Just one week ago, we launched Retake the Roundhouse. We are busily developing relationships, reaching out to other advocacy groups, and slowly building content to flesh out the website and provide you with the resources you need to help Democrats retake the New Mexico Roundhouse. While this blog will seek to entertain and educate you, it is really an entryway to action. We need to do more than read, like, and share to Retake the Roundhouse and Retake Our Democracy. We need to get busy. Here are a few things you can do right now:

• Volunteer to conduct voter registration, canvassing, and phone banking in and around Santa Fe. To do so, contact Susan Popovich at susanpop@aol.com.
• Pick a Target Race & Support It.  Check out the two lists, one for seven targeted NM State Senate races and one for nine targeted NM State House races. Each list includes a brief summary of the race and candidates and includes contact information for how you can support Democrats in these races. I encourage you to pick one or two and send them a check and/or contact them and offer to phone bank from home.
• Develop your own Circle of Friends.  For Retake the Roundhouse to expand, it will need people like you to reach out to others and encourage their involvement. I am asking each of you to make it a point to develop a Circle of Friends who sign on to Retake the Roundhouse and support one or more state races. Start with 2-3 and build. Once you develop a Circle of Friends, you can pick races to support together; you can attend phone bank, VR ,and canvassing events together. There is nothing like peer support to sustain your enthusiasm, and working with friends is much more fun. Start reaching out to a few friends today.
• Take a look at the TPP In Brief and go to the Contact List of NM Congressional representatives. Reach out to your representatives and tell them that you oppose the TPP, and that you vote. Tell them you appreciate their having voted against Fast Track (yes all five of our Senators and Representatives voted against it), and tell them you understand the pressure that Obama is applying, but insist that the TPP is a game-changer and must be stopped. TPP in Brief has links to a Robert Reich 2-minute video on TPP and to a speech by Senator Sanders. It also includes two excellent summaries, one from the Huffington Post and another from Public Citizen. The TPP is the single greatest threat to our democracy in the last 20 years as it could undermine and prevent any and all efforts to create social, environmental, racial, and economic justice. If you believe a sustainable, just future should trump short-term profits of big corporations, please get active on this.

This is the first actual blog for Retake the Roundhouse. I encourage your input and suggestions as we go forward.

Categories: Actions