Jeremy
06-21-2008, 09:11 PM
I've been bombarded with good news from the campaign today. As many of you know here, I am a grassroots volunteer who has decided to stop talking and start working (which we ALL should be doing, am I right?)! And I decided to help get BJ Lawson elected to congress even though I live over 600 miles away from the district.
Anyway, there has been good news not only about the moneybomb, but also about the campaign in general. Let me start with this update letter from Paige (he's part of the staff and he also posts here once in a while) -
Dear Lawson for Congress Donor,
I am Paige Michael-Shetley, the Youth Coordinator for the campaign, my job being to organize and coordinate the involvement of college and high school students in the 4th District and the broader Triangle. I am also assisting with policy research and formation as well as general campaign management tasks, and I am a major contributor to B.J.'s campaign blog. I will be writing weekly updates to you on the progress of our campaign, starting with this message. As a donor, you are an investor in our campaign, and as such we feel it is right that we provide these updates, just as investors in the private sector are periodically briefed by the companies in which they invest.
Firstly, I would like to share with you a story about David Price's town hall meeting this past Monday in Durham. Tom Lizardo, Congressman Ron Paul's Chief of Staff who has been consulting with us in the campaign, told us that if no one shows up to the town hall meeting of an incumbent Congressman, then the voters in the district are most likely content, and the incumbent is safe in the election. But Price's town hall this week was PACKED with lots of very angry constituents frustrated with his leadership on the War, his attempt to impose NBAF on the district, and citizens frustrated with him on a whole host of issues. His answers to their questions didn't do much, if anything, to satisfy them. B.J. had his moment to shine, going through a laundry list of anti-civil liberties bills (Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and others) that David Price has voted for in the past, proceeding to ask the Congressman a very reasonable question: "Do you read the bills?" Price accused B.J. of attempting to turn the town hall into a "political event" and then gave lame excuses for his support of those pieces of legislation. An audience member shouted while he was speaking, "Answer the question!" This demand was not met. Suffice it to say, B.J. walked out of the town hall that night with a lot of new fans. We have video footage of the exchange, and we will be posting it soon.
Since our massive Primary win, we have been very hard at work on two projects: building a top notch campaign organization and raising money. Both of these are going to be absolutely essential to victory this Fall. As I'm sure most of you are aware, David Price is the 11-term incumbent Representative of our district. We need a lot of money and people to wage the aggressive media and grassroots campaign that it will take to present the voters of the 4th District with a clear choice between our message of liberty and change and David Price's record of tyranny, free-spending, and oppression of our Constitution.
I am pleased to report some very good news on both ends. I will first discuss the top-notch organization we have put together. We have hired Marc Conaghan as our new Political Director. He was the manager of the Congressional campaign of Steve Acuff, the previous Republican candidate in the 4th District. Marc is a highly-talented and very well-connected individual who is motivated by our message and some unfinished business from a couple of years ago. Mr. Price is about to learn that, as Shakespeare wrote, "Revenge is a dish best served cold." He will be coordinating strategy, organization, and communications.
Ray McKinnon has joined the campaign as our new Field Director. Ray is a youth minister in the district, and he previously served in a similar capacity for the Hillary Clinton (I know; gasp!) campaign. While a staunch Democrat, he joined our campaign after meeting B.J. at a community event in Hillsborough and discussing the issues with him, which just goes to show that Freedom is Popular. Ray brings valuable past field experience to the campaign and will be responsible for coordinating the ground operations in the district. Being an active Democrat, he will also be helping the campaign in its outreach efforts to Democrats in the district, and he will be running and writing for a new blog, Democrats for B.J. Lawson. (If any of you are a Democrat and would like to write for the blog, we would certainly love to have you on board. Please contact Ray at ray.mckinnon@lawsonforcongress.com if you would like to do so.)
We have also brought on county coordinators for the campaign. Andrea Walker, an activist for the Ron Paul campaign and the Republican Liberty Caucus, has signed on as the Wake County Coordinator. Bonnie Hauser, another Democrat, will be our Orange County Coordinator. Ruthy Jones, another long-time political activist, has joined the team as the Durham County Coordinator. We have other staff positions that we are in the process of filling, and I will be announcing these very soon.
As the Youth Coordinator for the campaign, I have been spending the last month building a student internship program. To beat David Price, we're going to need a very different type of campaign, and this extends to the student level, as we have three major colleges in the district and a few others in the Triangle. This necessitates that we win a lot of student votes and generate lots of youth interest, as we have a large pool of potential enthusiastic campaign volunteers who will work hard and be effective communicators to voters of the campaign's message. I am very proud to report that we have more than 40 student interns as of now who are taking the lead in the campaign in marketing, fund-raising, policy research, and organization. Gubernatorial and Senatorial campaigns would be very lucky to have that many student interns, let alone U.S. House campaigns. These students will be instrumental in providing the energy and manpower for the campaign to win in November.
On the fund-raising side, I have good and bad news to report. The good news is that we have already surpassed the total raised by Steve Acuff for the entirety of the 2006 election, as well as most previous Republican campaigns against Price. The bad news is that we need the fund-raising pace to pick up by a large amount, and very quickly. We are only one-third of the way to our goal of having $100,000 in the bank by the end of June, and we have ten days left to meet it. We need to meet this goal, so that we can report very good results to the media and generate positive press buzz from it. And we absolutely must raise $500,000 in the next three months to have the money necessary to beat Price. If you can, please send another generous donation as soon as possible.
A supporter of the campaign in Connecticut, of all places, has launched a "money bomb" for June 29 called the Lawson Liberty Fund. A "money bomb," for those not aware, is an organized one-day mass online fund-raising event. You may recall during the Republican Presidential primaries the two days that Ron Paul broke online single-day fund-raising records with $6 million and $4 million days; this is how it was accomplished. A money bomb is a very good way of generating a lot of money in a short time period and can yield a lot of positive media coverage, which can be used as a seed for more support and future donations.
News of the money bomb has already hit the "blogosphere" with a story on the popular blog Liberty Maven. We want to have a great day of fund-raising, as we will get lots of positive media buzz online and in local media from it. Furthermore, it is a very special day of the year for B.J., as it is the 12th Year Wedding Anniversary for him and his lovely and gracious wife, JoLynn. Let's give them an Anniversary gift they will never forget! Please sign up at the above link website to donate on June 29. Furthermore, we need you guys to help promote the event. If you all are on social network such as MySpace or Facebook or have a blog, we have some image graphics that we would like for you to put up on your pages (Here, here, and a video that the supporter made here; more on the way) and would appreciate you putting up notices and sending out message to your friends about the money bomb. If you are a member of a Meetup groups, please send out a message to your group about the money bomb. Money bombs work when they are well promoted, and we could use all the help we can get from you guys in helping to do so.
Asking for money isn't fun. However, it's very important that we meet our fund raising needs. Campaigns cost money, but Liberty is PRICEless. The 4th District of North Carolina, and the nation as a whole, simply Can't Afford the PRICE of another two years of the incumbent. When you are considering whether or not to make another donation, reflect on the progress we've made so far. Consider that we won our primary 71% to 29% with nothing more than an energized grassroots campaign and a message of freedom. Consider the 40 students from the area who have come on board with the campaign and are sacrificing lots of time and energy for us without getting paid for it and working with only the inspiration to reclaim liberty. Think of the fact that a Hillary staffer- A HILLARY STAFFER- was so moved by B.J.'s message that he came on board to work for us. Please send what you can as soon as you can, as your additional donation will go a long way toward meeting our needs.
I will have many new and exciting updates to announce next week, as well as more opportunities for you to help out the campaign on the ground if you live in the 4th District or the Triangle. In the meantime, let us march together in this Revolution to restore liberty for America and Constitutional representation of the 4th District of North Carolina.
For Liberty,
Paige Michael-Shetley
Youth Coordinator, Lawson for Congress
Cell: 919-740-2675
Email: paige.shetley@lawsonforcongress.com
This letter is worth a read and I think you will find it interesting. If you just read the bold part, trust me... there is a lot of other good info in there too! I just bolded that section because it shows how well things are looking so far against Price. By the way, I'm the guy he mentioned from CT... but I'd like to point out that I really only did half of the moneybomb. A lot of people are working together, which is what I'd like to address next.
The last few days have been rather chaotic. A lot of people have decided that they would like to help out with this moneybomb and the conversations through email are hard to keep up with. :P This is obviously good news. People are really promoting this thing and I hear we should be getting a lot more pledges! You can help out too! Just spread the word wherever you can. MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Meetup, your family and friends, etc... There are plenty of things you can use like the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0yGc1-ds_8 There are also many good graphics you can use to promote the moneybomb and Paige told me the campaign's interns have designed some more and he's going to be showing them to us soon. Can't wait!
Anyway, back to campaign things, this is from one of the interns about an event from today:
Things went very well with the campaign today at a
small-town festival. We probably picked up from 200-300 votes. Just
thought you'd like to know that! ;-)
More good news!
This is the kind of active campaign that you need to be elected. And this is how BJ absolutely destroyed the establishment opponent. We can help him win in November! Our grassroots support is really paying off.
Anyway, there has been good news not only about the moneybomb, but also about the campaign in general. Let me start with this update letter from Paige (he's part of the staff and he also posts here once in a while) -
Dear Lawson for Congress Donor,
I am Paige Michael-Shetley, the Youth Coordinator for the campaign, my job being to organize and coordinate the involvement of college and high school students in the 4th District and the broader Triangle. I am also assisting with policy research and formation as well as general campaign management tasks, and I am a major contributor to B.J.'s campaign blog. I will be writing weekly updates to you on the progress of our campaign, starting with this message. As a donor, you are an investor in our campaign, and as such we feel it is right that we provide these updates, just as investors in the private sector are periodically briefed by the companies in which they invest.
Firstly, I would like to share with you a story about David Price's town hall meeting this past Monday in Durham. Tom Lizardo, Congressman Ron Paul's Chief of Staff who has been consulting with us in the campaign, told us that if no one shows up to the town hall meeting of an incumbent Congressman, then the voters in the district are most likely content, and the incumbent is safe in the election. But Price's town hall this week was PACKED with lots of very angry constituents frustrated with his leadership on the War, his attempt to impose NBAF on the district, and citizens frustrated with him on a whole host of issues. His answers to their questions didn't do much, if anything, to satisfy them. B.J. had his moment to shine, going through a laundry list of anti-civil liberties bills (Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and others) that David Price has voted for in the past, proceeding to ask the Congressman a very reasonable question: "Do you read the bills?" Price accused B.J. of attempting to turn the town hall into a "political event" and then gave lame excuses for his support of those pieces of legislation. An audience member shouted while he was speaking, "Answer the question!" This demand was not met. Suffice it to say, B.J. walked out of the town hall that night with a lot of new fans. We have video footage of the exchange, and we will be posting it soon.
Since our massive Primary win, we have been very hard at work on two projects: building a top notch campaign organization and raising money. Both of these are going to be absolutely essential to victory this Fall. As I'm sure most of you are aware, David Price is the 11-term incumbent Representative of our district. We need a lot of money and people to wage the aggressive media and grassroots campaign that it will take to present the voters of the 4th District with a clear choice between our message of liberty and change and David Price's record of tyranny, free-spending, and oppression of our Constitution.
I am pleased to report some very good news on both ends. I will first discuss the top-notch organization we have put together. We have hired Marc Conaghan as our new Political Director. He was the manager of the Congressional campaign of Steve Acuff, the previous Republican candidate in the 4th District. Marc is a highly-talented and very well-connected individual who is motivated by our message and some unfinished business from a couple of years ago. Mr. Price is about to learn that, as Shakespeare wrote, "Revenge is a dish best served cold." He will be coordinating strategy, organization, and communications.
Ray McKinnon has joined the campaign as our new Field Director. Ray is a youth minister in the district, and he previously served in a similar capacity for the Hillary Clinton (I know; gasp!) campaign. While a staunch Democrat, he joined our campaign after meeting B.J. at a community event in Hillsborough and discussing the issues with him, which just goes to show that Freedom is Popular. Ray brings valuable past field experience to the campaign and will be responsible for coordinating the ground operations in the district. Being an active Democrat, he will also be helping the campaign in its outreach efforts to Democrats in the district, and he will be running and writing for a new blog, Democrats for B.J. Lawson. (If any of you are a Democrat and would like to write for the blog, we would certainly love to have you on board. Please contact Ray at ray.mckinnon@lawsonforcongress.com if you would like to do so.)
We have also brought on county coordinators for the campaign. Andrea Walker, an activist for the Ron Paul campaign and the Republican Liberty Caucus, has signed on as the Wake County Coordinator. Bonnie Hauser, another Democrat, will be our Orange County Coordinator. Ruthy Jones, another long-time political activist, has joined the team as the Durham County Coordinator. We have other staff positions that we are in the process of filling, and I will be announcing these very soon.
As the Youth Coordinator for the campaign, I have been spending the last month building a student internship program. To beat David Price, we're going to need a very different type of campaign, and this extends to the student level, as we have three major colleges in the district and a few others in the Triangle. This necessitates that we win a lot of student votes and generate lots of youth interest, as we have a large pool of potential enthusiastic campaign volunteers who will work hard and be effective communicators to voters of the campaign's message. I am very proud to report that we have more than 40 student interns as of now who are taking the lead in the campaign in marketing, fund-raising, policy research, and organization. Gubernatorial and Senatorial campaigns would be very lucky to have that many student interns, let alone U.S. House campaigns. These students will be instrumental in providing the energy and manpower for the campaign to win in November.
On the fund-raising side, I have good and bad news to report. The good news is that we have already surpassed the total raised by Steve Acuff for the entirety of the 2006 election, as well as most previous Republican campaigns against Price. The bad news is that we need the fund-raising pace to pick up by a large amount, and very quickly. We are only one-third of the way to our goal of having $100,000 in the bank by the end of June, and we have ten days left to meet it. We need to meet this goal, so that we can report very good results to the media and generate positive press buzz from it. And we absolutely must raise $500,000 in the next three months to have the money necessary to beat Price. If you can, please send another generous donation as soon as possible.
A supporter of the campaign in Connecticut, of all places, has launched a "money bomb" for June 29 called the Lawson Liberty Fund. A "money bomb," for those not aware, is an organized one-day mass online fund-raising event. You may recall during the Republican Presidential primaries the two days that Ron Paul broke online single-day fund-raising records with $6 million and $4 million days; this is how it was accomplished. A money bomb is a very good way of generating a lot of money in a short time period and can yield a lot of positive media coverage, which can be used as a seed for more support and future donations.
News of the money bomb has already hit the "blogosphere" with a story on the popular blog Liberty Maven. We want to have a great day of fund-raising, as we will get lots of positive media buzz online and in local media from it. Furthermore, it is a very special day of the year for B.J., as it is the 12th Year Wedding Anniversary for him and his lovely and gracious wife, JoLynn. Let's give them an Anniversary gift they will never forget! Please sign up at the above link website to donate on June 29. Furthermore, we need you guys to help promote the event. If you all are on social network such as MySpace or Facebook or have a blog, we have some image graphics that we would like for you to put up on your pages (Here, here, and a video that the supporter made here; more on the way) and would appreciate you putting up notices and sending out message to your friends about the money bomb. If you are a member of a Meetup groups, please send out a message to your group about the money bomb. Money bombs work when they are well promoted, and we could use all the help we can get from you guys in helping to do so.
Asking for money isn't fun. However, it's very important that we meet our fund raising needs. Campaigns cost money, but Liberty is PRICEless. The 4th District of North Carolina, and the nation as a whole, simply Can't Afford the PRICE of another two years of the incumbent. When you are considering whether or not to make another donation, reflect on the progress we've made so far. Consider that we won our primary 71% to 29% with nothing more than an energized grassroots campaign and a message of freedom. Consider the 40 students from the area who have come on board with the campaign and are sacrificing lots of time and energy for us without getting paid for it and working with only the inspiration to reclaim liberty. Think of the fact that a Hillary staffer- A HILLARY STAFFER- was so moved by B.J.'s message that he came on board to work for us. Please send what you can as soon as you can, as your additional donation will go a long way toward meeting our needs.
I will have many new and exciting updates to announce next week, as well as more opportunities for you to help out the campaign on the ground if you live in the 4th District or the Triangle. In the meantime, let us march together in this Revolution to restore liberty for America and Constitutional representation of the 4th District of North Carolina.
For Liberty,
Paige Michael-Shetley
Youth Coordinator, Lawson for Congress
Cell: 919-740-2675
Email: paige.shetley@lawsonforcongress.com
This letter is worth a read and I think you will find it interesting. If you just read the bold part, trust me... there is a lot of other good info in there too! I just bolded that section because it shows how well things are looking so far against Price. By the way, I'm the guy he mentioned from CT... but I'd like to point out that I really only did half of the moneybomb. A lot of people are working together, which is what I'd like to address next.
The last few days have been rather chaotic. A lot of people have decided that they would like to help out with this moneybomb and the conversations through email are hard to keep up with. :P This is obviously good news. People are really promoting this thing and I hear we should be getting a lot more pledges! You can help out too! Just spread the word wherever you can. MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Meetup, your family and friends, etc... There are plenty of things you can use like the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0yGc1-ds_8 There are also many good graphics you can use to promote the moneybomb and Paige told me the campaign's interns have designed some more and he's going to be showing them to us soon. Can't wait!
Anyway, back to campaign things, this is from one of the interns about an event from today:
Things went very well with the campaign today at a
small-town festival. We probably picked up from 200-300 votes. Just
thought you'd like to know that! ;-)
More good news!
This is the kind of active campaign that you need to be elected. And this is how BJ absolutely destroyed the establishment opponent. We can help him win in November! Our grassroots support is really paying off.