white and blue Reshma 2010 shirt and the rest black. I think I will stick to that until September 14. But there is a dress nazi inside of me that is itching to wear a few different shirts.
I’m writing with the exciting news that Deepak Chopra will be speaking at an event hosted for my campaign on August 11th.
The event is an opportunity to take a fresh look at foreign policy at a time when the world is facing so much conflict, and I am honored to be joined by Deepak Chopra, who is widely renowned for bridging diverse communities and encouraging compassion and empathy. He will be sharing a new and unique perspective on the current state of the world, New York, and leadership.
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