I used to look with a little bit of disdain on people who have their cars plastered with bumper stickers. Especially people with "W" stickers, or "Sierra Club, Kiss My Axle," or "Insured by Smith and Wesson." But I also felt a little superior to people with liberal messages on their bumpers--"Imagine World Peace" (or "Imagine Whirled Peas"), "Somewhere in Texas a Village Has Lost Its Idiot." Granted, I laughed, I felt that I had company in the world, but I thought bumper-sticker people were just a little kooky.
Make the jump and see where I'm going with this.
I have, very recently, started to get involved. I've always voted, but before this year, I never gave money to a campaign, and never did anything as a volunteer on a campaign. Back in January, I attended a State of the Union Watch Party (through MoveOn), which was hosted by the campaign to elect Jeeni Criscenzo to Congress here in CA-49. (Darrell Issa, Republican, the richest man in Congress, is currently our rep. One of his goals right now is to try to pass a camel through the eye of a needle. There's probably at least ONE thing that would be harder to do, but I'm not sure what it is.) I donated twenty bucks to Jeeni's campaign, and filled out the little envelope, checking the box that indicated I would be willing to host a living room forum for Jeeni.
So, Jeeni's campaign contacted me recently, and we set up a forum for May 6 (which was, for the calendar-impaired, last night). Jeeni invited Milton Saier, a UCSD professor and environmental activist, to join us and give a short talk on Global Warming (the topic for the evening). I distributed somewhere in the vicinity of 100 invitations to neighbors--Democrat, Republican, and Independent alike. Mostly Republican, though, as we are a red district. I didn't get a huge response, but I had a few neighbors who seemed thrilled to find out they weren't the only ones in the neighborhood who didn't hate gay people. We ended up with a crowd of about 16.
Milton was marvelous. He was just like my dad--a brilliant academic with a heart of gold and a terrific distaste for all things Bush-inspired. He talked to us about policy changes since Jimmy Carter that have affected the environment, and about some of the specific things that are happening--the rapid rate at which species are disappearing, the bleaching of the Coral Reef. Jeeni would interject now and then with a thoughtful question or a comment.
At one point, a question came up about publicly funded campaigns, and how this might help to open up the possibilities for change in our environmental laws. From then on, the evening was Jeeni's, and it was, well, inspiring.
Jeeni talked to us about why she's running, about the things she has done to get the word out about her campaign--she rode the public bus system all over the district; she organized a Bring Their Buddies Home campaign in which 500 people stood along the Pacific Coast Highway, each with the name of a fallen soldier on his or her chest.
Jeeni talked about how we won't hear her saying bad or mean things about Republicans because she wants to practice non-violence in every aspect of her campaign. She wants registered Republicans to know that she's on their side, too--it's about people first and foremost, and that's where most of Washington has gone wrong. Don't worry, though, she knows Darrell Issa's record inside and out, and she will bring it up at every opportunity. She is an expert on the issues we face locally, and knows what Issa has done to sell off the district, especially to the energy companies.
Jeeni is a true-blue liberal Democrat. She went to Camp Wellstone, where she learned about running a grassroots campaign. She's only raised $25,000 for her campaign so far, compared to the millions Issa has in his own bank account, not to mention the special interest money he takes (and repays in favors at the expense of his constituents). Jeeni, like Francine Busby, won't take money from corporations or special interests, so it's up to people like me, my neighbors, and other concerned citizens, to help her get elected.
Jeeni is smart, informed, with an open mind and an open heart, and she is working tremendously hard to do something good. She is, remarkably, a person running for office who is most certainly not a politician.
The long and short of it is that, for the first time in my life, I have a bumper sticker on my car. It says Jeeni Criscenzo for Congress: www.dreamofjeeniforcongress.com. One of the things that used to bug me about the idea of a bumper sticker is that it somehow implies that the message on that sticker encapsulates the person driving the car; that somehow you could boil it all down to a few words. Well, in this case, maybe the specific words aren't what I'm about, but after hearing Jeeni talk last night about how America could be, I am certain that Jeeni stands for ME.
I hope you'll visit her web site, e-mail your friends in the San Diego area about her, and if you can, send her some money.
www.dreamofjeeniforcongress.com
(This is my first diary EVER and I have no clue how to hyperlink URLs into the text in my diary, so bear with me!)