Undaunted by no-shows, group takes its issues to candidates
By SHAWNE K. WICKHAM
New Hampshire Sunday News Staff
Sunday, Sep. 16, 2007
MANCHESTER – What if you held a forum for presidential candidates and none of them came?
That's what happened to the Granite State Organizing Project, which had long planned a forum on social justice issues here yesterday. Undaunted, the group decided to bring its message to the campaigns instead.
Armed with songs, prayers and a determination to be heard, nearly 400 members of the GSOP and several like-minded coalitions from other states visited both Democratic and Republican candidates' offices in Manchester. They presented placards expressing disappointment that the candidates had not come to New Hampshire for the event, and detailing their concerns about health care access, a living wage, affordable housing and immigrant rights.
GSOP member Fred Plett of Goffstown said he was there to press the issues that concern him, "because part of running for president should be a conversation with real people, not just sound bites."
A registered Republican, Plett said he worries that this year's compressed primary schedule is changing the process here -- "to the detriment of the country."
"We're making lemonade out of this, but I'm disappointed that no candidate could attend our event," he said. "And I think that's the result of other states crowding in."
Hosted by Southern New Hampshire University's School of Community Economic Development, yesterday's forum had been billed as "a conversation with our next President." Only former Alaskan Sen. Mike Gravel had committed to attend -- and then he pulled out on the eve of the event.
At the headquarters of Sen. Barack Obama, Tess George of Nashua, one of the GSOP team leaders, tried without success to get staffer Nicole Derse to call the national campaign office while the group waited.
But Derse noted Obama had responded to a list of questions the GSOP had sent previously, and she thanked the group for its community work.
Plett then read the group's prepared statement, and the Rev. Moses Akanbi, dressed in the colorful garb of his native Nigeria, offered a prayer for the candidate and the country. The group filed out, singing, "This Land is Your Land."
The scene was repeated at the Millyard office of Rep. Tom Tancredo, where campaign manager Shelly Uscinski spoke with the group on speaker phone.
After a rather heated exchange between Uscinski and George over the candidate's failure to accept the GSOP's invitation, the visit ended cordially, with a promise to get the candidate to answer the group's written questions.
Two other groups visited campaign offices of Rudolph Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mitt Romney and Christopher Dodd.
Event organizer Sarah Jane Knoy said her group got to speak by telephone not only with Nick Clemons, the Clinton campaign's state director, but also with its national field director, Karen Hicks.
She said a third group elicited a promise from the Edwards campaign that he will attend a Dec. 1 event in Iowa sponsored by the GSOP's sister organization there, and spoke to Romney's state director, Jim Merrill, about its concerns.
Meanwhile, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback's campaign sent staffers over to the SNHU hall to meet with the group.
Arnie Alpert of the American Friends Service Committee, a member of the GSOP, said the candidates who chose not to attend yesterday's forum "don't want to be held accountable by the people."
"The reason why the New Hampshire primary is important is because, in the past, there have been these opportunities to make sure real people's stories are being heard by the candidates," he said.
"If they only do staged events and appearances on comedy shows, that's not the way democracy is supposed to work."
Monday, September 17, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Meeting with Sen Brownback's Campaign State Chairperson
Meeting with Teddy Sifert, NH Grassroots Coordinator for Senator Sam Brownback, August 31, 2007
Sarah Jane Knoy, Br. Paul Crawford, Fred Robinson and Erica MacKillop had a good meeting with Teddy at the Merrimack Restaurant in Manchester. After introductions and getting acquainted conversation, Fred went on to describe GSOP and its grassroots composition, making clear that we are non-partisan and of diverse makeup. Br. Paul went on to present the purpose and plan of our Presidential Primary event and its advantages to the candidate as well as the voters of New Hampshire. A print out of the presentation and questions to be addressed at the event was given and will also be emailed to the Senator’s staff.
Teddy mentioned some of the Senators strong interests: he is pro-life, he is dedicated to making educational opportunity available to autistic children and to the advancement of the Sudanese immigrant community. These things line up with our focus issues of health care, education, employment, housing and immigration. Although we of GSOP do not agree on every issue, we work together because we do have a common purpose of giving every individual a fair chance at a happy and productive life here in south central New Hampshire.
Carol Shea-Porter, one of our Representatives in Congress, stopped by our table to greet us, which is an example of the hands-on attitude of our elected officials in this state. Teddy appeared to be well impressed with us and our organization and promised to do all he could to have Senator Brownback attend the Forum.
Sarah Jane Knoy, Br. Paul Crawford, Fred Robinson and Erica MacKillop had a good meeting with Teddy at the Merrimack Restaurant in Manchester. After introductions and getting acquainted conversation, Fred went on to describe GSOP and its grassroots composition, making clear that we are non-partisan and of diverse makeup. Br. Paul went on to present the purpose and plan of our Presidential Primary event and its advantages to the candidate as well as the voters of New Hampshire. A print out of the presentation and questions to be addressed at the event was given and will also be emailed to the Senator’s staff.
Teddy mentioned some of the Senators strong interests: he is pro-life, he is dedicated to making educational opportunity available to autistic children and to the advancement of the Sudanese immigrant community. These things line up with our focus issues of health care, education, employment, housing and immigration. Although we of GSOP do not agree on every issue, we work together because we do have a common purpose of giving every individual a fair chance at a happy and productive life here in south central New Hampshire.
Carol Shea-Porter, one of our Representatives in Congress, stopped by our table to greet us, which is an example of the hands-on attitude of our elected officials in this state. Teddy appeared to be well impressed with us and our organization and promised to do all he could to have Senator Brownback attend the Forum.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Visit with Governor Mitt Romney's Staff
Visit with Governor Mitt Romney Staff
August 2, 2007
On August 2nd, Fred Plett, Sarah Jane Knoy, Ruth Heden, and a representative from the Center for Community Change met With Jim Merrill, State Director, and Jamie Burnett, Political Director of the Mitt Romney Campaign. Jim and Jamie seemed most receptive, and had the same concern that we’ve heard from other Presidential campaigns, Mitt Romney’s availability the week of the event. Presidential campaigns only have a 2-3 week lead time on their candidate availability, and even then the situation can be fluid. They said, as of August 2, nothing had been finalized for the month of August, even though they were already into the month. They thought that the health care question would be a natural for Mitt Romney, since he set up a Massachusetts plan. None of the other questions scared them, and they saw it as a good opportunity to answer them.
All in all, they were supportive of his attendance, but probably wouldn’t be able to commit to it until at least September 1st.
Respectfully submitted,
Fred Plett
August 2, 2007
On August 2nd, Fred Plett, Sarah Jane Knoy, Ruth Heden, and a representative from the Center for Community Change met With Jim Merrill, State Director, and Jamie Burnett, Political Director of the Mitt Romney Campaign. Jim and Jamie seemed most receptive, and had the same concern that we’ve heard from other Presidential campaigns, Mitt Romney’s availability the week of the event. Presidential campaigns only have a 2-3 week lead time on their candidate availability, and even then the situation can be fluid. They said, as of August 2, nothing had been finalized for the month of August, even though they were already into the month. They thought that the health care question would be a natural for Mitt Romney, since he set up a Massachusetts plan. None of the other questions scared them, and they saw it as a good opportunity to answer them.
All in all, they were supportive of his attendance, but probably wouldn’t be able to commit to it until at least September 1st.
Respectfully submitted,
Fred Plett
Visit with Governor Huckabee's Staff
Visit with Governor Mike Huckabee Staff
July 17th, 2007
On July 17th, Fred Plett, Sarah Jane Knoy, Ruth Heden, and Ken Galdston met With Debra Vanderbeek, state co-chair of the Huckabee for President Campaign. The meeting was set up by Fred Plett.
The GSOP Participants all thought the meeting went swimmingly. Debra was very interested in the Presidential Action on September 15th. She said that the major concern is where he would be that week, New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina or another state. Presidential campaigns only have a 2-3 week lead time on their candidate availability, and even then the situation can be fluid. The staff lines up events on a daily and weekly calendar where the candidate could possibly be, then the staff waits to find out if the candidate is actually available in state. If the candidate is, then the staff recommends where the candidate should be at, hopefully 2-3 locations in a day. This is weighed by size and nature of crowd, potential voters, and all sorts of other calculations.
Debra was interested in the makeup of GSOP and said that Governor Huckabee would take right to it, since he is a Baptist minister. She was impressed with the potential turnout at this one event. There aren’t too many opportunities with as many potential undecided voters. She told us that the questions were well formulated and of broad interest. She was impressed that the questions came from the bottom up, and that they were broad in nature. She did distinguish us from the single narrow issue pleas she gets all the time for Governor Huckabee’s time.
All in all, she was very supportive of Governor Huckabee’s attendance at the event. She couldn’t promise anything because she doesn’t know where he will be that week, but her statements and her body language suggested that she wanted him there.
Debra was Chief of Staff for Congressman Jeb Bradley before joining the Huckabee campaign.
Respectfuly submitted,
Fred Plett
July 17th, 2007
On July 17th, Fred Plett, Sarah Jane Knoy, Ruth Heden, and Ken Galdston met With Debra Vanderbeek, state co-chair of the Huckabee for President Campaign. The meeting was set up by Fred Plett.
The GSOP Participants all thought the meeting went swimmingly. Debra was very interested in the Presidential Action on September 15th. She said that the major concern is where he would be that week, New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina or another state. Presidential campaigns only have a 2-3 week lead time on their candidate availability, and even then the situation can be fluid. The staff lines up events on a daily and weekly calendar where the candidate could possibly be, then the staff waits to find out if the candidate is actually available in state. If the candidate is, then the staff recommends where the candidate should be at, hopefully 2-3 locations in a day. This is weighed by size and nature of crowd, potential voters, and all sorts of other calculations.
Debra was interested in the makeup of GSOP and said that Governor Huckabee would take right to it, since he is a Baptist minister. She was impressed with the potential turnout at this one event. There aren’t too many opportunities with as many potential undecided voters. She told us that the questions were well formulated and of broad interest. She was impressed that the questions came from the bottom up, and that they were broad in nature. She did distinguish us from the single narrow issue pleas she gets all the time for Governor Huckabee’s time.
All in all, she was very supportive of Governor Huckabee’s attendance at the event. She couldn’t promise anything because she doesn’t know where he will be that week, but her statements and her body language suggested that she wanted him there.
Debra was Chief of Staff for Congressman Jeb Bradley before joining the Huckabee campaign.
Respectfuly submitted,
Fred Plett
Monday, August 13, 2007
Meeting with Mayor Giuliani's Campaign
Giuliani Campaign Visit
We had set up a meeting for a committee of GSOP leaders and David Tille from Mayor Giuliani Staff for August 2 at 2 pm.
Attending the meeting were Tess George from Nashua, Fred Plett from Goffstown, Ruth Heden form Milford, Sarah Jane Knoy and Leticia Ortiz from Manchester , Ken Gladston from the IVP in Massachusetts and Kevin Borden from the Center for Community Change.
Sarah Jane received a call from David at about noon asking if the meeting could be rescheduled because his state director had just come to town and had scheduled another meeting for the office at 2 and he (David) would have to attend. Sarah Jane told David that it would be very difficult to reschedule as people were driving in from other parts of the state. David tried to see if his boss could attend our meeting in his place. That did not work out.
Sarah Jane suggested that David meet the GSOP group at Pappy Pizza at 1:30 as we would be there having lunch before the meeting. HE agreed. David joined us at Pappys. He apologized for the sudden change in schedule.
Leticia thanked him for joining us and kicked off the round of introductions. The groups described GSOP, described the event and answered questions David had about the event and the organization.
We told him we would like a commitment form the Mayor to attend and he promised to work on it. He thought the event would be a good venue for Mayor Giuliani as more than 1,000 voters (many of whom are undecided) will be in attendance. David said the candidates schedule is known a week or two in advance and promised to stay in touch.
We shared our appreciation for his work on the campaign as well as his work in his former position on Congressman Bradley’s staff. He apologized again for the schedule change.
We had set up a meeting for a committee of GSOP leaders and David Tille from Mayor Giuliani Staff for August 2 at 2 pm.
Attending the meeting were Tess George from Nashua, Fred Plett from Goffstown, Ruth Heden form Milford, Sarah Jane Knoy and Leticia Ortiz from Manchester , Ken Gladston from the IVP in Massachusetts and Kevin Borden from the Center for Community Change.
Sarah Jane received a call from David at about noon asking if the meeting could be rescheduled because his state director had just come to town and had scheduled another meeting for the office at 2 and he (David) would have to attend. Sarah Jane told David that it would be very difficult to reschedule as people were driving in from other parts of the state. David tried to see if his boss could attend our meeting in his place. That did not work out.
Sarah Jane suggested that David meet the GSOP group at Pappy Pizza at 1:30 as we would be there having lunch before the meeting. HE agreed. David joined us at Pappys. He apologized for the sudden change in schedule.
Leticia thanked him for joining us and kicked off the round of introductions. The groups described GSOP, described the event and answered questions David had about the event and the organization.
We told him we would like a commitment form the Mayor to attend and he promised to work on it. He thought the event would be a good venue for Mayor Giuliani as more than 1,000 voters (many of whom are undecided) will be in attendance. David said the candidates schedule is known a week or two in advance and promised to stay in touch.
We shared our appreciation for his work on the campaign as well as his work in his former position on Congressman Bradley’s staff. He apologized again for the schedule change.
Meeting with Sen. John McCain's Campaign Staff
Meeting at Senator John McCain’s Campaign Headquarters
On Friday, August 3, we met Sarah Crawford, NE Deputy Regional Political Director at John McCain’s Campaign Headquarters in Manchester. The GSOP delegation consisted of Ruth Heden, Barbara Carboneau, Sarah Jane Knoy and Nancy Schooley. The GSOP delegates introduced themselves and told the Institutions that they represent.
Barbara gave the history of GSOP and explained that we are the largest community organization in NH, a Grassroots organization. Barbara told of some of the organizations that are members of GSOP and left the booklet with the list of members.
Ruth told of our successful issues, our goals and our plan for the September 15 event.
There will be reality testimonies with approximately 1,200 people in attendance with 100 media expected.
Sarah Jane explained that this will not be a debate. There will be two or three questions asked each Candidate and they will each have a time frame alone on stage. The list of questions that will be asked was given to Sarah Crawford.
The purpose of the visit was to elaborate on our invitation to the September 15 event and to encourage Sen. McCain to attend. We felt that Sarah Crawford was very receptive, asked us some questions and although Senator McCain’s schedule is not set at this time, she will contact Sarah Jane when the schedule is set.
On Friday, August 3, we met Sarah Crawford, NE Deputy Regional Political Director at John McCain’s Campaign Headquarters in Manchester. The GSOP delegation consisted of Ruth Heden, Barbara Carboneau, Sarah Jane Knoy and Nancy Schooley. The GSOP delegates introduced themselves and told the Institutions that they represent.
Barbara gave the history of GSOP and explained that we are the largest community organization in NH, a Grassroots organization. Barbara told of some of the organizations that are members of GSOP and left the booklet with the list of members.
Ruth told of our successful issues, our goals and our plan for the September 15 event.
There will be reality testimonies with approximately 1,200 people in attendance with 100 media expected.
Sarah Jane explained that this will not be a debate. There will be two or three questions asked each Candidate and they will each have a time frame alone on stage. The list of questions that will be asked was given to Sarah Crawford.
The purpose of the visit was to elaborate on our invitation to the September 15 event and to encourage Sen. McCain to attend. We felt that Sarah Crawford was very receptive, asked us some questions and although Senator McCain’s schedule is not set at this time, she will contact Sarah Jane when the schedule is set.
Meeting with Hillary Clinton's Campaign
Meeting at Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Headquarters
On Monday, August 6 we met Katie List, NH Director of Scheduling and Colin Pio from the Clinton Campaign. The GSOP delegates attending were: Ruth Heden, Fred Platt, Laticia Ortiz, Sarah Jane Knoy and Nancy Schooley.
Laticia thanked Katie and Colin for the meeting and then we introduced ourselves and told the Institutes that we represent.. Fred gave the history of Granite State Organizing Project and explained that we are the largest community organization in NH, a Grassroot organization. Fred told of some of the organizations that are members of GSOP and left the booklet with the list of members.
Ruth explained that the September 15 meeting is not a debate. The Candidates wil be asked several questions. There will be reality testimonies with approximately 1,200 people in attendance with 100 media expected.
Sarah Jane explained the purpose of our visit is to invite and encourage Sen. Clinton to attend. The list of questions that will be asked was given to Katie. There will be two or three questions asked each Candidate and they will each have a time frame alone on stage.
Katie and Colin were both genuinely interested in the September 15 event although schedules are not made this early. Katie will keep in touch with Sarah Jane.
On Monday, August 6 we met Katie List, NH Director of Scheduling and Colin Pio from the Clinton Campaign. The GSOP delegates attending were: Ruth Heden, Fred Platt, Laticia Ortiz, Sarah Jane Knoy and Nancy Schooley.
Laticia thanked Katie and Colin for the meeting and then we introduced ourselves and told the Institutes that we represent.. Fred gave the history of Granite State Organizing Project and explained that we are the largest community organization in NH, a Grassroot organization. Fred told of some of the organizations that are members of GSOP and left the booklet with the list of members.
Ruth explained that the September 15 meeting is not a debate. The Candidates wil be asked several questions. There will be reality testimonies with approximately 1,200 people in attendance with 100 media expected.
Sarah Jane explained the purpose of our visit is to invite and encourage Sen. Clinton to attend. The list of questions that will be asked was given to Katie. There will be two or three questions asked each Candidate and they will each have a time frame alone on stage.
Katie and Colin were both genuinely interested in the September 15 event although schedules are not made this early. Katie will keep in touch with Sarah Jane.
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