We need to be working now, not just in the weeks before election day. The national news is enough to make that clear. And if you follow the local news, you’ll know that a group of Sierra County citizens who believe the Big Lie went before the county commission to express their convictions based on the material in a widely debunked conspiracy theory film. The opposition is organized and motivated, and they never stop. We can only win by out-organizing them and by motivating the discouraged and the disengaged. Our small, slow, behind-the scenes efforts matter as much as big protests and massive voter turnout, because the team doing the small things brings out the massive voter turnout.

If something is holding you back from volunteering, what is it? “I’m too busy.” “It’s too stressful.” “I don’t see what’s accomplished.” “I don’t like talking to strangers.” “I’m so upset, I feel like giving up and hiding from it all.”  

Action relieves those negative feelings! So does knowing you’re not alone!

Meet and greet at the Hillsboro Community Center July 10, 3:00-5:00 p.m

Sit down and talk with fellow Democrats and independents, share concerns, and get motivated to make November 2022 a win. Meet with candidates and their representatives and become involved. And enjoy some cookies, cake, iced tea, and lemonade.

Even if you have just one or two hours a week (or every other week), you can relieve your political distress through action. Here are two ways to get started.

1. Postcards for Blue CD2 are a low-stress way to volunteer without talking to strangers, on your own time. Create a postcard project of your choosing. For example: want to mail postcards to registered, non-voting Democrats whose primary voting issue is the environment? Blue CD2 will provide you names, addresses, a message, and in some cases, the postcards. You choose the number of postcards you want to write and supply postage. You can narrow your project by issue, age group, gender, or county. Email bluecd2nm@gmail.com to volunteer. The steps are simple and worth taking.
2. Volunteer for a campaign. Deep phone banking, like deep canvassing, means talking with the least engaged voters, the Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who don’t always vote, and asking what issues they care about. This helps the campaign build a plan to reach them in the future. In each two-hour session, you might have only a few such conversations, but those add up when enough volunteers participate. Calls to disconnected numbers and people who have moved out of state are actually useful, too. Yes, many people don’t answer, but slow work isn’t wasted time. Sooner or later, you reach someone who wants to talk, and the conversation is rewarding. Something is being accomplished in small steps.To volunteer to help elect Gabe Vasquez for CD2, contact Frances Gonzales fgonzales104@gmail.com 575-956-8942.

Need even more motivation? Excerpt from statement by state Democratic party chair Jessica Velasquez:

The stakes are high this election year. Republican candidate for governor Mark Ronchetti promises to make abortion illegal and wants to pass policies that punish women and their doctors for making their own healthcare decisions. The GOP candidate for Lt. Governor, Ant Thornton, believes that abortion should be illegal with no exception, even in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk. 

Additionally, each New Mexican GOP congressional candidate including Alexis Martinez Johnson and Yvette Herrell have made it clear that they strongly support the undoing of the protections of Roe v. Wade and want to undermine access to abortion across the country. Herrell even co-sponsored legislation that would ban all abortion, even when the woman’s life is at risk, and restrict access to commonly used contraceptives.

Thanks for reading and for getting involved. If you have the ability to donate to Democratic candidates, please support them in that way, too.