If you're here and reading this now, odds are that you've already heard about Six-PAC's national launch. But in case you haven't, did I mention that Six-PAC is having a National Launch?!
Starting tonight, we begin our efforts in earnest and leave the boundaries of the beltway behind for the first time. Oh, we'll still have a party in DC too; that's too much fun to pass up. But we'll also be in New York City this Wednesday the 14th, and in San Francisco on Thursday the 22nd. More details, you say? Go here for all of the pertinent info.
Even more exciting is that we finally have some concrete plans for your energy and your hard earned dollars. We've announced the first ever Six-PAC Six (special 2005 version) -- a group of candidates running in the November 2005 elections in Virginia and New Jersey. This is a special group of Democrats -- proven leaders running tough races in close districts, and doing it in states that Democrats need to keep blue and turn blue in 2006, 2008, and beyond.
It's hard to focus on politics at a time like this, of course. Did I say hard? Maybe even wrong to focus on politics. Hurricane Katrina was and is a disaster of unimaginable proportions. It has already affected the lives of millions of people in New Orleans, Mississippi, and Alabama, in the most tragic and heartbreaking ways. It likely will continue to alter the life of the United States and its people for decades to come.
While the administration here talks out of both sides of its mouth on the topic ("Let's not politicize the disaster . . . unless we're blaming the local government in Louisiana, of course!"), this really is no time to lose sight of the bigger picture. So what's the point of Six-PAC? Why is something like this relevant in these momentous times?
Two main reasons, as far as I'm concerned:
1.) By banding together with each other, we can share our strength and work to make things a little bit better for the survivors of this storm. Six-PAC has decided, for tonight's national launch here in DC, to donate towards Katrina relief half of every dollar you contribute over the minimum $20.06 we're asking for at the door.
2.) And while I'm not suggesting we "politicize" human suffering either, there is such a thing in democracies as holding government accountable for its failures. No one at any level of government deserves all of the blame for the catastrophe or for the woefully inadequate response in the first few days after the flood. If that inadequate response teaches us anything, however, it should be that "compassionate conservatism" is a failure. It has proved to be neither "conservative," as the Republican Party spends us into the biggest deficits in history; nor "compassionate," in a time when our elected officials would rather point the finger at the storm's victims than at themselves.
Let's keep working together to change the situation. Let's elect leaders who respect and treasure their constituents and share their values, not empty shells who simply shrug as they abdicate the government's responsibility to protect its citizens.
And let's get started.
