21st Century Democrats

Published: May 5, 2004 3:40 PM

From: Kelly Young, Executive Director of 21st Century Democrats

Dear DFA,

It's so exciting to see so many new grassroots leaders and activists and volunteers getting involved this campaign season, just in time for the most important election we may ever see.

I attended Meet Ups as a Dean supporter during the primary campaign. Our field director here at 21st Century Democrats, Chris Miller, on his own time, helped DC for Dean set up an amazing, all-volunteer canvassing and phone bank operation. The last four days of the New Hampshire campaign, I traveled, as a volunteer, to the Laconia regional office to help with the most intense Get Out The Vote effort in the history of the New Hampshire primary.

So I know the energy that this movement is capable of producing. It's great to see Democracy for America on the move again, powered by all of us.

The partnership between 21st Century Democrats and DFA is off to a great start. We are working with L.A. for Democracy, San Gabriel Valley for Democracy, and the national office in Burlington to organize an intense, two day campaign training that will take place May 15 and 16 at the University of Southern California. We also developed a resource page, Tips for Finding Uncontested Races, sent out with the agenda for today's Meet Up. We're working on another tip sheet for evaluating candidates that will be made available well before the June Meet Up.

Our role as a Democracy for America partner is very clear: to help turn grassroots energy into victories for Dean Democrats. 21st Century Democrats built our reputation by doing two things we think you'll be interested in: (1) training activists to make a difference on campaigns and (2) helping candidates build powerful and accountable field organizations.

We're reserving spaces for DFA activists in all of our currently scheduled trainings. We hope you will check back with us in a few weeks, when we announce our slate of endorsed candidates for 2004. We support great candidates, from City Council to U.S. Senate, who stand up for progressive values and policies and who need a strong field organization to beat well-funded Republicans (or, in a few primary elections, insider Democrats).

In closing, I'd like to applaud all of you who are running for office, getting active in your local Democratic committees, and working to elect grassroots progressives to state and local office. In the 80's and 90's, the radical right committed resources to school board, city council, and state legislative races. They built a farm team of candidates and activists who eventually led the Republican takeover of Congress. It is this network of leaders and activists who made it possible for George Bush and his corporate allies to hijack our country.

This is our chance to fight back. We need to harness that same organizing energy in the service of a tolerant, egalitarian, and creative vision for America. We need to send John Kerry into office backed by a wave of future party leaders committed to this vision. That's how we take our country back. Together, we can do it.

-- Kelly Young
Executive Director, 21st Century Democrats