Wow. Today I feel like a small branch of the 50 state strategy. The usual pessimism dims a bit.
Back in early October, I gave a small donation to the Manistee County Michigan Dems, in response to a diary by MichiganGirl. She made a plea for help, needing funds for rent, phone banking, and printing.
She also posted templates for some Obama buttons, which struck a cord with my husband and me. We had made hundreds of buttons and given them away to local Detroit Obama volunteers. Thanks to the Manistee Dems, our buttons expanded from my primitive artwork, to include their Kids for Obama logo, among others, highly prized by children of local volunteers.
But that's not all. Today I got a hand-written thank you note from the Manistee County Democratic Party. Just for one small - very small - donation:
Kidspeak,
Thank you so much for your generous donation to the Manistee County Democratic Party!
We think you'll be pleased to hear that our county had its largest voter turnout ever, AND our little county was able to not only deliver the 9th largest percentage of votes for Obama out of Michigan's 83 counties... We were also able to make phone calls, and send some of our county's volunteers to put boots on the ground in 4 of our previously red nearby counties, which helped turn 3 of those counties blue, and we came pretty darned close in the 4th county too!!!
Delivering 56% of our county's votes for Obama was just one of out many successes... We also helped elect the 2nd Democratic State Representative in our State House District's entire history, in a landslide with over 60% of the vote (the 1st Democratic State Rep. was 28 years ago, just barely won, and only served on term), we have a 5-2 Democratic majority on our County Commissioners Board, elected our 1st Democratic County Drain Commissioner ever, we came very close to winning our County Clerk, and County Register of Deeds races also, and we picked up a lot of township seats too.
Thanks to your donation we were able to get 5,000 slate cards printed and we had enough volunteers to hand deliver them to just under 4,800 househholds during out final 72 hour GOTV drive!
There is no way we could have done all of this without the financial support of the good people on Daily Kos, and we are forever grateful to you,
Love,
The Manistee Dems.
The card was signed by the County Dem Chair, Vice-Chair (our own MichiganGirl), Secretary, and 8 others, including candidates Mindy Sedelmaier, Kendra Roddy, Mark DiBenedetto, Rudy Milasich, Ben Kubiak, and Carl Rutske.
Real signatures on the thank you note - not by copy or robo-pen, but real people saying thanks.
MichiganGirl posted a thank you diary back in October, but this note was personal, hand addressed and signed, and activating in a way that is like no other. I keep marveling at the connections, at what small things, put together with other small things, becomes something bigger, something that changes our neighborhood, city, county, state...
Before the 2004 election, I met Howard Dean in a small gathering in the backyard of a local family. He talked of going to all 50 states, working not only for the Presidency and Congress, but for state legislators, city council members, library boards, etc., always thinking toward the future, aiming at progressive ideals from the grassroots up.
That's what the Manistee Dems did, and through our connections here, across time and space, we can do that too.