Hosted by the Reshma for Congress Innovation Advisory Board
Moderator:
Jonathan McClelland, Director of MJ Beck Consulting; President of the NY Association of Energy Economists
Confirmed Panelists:
Evan Conley, Business Development Director of Rentricity
John Humphrey, President of Sollega
Micah Kotch, Director of Operations, NYC ACRE (Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy) at Polytechnic Institute of NYU
Carl Liggio, Managing Partner at Pharos Enterprise Intelligence, LLC; formerly Director of Commercial Strategy and Alternative Energy Programs at US Power Gen
Amanda Parkes, Bodega Algae
John Reese, SVP, US Power Gen; formerly Sr Policy Advisor at NYS Public Service Commission; formerly VP Government/Regulatory Affairs at Reliant Energy
Tom Scaramellino, CEO of Efficiency 2.0
Reshma Saujani, Democratic Candidate for Congress (NY-14)
Mei Shibata, Co-Founder at ThinkEco Inc.
WHEN
July 27, 2010 at 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
WHERE
Buzzd HQ
833 Broadway
Floor 3
New York, NY 10003
I was not even aware. I just happened by my personal dashboard on the Reshma 2010 website in the course of gathering info for the clean tech event Tuesday, and I saw for the first time that I had recruited 60 people to the cause. Heck, I am impressed. Looks like I can do more for Reshma 2010 by blogging than by making phone calls or knocking doors, all of which are important. All these recruits recruited themselves. They must have come to my blog and signed up on their own. I did not actively solicit, although I do recognize some friends on the list.
60 supporters
4 volunteers
2 donors
2-31 potential voters
I am impressed with myself. What can I say?
This blog does well when you do a search on the Reshma Saujani name. I hope I can send more supporters the campaign's way as we move closer and closer to September 14 and more and more people conduct searches on her name online.
The biggest catch has got to be Sree Srinivasan, who is the most networked Desi in New York City that I know of. Having Sree on board is a big deal, but not at all surprising. He is going to bring many, many others on board.
Reshma Saujani has no plans to run for Speaker when she enters the House this fall, or at least not that I am aware of. After Reshma wins the Democratic primary on September 14, her total focus is going to be on Obama's national effort to keep the House and the Senate. Here in New York City we only have primary elections, the general election is a mere formality. We are not going to take the November election for granted, but we expect to be comfortable enough to make a serious contribution to the national effort.
If you missed out on her fundraising firestorms during Kerry 2004, Hillary 2008 and Reshma 2010 so far, you should check her out then. You will not know what to do with all the money she will raise for the national effort.
Before word gets out - and word does get out fast in this information age of ours - that I put out a blog post comparing Al Sharpton to Carolyn Maloney, (Carolyn Maloney: The Al Sharpton Of Gender Relations) and somebody prints out the post and hands it over to Al Sharpton and Al Sharpton gets all offended, I wanted to put out a new post making it absolutely clear that I admire Al Sharpton, I always have.
Reverend - he is one, is he not; I don't want to be seen confusing him with Jesse Jackson (I am not one of those who don't know Africa is not a country) who I have been honored to meet in person (I have seen Sharpton in person although never got a chance to shake his hand) - Sharpton is a pretty cool guy, if you think about it. (Jesse Jackson On Martin Luther King Boulevard)
When I got to see him up close, I remember thinking, I am not sure I want that on my head, but the guy sure has fancy hair.
He ran for president four years before Obama did. People say Jesse Jackson running for president paved the way for Obama. But those people forget that Sharpton also helped pave the way. Granted Jackson is bigger than Sharpton - one is like Gandhi, another like Nehru - but that does not make Sharpton insignificant by comparison. He does deserve a small mention.
When Sharpton ran for president, he was often considered the most articulate of all candidates. What failed his talents was a lack of field organization, a lesson Obama totally took to heart four years later. Would you dispute that?
Sharpton is a go to guy. People who run for office in this town routinely seek out his advice, especially on issues of race relations, but also on bread and butter issues in general.
He has had a political career, he is one of the most well known community activists across the country, and I think he also owns a radio station, which would make him a media guy. I know about that radio station part because Hillary would call in asking for his support when she was running for president and the Reverend would tactfully tell her he was still studying the candidates and weighing his options. That is how I knew he was secretly on our side. That was a time when blacks across the city and the country were falling like flies into the Clinton camp giving us Obama people the scare: if Barack can't even get black people, how will he get white people? Al Sharpton displayed much grace under that pressure. At some level I feel about him the way I feel about Caroline Kennedy. They were there for us Barack people when it counted.
I remember, my candidate Obama showed up for an event in Harlem at the Apollo Theater in Fall 2007. He had dinner with the decidedly neutral Sharpton who after that dinner told the press people, "This black brother eats soul food. How bad can he be?" I could not have come up with that quote if I tried.
Once in a while the Reverend is known to get agitated, but you would too if you had been black in America the past so many decades. We all have a little steam to blow.
He is one of the few liberals known to always be ready to debate Bill O'Reilly. That is a positive quality.
