Message about Keep ME Warm

This email message came to us from Laurie Broberg of Yarmouth.

I am so pleased that you people are donating to Keep ME Warm. It is important to think of and help our neighbors in Maine during this wonderful, but very cold time of year. My husband I donated to our town's general assistance fund with the money being marked for fuel or food. It is only in the past few weeks, as I was reading about LIHEAP, that I learned about Keep ME Warm.

I am hoping that many of Chellie's supporters will donate to Keep ME Warm so we can help keep our neighbors warm this winter. People who need fuel assistance have been much in my mind this holiday season.

Help Mainers turn up the heat

This December's frigid temperatures, combined with the high price of energy, have left many Mainers in the cold. And the federal government hasn't yet released Maine's full funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). That means that local Community Action Programs don't have enough funding to keep up with the demand for heating assistance.

My colleagues and I at the Pingree campaign are sending contributions to "Keep ME Warm" to help fill the gap. If you'd like to do the same, please send a check (made out to Keep ME Warm) to the following address:
Keep ME Warm Fund, PO Box 200, East Wilton, ME 04234. You can also deliver your check to any TDBankNorth branch. To contribute by phone, call 1-800-393-7175.

The FCC works for who, exactly?

I did my time in broadcasting: 25 years in radio, many of those as a liberal talk show host before finally getting fired for....Never mind, it's a long story.

I'm not quite as cynical about the media as a lot of people, but I am cynical about the way the FCC is letting big corporations dominate it. That's one of the reasons I'm now working to get Chellie Pingree elected to Congress from Maine's 1st CD. I talked to her and FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein about it at the New Media Conference in Memphis this spring---they all get it. The other three Commissioners are another matter all together.

Today the 3 Republican Commissioners on the FCC voted, as John Nichols of the Nation put it, to "approve the demands of Rupert Murdoch." Under the leadership of Bush appointee Kevin Martin, the Commission did away with the long-standing ban on cross ownership of newspapers and radio and TV stations. The move allows further consolidation of the media in the hands of just a few big corporations---and more importantly makes it even easier for a single owner (like Murdoch) to buy up virtually all the media in individual markets. "Diversity of viewpoints" would have about as much meaning as "Fair and Balanced."

Now it's up to Congress to fix what the FCC has broken---and 26 Senators have already signed a letter saying they plan to overturn the Commission's decision. There was a time when the FCC was able to operate below the radar and get away with this kind of thing, but not any more. As the Washington Post reported, after Common Cause hired Chellie Pingree as President she took that organization in a new direction--bringing national attention to Big Media consolidation. It worked. Here's the Boston Globe's version of how it went down:

(Pingree) began speaking out, joining other groups...trying to stop the FCC from helping Big Media get bigger. Together, they sponsored a series of full-page newspaper advertisements calling attention to the issue. Then the most amazing thing happened. Nationally, the fact that a few people and citizens' groups were willing to stick their necks out elicited a torrent of public reaction. With no organization whatsoever, the FCC was inundated with nearly a million messages - the largest public reaction ever to a pending matter before the typically insider-dominated agency. ...The FCC went ahead and on a 3-2 partisan vote approved the regulatory relaxation, but the public outcry has been so loud and sustained that last week the Senate Commerce Committee voted by a wide, bipartisan margin to reinstate the media ownership restrictions.

The trade magazine Broadcasting & Cable also picked up Chellie's work:

Chellie Pingree is a veteran of the media-ownership wars. As majority leader in the Maine Senate, she rallied behind communities that feared several state newspapers would be engulfed by a corporate giant. Now, as president and CEO of venerable activist group Common Cause, she has rejoined the fight with a vengeance.

The two Democrats on the Commission voted against the rule change today--Jon Adelstein is one of them:

"The FCC has never attempted such a brazen act of defiance against Congress," argued Adelstein, in a passionate condemnation of the commission's actions. "Like the Titanic, we are steaming at full speed despite repeated warnings of danger ahead. We should have slowed down rather than put everything at risk.

Now it's time for Congress to act again. Now it's time for us to act. The Republicans on the FCC--especially [President Bush's appointee] Kevin Martin--have done everything they can to ram this decision through in the week before Christmas, when they hope we are all snug in our beds with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads. It is time, once again, to stop the FCC in it's tracks. Common Cause has a number of ways for you to get involved.

And it's also time to send Chellie to Congress. When Chellie stood up against media consolidation at Common Cause, she didn't back down in the face of Republican opposition and the likes of Rupert Murdoch. Instead, she helped build a coalition and forced Congress and the FCC to listen to the public's demands. (Here's a clip of Chellie talking about the FCC from the documentary "Outfoxed").

Here's a photo I took of Chellie & Commissioner Adelstein after a hearty breakfast at the Porthole in Portland this fall, when he was here for the FCC hearing:

Cross posted at Turn Maine Blue and DailyKos.

Snowstorm reading - Maine workers love Chellie

by: Alna Dem
Sun Dec 16, 2007 at 09:13:53 AM EST

[Cross posted from TurnMaineBlue]

Stoke the woodstove, fill the kettle, and - quick before the power goes out - curl up with a great piece on Chellie Pingree over at Union Maine. They call her a forceful advocate for working families and mention issues like corporate accountability, living wage, family and medical leave, keeping jobs in Maine, fair trade, and fair elections:

I really didn't know enough about the candidate until I read both her biography found here and here voting record found here. The record is impressive. The real measure of a candidate is not what they promise but who they are and what they have done. [...] Andy Stern should be hoping she wins.

This really cheers me up. I met Chellie when I was doing community development lending back in the 90's and she was senate majority leader. I've followed her progress at Common Cause and attended a campaign event or two, both for this race and the Collins match back in 2002. She is IMHO simply a superb candidate - especially after her tour in DC, where she made all those national connections and can hit the ground running. To see her reconnecting back home and impressing the hell out of people who matter, well, let's just say I'm grinning.

Great closing comment from the editor:

As long as this list of accomplishments is, this is only a heavily edited distillation of the record of Chellie Pingree. Read her record, ask yourself "What would Dick Cheney do?" and you will know we should find out all we can about Chellie Pingree.

Bush Vetoes SCHIP, says "Bah Humbug" to low income kids

Yesterday, when President Bush again vetoed an SCHIP bill that would have extended health insurance to 2.5 million low income children, he said the bill would "move our country's health care system in the wrong direction." Right. I guess from the President's point of view, the last thing we want our health care system to do is to provide health care. Especially for poor, sick kids. As Jon Stewart put it, "I though something like that is only done by cartoon a. Bush is going from being like Nixon to being like Mr. Burns."

The bill would have funded the expanded coverage with a 61 cent a pack tax on cigarettes and would have allowed additional children and some adults into the program. Altogether, 4 million more Americans would get health care under the SCHIP. The funding for the current program expired in September, but a continuing resolution has kept if funded until December 14th. After that, it's not entirely clear what is going to happen with SCHIP.

It's the Christmas season and our bitter and crotchety President is withholding funds for sick children. This man is in serious need of a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past.

We'd love to add your name to the list!

[guest posted by Hannah Pingree, Chellie's daughter]

"People ask me all the time how I got involved in politics at such a young age. Then of course, later in the conversation, they ask me why on earth I would want to be a politician in these crazy times. The answer to both is simple: I watched my mom."

That's an excerpt from the blog entry I wrote last week.

I've campaigned alongside my mom right from the beginning in 1992, when she ran for the Maine Senate. During that race, when it came time to list my mother's supporters, we decided not to separate the names by job title or some other method, but to simply make one big list -- because every person on that list was equally important to us.

Today, as my mom makes her bid to represent Maine's First Congressional District, she's starting to build her "big list" of supporters once again. Click here to see the list so far, and please add your name today.

As you may have heard, the campaign has been going strong. In just the last week there were some twelve Chellie Pingree for Congress gatherings, with close to 350 participants. Here's a picture from one of those gatherings -- it was taken at Kevin and Jeannie Mattson's house party in Hallowell on December 4th. I'm in the red jacket, and with me are some of my colleagues from the Maine State House: Representatives Leila Percy, Sharon Treat, Nancy Smith, and Kim Silsby. And of course, that's my mom standing in the center next to me.

My mom is proud to have the support of the legislators shown above along with many others, as well as the support of small business owners like Angela Adams and Mort Mather, longtime Democratic activists like Ed Pert, people who have been guiding her since her very first campaign like Mike Mayo and Amy Fischer, plus more than 150 other committed Mainers. The list is growing rapidly -- and I hope you'll sign on today, too.

Every name on the list brings us a step closer to victory. Many thanks for your support.

Hannah

P.S. To see more pictures from last week and to read more blog entries by my mom and others, just scroll down.

[Cross posted at DailyKos and TurnMaineBlue.]

Grueling days on the campaign trail, or not

There I was, camped out in a hallway with a beer and a plate of some of the best hors d'oeuvres I've ever tasted (they appeared to have been made out of crab but I can't be sure). A fire crackled away in the next room and there was no shortage of great conversation: talking politics with Senate Majority Leader Libby Mitchell, chatting with a guy from the Department of Labor who actually made worker's comp sound interesting, and listening to Pat McGowan, the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Conservation, talk about his favorite campsite at Cobscook Bay State Park. It wasn't exactly a grueling night on the campaign trail.

That night at the Mattson's house in Hallowell was just last Tuesday -- but it seems like a month ago. Since then I've traveled with Chellie to events in Portland (3 or 4 parties), South Portland, Gorham and West Kennebunk. All together in the last week, more than 350 people came to see Chellie at house parties, morning coffees, and the open house at the campaign offices in Portland.

For me, the last few days have been fun, exhausting, exhilarating, and educational. And we only got lost once. Each event had its own feel to it -- a morning house party in Portland felt like a Saturday morning at home with coffee, snacks, and little kids darting around underfoot. Later that day in a house in Portland's West End, an apparently endless supply of fascinating people wandered in, including a guy who has just written a book about Hamid Karzai based on months of interviews with the president of Afghanistan, whom he's known for 20 years.

Sometimes I think people get the wrong idea about these campaign events -- that they are exclusive or entirely oriented toward raising money. The truth is they're not -- every one of them is open to the public, they are informal, and you don't have to come armed with a big check (although no one would complain if you did...)

Last stop in the 48-hour marathon -- Gorham

Sunday 6:00 pm
(Patriots leading 17-13)

Ginny Wilder-Cross and Don Cross opened their home in Gorham to us tonight and laid out a great spread of delicious treats -- including Christmas cookies. (Wow, the holidays are upon us!)

State Representatives David Farrington and Larry Bliss were part of the crowd, along with Senator Phil Bartlett -- and all of us had a wide-ranging discussion that included big problems around private contractors in Iraq, the idea of a single-payer health care system, and what we have to do to restore America's dignity around the world. As one man said "Scandals like the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo have given us a black eye."

It's been an exciting weekend -- an exciting week, really -- with literally hundreds of people coming to events from Hallowell to Kennebunk. We'll be back on the campaign trail in this coming week before we all take a break with our families for the holidays.

But right now it's time to relax a little with our great crew and family who worked VERY HARD! And, to watch the game---and now they're leading 24-13!

Here are some photos from the Crosses' party:

Sunday morning, two more events!

The day started in South Portland with a beautiful view of the Portland skyline at an event hosted by Annie Houle. I like these morning coffees because it's a chance to chat with people before their day starts to get busy. Even at 9:00 on a Sunday morning, I found people frustrated about what has been happening to our country and very engaged in talking about how to fix it. One interesting guest who had done a lot of work with USAID spoke eloquently about how we no longer invest in countries where we should be building allies -- in part because so much has been diverted because of the war, bringing us even more enemies.

From South Portland it was on to Sue Cabot's house on Munjoy Hill and a near-overflow crowd of people from the greater Portland area. I was happy to talk to Doug Hall whose father, by the same name, created the Bay View Street Cinema in Camden -- a long standing institution in Knox county and the location where I have seen some of my favorite movies of all time. I also had a chance to talk with Carol Ross, whose brother John Moran was an energetic senior activist when we were working on passing the prescription drug bill in Maine. It was the activist senior citizens in this state who made the difference in beating "big Pharma" on that issue -- in spite of the incredible fight and spending in opposition to the bill.

There are certain issues that are on most people's minds these day--the war in Iraq and healthcare among them--but each house party is different and this time there were questions and comments about people's deep concern about the role of foreign investment in the US, political strategy and the credit crunch (I'm hearing more and more about the economy and I think it's going to become an increasingly big topic during this campaign.)

After I finish this blog post and answer some email we're off to Gorham to the Crosses' gathering.

Here are photos from Sue Cabot's party on Munjoy Hill:

Saturday night, Portland's West End

We came back to Portland tonight for a house party in the West End, at Kris Clark & Cynthia MacKay's place. Kris is a natural at organizing and networking, and he brought friends and neighbors together for some fantastic food (what was in those stuffed peppers?) and great conversation. It was a good chance to catch up with some Portland friends like Karen Geraghty. Hannah and her husband Jason stopped by and it was a great way to relax and wind down after a very full day.

We'll be back on the campaign trail with more events tomorrow---in Portland, South Portland and Gorham.

Here are a few photos from Kris and Cynthia's party:

Saturday afternoon, heading south to West Kennebunk

Heading south from Portland this afternoon we were treated to a beautiful sunset -- it really was stunning, but I will be glad when the days start to get longer in a couple of weeks.

Our destination was the home of Gregg Dinino and Linda Wilson-Dinino in West Kennebunk. Linda had poured her considerable energy into organizing a house party filled with people from York and Cumberland counties. Like all of our house parties, the atmosphere was laid back and informal -- and open to anyone who wanted to attend. Ben, for example, was a supporter from Portland who couldn't make it
to the Open House at campaign headquarters last night so instead made the trip down for the event this evening.

Jen Niese and her husband Bill Hetzel were also at the party -- along with Linda they have been active in raising awareness on global warming issues, and organized a Step It Up event in Kennebunkport last month.

Here are three photos from the West Kennebunk party:

First stop, the Rosemont neighborhood

The day started with a fun get-together at the home of Martha Mixon and Mike Roland in Portland. While I am a big fan of both Martha and Mike, I also am devoted to their daughter Karin. I got to know her when she worked with us during my US Senate race in 2002 -- at 19, I think. And, while her help was invaluable then, she has only gotten better as a political strategist and first class computer geek. She now works for MoveOn.org from her house on Munjoy Hill and the work she does has a national and international impact -- changing the world from Portland, Maine -- and to think that I knew her when!

Martha and Mike had invited a mix of their friends and the folks from their neighborhood in Portland. Like all of the house parties I've been to, the atmosphere was relaxed and laid back -- neighbors wandered in, grabbed a cup of coffee, and said hello.

But it didn't take long for the conversation to turn to serious subjects -- the war in Iraq, health care, the future of the economy -- and I could tell from the quality of the questions and comments that the people there had given serious thought to these issues.

Martha made an interesting observation: she said when her friends are together and the talk turns to serious issues, she find that most of them are worrying about the same things and share a sense of urgency that we can't wait any longer to get the country back on the right track.

Now it's off to West Kennebunk and then back to Portland for more events.

But before I go, here's a montage of photos from the party:

The 48-hour weekend of events has launched!

Great turnout for the Open House at campaign headquarters (567 Congress Street in Portland) this evening. Lots of folks, and not only from Portland. Surprisingly, some braved the icy roads and came from as far away as Wells, Rockland -- all around the district. If you weren't able to make it, here are a few pictures from the party. The photo below is a view of the office from outside.

Click here for a slideshow of photos from the party. And below are more photos from the party.

48 hours of fun!

As you probably have heard by now, the Pingree campaign has a jam-packed, fun-filled weekend coming up, starting with the Open House at our campaign headquarters tonight, December 7, from 5:00 to 8:00.

For the next 48 hours, Chellie will be attending an exciting lineup of events in Portland, Kennebunk, and Gorham -- seven in all!

We hope you can come to at least one. Call 773-0155 or go to our Event Center on the website's homepage for details or to RSVP.

But even if you can't be here in person, we'd like to keep you in the loop with a couple of emails and photos sent in by Chellie as she travels from party to party. The first one will come directly from the Open House tonight. We'll be videotaping and photographing -- if you attend, you may find yourself featured in an email or on our website!

Chellie will also be blogging about her travels right here on our Campaign Journal. If you have a chance, check back in over the weekend.

This campaign is about serious issues: solving the health care crisis, ending the Iraq war, confronting our environmental challenges, and restoring Americans' faith in democracy.

But even though we have somber topics to discuss, we can still have a great time together -- as the next 48 hours will show. The community that has grown up around Chellie's campaign is full of energy, enthusiasm, and honest-to-goodness hope; the people who are hosting these campaign parties, this weekend and throughout the campaign, are our friends and neighbors.

So, stay tuned and enjoy -- in your inbox starting this evening, or in person at one or more of the planned events.

The Carters host Chellie in Scarborough

During the beginning of the busy holiday season, Bob and Julie Carter took the time to hold a friendly house party for Chellie at their home in Scarborough. Watch a slideshow of the party.

Check out this new YouTube video

Here's a humorous and effective short video highlighting one of the major differences between Susan Collins and Tom Allen. Pass it on!

Notes from a "biased observer," Hannah Pingree

[Guest blogged by Hannah Pingree, Chellie's daughter]

The Mattsons' house party on Tuesday in Hallowell was another sign that my mom's campaign has enormous support and momentum. All these packed events and motivated grassroots supporters, community leaders, and activists would be a good sign for any campaign. But on a snowy night in central Maine, a packed crowd is a great sign.

Kevin and Jeannie Mattson hosted a wonderful holiday house party for my mom at their home. My sister, Cecily, and I trekked to the very snowy backstreets of Hallowell to support my mom and catch up with her on the campaign trail. The house was packed with neighbors, people who traveled from surrounding communities, and some of my favorite Maine legislators.

About 100 people attended and enjoyed the great food cooked by Erin Dow. Jeannie was most impressive, too! She is due to have a baby in the next month and she worked the crowd and kept the snacks flowing, despite her growing belly! Kevin and Jeannie did a great job bringing together diverse and huge crowd of folks from the capitol area.

I get to speak in public all the time as majority leader of the Maine House, but no matter what, I can't help but get choked up talking about my mom. As her daughter, I am very proud of what she has accomplished on the island (North Haven - where we live), in Augusta as senate majority leader, and in Washington as the president and CEO at Common Cause.

People ask me all the time how I got involved in politics at such a young age. Then of course, later in the conversation, they ask me why on earth I would want to be a politician in these crazy times. The answer to both is simple: I watched my mom.