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Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?
As many of you know from reading my posts, Jeff Smith, a friend from grad school, ran for Dick Gephardt’s seat in 2006. It was a 10 way race with several current/former office holders running including Russ Carnahan. Jeff ran one of the best grass roots campaigns, but came up 1724 votes short in a race with 107,000 votes cast. Jeff actually won in St. Louis County and Saint Louis City, but didn’t produce enough votes in Jefferson County. I still walk around the City wondering if we hit specific blocks hard enough.
Somehow, filmmaker Frank Popper saw something early in that race and followed the campaign for a few months up until the August Primary in 2004. The result is Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? I won’t see it until the end of this month, but it was shown at the Washington DC Silverdocs film festival and won the audience award. I make a cameo in it, but everyone avoids telling me what I’m doing when I appear. This concerns me.
Fun moments that might have been included:
1) Me, a white guy from Central Illinois, and Artie Harris, the campaign press secretary and Jewish guy from Brooklyn, listening intently to the ads for black radio and determining which sounded the most authentic.
2) Jeff and I explaining the night before the election, pointing out micro-level neighborhood analysis of what to look for while the rest of the campaign folks site back and go, NOW, you are telling us this?
3) Artie and I having an argument about how to respond to the press about the count. This occurred at about 2 AM after many in the room had been up since 6 AM and working polls or otherwise and a fair amount of drinking had taken place. As I remember that moment, Frank had put down his camera so you’ll miss Josh Levin getting me to calm down.
4) Me sitting at the computer, swearing under my breath while I do calculations on vote totals and the proportion Jeff needed to win.
Fine missed moments by Frank include Artie, Nick and I driving through neighborhoods trying to rally supporters with a megaphone while trying to figure out where the hell the campaign volunteers went. Around the same time, walking around with some random guy who jumped on the bandwagon right there trying to find people outside on a 95 degree day. At one point Jeff was walking down the street dribbling a basketball and using the megaphone in about the only time he wasn’t at a poll or on the way to another.
As a bonus, I believe Iowa-02 Candidate David Loebsack makes a brief appearance in the film from election night–he came down to work on Jeff’s race.
From what I understand there are some truly awkward moments in the movie that deal with Jeff working on endorsements and running into institutions and people afraid to bet on what they perceived as a long shot.
For me, the film has two groups it’ll especially interest. The first are grassroots activists who, frankly, need a dose of reality. Jeff organized for Bill Bradley in Iowa, worked on several campaigns and had run some local campaigns. He knew how to raise money and he knew how to efficiently spend money and how to utilize volunteers. Before you crash the gate (and Jerome and Markos point this out), you have to have a plan and discipline to implement that plan.
The second group are people who are campaign pros, but are scared of the anything resembling mass participation. While the entire campaign was about defeating entrenched power, it was also about organizing and motivating a group of people who had not been that active in campaigns in the past.
While Jeff is often touted, and fairly so, as a candidate who worked the grassroots and almost pulled it off, his campaign wasn’t the amateurish, if we just speak the truth, they’ll listen. It was, these dumb bastards are ignoring us, so let’s sneak up on them and exploit every mistake they make. Ultimately, turnout spiked with the same sex marriage ban being on the primary ballot which threw all of the vote projections from early in the race out.
With that build-up, the let down is the film is only playing in Saint Louis and New York for now, but keep a look out for it wherever you are and I’ll certainly announce future engagements as the two producers are in frequent contact with me (okay, one lives like 3 blocks away-the other, maybe 10 blocks).
Back
Thanks to the guest posters over the last two weeks. I very much appreciate it and enjoyed the reading as I could sneak a peak. If this didn’t scare them away, I’ll be looking for fill-ins later in the summer as well. Given how much time it can take, I’d like to find a few more guest posters so if anyone is interested drop me a line.
Missouri Senate Poll
BackupPundit
Political Wire reports on the Post-Dispatch poll on the Senate Race.
McCaskill up by 6%, 14% lead among independents.
Article and results here.
There are some Nixon-Blunt numbers in there, but it’s a long way off.
He’s Resting at Peace with Charlie’s Angels Now
Not politics, but producer Aaron Spelling died.
Spelling provided many of my kitschy TV memories, like 90210 and Melrose Place. While I don’t think he’s an important artist, he is a pop culture icon for several generations.
Sears Target, Part 2: Scare Tactics
Well, we now have some more information about the arrests in Miami.
Mr. Gonzales acknowledged that the men, who had neither weapons nor explosives, posed “no immediate threat.” But he added, “they did take sufficient steps that we believe does support this prosecution.”
In general, Mr. Gonzales said, homegrown terrorists “may prove to be as dangerous as groups like Al Qaeda.”
News of the arrests touched off widespread television coverage of the plot against the Sears Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world. But details of the indictment disclosed Friday at news conferences in Washington and Miami presented a less alarming picture. The indictment made clear that a pivotal role was played by an unidentified undercover F.B.I. informer who posed as a Qaeda member and met repeatedly with the reported ringleader of the group, Narseal Batiste.
More on Narseal Batiste:
But an uncle said he could not believe Batiste is capable of masterminding the murder of innocents.
“He’s a follower more than a leader,” said John J. Ford, 67, of Chicago. “He wasn’t no ringleader about nothing.”
And how serious was the threat?
Cline and other officials stressed there was no evidence the alleged plotters took any action in Chicago. They said they had no information that the men arrested had visited the Sears Tower to study it or make plans.
The plot “was never an actionable plan and, therefore, no one was in danger,” said Andrew Velasquez, head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication.
People who have offices in the Sears Tower don’t seem too concerned, either.
From all the reports, it seems like this group of seven “terrorists” were not even capable of executing a major terrorist plot that involves the Sears Tower. After all, they even had to ask the undercover agent for boots [see last question] and a video camera.
These guys deserved to be busted up for the actions they took. It’s just like making a joke about a gun in the airport security line: the TSA takes the statement seriously, and gives your bags a thorough search.
But nothing that I’ve seen justifies the type of national and international press sought by the Department of Justice. This was not the kind of threat that should involve the Attorney General in a press conference. Arrest these guys, and give them a good scare. But there’s no need to make a national stink about it.
Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking at a political luncheon in Chicago, denounced the decision to reveal the existence of the financial monitoring program and the earlier-disclosed National Security Agency surveillance program.
?What I find most disturbing about these stories is that some of the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people,? Cheney said. ?That offends me.?
Krol on Hastert
He does month in review for Hastert.
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I’ll Miss It
The Osco on Old Capitol Plaza in Springfield is closing.
The store was incredibly convenient for those of us who had to make occasional trips to Springfield and walked to the Capitol from either the Hilton or the hotel formerly known as the Renaissance. I just hope that the Food Mart stays open — it has the most delightful assortment of gourmet odds and ends, and great confections to boot.
Ed Farmer has Some Mad ESP
The White Sox finished out the series against the Cards tonight. You have to feel for the kid Reyes. He pitched a 1 hitter and lost.
What I did catch was something just extraordinary. Had to run to the store so I was listening to 670 and Sox radio broadcaster Ed Farmer began the seventh inning by saying (paraphrased), “Thome up to bat and he’s going deep, I can feel it.” As the words left his mouth, Thome went 455′ deep to right field.
Wow.
Sears Target
I guess we’ll know more tomorrow. I’m especially intrigued that these guys had “no apparent ties to al-Qaida or other foreign terrorist organizations.”