Subject: FYI- we are talking to Steve- HE is ready to go and work with both US and AV
From: "Amy Dacey" <[email-masked]>
To: "John Stocks" <[email-masked]>, "John Podesta" <[email-masked]>, "Anna Burger" <[email-masked]>, "Robert McKay" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:21:57 -0400

Pro-Obama group defying Obama, staying in business

Steve Phillips, whose California-based pro-Obama
PowerPAC.org<http://www.powerpac.org/>backed the Illinois Senator with
paid media and minority voting drives in
the primaries, writes on Huffington
Post<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-phillips/seizing-the-time-the-role_b_107490.html>that
independent groups will continue to play a major role on the
Democratic
side of the campaign.

That's in spite of the directives out of Chicago that donors should give
their money to the campaign and the DNC, which have essentially shut down
other groups after Obama donors closed their checkbooks.

But Phillips -- the son-in-law of the Democratic mega-donor Sandler family
-- says he expects $100 million to be spent by existing outside advocacy
groups and by his own organization this cycle. Notably, this spending seems
to be focused largely on turnout, which may pose less of a threat to Obama's
stress on controlling his message than would TV ads.

He writes:

Contrary to earlier reports about the demise of independent efforts this
cycle, the work in 2008 will be robust, vibrant, and more coordinated than
ever before. In 2008, the progressive movement is taking on an unprecedented
collaboration of grassroots groups to raise $100 million that will mobilize
millions of new voters and engage them in effective organizations that will
be around long after November 4....

Through an effort dubbed the Jimmie Lee Jackson Project, PowerPAC will
collaborate with groups like the NAACP, National Coalition on Black Civic
Participation, the Pushback Network, and others to coordinate non-partisan
registration, education, and mobilization efforts of African American voters
during the General Election. Jimmie Lee Jackson was a 24-year-old civil
rights demonstrator whose death at the hands of Alabama State Troopers led
to the Selma-Montgomery march and passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Our coordinated Black voter drive will register and mobilize one million new
Black voters through a $10 million, multi-state mobilization in states such
as Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia.

PowerPAC will also collaborate with the major grassroots mobilization
efforts led by America Votes and its 30-plus partner organizations,
representing the largest progressive issue-based organizations in the
country. In a national collaborative table and a series of collaborative
tables in 14 states, these groups are dividing up constituencies and
coordinating communication and mobilization efforts to educate voters about
the national and down-ticket races.

Working from a common voter file, long-standing groups like the Sierra Club
will contact 700,000 members and other voters concerned about environmental
issues; the Campaign for Community Change will organize immigrant advocates
and workers; Emily's List and Planned Parenthood will carry the message to
female voters; and the United States Student Association, Young Democrats of
America and League of Young Voters will mobilize the millennial generation.

-- 
Amy K. Dacey
Executive Director
Fund for America
202-730-7727