I wrote a blog post during the last congressional race addressing the question: Who is Erik Paulsen, anyway? Go read it if you have a chance, but I can summarize it for you: Have you seen the old Mission Impossible TV show, where the guy reaches down to his neck and pulls off a mask and it’s somebody else? If Erik Paulsen did that, he’d look like this when the mask came off:

Scary, huh?

There are three reasons that I’m supporting Sharon, and this has evolved over time so pay attention:

1) She is an Unabashed Liberal Progressive. I feel that we need more people like her in Congress, and I feel that running a “moderate” against a “Bachmann Clone” is a doomed strategy.

2) Although I tend to agree with Sharon on issues across the board, I’m particularly interested in her work in Health Care (that thing we used to have until the SCOTUS gutted it, I kid nervously?) and Green Energy and the related Green Economy. She was trained as a scientist and worked in Green Energy, as well as information technology and has experience in the medical device industry.

3) I’ve been watching her, as well as other candidates for various positions in various settings (the latter, over many years) speaking to audiences and small groups, and there is something Sharon does not ever do: She does not adjust her story on the issues depending on whom she is speaking with. She won’t tell environmentalists that she’s for saving the forests, spotted owl collectors that she’s against saving the forests, and Union representatives that she wants to turn the forests into jobs at any cost. (She is generally pro environment and pro jobs, I quickly add. Not sure how she stands on the Spotted Owl specifically, but I’m not worried.)

4) Some issues are hard, difficult, tricky, and approaches to them have to be nuanced and correspondingly complex. Sharon is reluctant to simplify her position on these issues into a sound bite, and prefers to discuss the complexities and hear what people have to say about them. (See the part above about having a background in science.)

5) After watching her campaign for a while, I’ve realized that Sharon has the campaign organization in place to win in November. She is running for the nomination against another DFLer, Brian Barnes (Brian is a really nice guy and is good on the issues too) so there is a campaign going on now for us to observe how she does. And, Sharon Sund is ahead in delegates (we are almost done with the nomination campaign … the last “convention” is Saturday) and had a great showing last Saturday when nine conventions happened on the same day, even winning in her worthy opponent’s home district.

Here is the list of people I’ve had the pleasure to meet working as a volunteer on this campaign; note that the campaign staff has grown as Sharon’s campaign gains momentum, and various experts have flocked to join. Here is the growing list of endorsements Sharon has received. This is a long list considering that endorsements don’t really start happening until after the nomination, or even the primaries, in Minnesota (we have a complicated system).

And now, the moment you have been waiting for. Here is the web page you can go to in order to donate to Sharon’s campaign.

When Sharon or any other person running for office asks for money, they have to be all nice and stuff. I don’t. IF YOU DON’T GIVE SHARON MONEY I WILL BE REALLY MAD AT YOU. I will, of course, be relying on the honor system to see if you’ve donated or not. But I know when you are telling me the truth and when you are not, so don’t even bother resisting. Just click there now and send Sharon 10 bucks. Or 25, if you can.

ORDER BY MIDNIGHT! … It turns out that if you give some money to Sharon’s campaign right now, by the end of the day Friday, there is a person who will match your donation.

That is all, thank you very much.

Here’s how it works. While every other state has a “primary” or a “caucus” at which various candidates are voted on by each party to see who will run (you’ve been hearing all about the Republican primaries this year) Minnesota only pretends to do this early on in the process. What really happens is that we have a non-binding irrelevant “primary” vote on the US President, because people are expecting that, but we ignore the results. Meanwhile we elect “delegates” who are people who hung around the polling place longer than just to vote in the fake non-binding primary, to discuss issues. We also make a preliminary list of “resolutions” at that event. This is done at the “precinct” level. A precinct is like a neighborhood.

Starting a few weeks later, we have a “caucus” in each “State Senate District” at which we chose a subset of those delegates previously chosen. At this point I should say something about how we chose delegates. There are three known methods plus a Plan B.

Method 1: Somebody says “I’ll do it” and then they are a delegate.

Method 2: People nominate themselves then everyone else in the room votes on them.

Method 3: The walking sub-caucus. I’m not going to even begin to explain how this works, and I can’t even think of a good metaphor. This is what it looks like:

Plan B: A coin is flipped or something is drawn from a “hat” … this is done for only a small number of delegates when there are “remainders.” Never mind what a “remainder” is.

The Senate District meetings are mostly about other stuff. I’m pretty sure that there are 64 Minnesota senate districts. Each one has about 15 or so internally elected operatives who are mostly volunteers. Executive committees, a treasurer, chairs, etc. etc. Plus there are county level people and state level people. I’d estimate that overall there are about 1,200 people who have (mainly volunteer) positions in the Minnesota DFL and one of the main tasks at these Senate District conventions is to work out who those people are, and to refine the rules by which they operate. And what they do, mainly, is to decide on and implement the rules that have been so refined, which mostly pertain to selecting or electing them. I think. They probably do other stuff too, but I’m not sure.

At the end of this long meeting, and at certain points during the meeting, the actual “caucus” happens in which delegates pick nominees to run for office. At each Senate District there is, obviously, one State Senator nominated to run in the general election. There are multiple house members. Plus, all the other elected officials for the state and county and stuff. Then, there are the federal offices such as President, Senator (if there is an election in the given year) and every two years, US House.

The US House districts are larger than State Senate Districts, so a given state senate district might be entirely within a house district. Or, it might overlap he borders of two. Or, as in the case of the district I had the honor of being the “floor leader” at last Saturday, three. That State Senate District overlapped with the Minnesota 5th (Ellison), 6th (Bachmann) and mine, the 3rd (Currently held buy Erik Paulsen, but not for long!). Ultimately, a certain number of delegates committed to various candidates (seeking the nominations) and/or issues, or uncommitted if they like, is chosen.

That is the short, simplified version of what happens. Each of the 64 Senate Districts has a 5 to 7 hour long convention. They happen over several weeks. In my Congressional district, most happened at once yesterday on a sort of “Super Saturday” and there is one more to do next weekend.

So, from the point of view of a campaign such as Sharon Sund’s campaign for Congress, we have to do this:

We show up. We put up a table for literature and to sit at to answer questions. We put up posters. We talk to delegates as they come into the building, and during their breaks. We try to strategize with supportive delegates to get their support in the Walking Sub-Caucus (which, again, I will not attempt to explain). We try to find out what delegates are interested in, what issues concern them. We try to persuade them to support our candidate. If possible, and it often is possible, we try to link up the candidate with delegates who want to speak to her in person.

This follows days or weeks of phone and door to door contact with delegates, as well as house parties and such, and is followed again by more of the same…

…until the Congressional District Convention happens at which time the congressional candidate is nominated. Well not really nominated; endorsed. If a candidate wishes to run unendorsed they can do that legally. But we hope they don’t most of the time.

So now you get the picture, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. The truth is that for many elected offices, delegates are mostly interested in one thing, or at least, they have one issue as a key priority for them when they select their candidate: Is the campaign well organized and effective? The truth is that at most levels one DFL candidate will not differ that much in terms of issues from another, so you really want to go for the candidate who can win in November against the Republican, and an important factor in this is considered to be how well the campaign organization is organized and funded.

There are in fact important differences among candidates, and delegates pay attention to this. For instance, one of the candidates running for the nomination in Michel Bachmann’s district is running on the idea that only an anti-choice candidate can win in a strongly Republican district. She has this idea because an anti abortion candidate trounced Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania a while back. She’s wrong, of course, and DFLers will not appreciate that strategy and she has no chance of getting the nomination.

What about Sund vs. Barnes, the race I’m working on? There are some real differences. Barnes refused to say that he would vote for Obama’s Job bill, while Sund has supported it. Sund has experience in health care related activism, and in fact is one of the people responsible for Obamacare having passed. (Sund also supported the public option, an important issue for Union members, though it did not make it in the final bill.) Sund went to college on Union Money, comes from a Union household, but IIRC, Barnes is a manager in a shop that builds stuff (which is good, Made in the USA and all that) which is not union. Or at least, I can’t find anyone to tell me that it is, which strongly suggests it isn’t. Barnes says that the Deficit is the number on issue facing us at the moment, while Sund recognizes that the top issues are a combination of Jobs Jobs Jobs and science-related issues like the looming energy crisis. Sharon Sund not only wants to push for Green Jobs, but has also worked in the Green Energy industry, while Barnes seems to have added “green energy” to his resume after the fact, claiming that being a manager/salesperson at a company that makes big-giant gasoline engines for use in cranes and commercial or industrial boats and conveyor belts and such gives him green energy cred.

So, issues wise, there are differences that matter to delegates. Labor should support and prefer Sharon Sund, and middle classers who want to break out of their jobs and start businesses should prefer Sund’s health care insurance policies (which would allow this more easily). And so on.

But it is also the campaign’s organizational abilities that matter, and this is where I’ve also seen some large differences. I’ve been to five or six events: a debate and four convention-caucus thingies. the initial primary, a house party or two, etc. At the debate, two or three of us Sharon Sund volunteers showed up early and plastered the place with Sund signs while one guy from Barnes put up a few signs. But then, the people who ran the City Hall we were in explained that the first amendment doesn’t really apply in their little town and both campaigns had to take all the signs down. So, that was a wash for both sides. Barnes had a lot of young kids, mostly too young to vote (from some high school he had a link to as a substitute teacher, I suspect) holding the doors and wearing their T-shirts out front. We had fewer people holding doors but we were all adults and more of Sund’s people were professional staffers. I love the fact that these high school kids were so involved, and I give full credit to Barnes for making that happen. In the end, the organizational display at the debate was a wash.

Later I went to our third caucus. Here, Barnes’ people showed up three hours late, and the first ones to show up were fairly upset because they had the schedule all wrong, so any delegates coming into the building would see a small number of Barnes people making hurried desperate phone calls and a large number of Sund people greeting them, telling them about our candidate, showing them where to go in a somewhat complicated school layout, cool, collected, confident, numerous, and all this in front of a background of a zillion Blue and White “Sharon Sund” signs and about three Barnes signs poorly placed.

We won on the signs, we won on our presence, we won in all sorts of ways.

At another caucus, Barnes’ people had the candidate off to one side, almost sequestered like they were plotting something, dour faced (except Barnes himself, who does maintain a pleasant countenance, highly practices from his sales and management career and quite well done). So the occasional delegate would be picked off the stream of arrivals to speak with Barnes. Meanwhile, we used the Happy Funnel formation to meet, greet, and guide delegates over to Sharon who was centrally placed and engaged in one pleasant conversation after another, with virtually every delegate who came in the building.

This sort of thing happened at a number of locations. By the time we got to my caucus … not the one I vote in but the one I was “floor managing” for … I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had my gear and my table in the car and arrived early (we usually don’t’ have to bring a table, but on this location we were informed well in advance to do so). I plastered the Union Hall with Sund posters, and had time to cheerfully help the Convention Chair and staff to put up their maps and other stuff and move their tables around. I set up our table. I started greeting the early arriving delegates. Meanwhile, a couple of Barnes people showed up but guess what? NO TABLE! I had to kinda laugh inside at that one. So, delegates arriving there found Happy and Informative Sund Volunteers and some disgruntled Barnes volunteers on their cell phones trying to find a person with a table somewhere nearby. They did eventually get a table, but hours late and it didn’t help.

After mopping that particular floor, I went over to my own Senate District to help out where I could. Things were already underway. I noticed right away, mistakenly, that Barnes did not have a table there either, and the Sund Table was well positioned and well staffed. Also, we had Sund posters everywhere, and there were hardly any Barnes posters. Also, the Barnes posters were small and not as nice.

Then, eventually, I did notice the Barnes table. It was right in front of me all the time; I just thought it was some litter left behind by someone. The contrast between the two was so stark, I felt moved to make a documentary about it. Now, I warn you, I’m not Ken Burns, but I think the final product is still instructive. Here it is, my tutorial on “How to make an effective campaign table at a campaign event. Or not”:

When I first started working on this campaign, I heard somewhere that “Barnes has the better organization.” But I quickly learned that this was a technique, that may actually work for a short while: If you don’t actually have a well tuned and effective organization, just tell people that you do, and they’ll believe it. The thing is, while that might work for a day or two, eventually, truth will out, and in fact, people who were told one thing but who see another thing demonstrated to be real may rather resent being thought of as gullible. I know I would. It turns out that “Sund has the better organization.” Spread that around, you’ll be telling the truth.

The Sund Campaign actually beat Barnes in his home district, and is overall making a very positive impression. Key party people who often sit out the first part of this process are showing more than a little movement towards Sund, as far as I can tell. We will be going into the Congressional District Convention able to win and ready for a fight.

Then, the real campaign season starts, when Sharon Sund and her Excellent Campaign take on Erik Paulsen. I would not want to be Erik Paulsen. Because this campaign is a machine, and it will roll right over him.

¹DFL = Democratic Farm Labor

Every single person on the faculty then provided their autobiography in direct reference to my statement about being a scientist. Some firmly asserted that they too were scientists, others utterly avoided any mention of science and asserted that they were firmly embedded in the humanities. This clearly defined for me a pre-existing rift in that department and virtually all interactions I observed among that faculty subsequent to that over the next several years were utterly predictable from that simple wet of oaths to or oaths against science. The only thing cooler than having set the agenda for that part of that meeting would have been if I had done so on purpose. In truth, I blundered on this rift with an utterly innocent statement that I’m sure was interpreted then and ever after as a sly, perhaps cunning, but also utterly self destructive move on my part. Over the next few years, almost all the “scientists” either retired or moved out of state, and eventually, I went too, but in the meantime the essentials of my relationships with most of the people in that department were set … as in setting the agenda … by that event.

I saw an interesting and recent example of agenda setting happen in a debate between Sharon Sund and Brian Barnes, two people seeking the same nomination to run for Congress in Minnesota’s Third District. Before I say another word, a full and complete disclosure: I volunteer for the Sund campaign and I strongly support her candidacy. I’ve already officially endorsed her insofar as a blog can endorse a candidate officially. But I also have to say, in all honesty, that Barnes would certainly represent many of my views in Congress in the unlikely sequence of events whereby my candidate, Sharon Sund, is not nominated and Barnes goes on to win the general election.

But enough of the niceties, I also have to be honest about what I saw during the debate.

Sharon had already defined herself as a candidate supporting “Green Energy” and a “Green Economy.” She is the Green Economy Candidate in this race for a number of reasons. One, she established her support of the Obama Energy Plan and similar efforts from the beginning, but also, at the start of her post-college career, she worked in the Green Energy field, on a team that designed storage batteries for use with windmills. While Brian Barnes’ position on the Green Economy and Green Energy may or may not have been fully formed prior to the debate, he very clearly placed himself in the Green Economy camp by making the claim (before Sharon had the chance to do so owing to the ordering of questions from the moderator) that he worked in the Green Energy industry and had been involved in advancing Green-ness in his own work. The problem with that is that Brian works for a company that makes gasoline powered motors that do various things like powering boats and making electricity (generators) and if I understand correctly (and please tell me if I’m wrong on this) he works in the boat division. That is about as un-Green as you can get, yet he claimed Green-Cred on this basis.

Brian does get to claim some good stuff. His company apparently exports US made machines. That’s good. No iPad scandal in the Third District! But the claim of Green was not a direct result of what Brian does in his day job, but rather, it was (in my view) a direct result of Sharon Sund’s position. Sharon set the agenda, and controlled the message.

Stepping back from this one small observation (which may be of no consequence) we Progressives, Liberals, and Democrats need to be setting the agenda and controlling the message more, and we need to be doing it with real verifiable sincerity demonstrated by the political version of sweat equity. This is why I’m supporting Sharon for this position. The Third District is at present represented by a not very strong willed Clone. Clones are fine, in their place, I suppose. But our current representative to the US House of Representatives, Erik Paulsen, is a Clone of Michele Bachmann. If we are going to be represented by a Clone, why could it not be a clone of someone good? No fair that we get stuck with the Bachmann Clone.

Sharon could not be more different than Bachmann-Paulsen. Sharon Sund is an experienced activist. She worked on the Affordable Health Care plan. She was a leading fundraiser and activist for Moveon.org. She’s worked on feminist, social justice, and related issues for years. Sharon has been in the trenches all along fighting the good fight. This is the reason that Sharon’s positions will set the agenda at least within the Democratic Party, locally, and as this race develops, she will set the agenda for her Republican opponent. Using a Secret Weapon that Sharon has access to, I guarantee, Republican Congressman Paulsen’s positions will be bent and reshaped during the course of the upcoming general election campaign to resemble Sharon’s, in certain areas. Since Paulsen is a Republican and is thus beholden to certain dictates, I don’t expect to see all the issues shift in the same way, and for various reasons I think we’ll find the Congressman moving towards Sharon’s position in areas of energy and environment.

What is the Secret Weapon that Sharon will use to set the agenda in the upcoming general election? I’ll tell you but only if you promise to keep it to yourself …

… Sharon is going to use critical thinking, rational thought, reason, and science. I know you might find it hard to believe that a politician is prepared to bring out these sorts of weapons, but she’s already indicated her willingness to use them. I’ve heard Sharon Sund speak a few times, and I’ve chatted with her now and then about various issues, and I noticed that she keeps coming back to these themes. Also, when I meet people who have known her for a while (or longer) that is what they say about her. They say that she is smart, and that she likes to follow the rational course, to find out what the science or other analytical approach says about an issue, to reason things through, to adapt policy to changing data, to evaluate the data critically. And, the fact that her training and education is in science (though she also has considerable management and small business experience) makes this not too surprising. Sharon has also signed the Science Pledge.

How does this relate to controlling the message? Because the emperor is wearing his birthday suit. When approaching any of the complex and difficult issues of the day, regarding the economy, energy policy, free and/or fair trade, health care, and so on, the way to force your opponent to change his or her position to be more like yours is to provide the more rational position. While this approach often does not work with Republicans, it almost always works with Democrats, and it does in fact work at least a little bit with everybody. Especially in the Third District of Minnesota. The Republicans in this district include a fair number who stick with the Party of No not because they are teabaggers or religious conservatives (though there is that) but because they are on the wealthy side of the income spectrum and that is where a lot of Republican come from. But when a Democrat (like Sharon) is making more sense than the Republican (like Paulsen) about growing the economy, bringing jobs back to the US, addressing energy policy in smart ways, and so on and so forth, these older-style Republicans have to go for the smart candidate, even if they do it only in the privacy of the voting booth.

During the upcoming campaign season, watch the message. I’ll be watching too, and I’ll keep you posted.

Key women leaders celebrate Sharon Sund on International Women’s Day

To celebrate International Women’s Day, a large group of prominent women leaders in government, business and the community are co-hosting a fundraising event for Sharon Sund, candidate for congress in Minnesota’s Third District.

“I am honored that so many respected, talented, courageous women are standing up for me on a day when we need to stand up for all women,” said Sund. “International Women’s Day is a time for us to celebrate the achievements women have made–and are making–worldwide.”

The celebration taking place today in conjunction with International Women’s Day is being held at the home of former State Representative Betty Folliard. It is co-hosted by a large group of prominent and influential women who are supporting Sund. They include: State Senators Chris Eaton and Ann Rest, along with State Representatives Denise Dittrich, Rena Moran, Sandra Peterson and Linda Slocum.

Other prominent women activists co-hosting the event include: former State Representative Luanne Koskinen and long-time community activists: Dottie Gilkeson, Laurie Pryor, Rosemary Rocco, Ruth Usem and Deborah Watts.

Edina City Council Member Joni Bennett, one of the co-hosts of the event, talked about the need for women to be engaged in the political process. “It’s important for women to be involved at all levels of government,” said Bennett. “At a time when much of our discussion is about finding solutions to environmental problems, Sharon Sund’s training and work in science make her a strong candidate for congress.”

Facebook page

Campaign web page

For years, the Third District, in which I live, was represented by a moderate Republican, Jim Ramstad. Though I never voted for him, it was not all that annoying that he was in Congress because, as I say, he was moderate. Ramstad was pro choice, suppored stem cell research, he was not anti science and he was pro gay rights (but did not support gay marriage). I mention all this because it should reflect the electorate of the 3rd District which he represented.

Around the time of his retirement, of course, Republicans were busy jettisoning their moderates. When the seat became open two elections back, the Democrats put up a person who could be thought of as a moderate Democrat, and in particular, as a veteran Marine with experience in Iraq, and a lawyer, a candidate who could appeal to the sorts of republicans that must have been electing Ramstad since 1990. That was Ashwin Madia, and I worked for his campaign as much as I had time for, canvassing, phone banking, and blogging. Madia was a great guy but for reasons which I will lay out in a moment, he lost that election despite the coattails of Barach Obama and Al Franken, also running that year.

Madia was defeated by Eric Paulsen, coming from the Minnesota House. Paulsen is a Bush-Bachmann Republican. He opposes a good health care system, voted agains tthe American Clean Energy and Security Act, against all of the economic emergency bills that were proposed a couple of years back, he is uniformly against all gay rights and is in favor of discrimination against women. How did such a person win against Madia in this moderate district?

There are probably two or three reasons. First, Madia was a great guy and his positions were in line with what one would think the district would support, but he was not a dynamic presence on the stage, and therefore no matter what he said during debates and public performances, he did not pick up support during those events. Second, Paulsen matches the district more than one might have thought. Even though Ramstat was re-elected again and again, he also ran against virtually no opposition again and again. When I first moved to the district, and asked around, I discovered that most people didn’t even know if he was a Republican or a Democrat, or what his positions were or, in some cases, if he was a state or federal Representative. Putting it another way, there hadn’t been an election for office of the Third Congressional District since 1990. Third, the above mentioned coat tails were not as long as one might have thought. Remember, Franken only barely beat Coleman, having run what Franken himself calls “The most efficient election to the Senate ever.”

Once Paulsen was in place, he showed himself to be a follower. Mainly, a follower of Michele Bachmann. When his first re-election campaign came up, and he was opposed by Jim Meffert, I did an analysis of Paulsen’s voting record and found that it was almost exactly identical to Michele Bachmann’s (see: Who is Erik Paulsen, anyway?). I think that situation has not changed since the, though it became difficult to compare any one’s voting record to Bachmann because she stopped casting votes to go run for President.

Meffert, running against Paulsen two years ago, was also a moderate candidate, and I think he may have been put forward by the party for similar reasons as Madia; Ramstat was moderate, thus the district is moderate, thus put up a moderate. However, now that this strategy has failed twice in a row, it is clearly time to consider a different option.

And that option is clearly Sharon Sund.

Sund is not a moderate. She is not wishy washy or equivocating on any of the key issues.

She supports investment in education, opposes the unfunded federal mandate, and would never support the teaching of anti-science or bad science in the science classroom. Sund wants to increase Pell Grant funding, expand loan forgiveness, and supports maximizing STEM funding. Her energy and environment policy is pro-environmental and pro-jobs, supporting investment in green energy, and tax incentives for green technology development. At the same time she wants to redirect fossil fuel subsidies to develop green economies, invest in infrastructure, and repatriate jobs via tax incentives.

Sharon is unabashedly pro LGBTQ. She has made a campaign promise to co-sponsor the repeal of DOMA, supports marriage equality, social fairness and equality, and extends this to partner immigration rights.

Unlike Paulsen, Sharon Sund supported the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, she supports federal funding for Planned Parenthood, is Pro Choice and supports funding of Medicare for parents, children, and others, and supports reinvestment in Head Start and increasing tax credits and deductions for Child Care expenses.

One of the things that attracts me most to Sharon Sund’s candidacy is her position on science. Sharon is actually a scientist, holding degrees in science related fields. She did research and development work on a battery used in windmill-based electricity generation. She supports STEM funding and excellence in science education. You can check out her positions on science and other issues on her web site, but I’ve heard from her directly on these issues and I’m very positively impressed with her enthusiasm regarding the importance of science in policy. Some time in the near future I want to ask her about the Science Pledge and see if she’ll sign on to it. I’m guessing yes. I’ll let you know.

Here’s the thing: Sharon Sund is a clearly progressive candidate who overtly foregrounds science and related economic, educational, health, and social policy informed by science. I really could not have asked for a better candidate running in my district. I hope that you feel the same way. Running moderates in the Third District has not been an effective strategy against a Michele Bachmann clone. The choice has not been clear enough. Name recognition and machine politics have given an advantage to the Republican candidate, and this advantage is only getting stronger. Sund is a progressive who represents the views of many people in this district. She is a pro-science person, and many people who live in this district are in science related jobs (as is the case with all of the Minnesota suburubs). She is a pro-education candidate, and her district is probably the most pro-education district in the state. Sharon Sund can gain support a moderate could have never gained here. And with that support she can actually win this race and allow Minnesota to shift its delegation to a more progressive stance.

If you are not a resident of the Third District of Minnesota, I still need you to do something. I need you to Click Here and donate $10 to Sharon’s campaign. Having her in Congress will benefit you even if you live in Peoria. For that matter, it will benefit you even if you live in Tokyo. So send Yen!

If you ARE a resident of the Third District of Minnesota, then you MUST CLICK HERE and donate $100 to Sharon’s campaign, AND you must volunteer for her.

If Sharon Sund is elected to Congress, the number of scientists in the House of Representatives of the United States will increase by about 15%. You can help make this happen!