Changing America one election at a time.

Hello everyone,
Are you ready for a new campaign season? Yes, it’s time to start thinking about what races NDFA will be interested for 2012 … because the Illinois 2012 primary is in March, only nine months away, and for federal races, that’s almost no time at all. Are we ready for another election?

Next Monday, May 2, is our monthly meeting, and the topic will be “Looking forward to 2012.” We’ll meet at the Heartland Café again this month (7000 North Glenwood Avenue, just across the street from the Lunt exit at the Morse El stop on the Red Line) for Buffet dinner at 6 pm ($15) if you care to socialize a bit beforehand, while the actual meeting will start at 7 pm. We have three topics of conversation for this month’s meeting:

1) Ilya Sheyman, candidate for Congress in the 10th Congressional District (or at least, what is now the 10th Congressional District) will speak about his run to unseat freshman Republican Bob Dold http://www.ilyasheyman.com/

2) Theresa Mah will speak about the redistricting process here in Illinois

3) Mike Wood will give an update on our plans for the DFA Campaign Academy June 11-12: three of our successful candidates in the last election had attended a DFA Campaign Academy prior to their runs – it’s a good way to learn about campaigns whether you intend to run or want to be a more knowledgeable and involved volunteer. And ….Governor Howard Dean will address the training on Saturday afternoon.

Please plan to join us for what will be a very interesting meeting.

One last thing: here is a corrected link from last night’s email regarding signing up for the DFA Campaign Academy: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/chicago2011 In attempting to change the name of the link at the last minute, we inadvertently broke it. Our apologies for any frustration that occurred due to the broken link.

Yes, the Campaign Academy is at the UAW Hall in Lincolnshire … but it is also accessible via Metra from downtown Chicago. There are discount rates for students and low income attendees; and there will be a few scholarships available. The goal is to train as many activists as possible: so please encourage all to sign up! We’ll have many hot races here in Illinois, so the more we have good, trained people to work on campaigns, the more likely we’ll win more races. And as we’ve learned in the past election cycle, winning is more fun – and the only way we’ll see change happen.

Hope to see you Monday!