Uh oh... Howie Klein meets Jeff Merkley
Kari Chisholm
Howie Klein is no shrinking violet.
The author of the blog DownWithTyranny!, he's known for blasting Democrats that don't fit his definition of progressive - or who kowtow to Republicans or corporate interests.
I've heard the phrase "Screw Howie Klein!" from more than one annoyed campaign manager in the past.
And Howie's no anonymous basement-dwelling blogger. In the 1990s, he was the president of Reprise Records - the label founded by Frank Sinatra to defend artistic freedom - and brought you Alanis Morisette and the Barenaked Ladies.
After his battles against Tipper Gore's PMRC, he won awards from the ACLU and the People for the American Way. And today, he's one of the leaders of the BlueAmerica PAC - an endorsement and fundraising collaborative that's raised over a half-million bucks for candidates from blog readers.
So, it was with a little trepidation that I greeted the news that Howie would be meeting Jeff Merkley at a house party in L.A. last week.
I'll let Howie tell you what happened:
As you know, I get to see as many politicians speak these days as I used to see bands... well, almost as many. The ones I see all have good messages; some however, deliver it better than others. No one delivers it more effectively than Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley. And it's much more than being a showman, let alone a snake oil salesman. Jeff's life story is the life story of everyone in the audience. When he speaks you know he's not some kind of carny act. He's sincere and empathetic and he has a way of making complicated values and principles easy to understand and integrate.After reading about Jeff -- and even interviewing him and blogging with him -- seeing him speak to an audience was like seeing a band whose records you like play a concert for the first time. And, unlike some bands, he delivers.
That's the thing about Jeff Merkley.
He'll never be a polished orator like Barack Obama or fiery podium-pounder like Paul Wellstone - but Jeff's earnest and personal style often connects with an audience at an emotional level.
I've seen it again and again. And it works best in small groups.
And that's why Merkley's 100 Towns for Change tour is so critical. Across Oregon, small groups of Oregonians are meeting Jeff in intimate settings where they'll meet the man who recruited the candidates, organized the campaign, and led the House Democrats to victory in 2006 (not to mention the man that held together a one-vote majority to achieve so much in 2007.)
Jeff Merkley may not score well according to the usual mass-media metrics, but he's doing very well with the people that count: the voters.
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connect with blueoregon
3:44 p.m.
Aug 10, '08
Kari built Merkley's website full-disclosure blahblahblah...
I love Howie Klein.
For one, he's absolutely fearless, and for that alone, we need more like him in the Democratic Party.
For another, he believes in more AND better Democrats.
Finally, he speaks his mind, and he's usually dead on.
Aug 10, '08
Thanks for the post, Kari. It explains a major reason I supported Merkley in the primary, no matter how many people beat up on me here for doing so.
8:53 p.m.
Aug 10, '08
Yes, full disclosure: My firm built JeffMerkley.com, but I speak only for myself.
9:45 p.m.
Aug 10, '08
Future US Senator Merkely spoke today at the Washington County Democrats Summer Picnic in Hillsboro, and he was indeed infused with much fire and heartfelt intensity. He spoke to the crowd about reclaiming America from the Bushies and their ilk, about restoring our good name in the eyes of the world, ending the occupation of Iraq, ending the era of runaway executive privileges and signing statements, and returning to the Constitution and Rule of Law. I never saw Paul Wellstone speak but I'm sure that somewhere, he is smiling down on Jeff and all of us. Change. It's Coming!
Aug 11, '08
Calvin Klein eyeglasses redefine traditional once again. http://web2.blogtells.com/2008/07/29/mass-media-television-magazines-networking-buying-advertising/
Aug 11, '08
Jeff was in Baker City Fri evening and did very well. I put something about it up.
7:20 a.m.
Aug 11, '08
Jeff has a great personal story that everyone needs to hear. Meet Jeff and you will agree with Howie. Hope to have a House party for him in Bend soon.
Aug 11, '08
You can probably find evidence of Howie Klein's work in defense of civil liberties, but Frank Sinatra's dispute with Capitol Records (which occurred when Klein was a small child) isn't it.
John
2:10 p.m.
Aug 11, '08
Um, John, I think you misread my post. I didn't suggest that Howie had anything to do with Frank - except that he was the president of a record company founded by Frank precisely to defend artistic freedom.
It's important context; not one of THOSE record-company execs. Rather, a pro-artist record-company exec. (Who left the business when it became too corporate and they failed to understand the internet.)
Aug 11, '08
House parties: so how does one exit the general-populace mosh pits of manipulative public politicking in pubs and farmer's markets? How do the interested-but-useless intelligent (as distinguished from you intelligentsia!) cross the impermeable membrane of access? I have been thinking lately that it would be good to recruit restless thinkers who lack direction (many of whom show up on blogs afraid to use their real names). Inculcate these into the rarified air of intimate conversation with thinkers, doers and the ones who want to lead us. With direction, and with close proximity to the real life of ideas, the merely restless become focused and useful. I count myself among the useless, restless, intelligent, mosh-pit avoidant.
I used to own a blue heeler who made endless creative trouble. He was bored, and he was very, very bright. I found him a place with a rancher who took him everywhere he went, counted on his good manners coming from his interest in all going on around, and gave him work to do.
Just a thought.
3:18 p.m.
Aug 11, '08
Rebecca,
The Merkley campaign has a variety of individual ways to get involved around the state. Probably the most accessible? Go meet your neighbors!
Just yesterday I knocked on a number of doors around Eugene to tell folks about Jeff, hand out literature, and recruit volunteers. The campaign has information on such opportunities on the website. Go turn that passion into action!
Aug 11, '08
Uh, yeah.
Now that I've re-read your post: You're using the (supposedly socially-conscious) founding of Reprise Records in 1960 to establish Howie Klein's bona fides as a civil libertarian. The man wasn't there and had nothing to do with the company until decades later. If he went work for Ford, would he get credit for the assembly line too?
John
4:04 p.m.
Aug 11, '08
No, I used his personal work fighting Tipper Gore's PMRC to establish his bona fides as a civil libertarian.
Maybe you run in different circles than I do, but most folks I put "music industry executive" in the same place as "oil company lobbyist" or "health insurance executive". My note about Reprise (a fairly minor point) was merely to provide context.
Can I point out that this whole discussion is pretty much irrelevant to the point of my post?
Aug 11, '08
Crooks & Liars has just posted a Howie Klein contribution on Merkley's L.A. meanderings:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/11/blue-america-welcomes-jeff-merkley/
Personally, I'm intrigued by the concept of the Hopelettes. I can well imagine Karl Rove hoping they get The One in the same kind of trouble that the Raylettes provided for Mr. Charles.
Aug 11, '08
ON your topic Kari: how do sociopolitically unconnected thinkers get to attend chic, closed, house parties with ostensible political thought-leaders?
My opinion only - the access I would want is NOT to the feelings-driven lower-caste pub crawls and dinner table photo ops where the discussion is lowest-common-denominator. I am already LCD! Waste of time to rub emotions and elbows. I want to rub brain cells together with things I do not know from people who really know them.
The topic of my disquisition above addressed one aspect of your commentary: the 100 cities campaign. "House meetings" or house parties, as the truth may be. And it responded to an earlier post mentioning plans to throw a house meeting for the guy. My bet is that people like myself will NOT be on that invitation list [with good reason?].
Did look at his site. I applaud and support what he is doing: it's needed. Surely his focus will be on gathering the stories of the real people he seeks to serve. I suppose I would enjoy telling mine too. But there is more! I am thinking about stratifications and transitions just now. Do you folks show up at the farmer's markets and cerebrate with the general populace? Do you mix it up in your house parties, or select specifically for tenor and heigth of converse? I experience, exquisitely, the divides.
Do not sense necessarily that the meetings described are the meetings where one can imbibe a politically acute sensibility and become more than a vox popu tale.
5:14 p.m.
Aug 11, '08
ON your topic Kari: how do sociopolitically unconnected thinkers get to attend chic, closed, house parties with ostensible political thought-leaders?
They ask to attend?
I'm willing to bet that anyone who calls the Merkley campaign and asks to attend a house party will be pointed in the right direction.
Aug 11, '08
Rebecca,
Re: "how do sociopolitically unconnected thinkers get to attend chic, closed, house parties with ostensible political thought-leaders?"
Large donations are good ice breakers when it comes to rubbing elbows with party insiders. Of course party insiders are no substitute for "political thought leaders" who generally in American history have been extremely unwelcome inside the two major parties.
Think about the 8 hour day, worker's comp, child labor laws, civil rights, women's rights and a plethora of other aspects of decency that we've come to see as the norm in advanced nations and you will find that essentially none of these social advances were ever initiated by the major political parties.
It turns out that in most nations at most times the sociopolitically unconnected thinkers ARE the political thought leaders.
Our most recent example? The Democratic Party National Platform Committee just took a big step into politically reactionary and corporate-friendly territory by renouncing single payer health care and creating a new baffle-gab dispensation for further rape of the public called "guaranteed health care".
In a nutshell, major candidate house parties and independent political thinking are mutually exclusive concepts.
12:47 a.m.
Aug 12, '08
Re: "how do sociopolitically unconnected thinkers get to attend chic, closed, house parties with ostensible political thought-leaders?"
Large donations are good ice breakers when it comes to rubbing elbows with party insiders. Of course party insiders are no substitute for "political thought leaders" who generally in American history have been extremely unwelcome inside the two major parties.
This may be true in some places, but when it comes to Oregon, I couldn't disagree more.
Oregon is a small place. You show up and volunteer a few times, go to a county party meeting or two, and pretty soon, you'll be rubbing elbows with state legislators. Trust me, most state legislators are just impressed you know their name. After a couple of interactions, invite 'em to coffee - they'll likely take you up on it (provided you don't appear to be a sociopath.)
America is run by the people who show up. And that's even more true for Oregon. Start showing up, and pretty soon, you'll be "connected" to "political thought-leaders".
Aug 12, '08
Rebecca, You earn your entre. Or, you can buy it if you've got enough. Since I'm a NE OR nail banger I didn't buy it and you'd be very surprised by who I talk to and and can have access to. I've worked hard and smart and learned how to work with people and I continue to learn. I always play straight, even when I'm working for a compromise and people know that. Simply put, you have to make your attention worthwhile, demonstrably of value.
Ray's point has some merit, but isn't exactly nuanced nor completely accurate. Socio-economic thought generally is ahead of politics, but that's still where it gets accomplished.
Aug 12, '08
Hi Chuck,
Thanks for responding to my second comment.
To reiterate: "Ray's point has some merit, but isn't exactly nuanced nor completely accurate."
I'm in complete agreement with your assessment. However I must say that we live in America, the home of the whopper and the land of the willfully stupid. So I didn't dare to lose my audience by means of excessive pedantry, something I've lately been accused of as I explained to a roomful of Obamamaniacs that Barry's vote on the FISA Bill was tantamount to a betrayal of the People, the U.S. Constitution and everything the man had said in the previous six months. But I digress...
Just to stir the pot around here, I'd like y'all to consider that our Democratic Party has been stolen from us by 'inside the Beltway' types who simply no longer give a damn about the future of the American public.
Here's a somewhat abrasive and rude impression of one of our so-called leaders: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6266
And here's an example of people noticing that they are being lied to by another of our erstwhile "leaders" and letting her know, in no uncertain terms, that she's betrayed us: http://preview.tinyurl.com/68qcd5
And finally a note to Rebecca, I'll tell you one good way to not get invited into the inner sanctum of either major party. Never, ever commit the sin of telling the truth. It's the death sentence for political aspirations in America's "willful ignorance is double bliss" political brave new world. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/081208.html
<h2>Where are the Democrats who are truthfully informing the public about the insanity of Bush's NATO policy of encirclement of Russia leading to yet another loss of imperial prestige for the neocons? All we got was a dopey and moronic "me, too" statement from Barack Obama. How can a country survive if it lies itself into bankruptcy?</h2>