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Emerging Leaders

Our Own Sarah Burris Selected in NLC 40 Under 40 Emerging Leaders

The New Leaders Council has announced its honorees in the first annual Emerging Leaders 40 under 40. Our very own Sarah Burris has been selected as one of those emerging leaders.

It's encouraging to see that progressive organizations are beginning to address and nurture our young talent, and the New Leaders Council may be at the vanguard of that effort.

Here are the honorees:

Libuse Binder
Author of Ten Ways to Change the World In Your Twenties.

Aimee Boone
Deputy Executive Director/Finance Director for the Texas Democratic Party.

Raven Brooks and Gina Cooper
Leaders of Netroots Nation, the key organization focusing on how progressives can use technology to shift the public policy debate.

David Burd and Ethan Porter
Founders of the College Democrats of America Alumni Association.

Sarah Burris
Reporter for Rock The Vote, fundraiser for campaigns in OK, KS, CA, NV and civic youth organizations.

Elizabeth Caputo
President of Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century, New York's premier forum for bringing together progressive candidates and young leaders.

Andre Carson
Won special election in 2008 to represent the 7th Congressional District in Indiana.

Won Choi
Executive Director of Tying Nashville Together, major Tennessee citizen coalition of churches and businesses.

Aimée Christensen
Energy and environment consultant to Virgin, involved in many entrepreneurial efforts, and Board Member of Apollo Alliance.

Jack Conway
Attorney General of Kentucky and leader in public safety issues.

Judith Freeman
Director of the New Organizing Institute, training progressive online organizers and communicators.

Gabrielle Giffords
Congresswoman from Arizona, member of House Armed Services Committee.

Amy Graham
Director of Operations for LiveFeed – hunger relief efforts.

Anton Gunn
Author of Revolution Driven Life, speaker and South Carolina political leader.

Tyler Hudson
Communications pro, youngest staff member and speechwriter of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Aaron Keyak
Press Secretary for the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Scott Kleeb
Rancher, PhD, and Nebraska Senate Candidate.

Rachel Kleinfeld and Matt Spence
Co-Directors of Truman National Security Project, the nation's only organization that recruits and trains progressive national security leaders.

Anima LaVoy
Executive Director of Swing Semester, the nation's first political immersion program providing students with 10-week grassroots electoral jobs in swing states.

Ricky Le
Executive Director of California Democratic Congressional Delegation and key leader of Vietnamese community in San Jose, CA.

Sarah Leonard
VP of Glover Park Group Los Angeles, former Spokesperson for America Coming Together, leader of many California campaign efforts.

Nate Loewentheil and Kai Stinchcombe
Executive Director and Founder of the Roosevelt Institute college student policy think tank.

Ian Manheimer
Director of www.Glassbooth.org, which provides info on what Presidential candidate supports your beliefs.

Dyana Mason
Executive Director of Equality Virginia, Virginia's major organization working for full legal equality for GLBT citizens.

Peter Murray
President of the Center for Progressive Leadership, which has trained 3000 young progressive leaders across the nation.

Tony Payton Jr. and Josh Shapiro
The youngest legislator in PA and the Deputy Speaker of the PA State House.

Jon Powers
Iraq War Veteran, teacher and candidate for Congress in NY-26.

Ben Rahn and Jonathan Zucker
Leaders of www.ActBlue.com, the nation's largest online fundraising clearinghouse, with over $60 million raised since 2004.

Edmundo Rocha
Owner of "Para Justicia y Libertad" blog - http://xicanopwr.com/.

Justin Rockfeller
Co-founder of Generation Engage non-partisan youth civic engagement organization.

Tim Ryan
Ohio Congressman since 2003, Appropriations Committee Member.

Sam Stein
Leading political blogger seen on www.HuffingtonPost.com.

Emily Sussman
President and Founder of www.ThinkBlue.net, which researches and supports candidates best helping to engage young voters.

Shaunna Thomas
Director of the Young People For (YP4) program of People for the American Way.

Congratulations to all the honorees and keep up the good work.

September 3rd, 2008 4:28pm
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Vote Vets Launches Emerging Leaders Program

I'm mostly still off the grid but had to pop back in to share this with you. Vote Vets just announced the launch of an Emerging Leaders program to help (mostly) young veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan get elected to state and local office in a bid to build the Democratic foreign policy bench. Add this to the growing roster of organizations that help train new, young candidates for public office.

Here's what they had to say:

[W]e learned very quickly that the key to building a long-term, progressive cadre of national leaders with on-the-ground foreign policy experience is to have a "deep bench" as they say in sports. In order to win House and Senate seats for years to come, we have to be able to put up candidates that have years of political experience under their belts. And as we've seen over the past two, just being an Iraq vet doesn't cut it in the hyper-competitive world of Washington politics.

That's why we've devised a "farm team" of progressive candidates with hands-on national security experience. We've created a program for like-minded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans called Emerging Leaders. In this program, we recruit vets with little to no political experience and promote them in state and local races. We've also incorporated a number of Iraq and Afghanistan who have already won state and local races in the past few years. The idea is to develop seasoned leaders who are more than capable of not only running for federal office in the coming years (should they choose to), but of winning. By cultivating their political careers at the earliest stages, we'll help them to become U.S. senators and members of Congress down the road.

These veterans will eventually become the answer to the McCains, Grahams, and Liebermans of the world when it comes to the question of whether or not to start a war.

Here's the inaugural class:

New Candidates

Elected Officials

  • Harold Naughton: Iraq Vet - Running for re-election to the Massachusetts State House
  • Joe Rice: Iraq Vet - Running for re-election to the Colorado State House
  • Allen Vaught: Iraq Vet - Running for re-election to the Texas State House
  • McKinley Bailey: Iraq and Afghanistan Vet - Running for re-election to the Iowa State House
  • Steven Fulop: Iraq Vet - Jersey City, New Jersey City Councilman
  • Steve Hobbs: Iraq Vet, Washington State Senator
July 29th, 2008 3:20pm
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