Hi all,
First, let me say how grateful I’ve been for the support that so many Daily Kos community members have shown my campaign for Senate over the past six months. One of my advisers has posted some of our campaign videos in diaries that have received a tremendous response and some very generous donations.
I’m running for Senate in Wisconsin against a multi-millionaire in Ron Johnson and several very wealthy Democrats (including a billionaire), and as a guy with a working-class background and a career in government (former Assembly Minority Leader and now a County Executive) I can’t exactly self-fund a campaign. And as the progressive in the race, I’m not exactly being showered with corporate and Wall Street money. All your help has been so vital, so again, thank you.
Just this morning, we put out a new video about health care. I’ve often put some of my personal life into my ads because I believe that voters and potential backers deserve to know who is asking for their support. Too many ads are filled with vague platitudes, which is how we wind up with politicians who don’t follow through on their promises. I’ve brought people into my garage, talked about my minimum wage jobs, and toured around small-town Wisconsin. I’ve also confessed my “sins,” despite being a pretty low-key guy.
In this morning’s video, I got even more personal — as did my wife. She’s definitely more into being behind-the-scenes and is reluctant to talk about her fight with cancer. That said, we both know how lucky she was to be able to get treatment and not be bankrupted by medical bills. One of the reasons I’m running for Senate is to change our health care system to ensure that no one has to choose between medical care and crushing debt. I’m fully in favor of Medicare for All and I wanted to find a way to relate that to people across the country. So we decided to update a well-known ad that was used by corporate health insurance interests to crush universal health care nearly 30 years ago:
Those numbers on the bills are all real — pretty brutal, right? I have spent my entire career working for working people (hey, check this out) and I’m determined to bring that focus and energy to the US Senate.
The quarter is ending today, so if you would be so kind, any donations for my campaign would make an even bigger difference.
CLICK HERE to donate to my campaign’s ActBlue account.
I’ll also be checking in throughout the day to answer any questions you have for me, so please feel free to leave them in the comments. I’m excited to be a part of this community.
Thanks so much,
Tom