Retail Politics for a Newbie

Central Illinois Progressive David Gill and New Supporter

Today I attended my very first reception hosted at someone's private home for a progressive candidate, David Gill, who running for Congress in the Illinois 15th district. His opponent is one who has been in Congress for quite a while, but I think Gill has a very good chance to win.

Gill is a practicing family physician who supports universal health care because in the short and long run, it would save all of us money. I asked him if paperwork shuffled around by all of these insurance companies frustrated him. He said no. It was people who waited so late to come get treatment. He gave an instance of a 39 year old full-time dad who had a heart attack and didn't pay attention to the warning signs. His wife wanted him to see a doctor, but he said because they were uninsured, he would wait it out and maybe the chest pains would go away. The man died, leaving his working wife with 3 children. Sad case.

Other issues:
Gill also favors public financing of politicians because the private ones done through lobby often have too much clout. He mentioned that in Maine and Arizona that a fraction amount of income tax goes to public financing. Good idea.

Gill favors moving away from fossil fuels and talked about a project called Apollo.com. I also found out his wife is an avid (he calls her "rabid" :->) recyclist and buys Seventh Generation paper projects. According to the website, the name is derived from the Iroquois belief that "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."

I can see how retail politics appeal to Iowa citizens and NH, now that I've had a taste of it. There were about 15 people in all in a small condo, but everyone was seated comfortably, and he listened to their concerns and views. I enjoyed hearing their views. In addition to bringing up some issues, I asked the group if they minded if I took pictures to put on my blog, OAC, and now, Gill wants them for his blog. Good way to get the conversations going about JRE and other progressive candidates! He wasn't familiar with OAC blog, but said he had been reading good things about JRE in the news this week. I told him about the OAC audioblogs/podcasts and how they can reach a lot of people once.

I volunteered officially to be at his service, but I needed some training about how to do effective door-to-door campaigning. After all, I am a newbie.