The End, or the Beginning? E-mail from True Majority (pls. delete if dupe)

[Career Prole]

This Sure Feels Bad, but Is It the End or the Beginning?

Dear Richard ,

There is a lot of bad news coming out of this election, and we won’t burden you with more of what you already know. Bush’s reelection and Republican gains in both houses will make the struggle for justice and peace in our country harder over the next four years. Yep, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep talking, but we here at TrueMajority still have hope for our future. Why? Because TrueMajority members had a front-row seat to the beginnings of a revolution in American politics. It’s just in the beginning phases, and clearly it didn’t all work.

But look at the evidence. Before this year, political campaigns were like watching a bad movie on TV without a remote to turn it off. Our job as citizens was to watch the ads and vote. That was it.

What a difference four years makes. For the first time in decades, the number of people voting went way up. The number of folks who actually got involved in the election went through the roof. But the change was far deeper than that. Big money was still monumental, but little money collected online from lots of people added up to big money. More important, the things that really mattered in the end were accomplished by an army of regular folks. Millions of doors were knocked on, and even more calls to new voters were made. Regular people who were never political activists held house parties to share their enthusiasm with friends. Quite simply, politics went from something we watched on TV to something we all did.

What made all this possible? There were many factors, but an important one was the rise of a bunch of online groups like TrueMajority that make instantaneous nationwide conversations possible with the click of a mouse. This emerging online community was able to offer you ways to get involved, such as volunteering to contact voters, raise money, distribute information and create your own projects — all with a tiny staff and an efficient budget. Regular folks with an e-mail address have proven that they can pitch in what time and money they can to create a powerful wave of change. It really worked. Just look at the unprecedented get-out-the-vote efforts that produced record turnout.

We’ll need all of these new skills and tactics as we take on an ever-more-hostile environment in Washington. It’ll take a bit of time to rest and regroup, and then we’ll continue the struggle for social justice. For the first time in a long time, we’ve helped fashion a path that can lead to a real change in America. And that’s a reason for hope.

The next phase may well involve helping people build local initiatives and organizations around leaders who have the strength and commitment to champion compassion, justice, sustainability and international cooperation. Conservatives rebuilt their activist groups through devotion to a set of values they believed in and could communicate with passion to voters. It’s time for us to do that too.

So our pledge to you today is that this is just the beginning. We at TrueMajority will keep an eye on what’s going on in Washington and elsewhere for our 550,000 members, and we’ll keep offering you different ways that you can make a difference. You’ve shown that this can really work.

We’re very proud to have taken this great journey with you.



Ben, Duane, Andrew, Darcy, Dave, Emily, Jason and Natalie; our partners at Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities: Gary, Barbara, Ed, Elliot and Marian; and with special election-year help from Aaron, Catherine, David, Dusty, Kim, Jessica, Mark, Matt, Michelle, Mike, Richard and Allen, whose passing prevented his seeing the fruits of our work together