An Interview with Jonathan Tasini
August 17th, 2006
By William Rivers Pitt
Progressive Democrats of America
Thursday 17 August 2006
WRP: Describe the energy and vibrancy of the campaign, the street work, the enthusiasm of the volunteers.
JT: Our campaign recently collected 40,000 ballot access signatures, far in excess of the 15,000 required to qualify for the New York Senate primary.
This was a tremendous grassroots effort by hundreds of volunteers all around the state, organized by dozens of volunteer regional coordinators. It was truly inspiring to see the process unfold, as I went out on the street to collect signatures daily myself, accompanied by wonderful volunteers. I really loved the process. And I saw a hunger out there from people who longed for an alternative to the pro-war incumbent. People would see our campaign signs and come running across the park to sign our petitions. They would call us from their cellphones to say, “I’m on the corner, where are you, I came all the way downtown to sign your petition.” Volunteers collected signatures in the heat, in the rain, days, nights and weekends. Our upstate volunteers endured storms and flooding but made sure their petition sheets got to the post office in time. Near the deadline, petitions were pouring into our office from volunteers we didn’t even know we had. On the day we drove to Albany to deliver our signed sheets, we got to the office at 6:00 a.m. to find a clipboard full of petition sheets wedged in the door, from a volunteer who wanted to make sure we submitted her hard-won signatures to Albany.
Along with individuals, many grassroots political clubs have been deeply involved with our campaign, and we could not do it without them. We are indebted to the Village Independent Democrats, the Downtown Independent Democrats, DFNYC, and of course, PDA, just to name a few. PDA members have been some of our most stalwart supporters; they’ve been the kind of friends we really lean on when there’s hard work to be done. For instance, one PDA member, Chris Tompkins, organized a street team to go out several nights a week to canvas voters for our campaign. This is emblematic of a number of things that have happened. Another group of volunteers decided to purchase and distribute lawn signs. They organized this entirely on their own - designed, ordered, delivered and distributed. Tonight as I drove through Woodstock on the way back to New York City I was thrilled to see these signs all over town.
More:
http://blog.pdamerica.org/?p=795(Note, as of 1:10pm EST, the text on that link is a mess. The technical gurus at PDA are working to fix it, and it should be squared away and presentable for sharing shortly)
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