Received this e-mail today from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee regarding their efforts to draft former Governor Brian Schweitzer (D. MT) to run for retiring Senator Max Baucus' (D. MT) seat:
The Draft Brian Schweitzer movement has had amazing momentum in Montana and nationwide! We are over 16,000 strong and have raised over $29,000 that Brian will receive on Day 1, so he can hit the ground running.
Now we're planning on hiring Mark Bond, a local Montana organizer, to take our Draft Schweitzer campaign to the next level. Mark will work with Montana supporters to organize the first round of Draft Schweitzer house parties and show Brian how much support he'll have if he runs.
We need your help to make this happen. Please chip in $3 (or more) to help us raise $10,000 so that we can hire Mark for the next two months and fund on our first round of house parties:
https://secure.actblue.com/...
Mark knows his way around Montana. He's organized young people across the state, and we know he will use his skills and contacts to help run a top-notch Draft Schweitzer grassroots campaign.
We're also excited to announce that the latest polls show Brian Schweitzer in the lead against his three potential Republican challengers!
Please show your enthusiasm for Brian in the NBC Montana and Bozeman Daily Chronicle polls asking who you would back in a hypothetical Montana Senate race. By showing your support in these polls, you'll help build publicity for Brian and make sure he knows that we want him to run.
NBC Montana: http://www.nbcmontana.com/
Bozeman Daily Chronicle:
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/...
Thanks for being a bold progressive.
-- Amanda Johnson, Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Anton Medvedev, and the PCCC team
Click here if you would like to donate to PCCC's campaign:
https://secure.actblue.com/...
And please do vote in the polls to show your support for a Brian Schweitzer Senate run:
NBC Montana: http://www.nbcmontana.com/
Bozeman Daily Chronicle:
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/...
By the way, Adam Green of PCCC gave 10 awesome reasons to support Schweitzer if he chooses to run for Senate:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
1. He Unequivocally Endorses Medicare-for-All, Single Payer: Schweitzer is an advocate of expanding Medicare to all Americans, and even sought a waiver from the Affordable Care Act to allow his own state to pursue single payer. Schweitzer explained his support for Canadian-style single payer health care like so: "Imagine if you went to a gas station, and you looked over at a car with a Canadian license plate. They were paying $1 a gallon for gas, and you're paying $2. Wouldn't that make you mad? That's exactly what's happening. I'm mad for all the people in the country."
2. He Calls Out Corporate Control of Our Government -- And Fights It: In an interview last year, Schweitzer said that "corporations are controlling not just our governments but our everyday lives." How many Democrats are willing to state that truth? Schweitzer also has blasted Citizens United, supports a constitutional amendment to ban corporate money, and is especially passionate about this issue since the Supreme Court struck down Montana's ban on corporate money in elections.
3. He Stands Up to Big Drug Companies: Schweitzer sought a waiver from federal law to allow Montanans to buy cheaper pharmaceutical drugs from Canada. Big Pharma lobbying has made it illegal for Americans to buy this cheaper medicine from our neighbors to the north. It takes guts to stand up to an industry that spent over $200 million lobbying and $25 million in campaign contributions last year.
4. He Wants to Return to The Era of Trust-Busting: In an interview last year, Schweitzer told a journalist that one of his political icons is Teddy Roosevelt, because he "took on the trusts." How many other Democrats would blatantly say we need to get back to busting up big corporate monopolies? Senator Schweitzer would help progressives take on the modern day trusts: cable companies, Internet companies, media conglomerates, and the big Wall Street banks.
5. He Won't "Cower" in Front of the Military-Industrial Complex: He told a journalist last year that one of his political icons is the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), because Wellstone wouldn't "line up and cower behind the curtains of big insurance and the military-industrial complex because of their huge campaign contributions."
6. He'll Stand Up to "Oil Wars": In 2011, while President Obama was still prosecuting his troops surge, Schweitzer called on him to withdraw from Afghanistan. He was also a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq, and said in 2012, "Having been to four dozen funerals for men of Montana who effectively fought an oil-well war to protect profits for multinational oil companies and petro-dictators, I want it to stop, I don't want another generation to fight an oil war."
7. During Crisis, He Holds Corporate Bad Actors Accountable: When ExxonMobil had a spill in the Yellowstone River, Schweitzer made sure were held accountable. "The clean up will be done when the state of Montana, the people of Montana, and the wildlife of Montana in that Yellowstone River decide that the cleanup is done. It won't be decided by ExxonMobil and it won't be decided by bureaucrats in Washington D.C.. When we decide the clean up is done it's done," he told Rachel Maddow. When the company refused to be transparent about the cleanup, he cut state ties to ExxonMobil's command post.
8. He Is a Proud Civil Libertarian: Schweitzer signed into law a measure from the legislature objecting to the USA PATRIOT Act. He also won praise from the ACLU for rejecting the federal REAL ID program, which would've required states to share sensitive data with Washington for a national ID card program -- not surprisingly data companies like Digimarc spent $350,000 over six months to get Congress to back the program. Additionally, Schweitzer signed into law the state's first state-wide public defender program, ensuring that no one would be denied representation in the courts based on their ability to hire a lawyer.
9. He Supports Fair Trade: Schweitzer's views on trade are in sync with labor unions, environmentalists, and human rights activists. "I was a critic of NAFTA, I was a critic of CAFTA and I'll be a critic of Shafta," he told the New York Times. Recall that Corporate America has lobbied for these agreements -- they spent $25 million on lobbying to pass NAFTA -- and uses them to skirt environmental and labor regulations.
10. He Believes in Unions: While many governors and city officials were clashing with labor unions, Schweitzer believes in working with them. While Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) was crushing collective bargaining rights, Schweitzer offered a defense of unions during an appearance on PBS, saying, "Every individual worker can go to their boss and negotiate any kind of deal that they want. That's what collective bargaining is all about, so that a group of people collectively have some clout. Otherwise, one by one, you could send people down the road. If they say to you, well, I'm looking for a little bit more benefit, they say, well, then you can hit the -- hit the road, Jack." He backed up his words with actions, opening up a state employee health clinic, pushing for a pay increase for state workers, and holding pro-union rallies at the capitol. - Huffington Post, 4/26/13
Hopefully come 2015, I hope to see this image in the U.S. Senate: