State Of The Union - "All Of Us Have A Role to Play," VP Harris Calls For An Immediate Cease Fire, Do More/Worry Less

Super Tuesday, State Of The Union - A Big Week Ahead/Calls for Rudy Salas

Happy Monday all! Got a few things for you today:

Calls for Rudy Salas - So grateful to those who stepped up this weekend and made calls for Rudy Salas in CA-22. Hopium community member Jerry Hertz posted this in the paid subscriber chat last night:

Pleased to see lots of people at one of today’s phone banks for Rudy Salas say in the chat “I also listen (read, love, subscribe) to Hopium. “. It’s great to be a part of this community. Thank you

If you have even an hour today or tomorrow, there two ways to help Rudy:

• Grassroots Dem HQ and DCCC Phonebank

• Bay Area Coalition Phonebank and Background Info On Why Calls Are Needed

We can do this people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The State of The Union Is Thursday - Saddle Up Info Warriors! - Huge week for us proud patriots and info warriors - the State of the Union is this Thursday, and it is in many ways the true beginning of the general election. The story, the narrative of what we will be taking to the American people this year will be layed out for all us in the coming days. It’s important that you orient your organizations, networks and yourself in the coming days around the huge campaign that is about to come, and make plans for how you’re going to help amplify the President’s vision, agenda and argument. For as Secretary Buttigieg says in the Political story below,

“This is the time for storytelling, and all of us have a role to play”

Here’s a great SOTU scene setter from Politico Playbook this morning:

“SOTU SHALL THIS PASS — Biden spent the weekend at Camp David working through his State of the Union address ahead of Thursday’s joint session. He’ll likely have no bigger single opportunity to command the attention of the American public ahead of November’s election.

The stakes for Biden and the aides assembling the speech, led by deputy chief of staff BRUCE REED, are enormous. Not only does Biden have to deliver the usual laundry list of goals and accomplishments for his administration, but he’s also facing tremendous pressure to address the mounting concerns about his age and fitness for the job with a vibrant performance.

The details of the speech are being closely held, and there’s no telling whether Biden can manage a breakout moment — such as last year’s jab at the GOP over Medicare and Social Security.

But the White House is preparing its usual pre-and-post-speech comms blitz — one that includes, yes, national media (see above) but also regional TV interviews, briefings with social media influencers and road trips for Cabinet members and other administration officials.

As we broke last week, Biden heads to Philly on Friday and Atlanta on Saturday, while VP KAMALA HARRIS is headed to Arizona and Nevada and other administration officials fan out across the country through the rest of the month. A sampling:

• Energy Secretary JENNIFER GRANHOLM heads to Colorado Friday to highlight clean energy projects;

• Ag Secretary TOM VILSACK heads to Arizona on March 11 to discuss rural economic opportunity on March 11; 

• Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN heads to Kentucky on March 13 to highlight Biden’s Investing in America agenda; 

• Ed Secretary MIGUEL CARDONA heads to Massachusetts on March 14 to discuss “educational opportunities for students of multicultural backgrounds”; and 

• Interior Secretary DEB HAALAND heads to Arkansas on March 20 to discuss “ecosystem restoration and habitat conservation.”

“In a fractured communications landscape, many Americans won’t consume the State of the Union collectively in the same moment or through the same medium; therefore, we’re fanning out aggressively not only on Thursday but in the weeks ahead to reach Americans where they receive the news with the President’s message about whose side he’s on,” said White House comms director BEN LaBOLT.

One Cabinet official who is already stumping before the big speech is Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG, who is out front trying to sell the bipartisan infrastructure law with a slick new docuseries about how projects funded by the bill are improving voters’ lives, our colleague Adam Wren reports. The first episode focuses on the Blatnik Bridge connecting Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. Watch the episode

“This is the time for storytelling, and all of us have a role to play,” Buttigieg told Politico.

“4 Things Biden Should Do Now” - I contributed an essay to a recent pre-State Of The Union package of essays in the New Republic. My essay made 4 recommendations to the big guy:

• Reimagine and Reinvent The War Room

• Build The Largest Youth Engagement Program In History

• Anchor The Second Term Around Countering Climate Change and The Fight For Democracy

• Offer A Big Reform/Clean Up Washington and A Strategy To Raise Life Expectancy

It begins:

I start off 2024 very optimistic about Joe Biden’s reelection and excited for what a second Biden term may bring. My working take on 2024 is that Joe Biden is a very good president, the country is better off today than when he came to office, and he will have a persuasive case for reelection. The Democratic Party has been winning elections all across the country, particularly since the Dobbs Supreme Court decision in 2022. The Republicans, on the other hand, are making a huge mistake in renominating Donald Trump, who is far more degraded, extreme, and dangerous than he was in 2016 or 2020. Current commentary is wildly discounting his negatives, but it will be hard for him to overcome them once the Biden campaign reminds voters of what Trump has done and plans to do. For all these reasons, it is far more likely that Joe Biden wins than loses this year.

But the aspiration of Democrats and our pro-democracy allies must be not just to win the election, but to win big, making 2024 a clear and unequivocal rejection of MAGA. For only once Republicans view MAGA as a political loser will they begin to walk away from their recent reckless embrace of extremism.

So, in that spirit of going big, here are four things Biden world should consider (and in some cases may already be working on). The first two are campaign-related. The second two for when the president begins to roll out his agenda for a second term

You can read the rest of my essay here, and feedback is encouraged.

Kamala Harris - “There Must Be An Immediate Ceasefire” - “What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating, and our common humanity compels us to act. Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks.” Watch her important statement yesterday, and let us hope that this does come to pass in the coming days…..

Register Your Group With The Grassroots Directory - Check out this exciting new project from our friends at the Grassroots Collaboration Project in their new Substack, The Grassroots Connector:

…..”With democracy on the line, the online Grassroots Directory has been launched by the Grassroots Collaboration Project (GCP) to offer leaders of grassroots groups three things:

• For leaders who just want to make a public display of grassroots muscle, a way to do so in minutes. By listing and mapping your group, you will invigorate the grassroots community, reassure anxious Democratic voters that we are fully in this fight, and urge the Democratic Party to work with us as capable partners.  

• For leaders who want to learn more about all types of pro-democracy grassroots groups in “swing states”. . . Think how much even a little communication (all within legal bounds) among Indivisible, Swing Left, Sister District, unaffiliated volunteer groups, nonprofits, and local Democrat committees could reduce duplication and increase smart deployment!

• For leaders just wanting to locate other groups new to them, an easy ”yellow pages” for the grassroots community.

The Grassroots Directory is an all-volunteer, always free resource to supercharge our critical work. Unlike current online directories, the Grassroots Directory gathers ALL vital groups nationwide into one database designed to connect leaders, not duplicating other directories designed to help individuals searching for an activist home to find one in a nearby group.”

It’s another sign of the growing sophistication, maturation and power of the Democratic grassroots. Well done to all involved.

Trump’s CFO, Already Jailed, Will Admit To New Crimes Today: Just more jawdropping stuff from the Trump crime family:

Allen H. Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to former President Donald J. Trump, has reached an agreement with Manhattan prosecutors to plead guilty to perjury charges on Monday, according to people with knowledge of the matter……

Mr. Weisselberg, 76, is now expected to concede that he lied to investigators from the New York attorney general’s office when they were investigating Mr. Trump for fraud. The attorney general, Letitia James, had accused Mr. Trump of wildly inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loans and other benefits.

That civil case recently ended with a judge imposing a huge financial penalty on the former president — more than $450 million with interest….

In 2022, he pleaded guilty in a tax fraud case. Although he did not implicate Mr. Trump, he agreed to testify against the former president’s company, the Trump Organization, at its trial on the same charges.

In that case, the company was convicted, and Mr. Weisselberg received a five-month sentence. With good behavior, he served nearly 100 days behind bars at the notorious Rikers Island jail complex.

With this latest plea, Mr. Weisselberg now faces additional time on Rikers.

It is unclear how many charges he faces, and whether they will be misdemeanors or felonies.

Still, Mr. Weisselberg’s plea agreement comes at an inopportune time for the former president, just weeks before he is expected to go to trial on a raft of felony charges accusing him of falsifying business records related to the hush-money deal with the porn star, Stormy Daniels. It is the first criminal prosecution of a former president, and the trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection on March 25.

Mr. Bragg has accused Mr. Trump of orchestrating a cover-up of a potential sex scandal involving Ms. Daniels that could have influenced the outcome of the 2016 election.

A guilty plea on Monday could strengthen Mr. Bragg’s hand heading into the trial, deterring other witnesses in Mr. Trump’s circle from lying on the stand. The perjury charges could also discredit Mr. Weisselberg, who has disputed details of the prosecution’s evidence in the case involving the 2016 election.

Yes, I discussed moving on from the Trump trials last week. But what is deserving of our time and attention is when people plead guilty or are convicted of crimes. That stuff matters, and we need to note it.

Why I’m Optimistic About Winning This November - A round up of recent postings, essays and appearances. Lots to chew on her over the weekend:

Hopium Analysis/Us - Democrats Really Like Their President, Biden Breaks 80% in Michigan, Trump Continues To Struggle, Biden’s Successful Presidency Is Leaving Rs With Nothing To Run On, Moving On From The Trump Trials, Notes On The NYT Poll

Biden’s Chances Are Much Stronger Than People Realize (MSNBC), 4 Things Biden Should Do Now (New Republic)

Hopium Analysis/Them - More Performance Problems For Trump and MAGA in South Carolina, Trump Is Not Strong, Or Winning - No Red Waving 2024 Please, Coming To Terms With Russia’s Penetration of Trump and The GOP, MAGA Descends Into Madness

Hopium Events/Appearances - Our Monthly Hopium Gathering With Special Guest Tom Suozzi, With Democrats, Things Get Better

Appearances - PoliticsGirl, MeidasTouch, Daily Kos’ The Brief and The Ezra Klein Show

The Most Powerful Democratic Political Machine We’ve Ever Seen - Read my recent post on the powerful political machine we building together, and let’s just keep staring at this jaw-dropping data from the Suozzi campaign:

In the space of five weeks people knocked on over 150,000 doors, made over 2 million phone calls, and wrote hundreds of thousands of postcards. Our campaign estimates that every Democrat household in the NY-03 received, on average, five handwritten postcards.

March Event Dates - Three events on the books so far in March:

• Wed, March 6, 7pm EST - Hopium Paid Subscriber Monthly Gathering - Register

• Wed March 13, 7pm EST - Hopium Community-Wide Monthly Gathering - Register

Free subscribers can upgrade their membership to join these additional gatherings by clicking here.

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - Here at Hopium we strive to channel all this worry and anxiety we have about our current moment into concrete action - do more, worry less - as we say here. Together we just made a big difference in NY-3, and if you’re looking for ways to help here are a few things beyond making calls for Rudy Salas that you can do today:

Donate and join the Biden-Harris campaign - This is very important. The campaign comms and field operations are gearing up and it’s critical you receive info from the campaign every day, and start thinking about how you are going to be part of this effort as it expands. Please donate whatever amount you can - $5, $10 - just to get started.

Our community has already raised over $87,000 for Biden Harris - thank you!

Make an early investment in North Carolina - North Carolina is our most important 2024 expansion state. Please consider donating today. For more on why I think North Carolina is so important watch my interview with Anderson Clayton, the dynamic new NC Democratic Party Chair.

Our community has already raised $77,000 for this critical battleground - thank you all!

Thank Joe Biden For Being A Good President - As we get ready for the State Of The Union this Thursday, our friends at Markers for Democracy have launched an inspired campaign to send post cards to Joe Biden thanking him for being a good President. Our friends Ellen Bender and Susan Wagner sent this to note to me:

In this moment of media fixation over President Biden (see,e.g.,@ezraklein) the postcard community is turning our Sharpies to a very special campaign:  Markers For Democracy has launched a campaign #postcardstobiden encouraging people to send the President a postcard expressing the fact that he has been an excellent President, you appreciate what he has done for the country and you want him to serve a second term. Please encourage others to do the same. Feel free to use your own language and send a postcard letting the President know you have his back.  Postcards should be addressed to President Biden at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20500

You can learn more about the amazing work Postcards for Democracy does here; and you can order cards at their pro-shop or by going to Etsy and search "postcards to voters”. Catch James Carville talking about the importance of postcarding on his podcast, minute 9, and below is an examples of cards that have already gone to President Biden. For all of you who are involved in organizations across the US please consider adopting this campaign. Let’s let the big guy know how grateful we are for his leadership in a time of enormous challenge, and how excited we are to help him win a second term.

Spread Hopium - Encourage people in your networks to become a Hopium subscriber. Our goal is to get to 50,000 subscribers by March 31st (we are at 45,000 today). With your help, we can hit our goal, grow our community, and bring the upbeat, data-filled analysis here to more and more people.

Keep working hard all. Excited to be in this fight with all of you - Simon