Mobilize for Prop 89 This Weekend!
Find a meeting or rally to join this Saturday or Sunday.
Join Your Local Phone Bank!
Join volunteers calling voters and asking them to vote Yes on Prop 89. Free food and likely voters are waiting for you!
Check out this new video with Carl Pope:
You can browse all videos at Proposition 89 on YouTube
Matier and Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle:
Forget ratings -- TV gets huge payoff from elections
When all is said and done, the biggest winner in California's election won't be the Democrats or the Republicans, but TV -- which is expected to rake in an estimated $300 million in political ad sales. [...]
With an estimated $210 million going into the initiative fights -- and deep-pocket clients such as big oil and tobacco ready to shell out whatever it takes -- the sky is the limit.
For example, [Sheri] Sadler recently paid $2,200 for a 30-second Brown ad on the 5 p.m. local newscast in Los Angeles. Had she been buying the same spot for an initiative, the cost would have been $22,000.
"They are just loving it,'' [Paul] Kinney said of the TV stations.
FTCR:
"If you are pregnant or nursing, or could become pregnant, are taking any other medications, are ill or could become ill at any point in your life, are in school or could attend school in the future, have a job, pay taxes, live in a home, drive a car, or have friends or family you care about, you should know that voting No on 89 isn't for you. Talk with your family nurse for more information on how Yes on 89 can heal California."
CNA is (literally) rolling out six mobile phone bank buses, with 24 lines a piece and wrapped in signage. This will allow the ability to drive to hospitals for shift changes and let nurses easily phone bank before or after shifts.
The San Francisco Chronicle's John Wildermuth wrote:
Hit the road with the nurses for Prop. 89Check out a new video where Colette performs at the launch of Get on the Bus. Big Pharma and Big Oil and Big Money may be able to spend whatever it takes to preserve the perverse status quo, but creativity and hard work are our slingshot in this David vs. Goliath battle. Get on Board!With modern politics now tied to focus groups, tracking polls, TV attack ads and the other oh-so-serious -- and often oh-so-boring -- accouterments of California elections, there's almost no time for good, old-fashioned political stunts that at least added a little life and personality to the voting business in years past.
The exception: The California Nurses Association, which is out on the hustings backing Proposition 89, the campaign finance initiative. CNA members on Wednesday afternoon opened the union's "Get On the Bus," campaign, which will put nurses on six colorfully decorated buses driving across the state promoting Prop. 89. [...]
Earlier this month, it was street theater in Sacramento, as Prop. 89 backers joined a Jack Abramoff impersonator to string a million dollars in phony money from a lobbyist's office to the headquarters of the California Chamber of Commerce, which is opposed to the measure.
They've also brought a guy dressed as Batman to a number of their events and even projected a 40-foot "Bat-signal" on a building where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was having a fundraiser.
They're also probably the only campaign to have its own rap song the three-and-a-half minute "About Time for 89," written and performed by Colette Washington: "It's about time for Prop. 89, what's going on in Sac Town is blowin' my mind..."
We have a great tool that allows you to email our new ad to your friends and family, please give it a try.
The run-up to this year's midterm election smells of scandal and corruption, which raises the question: Can anyone stop the influence of big money and big influence on political campaigns?
Before, you say "of course not," check out our special hour-long investigation into the fight to keep American elections free and fair across the country. Airing less than three weeks before Americans go to the polls, "Votes for Sale?" will spotlight the so-called clean elections movement, a radical public-funding experiment adopted in Maine and Arizona to revolutionize how campaigns are conducted. It works like this: candidates for public office receive a flat sum of money from the government to finance their campaign. In return, the candidates agree to use almost no private funds to run their elections.
Pushing special interest money out of the election process may do more than clean things up. It could also open the door for a variety of people who care about democracy to run for office with realistic hopes of winning. Case in point: Arizona State Representative Doug Quelland, a conservative Republican who supports clean elections by his own example. With a background in public school teaching and running a handful of neighborhood businesses, including a lawnmower repair shop, Quelland captured voter interest door-to-door armed only with his passion and point of view. He's now running for his third term in the state legislature and still sports his trademark handlebar moustache. "I don't want to owe anybody anything. I don't want to have to have the special interests. I just want to do it and not beholden to anybody," Rep. Quelland told NOW.
Quelland's state of Arizona is one of the biggest clean election battlegrounds, where the nation's only "clean-elected" governor, Janet Napolitano, sits in the statehouse. Governor Napolitano talks to NOW's David Brancaccio about her strong convictions regarding clean elections. "I think what Clean Elections allows you to do is be a better candidate and a better office holder, because you're not all the time having to raise money," Napolitano said.
In California, a very contentious debate is underway over Proposition 89, a clean election initiative about which voters will have the final say on November 7.
Steven Harmon in the San Jose Mercury News:
A 30-second spot for the ``Clean Money'' Proposition 89 campaign is apparently catching fire in the so-called political echo chamber: the network of alternative, underground, and electronic messaging that drives younger voters to the polls.
The ad, which hit TV markets around the state this week, is the No. 1 political ad on YouTube, where it's been viewed 16,000 times in less than 48 hours, supporters said. That's 10 times more than the Proposition 87 ad featuring former President Clinton.
And it's gone even more viral since its debut. It's being featured on one of the most popular political Web sites in the country: Crooks & Liars.
The clever imagery of the ad -- a giant piston, representing corporate-financed ads squashing people -- tries to drive home the message that political ads are pounding people into submission. Proposition 89, the ad says, will put a stop to them by limiting contributions and publicly financed campaigns. Supporters hope it will awaken the apathetic voter; polls show the proposition trailing significantly.
``I don't know if we'll pull this off,'' said Bill Hillsman, who created the ad and is the media consultant for Connecticut senatorial candidate Ned Lamont's insurgent campaign against Sen. Joe Lieberman, ``but if the spot goes out enough, people will say this is how I feel, and if for no other reason but this, I'll go out and vote.''
Joe Trippi, the San Jose State University graduate who helped revolutionize the convergence of politics and the Internet as former presidential candidate Howard Dean's campaign manager in 2004, said the ad ``really captures'' the mood of the voter.
``It's the perfect spot,'' said Trippi, a consultant to the Proposition 89 campaign. ``It helps create the echo chamber between the Internet and TV that it will need to make that big move. This is getting moved around pretty virally right now.''
Bill Hillsman's new Stop the Pounding ad is getting play all across the internets, including a post on Crooks and Liars (the most popular political video blog in America). Here is what some people are saying:
"one of the slickest and most engaging political ads in California right now....In this ad, the medium is the message. Rather than targeting corporate donations and their influence on politicians, it attacks television advertising funded by those donations." -Robert Salladay, LA Times Political Muscle Blog
"It is a terrific ad - and an incredibly important campaign." -David Sirota, SirotaBlog
"Watch Hillsman's ad, which is a remarkable piece of political jujitsu on the practices of political advertising, and has the possiblity to remake them." -Jamie Court, Huffington Post
"hilarious YouTube Video, courtesy of 89now.org and/or Clean Money Elections which just about sums up this year's election. I love it how they've managed to tie in our fatigue with the campaigning...." -Dan Wood, A Progressive Alamedan
"to me there is no single race as crucial as the battle to pass Proposition 89, a huge first step towards cleaning up politics in this state and taking it out of the hands of wealthy special interests. Joe Trippi sent me an ad today that was done by the brilliant filmmaker Bill Hillsman." -Howie Klein, Down WithTyranny
"A great ad." -SFBrianCL, Calitics
"His new ad for the issue doesn't even look like a political ad -- its production values are too high-end. Polling shows Proposition 89 is in a fierce battle, but as Hillsman's ad makes clear, the big money interests are actually shooting themselves in the foot. Spending tens of millions of dollars on nasty ad campaigns to try to destroy popular initiatives, these corporate interests are angering voters. Hillsman goes ninja style and turns these frustrations into a powerful argument for campaign finance reform." -Left in the West, AOL News Elections Blog
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Strict contribution and expenditure limits
