But my next big thing to do for Reshma 2010 are the community events slated for the final week of the month. I intend to work those four events like a tornado. I am going to be working out plenty leading up to those dates. I want to be in good shape. And by that I mean mood.
Right now Reshma 2010 takes up a lot of my time. It has been a healing experience for me. It feels to me like slowly but surely I am regaining my health, I am regaining my sprint. And a Reshma 2010 victory on September 14 will allow me to pick up where I left off with Barack. June 2008 to August 2010 will have been a long gap, but better late than never. I am beginning to feel the November victory already. A victory in November would be to defy history, but then this dude defied a much bigger history trajectory in November 2008. I see him doing it again. And I intend to play my part.
Reshma 2010 is my on ramp to Obama 2010. Reshma 2010 is going to merge fully with Obama 2010. The national effort is going to become Reshma 2010's primary focus after September 14, because her district is comfortably Democratic. The Republican candidate does not stand a chance. And her national visibility is only going to add to her November inevitability. It is not like her national involvement will come at the expence of her personal chances in November.
But I am a Third World guy, a Global South dude. The political challenge that my heart really, truly aches for is the democracy movement in Iran. I need to do some fundraising to be able to pour myself into that.
I think I left more than 100 voice mails during my Sunday stint at the Reshma 2010 headquarters earlier today. This past week I have been trying to put extra hours into phone calls. I showed up on Tuesday, I showed up on Saturday.
People on the Upper East Side seem to be like me. They don't pick up the phone. They n-e-v-e-r pick up the phone. But I was trying to imagine it was a new voter each time, and so leaving the same voice mail over and over again is still a unique experience each time, but you can take that only so far before your brain goes numb. And I was trying to have fun with the wording of the voice mail. I think the final version went something like this.
"Hi. My name is Paramendra. I was one of Barack Obama's earliest and strongest supporters in New York City. Today I am calling on behalf of Reshma Saujani. Reshma is running for Congress and you can learn more about her at her website online at reshma2010.com, that would be r-e-s-h-m-a-2-0-1-0-dot-com. I strongly urge you to vote for her on September 14 in the Democratic primary. Like I said, Reshma is running for Congress. She is running against Carolyn Maloney. Carolyn Maloney is like Al Sharpton, Reshma Saujani is like Barack Obama. I think you should vote for someone who is like Barack Obama, and that is Reshma. Thank you."
But at some point I ran out of steam for the day. I guess there is a limit to how many voice mails you can leave in one day, in one sitting. After each hour I would get up and go into a corner and do some push ups. To those who looked at me curiously I said, "Making phone calls is a physical act."
Your mouth runs dry, you drink water. You take your restroom breaks. You take a break to go stare at the wall. That is when I found out there are so many community events scheduled for the month.
I am going to drastically cut down on the phone calls now. I am going to focus more on the digital activism part, and the meeting people in person part. Blogging is the big part of my digital activism, but not the only part. And I am really, really looking forward to meeting people in person. Like really.
I think as we move closer to September 14, there are going to be more and more news articles and blog posts about Reshma and my blogging activity is going to have to keep pace with that.
There is this Upper East Side newspaper called Our Town. They had an article a few days back. I replied to it at my blog, and then posted a link to my reply post in the comments section of that article. I see me doing more of that. I might reach more voters that way than by making phone calls.
So today for my phone calls my point person was Paul. Here's my Paul story. In Kentucky once someone asked me,"Can we call you Paul?"
"No, you can't call me Paul," I replied.
I have been showing up for the Reshma events wearing the red, white and blue Reshma 2010 shirt and the rest black. I think I will stick to that until September 14. But there is a dress nazi inside of me that is itching to wear a few different shirts.
I started suspecting during the final week of July that it had been an unusually active month. Yesterday I looked up the archives. My suspicions were confirmed. July 2010 has been the busiest month so far at this blog. That is remarkable because July 2010 has been busier than those long months of 2007 and the first half of 2008 when I was doing a lot for Obama 08.
I died a small death in June 2008. I am the body Reshma 2010 found in the water at the beginning of the first Bourne movie. Slowly but surely I am waking up. My hours into Reshma 2010 are making me do some major rethink in terms of my life and career. I am beginning to find myself. ($35 PC) I am beginning to find my groove.
Reshma 2010 is my on ramp to Obama 2010. The Barack-Hillary tussle was a contest. Either side could have won that one. The Barack-McCain thing was a no contest. Barack was surely going to win that one. But I did very much want to be there for the victory party, for the six month long victory party. Now it is contest time all over again. It is not at all clear which side will win in November. I am with Barack. Completely. Calling the Obama 08 spirits all over again. Wherever you are, wake up. It is time to go marching again.
This is now a Reshma Saujani blog. But I am going to keep the name. I would not want to hurt Barack's feelings.
I hope you are coming, because the last Reshma 2010 office opening party I went to was a total blast. This is party time all over again. We have much to celebrate. You have to celebrate the incredible momentum before you get to celebrate the victory. The victory train is on the way.
Those who have suffered Maloney for 18 years. Help is on the way.
I touched upon some details in this blog post that can disconcert people. But there is a method to the madness. It is a political decision.
Reshma 2010 makes me wants to think of big issues like the mass rapes in Liberia. The Second Avenue subway line is too small an issue by my standards. I want to think about big issues. I want to think about global issues. I feel lucky to be in New York City. Global issues are local to New York City politics. I absolutely love that.
When the democracy movement was ongoing in Burma a few years back, I made a point to read up on the gory details. The regime was killing people in the streets, taking the bodies away, and burning them. I was hungry for all details to do with that.
The issue I think about a lot as I volunteer for Reshma 2010 is that of the global trafficking of women.
Frankly talking about small, unpleasant details from my personal story helps me retain the political boldness to learn up on the gory details of the ugly realities out there that might have political solutions.
Making The Blues Go Away
But my personal pain is real. And I have decided to work extra hard to make it go away, to manage it.
Rigorous socializing. Instead of spending all my time on the phone while in the office, I think I should spend some of my time just shooting the breeze, swapping stories, getting to know the staffers and interns. I have learned many of their names, but I have not gotten to know them well. That is not good.
Rigorous blogging. Blogging is workout for the mind.
The idea is not to make the memories go away, but to train yourself to the point the memories are still there, but they no longer bother you emotionally. The more ambitious thing to do is to turn it all into fuel.
I have thought in terms of writing a very raw 1,000 page autobiography and publishing it online myself. I might do that at some point.
By the time Obama 2008 was claiming the crown in May 2008, the Obama positivity was doing wonderful things for me personally already. I was looking at my 1989 from another angle. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. I never went to Harvard. That makes me one better in the out of the box thinking department.
I have a feeling Reshma 2010 might take me to that state as well. If it does, it is going to feel like reclaiming lost ground.
So far I have refrained from digging into the details of the unfolding Rangel drama. I have not had the interest. I have had better things to do with my time. I noticed there was talk of some kind of a vacation home in the Dominican Republic, but that was in Fall 2008. He finally stepped down from whatever committee he was chairing in the House. Good for him.
Before I look into the details of the more than a dozen allegations against him, to me the political aspect is obvious. If the Rangel drama is going to play out in full view like it looks like is going to, the Dems just made their job of keeping the House that much harder. It was already a tough task to begin with. Why is the New York congressional delegation so intent on depriving my president of a House? This is no uncalled for.
I thought this guy had already announced a year before that he was not going to seek another term in office, he said he was too old. Can't dispute that. But looks like he has changed his mind.
The best thing politically for him and especially the party would have been if he just stepped down from the office. What's the pain in stepping down from an office a few months early?
I don't understand this behavior on the part of pols like Maloney who don't seem much interested in keeping the House for the Dems. Either that or she has a huge political blind spot. Neither look good.
This ethics trial will rob the Dems of much oxygen. They could have been talking about issues instead.
I am in disbelief with the stupidity, the political stupidity.
People like Maloney who feel loyal to Rangel should have been the first to ask him to vacate the premises. Leave office, go into retirement.
Starting from September 15, Reshma 2010 is going to join the national effort to keep the House. But that task just got so much harder. And so now I think I am going to be forced to read up on some of the details. This feels so unnecessary.
If the Rangel drama becomes too much of a distraction, the president should completely cut loose of him. Rangel should not be allowed to take away from Obama's intent to keep the House.
"I think Charlie Rangel served a very long time and served his constituents very well. But these allegations are very troubling. He’s somebody who’s at the end of his career. Eighty years old. I’m sure that what he wants is to be able to end his career with dignity. And my hope is that it happens."
President Barack Obama • Saying that Charlie Rangel should retire and just go away. The House ethics subcommittee has recommended a reprimand for Rangel, which would be light compared to the censure and expulsion he could get. Still, though, Rangel won’t admit his guilt and as a result is making the situation much worse for himself.
I dropped by the Reshma 2010 headquarters earlier in the evening to make some phone calls. Usually I email at least one person in the office about a day before. This time my email went to Art. You are trying to make sure they have a phone for you, and on Sundays I get my own computer, on other days they print out names and phone numbers for me. Making phone calls is a workout experience. (Freehand Exercise: 1,000 Push-Ups, 1,000 Squats, 1,000 Crunches) You get better at it over time. People feel the excitement in your voice and they are more likely to say yes, I am voting for her.
Reshma looked like all dressed up and ready to go and I assumed she must have an event to attend somewhere. You should watch her make some of her phone calls. She really gets into the conversation. She can sound so fresh talking to each voter.
And so I am making all these phone calls after phone calls and an hour into the phone calls I notice a copy of VogueIndia on the desk. Somebody had just come in and I thought maybe they brought that along. What caught my attention was Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai were on the cover of the magazine. A dot com I was part of for a little while in 1999 a year later did an event in NYC, and Aishwarya was the featured person at that event. No, I was not in town at the time. Julia Roberts has called Aishwarya the most beautiful woman in the world. My regard for Abhishek goes via Amitabh Bachchan, my very favorite actor. (Brazil And Argentina: My Choices And Those Of My Favorite Actor) But Abhishek has done some great work in his own right. (Saavn's Great Business Model For Movies)
There is no American equivalent to the Gandhi family of India. There is no American equivalent to Amitabh, although Al Pacino comes close. In terms of what they mean to the Indian imagination.
Ends up Reshma is featured in the same issue of Vogue India, the issue for July. It is a great write up. I kept thinking, we need to scan these three pages and circulate them around.
Some think that if Saujani can win at least 40 percent of the vote against Maloney, then it will unleash a flurry of interest in her kind of insurgent candidate: young, tech-friendly and no enemy of Wall Street.
Only two weeks back I did some momentum talk here, and I noted that Reshma 2010 moved from a 10:1 ratio trailing Maloney in mid May to a 3:1 or a possibly 2:1 ratio by mid July. That was remarkable. I also noted that the momentum was not a line graph but a curve graph. I have been proven right. Now Reshma 2010, barely two weeks later, stands at 60:40. The curve gets even steeper with every passing week. We got six full weeks.
With this new number, I can see a debate happening some time in August, or maybe even two. Maloney's political consultants are going to crunch these numbers and they are going to say, this race is competitive now, we can't afford to not debate, no longer. At 70-7, debating is a mistake, at 60-40, not debating is a mistake. This Reshma person can no longer be ignored.
Ask anyone on Wall Street to host a fundraiser for a Democrat in New York these days, expect a blank stare. Ask any Democrat to accept a donation from someone working for a bank, investment firm or hedge fund, and expect the same reaction....... They wonder if some Democrats really understand how easy it would be for them to move their firms to friendlier shores, knowing they (or at least the disproportionate 30 percent of the state’s tax revenues they produce) would be missed..... the financial industry has so far this cycle contributed $84.5 million to Democratic candidates, down from $241.7 million the last time around—a 65-percent drop-off largely from disenchanted New York donors. ...... wonders if the government realizes how transportable his business is, or how overly reliant the state is on Wall Street revenues. Because the financial services industry votes too ...... “I think maybe it’s gone too far, the demonizing.” ..... Andrew Cuomo managed to raise an impressive $23.6 million with the help of some very generous people on Wall Street ...... the complex relationship that exists between Wall Street and the Democrats. ...... Cuomo, like practically every elected official in New York, believes he has been successful in balancing his approach to Wall Street, and put some distance between his campaign and the anti-Wall Street mood of many of his fellow New York Democrats. ........ Bankers like to back winners, and in New York, the winners tend to be Democrats. ....... Washington and Wall Street both should temper their expectations of each other. ...... “There’s a reason for frustration on both sides,” Wylde said. “There hasn’t been as much rational dialogue, conversation. There’s tended to be more demonizing on both sides. A lot of the business community feels poorly served by Washington. On the other hand, Washington is suffering under the anger of the whole country that they allowed Wall Street to go too far.” .... Bloomberg’s warning of a mass exodus that would destroy the city and state
Wall Street has been reformed. That reform was so very necessary. It was not a perfect reform bill, but it was a good one. And we can build upon its success to enact further reforms, some of which Reshma has pointed out.
What has not been reformed yet is Congress. It was Congress that made Wall Street bad behavior possible. We take a step in the direction of reforming Congress when we ditch Maloney on September 14.
Despite all the demonization and the lies spread by the Maloney camp, Reshma Saujani has strong credentials when it comes to Wall Street. (Barack Obama: The NRA's Candidate)
She has not taken a dime in Wall Street PAC money. That makes Reshma 2010 like Obama 2008.
She has been for Wall Street Reform. After Obama signed the Wall Street Reform Bill, I read the statements by Maloney and Reshma. Maloney is like, and yes, I said hello to Barney, and I winked at Pelosi when I saw her pass down the hallway. Her entire statement is full of such name droppings. Whereas Reshma's statement praises the bill and calmly points out the weaknesses in the bill that will have to be looked into during next attempt. Reshma knows her patient, Maloney does not. Maloney is all fluff.
Reshma has exhibited remarkable integrity in not riding the Demonize Wall Street bandwagon. It would have been the easiest thing to do this year. This show of integrity will put her in a good place when it is time to mend the frayed relationship between Main Street and Wall Street.
We have been in the water collecting part since Fall 2009. Those 14 days will be when the surge happens, I think. I am hoping Maloney agrees to at least one debate in August, sooner the better, but I am not counting on it. She can't do zero debates but I think she will do one as late as possible, likely week one in August. And we will have our five minutes at the September NY Tech MeetUp, first Tuesday. That is 800 plus young professionals. That could create a social media frenzy for us. Just what we need.
Those 14 days we are going to have reverse problems/challenges to what we have had so far. What do we do with all this media attention? What do we do with all these new volunteers that keep showing up at the office and getting in our way? What do we do with all this new money people are donating online? We can't save any of it for post September 14. How do we spend fast? Maloney just came out saying she wants a second debate. What now? Nancy Pelosi is on the phone. I can see Barack Obama calling up during the days after September 14, or as early as September 15.
Pollsters don't talk to the 18-38 crowd. They are the cellphones only crowd. And they do very little voice on those phones anyways. That's our surge crowd. That's women who want to be able to take equality for granted and men who get physically uncomfortable around sexist jokes. It is about The New Woman. It is about a new generation. This generation helped Obama get power. This generation is at some point going to want to get power for itself. And that starts now.
I expect us to ride a steep curve those two weeks. Now is the time to prepare.
I experimented with two hours of phone calls earlier in the evening. Early evening on a week day truly is the best time to be making phone calls. But only slightly better. My conclusion is that all times are good. You can't be calling too early or too late at night. But other than that.
And so I have a new appreciation for my first choice: Sunday afternoons. Best would be to do both, but if I could do only one, it would be Sunday afternoons.
I have learned it is important to leave full voice mails. For most voters that call might be the one live interaction they had with the campaign before they showed up to vote.
Phone calls can't be the only thing you are doing, but they are a very important thing to be doing. And you can make phone calls every day. I think you can make 50 phone calls per hour. 10 people doing that for five hours is 2500 calls.
You talk to a few strong supporters and they make up for all those people who did not pick up the phone.
One guy I talked to, all he wanted to know was if Reshma was running against Maloney. In that case I am voting for her, he said. Another woman, when I asked her what issues she was interested in, she listed them all and said, aren't we all? I said, no. Most people are not.
Sample voice mail: "Hi, this was calling on behalf of Reshma Saujani. Reshma is running for Congress. You can learn more about her at her website at reshma2010.com. That would be r-e-s-h-m-a-2-0-1-0-dot-com. And please vote for her on September 14."
Dress Code
I got two more Reshma 2010 shirts. Now I have three. I think I am going to wear them a whole lot. Black shoes, black pants, black jacket, and the red, white and blue Reshma 2010 shirt. Actually I think I am going to wear them every time I show up at the Reshma 2010 headquarters, every time I show up for a Reshma 2010 event leading to September 14.
After some trial and error, I got a dress code now. I am all set.
Tomorrow I am going to a tech event in Dumbo. I think I am going to show up in my Reshma 2010 dress code.
A Marathon Race
A congressional campaign is a marathon race. Got to pace yourself.
We got a great candidate, a great staff, great momentum. We are on our way.
I showed up for the Clean Tech event with an open, blank mind: Reshma 2010 Clean Tech Event July 27 Tuesday. Blank because I did not know much about clean tech at all. I had a few ideas, I could say a few buzz words, I could draw a few outlines. There is a slope: tech as in internet tech, then clean tech, then bio tech, I know the least about nano tech. If the next Reshma 2010 event is going to be on bio tech, I am going to spend a good few hours doing some serious reading online. I am going to do some homework.
It was that feeling that led me to ask the question I asked.
"I showed up for this event not knowing much about clean tech at all and so this has been a wonderful experience. It is so obvious Clean Tech is going to be a major source of much needed jobs for this city, this country, this world. But those jobs will not get created if certain political decisions are not made and those decisions will not get made if the politicians don't feel the pressure and the politicians will not feel the pressure if the voters, the citizens are not actively involved in the conversation, the discussion, and debate around clean tech, and a great way to do that would be to have Reshma Saujani and Carolyn Maloney do a debate on TV exclusively about clean tech, but I don't see that happening. Why are Reshma Saujani and Carolyn Maloney not debating clean tech on TV?"
The moderator looks at me and he gives me a perplexed look for about two seconds. This guy looks Indian, but he is all hostile to Reshma. He does not seem to realize Reshma is not the reason the debate is not taking place. Someone needs to point out he is knocking on the wrong door. And so he says, "You need to take that question to Carol!"
The moderator started out saying he was Australian and that "American politics is baffling to me." If American politics is baffling to him, he should take a crack at Indian politics. JFK's ambassador to IndiaJohn Kenneth Galbraith, well esteemed in the intellectual circles of this country, went on record about "the imponderables of Indian politics."
The panel was a huge one. It could barely fit. It was an impressive panel. The flyer had details on each company and participating organization. I wish I had an electronic version so I could publish it at this blog. I might still type it out and publish the introductory paragraphs on the various companies and organizations that participated.
Off the bat the company that most fascinated me was Bodega Algae. It is "a developer of scalable algae photobioreactors. The closed continuous-flow reactors produce high-energy algal biomass for use in the production of biofuel."
I briefly got to talk to the Bodega representative, a MIT PhD, after the formal program was over. I told her how her company stood out for me of all companies on the list. And she shared some more info. One thing she shared alarmed me. The thinking in the energy industry seems to be that big oil names like Exxon will do biofuel as well because they have the distribution infrastructure. That was alarming to me. That would be like saying Google should have happened under Microsoft and Facebook should have happened under Google. That would totally stifle innovation. The thing to do is to make Exxon share their distribution infrastructure by law.
The political highlight of the event for me though happened before the formal program began. A Sara (not real name) walked over to me while I was talking to another Reshma 2010 intern that I had met once before. She introduced me as a "huge fan of your blog." She said she was a Reshma 2010 intern.
Sara is going to be a senior at high school soon. She said she lived on "the north side of town." I hope that means Upper East Side and not Westchester. The way she presented herself made me think she alone could deliver 50 votes. When I am talking about Reshma Saujani as The New Woman (Reshma Saujani: Top 10 Women To Watch In America), I am thinking about women like Sara.
She asked me if I would do a blog post on her. I hereby pledge to do a blog post on every Reshma 2010 intern and staffer who might express interest. All you have to do is schedule to sit down with me for an hour long interview at the Reshma 2010 headquarters, and let me take a few pictures of you with the others in the room. I like to take a few different pictures and then put them together as collages. That's my style.
I asked her about college applications and where she might want to go. She said she had visited Stanford.
"Me too. It is such a pretty campus," I said.
Sara told me she looked at both the Maloney and the Reshma campaigns before deciding on the Reshma campaign as the one she wanted to intern for. That is a good sign.
Also if high school students are reading my blog, I think I need to be more careful in terms of what I put out. I did not realize.
I have come to realize Sunday afternoons are perhaps not the best time to be making phone calls to voters. I asked Paul last Sunday and he suggested the best time might be weekdays from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM.
My current professional status is that I am a pro blogger. Every day is like every other day to me. I could show up on a Sunday, or a Wednesday.
I got to meet a whole bunch of people, one of them was an Ashish. He said he was a friend of Reshma. You look familiar, I said. I think I might have seen him at the last Reshma 2010 tech event. I asked about his background.
"India."
"Where in India?"
"Jamshedpur."
"They broke up Bihar against my wishes, but that makes you the sixth Bihari I have met in America."
"I am a Punjabi."
"I once got an email from a Punjabi who thought I was one. Paramendra can sound like Parmendar." (Bhangra, Cricket: Exotic To Me)
And Bhagat can sound like Bhagat Singh.
"I came to America when I was nine months old."
That was one remarkable nine month old, I thought.
I aimlessly walked out after the event was over. After whiling away in Union Square I decided to walk over towards Times Square. Up on Ninth Avenue I decide to go over to Central Park. It is amazing to me how well lit all parts of Central Park can be at night. That is a Third World perspective for you. I decided to go in for a walk. I stayed by the big road. That is another Third World perspective for you. Deep inside I came across two Chinese looking guys who asked which way to Fifth Avenue.
"I have no idea where I am at right now, or I could tell you," I said. Then I spotted the two two dimensional buildings of Columbus Circle and told them which way.
Deep in thought, I missed the 14th Street stop for change of train two times.
By the time I got home it was past midnight. My Harvard Law School graduate roomie had already called it a day. The dude shares a few other traits with Barack: he is black.
"See you soon" was Reshma's greeting to me towards the end of the event.
You bet. That might be as early as Wednesday evening.
