The April 19, 2024 Friday Power Lunch featured election innovators who are leading the Democratic Party to victory this November.

GUESTS

SENATOR L. LOUISE LUCAS (President Pro Tempore, Virginia's 18th Senate District) speaks about protecting the long-term interests of Virginians against MAGA Republican Governor Youngkin from the budget to the arena.

ANDERSON CLAYTON (Chair, North Carolina Democratic Party) represents the new energy coming into the Democratic party through young and vibrant state party leadership. Anderson explains how she is organizing year-round to rebuild the Democratic base in the state party to flip North Carolina blue.

ROBERTA THACKER-OLIVER (Chair of the Rural Caucus of the Democratic Party of Virginia) previews the May 3-5 Rural Retreat at Natural Bridge Historic Hotel and Conference Center

CANDIDATE KEN MITCHELL (Virginia's 6th Congressional District) talks about his strategy to connect with voters in this large and rural district.

GUESTS

LUISA BOYARSKI from the Virginia Grassroots Coalition gave her ever informative update.

DELEGATES SAM RASOUL (HD38 - Roanoke) explained how the process works in theory and in practice. He will also share how citizens play a vital role in this process even though it may not appear that way from the outside.

DELEGATE JOSH THOMAS (HD21 - Prince William County) talked about his surprises, delights, and disappointments from his first session.

MICHAEL POPE (Journalist and host of Pod Virginia) shared stories about what he's seen, heard, and learned covering Virginia politics.

DELEGATE JACKIE GLASS (HD93 - Norfolk) wrapped up our conversation on how the legislative process works in Richmond and the important role activists play in this process.

GUESTS

SENATOR TIM KAINE gave an update on his campaign.

GENE ROSSI, our favorite legal analyst ,discussed the Trump hush money case that starts on April 15th.

DEEPAK PURI, founder of Democracy Labs, will demonstrated 3 free tech tools

NICK KNUDSEN, founder of Demcast, the largest and most impactful organic digital amplification network in the world, spoke about how we can amplify our message this election cycle.

DELEGATE MARCUS SIMON, HD13 – County of Fairfax, gave us an inside look into Governor Youngkin's vetos and what we might expect during next week's reconvened session of the General Assembly.

GUESTS

LUISA BOYARSKI from the Virginia Grassroots Coalition gave her ever informative update.

DELEGATES SAM RASOUL (HD38 - Roanoke) explained how the process works in theory and in practice. He will also share how citizens play a vital role in this process even though it may not appear that way from the outside.

DELEGATE JOSH THOMAS (HD21 - Prince William County) talked about his surprises, delights, and disappointments from his first session.

MICHAEL POPE (Journalist and host of Pod Virginia) shared stories about what he's seen, heard, and learned covering Virginia politics.

DELEGATE JACKIE GLASS (HD93 - Norfolk) wrapped up our conversation on how the legislative process works in Richmond and the important role activists play in this process.

The March 29, 2024 Friday Power Lunch was the special monthly national program where we explored building community as one of the core values of grassroots work today.

In addition to show hosts Katherine White & Finale Norton, Susan Wagner from the Grassroots Collaboration Project joined the team for this program.

GUESTS

ELLEN CASSEDY, Activist and author of "Working 9 to 5: A Women's Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie") was interviewed by SUSAN WAGNER. They spoke about how in 1973 women won rights and respect at the office and changed workplaces throughout America. Ellen also reflected on how their lessons learned can help our work today.

There are many postcard programs, but none receives more positive feedback than the year round program through NE Arizona Native Democrats. JENNIFER STOKELY EIS, Out-of-State Director, NEAZ Native Democrats, and ELIZABETH REINGOLD, Leadership Team, Markers for Democracy, were interviewed by FINALE NORTON. They discussed how this program lives its Democratic values every day and focuses on building a community of voters instead of promoting campaigns or candidates.

JUDY KINCAID, North Carolina Activist and Founder of Leaflet Every Door, was interviewed by KATHERINE WHITE. They spoke about how and why Judy started this program to hand out leaflets to revitalize her local precinct and connect with voters regularly, not just around elections.

AMY DIEHL, PHD - information technology leader and gender equity researcher, spoke about her new book, "Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work." Amy explained gender bias and described the barriers that are like glass walls limiting women's potential. An example was when women are in charge but it is often assumed that they are not. Amy also presented titles for biases (click here for a glossary of these biases). Finally, she suggested that when you think you are experiencing gender bias but are not sure, take the criticism and apply it to a man - what she called "Flip It to Test It". Would the same thing be said about a man? If the criticism is not likely to be applied to a man, then it is probably bias. Examples Amy gave were comments about hair, age, and clothing. This is particularly true for women candidates for political office who are constantly scrutinized for performance, behaviors, higher voices, age, etc.

Final thought: Try not to take all of this personally because it is a systemic problem Amy concluded that not taking it personally is not an easy thing to do but if you rationalize it, you might have a better chance of dealing with it.

LYNLEE THORNE, Political Director of Rural GroundGame, discussed the barriers faced by rural candidates, the need to recognize that we are leaving people out of the equation and that the voices of women are being diminished. Lynlee said the truth is that we have intentionally set up a situation where certain voices are valued and others are dismissed. She mentioned a rather humorous example which happens frequently in meetings with Ian, her male Executive Director. Questions are directed to Ian which clearly should be addressed to her. Slight moments of discomfort are acceptable, she noted, if they take us to a better place. Finale highlighted Lynlee's bravery in rural areas in terms of jumping right in with candidates she supports. Lynlee also spoke about last year's provocative postcard campaign, digital ads, and texts - "Your vote is private just as your uterus should be".

KAREN BAKER, Democratic candidate in Virginia's 9th Congressional District, a rural district in southwestern Virginia, spoke about her impressive list of qualifications from her federal career and her nursing experience. She did say that no matter how qualified a candidate is, women in rural areas are never qualified enough. She also pointed out that the churches in rural areas put up glass walls against woman candidates. She discussed her extensive outreach in the community to gather 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot, connect with Democratic county chairs, and energize as many people as possible to get out the vote for herself, Senator Kaine, and President Biden. Karen identified with and spoke movingly about the high number of older women in the 9th District who are troubled by a lot of what is happening in their communities and to the values they hold dear. Lynlee joined in with Karen about the focus right now in the 9th District: to reach out to voters who are registered to vote but not voting at all (more than 200,000 voters in the 9th District alone!). Karen shared the latin phrase she has tattooed on her wrist, Noli Timere, which means "Don't be afraid".

DELEGATE VIVIAN WATTS spoke about the challenges she faced over the years as the longest-serving woman in the Virginia House of Delegates and the strides that have been made. Delegate Watts addressed stereotypes and the need to deal with them directly. In terms of equality of women and the issue of rape, she spoke about the need to speak about the reality of being raped. She highlighted very personal remarks by House Delegate Jackie Glass and advised us to listen to what survivors have gone through and do what it takes to support them.

This week we welcomed:

SIMON ROSENBERG (Founder of Hopium Chronicles) 30-year veteran of US politics and Founder of Hopium on Substack presented a sharp analysis and commentary on the state of general election. President Biden's fiery SOTU address to the American people officially kicked off the race to the White House. Simon discussed the path to victory and what activists can do to ensure we win.

CARRIE SHORT (Co-Founder, COVA Coalition) was special guest host along with Katherine White and started off the show with a wonderful spoof on Katie Britt's response to SOTU and then got serious with her Coastal Report which included the following guests.

MARJORIE MAYFIELD JACKSON (Executive Director, The Elizabeth River Project) spoke about how they are working to restore the Elizabeth river through equitable collaboration with diverse communities, businesses and government. She spoke about their successes turning corporate giants who are normally at odds with environmental issues into allies.

ANDRIA MCCLELLAN (Norfolk City Councilwoman) spoke about how the climate crisis is impacting coastal Virginia and what we can do about it.

MISSY COTTER SMASAL (Chesapeake Bay Commission Virginia Citizen Representative and Virginia Congressional Candidate in CD2) spoke about the climate issues facing her Virginia, her district and how she plans to address it as a candidate for Congress.

*Special Guest - DAVID PEPPER gave an Election Update for Ohio, which has an upcoming Republican Congressional primary of unique interest.

This week we welcomed:

Steve Philips – (National Political Leader, Podcaster of Democracy in Color, Founder of the New Majority Index, and Author of "How We Win the Civil War")

Lauren Burke – (Founder, Black Virginia News and contributor to Pod Virginia)

Jordan Zaslow – (Founder and Executive Director of Her Bold Move)

WE KICKED OFF WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH 💄💗 With:

Elizabeth Griffith - historian, activist, and author of In Her Own Right: The Life Of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Formidable: American Women And The Fight For Equality, spoke about her New Substack newsletter Pink Threads

Antonia Scatton - Democratic Messaging Expert and publisher of 'Reframing America' newsletter, spoke about our critical role as messengers this election.

Kate Bassett - Political Director, Courier Newsroom Strategist with 20 years of experience in the intersections of civic media, politics, and community building. Believer in surround sound narratives + local news.

Gerry Connolly - Congressman Gerry Connolly just returned from important NATO meetings and gave us an update on NATO and Ukraine.

Our opening music video was "Rise Up for Democracy" by two of our guests: ELLEN SCHWARTZ & ROGER BRUNO. This version of the video features excerpts from Tom Suozzi's victory speech, Simon Rosenberg's comments on the "Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell"and NY Representative Grace Meng fon "ALL IN with Chris Hayes" thanking the grassroots and singling out postcard writers.

Video and song used with permission by songwriters and video producers.

COLIN VAN OSTERN, volunteer co-lead of the New Hampshire write-in campaign, and TERIE NORELLI, former Speaker of the New Hampshire House and former president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, told us what inspired them to form the Biden Write-In campaign and how they managed a win by a larger margin than the Republican candidates who were on the ballot.

CONGRESSMAN ELECT TOM SUOZZI joined the conversation with Hosts KATHERINE WHITE, FINALE NORTON & SUSAN WAGNER to talk about working with the grassroots.

JODY KASS, founder of Concerned Citizens of NY-03, and NATE MUNSON-PALOMBA, the grassroots liaison with the Tom Suozzi campaign, discussed how the Suozzi campaign partnered with grassroots groups in an unprecedented way to produce a decisive win. They explained how their work can be a road map for victory for all campaigns in 2024.

Author MATTIE KAHN discussed her new book "Young & Restless" that tells the story of how young women have been at the forefront of every major social movement in America, but their roles have been discounted, ignored, and absent from the historical narrative.

Three generations of the Amburgey family–grandmother CAROL AMBURGEY, daughter KATE AMBURGEY, and granddaughter CAROLYN DEOL–discuss how giving back and being involved is a family tradition. We heard about Carolyn's "Yellow Rose" organization that focuses on voter registration and the ERA. As Kate put it: "If you learn activism as a child, you'll live it as an adult."

Virginia Tech student DELIA ALCORN discussed how she saw a problem at her school and decided to do something about it. Delia was the motivation and force behind House Bill 1342: On-Campus Post-Sexual Assault Care. Like Carolyn, Delia comes from a family involved in politics: Her father is Fairfax Supervisor, Walter Alcorn, and her aunt is a former candidate for Delegate, Elizabeth Alcorn.

February 9, 2024 was our Valentine's Day show with the theme "THINK PINK" which focused on the current state of women's rights and how we fight the MAGA misogyny machine.

Our opening music video was "My Body" from 1st for Women Foundation in collaboration with Lira, GoodLuck, Gigi Lamayne and Mariechan.

As part of our Black History Month Celebration, we play a short video prepared by Finale Norton on James Baldwin's view of voting.

To get people in the spirit of thinking pink, we played clip of the musical number "Think Pink" from the 1957 motion picture "Funny Face"

The issue galvanizing voters, especially women voters, is reproductive freedom. It is also a crucial issue in Virginia since it is also particularly crucial in Virginia, the only southern state without restricted abortion access". Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade with the Dobbs decision, women have been the force behind the Democrats' unprecedented winning streak in local, state, and federal races.

#COVACoalition #BirthinColor #PlannedParenthoodAdvocatesofVirginia #FridayPowerLunch #Grassroots, #badasswomen, #NetworkNOVA #FridayPowerLunch #VirginiaGrassrootsCoalition #VAGrassrootsCoaltion #VAVotes #Virginiapolitics #Virginia #VirginiaDemocrats, #election2024

GUESTS:

CARRIE SHORT from COVA Coalition gave us a Coastal Virginia grassroots update. COVA Coalition is a grassroots, women-led organization in the Coastal Virginia area. Its main areas of focus are education, reproductive freedom and gun violence prevention". Carried raised important areas of focus right now like coastal flooding, special provisions for military families, and Black Caucus priorities like voting rights and intimidation which she described as "real things in Virginia Beach".

JAMIE LOCKHART (Executive Director) and HAN JONES (Political Director) of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia provided an update on their priority bills on reproductive freedom. They will also told us about their big February 14 Valentine's Day Lobby Day in Richmond.

KENDA SUTTON-EL (Executive Director, Birth in Color) is a reproductive justice and maternal health advocate who explained why efforts to restrict abortion have a particularly adverse impact on women of color. She spoke about the failure of the Governor to deal with fetal abnormalities. She also talked about the need for a reproductive justice framework and health system which recognizes that choice in what women can do with their own bodies is critically important.

The February 2, 2024 show gave a nod to Groundhog Day as we discussed breaking out of the election time warp, focusing on what we learned in 2022 and 2023, and zeroing in on winning in 2024. Our opening music video was "Do Something Now" by guest Pete Kronowitt.

We showed a video of the opening monologue from the February 1, 2024 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that discussed how with the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl and Biden and Trump running for presidents, it feels like life is repeating itself.

GUESTS:

CONGRESSWOMAN JENNIFER MCCLELLAN kicked off our celebration of Black History Month.

LUISA BOYARSKI (Virginia Grassroots Coalition) spoke about the legislative session and how impactful our call to action emails have been and continue to be. She also gave an update on upcoming working group meetings.

MATT CAFFREY (Senior Director, Grassroots Community Organizing at Swing Left ) spoke about their 2024 Super State Strategy and their new Team Up program to nurture, train and support new grassroots leaders.

TOM BONIER (Senior adviser at Target Smart and CEO of the Tara Group) helped us understand the challenges of early polls and encouraged us to stop listening to early poll results and get off the "pollercoaster."

PETE KRONOWITT (Activist, singer, & songwriter) told us about new music project using a song called "BE COOL" to harness the power of young people to save the planet.