Dispatch from Minnesota
Posted in News Clips on July 23rd, 2008
Last week, a reporter from The Nation spent a day shadowing Al and learned quite a bit about Minnesota politics and our U.S. Senate race along the way – everything from the inspiration of Sen. Wellstone to the amazing DFL caucus turn-out this year to our campaign’s experience in “happy problems” (such as having to move into a bigger space to fit all of our fantastic and
dedicated volunteers).
From his post on “The Nation” website:
In the last fundraising quarter, Franken raised just over $2 million, the same as Coleman. Altogether, the Franken campaign has raised more than $11 million, with $4.2 million currently in the bank to Coleman’s $7.2 million. But Coleman’s burn rate is increasing, while Franken’s is slowing way down, now that his campaign infrastructure is in place and humming.
Coffer numbers only paint part of the picture. The Franken campaign has a secret weapon in the form of a massive advantage in volunteer effort and energy that first became apparent last winter. DFL leaders were shocked in February when 215,000 people showed up for the state’s presidential caucus, nearly four times the usual number, more than half of whom were first time voters. “There were people voting on post-it notes and voting on lawns because there was no room in the buildings,” says Andy Barr, Franken’s spokesperson.
Enthusiasm for Barack Obama finds a down-ticket corollary in Franken’s Senate bid. As soon as Franken announced his candidacy 4,500 volunteers signed up; fifty now volunteer full-time. “We had to move from the four-room Air America offices to general election headquarters a year early,” says Jess Macintosh, Franken’s press secretary. “So many people were coming to the house parties that Al was having to repeat speeches.” The overwhelming influx of people and checks led the nascent campaign to invent the term “happy problems” to describe situations that they didn’t expect to deal with. One “happy problem” was ventilation. When the campaign hosted an open house to raise money for the new headquarters, so many people crowded into a volunteer’s home that a sauna was created. “It was literally raining inside the house,” says McIntosh.
…
“The enduring legacy of Paul is that he showed us how to run a grassroots campaign that was brave and didn’t back down,” says Andy Barr, Franken’s spokesman. “He taught a generation of Minnesotans how to win as strong progressives. Which is exactly what we plan to do in November.”
