Hello everyone. Although I am on this blog casually often as a Philadelphian and observer of local politics, I want to write today about Anne’s campaign from a professional perspective. I am a good friend of Anne who runs campaigns for a living; I am currently running a Congressional campaign, and I'm advising Anne on her crucial last week. Anne's campaign has been going through a staff transition for the last two days, so they have been quiet on the blogs. I am happy to write, though, that in just a few days, Anne Dicker for State Senate has come back together with a surge of new energy, drive, and commitment to finish what we started in 2006 - to come back, get this done, and this time, beat not one but both South Philly political machines.

The coverage and discussion on the First Senate District race so far has been very confused, and that is because it is such an extraordinary election. We have never had a Philadelphia primary run during a contested Presidential primary in Pennsylvania – it’s like a solar eclipse, and won’t happen again for decades. More voters are going to turn out than have ever turned out for a State Senate race, and most of them won’t know a thing about who these John Dougherty or Larry Farnese people are. It is hard to remember that when you live and breathe politics, but this is true. The traditional tools by which people win and keep this district - a race that would normally be the top of the ticket – no longer apply.

This is the last Dicker poll, conducted in April 2008.

Pushed (the question, “If the election were held today, who would you vote for?”):
Doc 43
Anne 30
Farnese 27

This is after the Dougherty and Farnese campaigns spent a total of about $350,000 on TV, and I suspect as much as an additional $250-300,000 on mail. During this time, Anne spent about $10,000 on all paid media, and somehow remained in second place. This is virtually a miracle. Her pollster always said that with enough money, she would win the race easily.

Dougherty’s campaign has obviously counted on him being the front runner who will have party backing, and has blown a tremendous amount of money reminding his base who he is – without bothering to get new voters, or expand into the undecideds. Usually this would have been enough to win, but like I tried to explain above, this is a chaos theory election.

But what’s really astounding about this is how Farnese’s campaign could spend that kind of money and not move into second place when Anne is spending virtually nothing. He should have moved into second at the end of March. There are two things that can explain this: 1. Farnese has no message (and in some cases, particularly guns, he is saying almost exactly the same thing as Doc) and 2. His paid media (as well as Doc’s) is getting completely drowned out by the presidential race.

Although both Farnese and Doc have both bought (pieced together from friends in DC-based media firm) another $300,000 in cable and TV for the last week, they are going to be completely drowned out by Presidential television.

A huge chunk of the delegates from PA are to come from the Philadelphia region, and particularly Obama has invested everything in TV here, buying more TV in Pennsylvania history than for any other previous election, according to the Inquirer. Larry really has no other way to go from here, and in addition, he seems to have spent a lot of his air time attacking Doc on corruption (which actually benefits Anne as much as his own candidacy.)

It’s been a weird year anyway all across the country, and it ain’t stopping here.

Here are the reasons Anne can move from second to first on Election Day:

1. Identity politics. Hillary Clinton is expected to win the First. There is a proportion of the female population that votes on gender; that effect will most certainly be heightened by a woman running for President. The Clinton campaign has appealed directly to women for months now, bringing women’s issues back into the public dialogue. This is expected to help other candidates too, like Jen Mann.

2. The nature of Anne voters. When you look at the percentages that people get in a poll, it is important to think about how those people know the candidate, and how strongly their attachment is. Doc’s been a politician for 30 years, but TV had a lot to do with his bump (Fumo voters migrated to Doc after the indictment). Larry’s come entirely from mail and TV. Anne’s come from her organizing work and 2 years of positive press as a leader of the reform movement. Of those three groups of people, Anne’s are by far the most likely to remember to vote for her – they usually have very strong

3. Last-minute money. Since the staff transition this week, Anne’s fundraising has actually picked up – this is highly unusual but it reflects a new surge of momentum in the campaign, especially with the Daily News endorsement and last night’s Casino Free Philadelphia debate.

4. Usually campaigns would have to spend money on GOTV – pulling people on Election Day, calling them, etc. This is very expensive, and normally Doc and Farnese would have the advantage. But because of the presidential primary, no one needs to be “pulled” or reminded to vote – they’re coming out anyway. The playing field is leveled a lot.

5. Anne’s volunteer base has literally grown tenfold since 2006.

6. Although she has limited resources to do TV, Farnese is doing negative TV against Doc for her.

It’s not going to be easy. Doc is very certainly in the lead. But his electorate is going to be engulfed by a lot of other voters. But Anne has the best message, the most committed volunteers, a tremendous Eday presence – and best of all, a city that is inspired by the election of Michael Nutter and two years of real change. As the Daily News put it so well yesterday in their endorsement of her, “she is the only candidate in this race who has the ability to represent a new day in Harrisburg.”

With a tremendous amount of hard work, Anne can close the gap but she can’t do it without your help.

The distance between Senator Dougherty and Senator Dicker is you.

There’s still plenty of time to volunteer, to donate, and to work a poll on Election Day and spread Anne’s message of real change (not just slapping the word change on your mail pieces.) Anne has already made the city of Philadelphia better for thousands of people in just two years in politics – in Harrisburg, she would be a one-woman reform wrecking ball.

Anne needs volunteer help every single last second of the next few days. You will have a ton of fun. Call 215-625-2717 or email anne@annedicker.com.

And Anne needs you to donate online TODAY. If you can give $1000, if you can give $500, if you can give $25, now is the time to do it. www.annedicker.com.

Anne has brought on field staff for the last week to run our Election Day operation, as well as the anti-casino activists that ran the charter charge petition drive last winter, which was the largest grassroots petition drive since the 1976 Recall Rizzo effort. As I mentioned in my last post, Anne was Patrick Murphy’s field director for months in 2006, and his campaign set new standards for volunteer-based field operations.

If you have any time over the next week, drop into her office: 806 Passyunk
(at 6th and Queen Streets). Here’s a map: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=806+passyunk+phila+pa&j...

If Dougherty wins, we have only ourselves to blame.

It is so rare that we have a true public servant like Anne Dicker on the ballot to vote for.

…And it is even rarer that she should still be in second place after being massively outspent.

But sometimes Fortune smiles upon a campaign.
By next Tuesday, I think Fortune will be practically beaming.

Hannah

p.s. Anne needs volunteer help every single last second of the next few days. Call 215-625-2717 or email anne@annedicker.com.

p.p.s. Anne needs you to donate online TODAY. If you can give $1000, if you can give $500, if you can give $25, now is the time to do it. www.annedicker.com.