• Home
• Contribute
• About
• Programs

New PowerPAC Ad: "What Matters"

PowerPAC launches today with new ads in New Mexico targeting Hispanic voters. The ads will run statewide, for two weeks, in English and Spanish. Press release is below.

NEW MEXICO – Signaling the significance of Hispanic voters in determining the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election, two new television ads targeting the key demographic of Hispanic voters with a positive, pro-Obama message will launch Thursday in New Mexico.

The ads are produced by PowerPAC, a national, non-profit organization aimed at increasing civic participation among young people and people of color. PowerPAC also endorses candidates and has funded independent campaigns supporting Barack Obama since the primary election.

“The Southwest is clearly the critical battleground of the 2008 election, and we know that we cannot win the Southwest without winning a significant portion of Hispanic voters,” said PowerPAC Chairman Steve Phillips. PowerPAC’s Southwest strategy includes running ads and identifying and training rising Hispanic leaders not only in New Mexico but in Colorado and Nevada as well. Those three states, which Kerry lost in 2004 by a combined 127,000 votes, have more than 1 million eligible Hispanic voters. Had Kerry won New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, he would have captured the Presidency even without carrying Ohio and Florida.

PowerPAC’s strategy is informed by lessons from 2004 and the writings of the Coronado Project, a national effort calling for a new Democratic focus on Hispanic voters in the Southwest. Lorena Chambers, a co-founder of the Coronado Project, worked with PowerPAC to create the ads in both English and Spanish.

The English-language ad is called “What Matters.” The ads carry cultural cues that resonate with the Hispanic community, and will help fill a current void in pro-Obama television media targeting this population. They touch on themes of family, and the value of education and hard work, which are the cornerstones of the Hispanic community in New Mexico.

To view or download the ad in English and Spanish, please go to:

http://www.powerpac.org/LatinoMedia/

PowerPAC in Politico

Ben Smith writes about our plans for the Fall in today's Politico:

PowerPAC.org, which aided Obama in the Democratic Primary, is launching a voter registration drive in the African-American south and a media campaign targeting Hispanic voters in four Western states, said the group's president, Steve Phillips. He said the aim was to capitalize on Obama's momentum to benefit progressive causes and candidates around the country.

"This is a larger movement—it's not just a question of getting one man elected," said Phillips, a former president of the San Francisco Board of Education.

Contrary to the headline, we don't actually have $10 million -- though that is our fundraising target for the Fall program.

Steve Phillips: Seizing the Time

PowerPAC Chairman Steve Phillips wrote in the Huffington Post recently about the independent groups on the progressive side, and our role in this historic 2008 election. One of the points of the piece was that unlike the "Swiftboating" that took place in 2004, and all the attempted character-assassination John McCain is engaging in this cycle, the role of independent groups this cycle is to mobilize the progressive base in key regions:

Contrary to earlier reports about the demise of independent efforts this cycle, the work in 2008 will be robust, vibrant, and more coordinated than ever before. In 2008, the progressive movement is taking on an unprecedented collaboration of grassroots groups to raise $100 million that will mobilize millions of new voters and engage them in effective organizations that will be around long after November 4.

Major donors across the country are as inspired as everyone else about this important moment, and significant investments are being made to make the most of this opportunity. In addition to widespread non-partisan work, many of these efforts will support progressive candidates up and down the ticket, helping elect Barack Obama, picking up Senate seats, flipping state legislatures and permanently reshaping the electoral landscape in key states across the country.

If we fund these efforts, we can beat the Republicans and their low-road tactics, and without stooping to the low road. If ever there was a year to execute this strategy, 2008 is it.

Somebody Died for Me

By Steve Phillips

In 1988, I took a delegation of California students to the South for the first-ever Super Tuesday to help mobilize African-American voters in the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement. An idealistic college student at the time, I met many of the key leaders of the Movement and even visited the grave of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young civil rights demonstrator who was shot and killed by a state trooper during a voting rights rally. Jimmie Lee’s death sparked the Selma-to-Montgomery march and led to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Jesse Jackson says that the Voting Rights Act was written in blood before it was signed in ink. As a result of that ’88 trip to the South, I became deeply connected to the legacy of those who died for me, for millions of others, and for democracy itself.

Twenty years later, we are facing another historic moment. The nation and the world must confront life-and-death challenges such as global warming, terrorism, globalization, poverty and disease. In the Presidential primaries, people are already turning out in record numbers, for a slate of diverse candidates including a woman, an African American, and a Latino.

All of us are called to respond to this historical imperative, and PowerPAC is doing its part. Building on our work in 14 stats during the Primary, PowerPAC will be helping to coordinate a national effort to register and mobilize 1 million new Black voters in the 2008 election. This work will be focused primarily in the American South – where the critical battles for democracy, justice, and inclusion were waged -- collectively represent more than half of the national African American electorate.

Our goal and primary mission is to honor the legacy of Jimmie Lee Jackson and ensure that all of those whose franchise was secured by struggle and sacrifice in the Civil Rights Movement know about the upcoming elections and turn out to vote.

In addition to our core work of voter mobilization, from time to time, PowerPAC also supports candidates of conscience, who we believe will help expand democratic participation and advance the cause of social justice. This is one of those times, and we will independently promote the candidacy of Barack Obama, the first African-American nominee for a major party, during his historic quest for the White House. We will be reaching out in particular to Latino voters, who are an emerging force in American politics and who are poised in 2008 to become a permanent constituency of the progressive coalition.

2008 comes forty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and twenty years after my first sojourn to the Black-Belt South. Those for whom Jimmie Lee Jackson and Dr. King died can now pick the next President, and PowerPAC is going to do all it can to ensure that as many people as possible participate in this historic election. Jimmie Lee would demand nothing less of us.

Faith, Hope and Justice in 2008

Dear PowerPAC friends and supporters,

This is the moment we have been waiting for.

For the last eight months, I have been working on a new campaign called Vote Hope, supporting Barack Obama's historic campaign for President of the United States. Obama's campaign is both riding and propelling the kind of positive movement for social change that this country hasn't seen in nearly 40 years. I'm writing today to ask you, supporters of this movement in California, to join me in this effort. I believe that if we give our all over the next two and a half months, we can not only help Barack win the Democratic nomination, but we can also solidify a multi-racial movement for justice and hope that will truly signal a new era in this nation.

Vote Hope, is working deeply in communities that have been historic levers for social change -- African Americans, Latinos and students -- and our goal is to emerge after the primary on Feb. 5, 2008, as a network that is larger and stronger than ever before.

Join this network for hope and change now!

continues...