SNAP featured in The Nation

The November 6 issue of The Nation features a very substantial (> 1,000 words) piece on SNAP. The article, "SNAP!" by Sam Graham-Felsen, is available online here (but you have to be a Nation subscriber to read the whole thing).

Some highlights:

SNAP has emerged as one of the more innovative and influential progressive organizations on American campuses. Beyond the assistance it is providing in the November elections, SNAP is playing an important role in shaping the future of the progressive movement. With its grassroots approach to electoral politics, SNAP is not only bridging the often-stark ideological divide between radical activists and pragmatic College Democrats on campus; it is providing a model for how to bring genuine political power to students.
...
SNAP's commitment, intellectual seriousness and willingness to forgo immediate gratification have drawn praise from many of the political strategists and candidates they've worked with. Sherrod Brown says he marveled at their "energy and passion," calling their work "vital to sustaining and strengthening the grassroots progressive movement."
...
After the elections SNAP will continue to fundraise and expand to more schools across the country. Malsin hopes it will eventually grow into "something like a national youth caucus--a unified progressive youth voice with power." A year ago SNAP couldn't get anyone to return phone calls; today campaigns across the country are begging the group for endorsements. "They want us," says Malsin. "We set out to build power, and now we've got it." SNAP believes that by 2008, its endorsement of a presidential candidate will be "a significant thing in politics."

It's nice to see so many people's hard work paying off. To keep the SNAP momentum going, please consider making a contribution.

New Haven Fundraiser a Success

We had another tremendously successful fundraiser this past Monday in New Haven. Ned Lamont (D-CT), SNAP-endorsed candidate for Senate, and Marissa Levendis, SNAP Executive Director, spoke with passion and eloquence of the stakes in the coming Congressional elections--from healthcare, to Iraq, to the proliferation of lobbyists in Washington.

Lamont told the grassroots story of his campaign, starting with an informal gathering of activists at New Haven's own Naples pizza. As he pointed out at the event, if there was an open question regarding the efficacy or realism of grassroots activism, the Lamont campaign has gone a long way towards putting it to rest.

To go the rest of the way, SNAP intends to work with Lamont and others to field the organizers that always make or break close elections. Over the next month, we will continue to send hundreds of students to knock on doors around the state, advocating for progressive change and ensuring that nobody is misled into believing his or her vote doesn't count. Transportation costs money, though -- so if you recognize the vitality of this cause, please consider making a contribution. We're entering the homestretch now -- with a final sprint, new Congressional majorities in 2006 are right around the corner.

So if you made it out to the New Haven event, thanks for your support! And either way, we hope to see you next time.

A Psychologist's Take on the Conservative Appeal

Roy Eidelson, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and the father of two SNAP members, has recently composed an online video explicating the ways in which conservatives have so successfully exploited Americans' psychology of late.

In particular, he argues that conservatives have done a better job than progressives at appealing to five core concerns: vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. Naturally, this bears directly on what progressives must do differently if we hope to retake Congress in Novemeber.

The video, entitled Dangerous Ideas, is well worth considering, and it's available here.

We Heart You too, Chris Murphy

SNAP Rockstars Sean Crotty and Giovanna Frank-Vitale are featured this week on the front of Chris Murphy's (CT-5 challenger, David to Nancy Johnson's Goliath) website. I thought you all should know.

Great candidate. Great interns. Great picture!

Holy Toledo!

We had a terrific event Saturday afternoon with Rep. Sherrod Brown, who's running for Senate against Mike DeWine and is one of SNAP's endorsed candidates, and his amazing wife, Connie Schultz, who's won the Pulitzer Prize for her columns which advance the cause of justice for working men and women. They, along with SNAP Political Director Jared Malsin and SNAP intern Dylan Daney, spoke eloquently of the need to elect progressives to help create the kind of change that progressive movement activists all over wish to see in the world. Rep. Brown praised SNAP for its "progressive pragmatism" and for working to bring student energy back to electoral politics, both through the SNAP interns on the ground this summer and through the organizing SNAP will be doing on campuses across the country this fall to mobilize thousands of student volunteers to pound the pavement for progressive candidates.

Rep. Brown made no bones about why students could be critical to victory for progressive candidates this fall. Students will work harder and bring more energy to their work than any other segment of the population. Now the challenge is to make sure they are activated.

This fall, that means making sure that SNAP students will have the ability not only to organize those hundreds of students to go out and knock on doors, but also to transport them to the areas where they are most needed and the races that matter most. Those transportation costs will not be small, which is why we need your support - please contribute $10, $25, $50 or more to SNAP today to help ensure victory this fall.

A Politics of the Common Good

SNAP got a little shout out in Katrina Vanden Heuvel's latest online piece at The Nation:

Let's celebrate this gathering--of people of moxie, passion and conviction. Progressives across the country are building a feisty, populist politics, an actual movement based on real conviction, serious about taking power: one committed to changing course--ending a disastrous war that is undermining our security; building a more perfect union, fighting for national health care, addressing the investment deficit, fueling that moon shot for energy independence, draining the swamp of corruption and incompetence that is the hallmark of this congress and administration, and driving Democrats toward a real and renewed politics of the common good.

And, further down,

There is a new generation of student activists, journalist/muckrakers and thinkers. We're witnessing the emergence of scores of new progressive student groups --from the Roosevelt Institution, SNAP (Students for a New American Politics), to a 21st century Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Campus progress is supporting scores of left/progressive student campus publications -- a pluralistic network of journalists/muckrakers and editors poised to counter the right's messengers and publications.

A nice pat on the back for all the people who have made SNAP possible over the last year and a half.

SNAP - The Next Big Thing?

Roll Call, one of Capitol Hill's most read daily political newspapers, has written a great story about SNAP! While there are a few factual errors (SNAP supports progressive candidates, not Democratic candidates) it is a great article on who we are and what we're about, and some of our first major press coverage! My favorite part of the article is this:

[Geraldine] Ferraro -- who said that her role on the advisory board is limited because "these kids are very smart, they don't need anyone to tell them what to do" -- believes the group will get more respect as time goes on.

"Every campaign cycle brings something new," she said. "Last time it was bloggers, and now they're becoming a real force. Now it's these kids at the grass-roots level. This could probably catch on very, very nicely."

Student PAC Providing Democratic Troops (Roll Call, subscribers only)