July 29 - Where's your Bernie party? That was the original title of this diary. Then I started digging and I invite you to do the same. If you do, I'll include your finding if you do.
Within 100 miles of Portland, OR there are 76 parties for Bernie on July 29th. Good luck getting into one. I'm on 2 standby lists. I didn't RSVP earlier because I wasn't sure a house guest wanted to go.
Then I wondered how many of these parties are there - especially in states where Bernie hasn't held a rally. Here's where I got the following numbers - and you can schedule your own party right there, too: [in case you are curious about a certain town, here's the ZIP Code finder].
To check my work, or expand it use the Zip code finder first, then the party locater. I tried to avoid overlap by making sure the cities selected were at least 100 miles apart.
Here's the number of parties scheduled within 100 miles of these cities:
Indianapolis, IN - 30
Terre Haute, IN - 26
Ft. Wayne, IN - 29
South Bend, IN - 75
Detroit, MI - 50 [wait, didn't Bernie piss off Black people????]
Traverse City, MI - 7
Grand Rapids, MI - 23
Chicago, IL - 98
Springfield, IL - 30
Rock Island. IL - 34
Rockford, IL - 117 [OK, this is a Republican stronghold]
Carbondale, IL - 23
Decatur, IL - 0 [expected - unbelievably Republican]
St. Louis, MO - 26
Springfield, MO - 12
Kansas City, MO - 14
Freaking Ft. Leonard Wood, MO - 18
Well, surely won't be any in
Bismark, ND - 0 nada, not one. There's work to be done.
Fargo, ND - 4
Rapid City, SD - 3
Sioux Falls, SD - 7
OK, just for the hell of it let's look at Wisconsin where he encountered an audience of 9,600
Milwaukee, WI - 113
Eau Claire, WI - 50
Green Bay, WI - 26
and why not Iowa? - I know a lot of Iowans and they aren't easily impressed.
Davenport, IA - 34
Waterloo, IA - 35
Des Moines, IA - 23
You want to win a nationwide campaign without hundreds of millions of dollars? Go to the people in their homes. Put together small groups ranging from supporters to the mildly curious. Get them to talk with each other, then with their friends about your ideas.
In the old days on the lakefront in Chicago - I mean the 1970's & 1980's - at this stage of the election cycle we were lucky to get our candidate to 5 coffees in 1 night. But we elected progressive candidates against the mighty machine of Mayor Richard Daley the First. I think Bernie is doing the same old thing a brand new way.
So, how's that working out? According to the campaign as of Friday it appears there will be
over 2,000 3,146 parties
with 4 or more attending.
UPDATES: - OK I can't keep track of the updates but check out this map. complements of martini
NYC, NY - 229
Tampa, St. Pete, FL - 41
Griffin, GA - 32
Janesville, WI - 112 [Paul Ryan's about to be former territory]
Cleveland, OH - 19 within 50 miles
Lancaster, PA - [154 in deep red territory]
Salt Lake City, UT - 22
St. George, UT - 6
San Jose, CA - 101
Sacramento, CA - 154 [both Sacramento and Lancaster have 154 parties around them]
Santa Rosa, CA - 145