*If you're just skimming this post, do yourself a favor and move down to the underlined part and follow the link to the protest against me in Colorado*
How much trouble do you think one person can cause in 48 hours in Colorado?
Apparently, if you're the pro-life community, big government right-wingers or the Colorado Republican Party, the answer is quite a bit.
Getting up at 3:00am to catch my 6:00am flight, I was in Denver just before 8:00am Wednesday morning Central time. After breakfast at our hotel, I was honored to meet Colorado Rep. Angie Paccione (Pa-cho-nee) who we all hope will defeat far right-wing Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave this November.
After a great call-in to the "Big Ed" (Ed Schultz) national radio show to talk about TerriPAC and Marilyn Musgrave, Angie and I went to what was supposed to be a small press event. The event was to announce that I would be delivering a letter to Congresswoman Musgrave's office that afternoon.
I say it was supposed to be small because it wasn't.
Two Denver television stations, three newspapers, the Associated Press (and one right-wing protester posing as a magazine writer) greeted us as Angie and I outlined why I was in Colorado, why Marilyn Musgrave should be defeated and what was about to happen that day.
Musgrave's office is about an hour drive north of Denver and, after signing my letter to her, we arrived to find not less than a dozen other print reporters, two radio reporters and two more TV cameras.
As promised, I delivered my letter (which we are posting on the TerriPAC website but if you want to read it now, Angie has it on her site) to Congresswoman Musgrave's office.
A side note: I wanted to drive to Marilyn Musgrave's house in Colorado and see how she liked having news crews in her driveway. But I understand that politics has personal consequences so we decided to keep it professional and visit her office instead.
My last count on Google showed our interaction with Musgrave generated more than 60 news stories from coast to coast not including Denver area television where I did one on one interviews with the local FOX and ABC stations.
For kicks, Google "Schiavo" and "Musgrave" to see how widely this story got covered. Or check the results here.
But wouldn't you know it, before the day was over, the Chairman of the Colorado Republican Party had to get into the act by denouncing me, my visit to his state and my help for the good candidates of Colorado. He even said it was "shameful" that I would be using what happened to my family to raise money for political candidates.
Naturally, I responded in-kind that there are dozens of Republicans candidates (Rick Santorum anyone?) and right-wing groups who are using my wife's name to raise money. And, moreover, if the leaders in the White House and Congress had not been so "shameful" all by themselves, nobody would care if I was in Colorado or not.
And that was Wednesday.
After meeting with some potential PAC supporters on Thursday morning, and taking a tour of Colorado's impressive state capitol building, we were off to host a fundraiser for Peggy Lamm. Lamm is running in Colorado's seventh district and recent polling shows her the favorite to pick-up this seat in November.
The spread was nice - about 50 people for a reception followed by a great dinner. We'll have pictures of the event on the TerriPAC site soon, too. But as understand it, Peggy's campaign raised more than $10,000 from our visit and it was a pleasure to help her.
But you should all know that Peggy's fundraiser was, expectedly, targeted by the type of far right-wing protests we've come to expect - using children and inflammatory rhetoric to make their misguided points. Here's a grotesque example of the protest this week outside Peggy Lamm's event.
Maybe someone can help me and tell me how to put this photo in the post. Or maybe someone can do it for me?
At first I was angry that these people tried to disrupt Peggy's event. But she handled it well. And while I can't repeat what Peggy had to say about them, I can say you would all have been proud of her passion.
Both Peggy and I know that these protests only help our cause because public opinion is firmly and fiercely on our side. But they also should remind all of us to re-double our efforts to keep fighting.
Pushing back and keeping the right-wing agenda at bay is why I started my political committee - TerriPAC. I'm already proud of what we've done in Florida and now in Colorado.
But we want to keep this conversation going and keep helping good candidates and elected leaders who can take our country back. We want to get to Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Missouri shortly. But to do that I continue to need your support.
If you haven't already, stop by the TerriPAC site and support our candidates and support our efforts.
You can sign-up for our updates, make a donation or check to see how your own member of Congress voted when they had to make a choice between protecting our freedom and scoring political points.
As you know by know from my trips to YearlyKOS, in Florida and to Colorado, I was serious about taking this fight to them. If you'll continue to stand with me, I will continue to make sure that what they did to my family can't happen to anyone else.
With your help, I'll see you in Pennsylvania or Connecticut or someplace else shortly. Until then, keep fighting. And thank you.