Dear Friends and Neighbors:
Rabbi Foster is retiring as chief Rabbi at Temple Emanuel. Andrew Romanoff and I went to one of several events honoring him and his wife, Senator Joyce Foster, for their many years of service to the community. When we got there a staff person from Temple asked us if we would like to make a few comments. Even though we hadn’t prepared anything, we both agreed.
When Andrew spoke he said, “It is a great pleasure to be here to honor Rabbi and Senator Foster.” Then he paused for a second, “’The Rabbi and the Senator.’ It sounds like a novel. There could be a whole series, ‘The Cantor and the Congressman,’ or… the ‘Mayor and the Mohel.’”
(Pronounced “moil.” A mohel does the circumcision at the religious ceremony called a “Bris.”)
Stan Garnett for Attorney General: Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett is running for Attorney General on the Democratic ticket. When our current Attorney General joined a lawsuit opposing health care reform many thought that this was politics not policy, and unworthy of someone holding that office. Like Andrew Romanoff, Stan isn’t accepting contributions from special interest political action committees. Since I think the way we finance campaigns is nothing short of the buying and selling of influence at our expense, I tend to be very supportive of candidates who make the decision to forego this method of financing their efforts.
I would encourage you to help these candidates. It isn’t someone else’s job to clean up politics. It is ours. Here are links.
Help Maureen: This doesn’t cost any money. Maureen Beach was one of my staff when I organized the Colorado Walk in favor of Referendum C. She has gone on to bigger and better things. She now is on the staff of the Majority Leader in the US House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer. She called the other day.
She has organized a competition among members of Congress to have them increase their social network contacts. This is a good thing. Members of Congress do a better job when they hear from constituents and well-informed constituents are better partners in democracy.
So go to Facebook.com, Twitter.com, and Youtube.com and sign up with whoever your Congressperson is. Ultimately communication over the internet will be one of the ways we free ourselves from big money election campaigns financed by special interests buying power and influence.
Also sign up for Steny Hoyer’s communications when you go to those sites. He is the Majority Leader and will give you an overall perspective.
Last thing: It has been a frustration to me for years that Americans seem to feel that participating in our democracy is someone else’s job. I believe that Americans value our democracy, yet the percent of people who can name the people that represent them or tell you where their Representatives stand on issues is very small. The internet can have a democratizing effect. It can allow us to communicate with each other without having to raise unconscionable amounts of money for television ads. If you have ideas about how to use the internet for political campaigns I would be glad to hear them. In my next email I will share some of the ideas I get from you.
As always don't hesitate to write back with comments or questions. Also feel free to forward this email to your friends or family.
I hope you are doing well.
Sincerely,
Ken Gordon
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