Changing America one election at a time.

Plan to join us next Tuesday is our monthly meeting: we’re looking forward to talking with Aldermen John Arena, Scott Waguespack, and Michele Smith on City Issues - and there are so many, aren’t there? From parking meters raising their ugly heads again, to CPS, to CTA concerns, to crime, to budget priorities, and on and on.

Four NDFA’ers are applying for DFA scholarships to Netroots Nation in San Diego this June. Could you take a moment to vote for us? You can vote for as many people as you like, but only once for each person BY MAY 7. Four clicks is what we ask:

Nate Lefebvre (NDFA Steering Committee):
http://nn13.democracyforamerica.com/applicants/227

Carl Nyberg (NDFA Steering Committee):
http://nn13.democracyforamerica.com/applicants/393

Ed Mullen (past Chair of NDFA):
http://nn13.democracyforamerica.com/applicants/61

Melissa Lindberg (Chair, NDFA):

Two events to let you know about:

This Sunday is our NDFA Action Day for Greg Hosé : we’ll be car pooling out to Downer’s Grove to knock doors. We’ll meet at noon in the parking lot of the Pier One at Broadway and Berwyn. Please let me know if you can make it – see the RSVP button to the right.

Today is the Rally and March to Stop the CPS School Closings: come join us at 4 pm at Daley Plaza. It counts for voting member credit: report your attendance to northsideDFA@gmail.com. NDFA folks will try to meet up by the white sculpture in the Thompson Center plaza: join us there or as we march later. As one member said, hopefully there will be so many people there we won’t be able to find each other!

Next, we are going out to Downer’s Grove this Saturday, March 30 to work for Greg Hosé -- we’ll meet at noon at the parking lot at Pier One (Broadway and Berwyn) to car pool out. Please RSVP to this and let me know whether you will be able to attend, and if you are a driver or a passenger.

Robin Kelly’s campaign is looking for folks to do virtual phone banking: if you have some time to do calls for her, please contact the campaign at 708.320.9305 or via email at info@robinkellyforcongress.com to get that set up.

Today the school closing list came out, and it is devastating for many kids, parents, teachers, and neighborhoods across our city. Once again, the powers-that-be have managed to ignore every bit of community input, and gone ahead and pushed forward with their plans – because they know best. Or something.

Do we get discouraged when this happens? When our so-called leaders ignore us? No, we do not. No, we stand up and organize. We keep fighting, and keep working to advance our own leaders – the ones who listen to people, and don’t go into projects with their minds made up as to what the outcome will be.

With that in mind, there is a lot to do.

Reminder: tonight is our forum on CPS school closings – the wholesale closings the Board of Education is proposing this year. Please join us to discuss this very important topic. Panelists will include Alderman Ameya Pawar, Wendy Kattan from Raise Your Hand, and Martin Ritter from the CTU – it should be a good, informative discussion with folks who care passionately about this issue. It’s at 6:30 pm at the Sulzer Regional Library, 4455 N. Lincoln Ave.

Also, at the last meeting, we voted to adopt Greg Hose (running for village trustee in Downer’s Grove) and endorse Jesse Martinez (running for mayor of Melrose Park). Voting members – who got a separate email – have until Wednesday evening to vote on endorsing Gary Gaspard for Evanston Township Supervisor. There will be another email later this week with details on events for Greg and Robin: the general election is three weeks away, and it’s time to get out and inspire people to get out and vote.

We have a very exciting meeting coming up: Robin Kelly, fresh off her win in the 2nd Congressional District, will join us. We’ll also share some “war stories” about the work we did in the district for the primary: sharing campaign stories is always a good time.

Also, we’ll have Jeff Orcutt from CityBloc talk about this new website What is CityBloc? “CityBloc is a citywide non-profit group uniquely dedicated to marrying technology with grassroots organizing efforts in Chicago communities. The first-of-its-kind, the group aims to be a vehicle for social change by more effectively building connections, knowledge and collaboration between people and neighborhoods. The intent is that this will result in increased offline action towards greater community accountability from Chicago’s public officials, policy makers, corporations, and the media.”

Congratulations to all who worked and/or donated money to Robin Kelly: this was a good win. Though Bloomberg’s TV ads will be given credit for this win – and hey, look at what spending money to counter the NRA’s arguments can do – it was also all the volunteers and small donors who pushed this election way over the edge. Money is helpful, but it can’t do everything – just look at the failures of the Republican money machine in the last election. It also takes hard work and a great deal of people power – and it was Robin’s superior volunteer-based effort that really delivered the win for her. Kudos to her campaign staff for recognizing that even with a PAC spending money on TV highlighting one of your candidate’s targeted issues, it takes a strong field operation to get out your voters – especially in a low-turnout election in the middle of some very nasty weather.

Robin Kelly has had a great week since we endorsed her: coincidence? (um, yes, probably: much more likely she had a great week because she’s got a great team in place – as they say, you make your own luck).

Time to do what we do best: get out and work to make sure that the next week is as great for her as the last, and that she wins in the one place it matters – at the polls.

We have two outings planned for this weekend:

Saturday, February 23
11:30 am
Meet at Pier One, Broadway and Berwyn to car pool
Canvas/Phone Bank in the Tenth Ward
Office: 3524 E. 106th St, Chicago - 10th Ward Office

Sunday, February 24
Noon
Meet at Pier One, Broadway and Berwyn to car pool
Canvas/Phone Bank in the Tenth Ward
3524 E. 106th St, Chicago - 10th Ward Office

The campaign will also need volunteers on Election Day: we’ll have more information later in the week.

Please let us know if you plan to come with us by completing this simple, short form:

At our meeting on Tuesday, we voted to adopt Robin Kelly in the race in the 2nd Congressional District. As you no doubt know, the time table for this election is very tight: in fact, the primary is on February 26 – little more than a week away. We have two weekends to help out.

We’ll be focusing our efforts on Get-Out-The-Vote weekend, but for this weekend there is an event we wanted to let you know about.

Event: Knockin' with Robin
When: 12:00pm-5pm
Where: 3707 Sauk Trail, Richton Park

“Come join Robin Kelly this Saturday at Noon for door knocking and phone calling to the voters in the 2nd Congressional District. This is going to be an election that is won because of grassroots support and talking to voters 1 on 1.”

The office is near a Metra stop on the Metra Electric line to University Park, so you can get there by public transportation.