Happy New Year from Russ to Us!

Just hours after posting my very first "Letter to Russ," I got an e-mail from him, a wish for a happy and safe new year, plus an acknowledgement of having reached his campaign's final fundraising goal for the calendar year just ended. Perhaps you got it, too.

With all due respect for the strange workings of synchronicity aside, I was not much moved. I don't think well wishing and fundraising go well together. It's sort of like wearing black shoes with a brown belt or maybe even a burkah offset with a Star of David pendant. One just shouldn't mix certain things, like warm wishes for the new year and cold talk about money. Unless of course you're sending good money, along with good wishes, as my favorite old aunts used to do, "Don't forget the Lord loves you even more than we do," scrawled in red felt-tip pen on a sawbuck inside a greeting card adorned with winged and naked cherubs.


My son, ably schooled and intently interested in the machinations of political campaign work, tells me that one thing Obama's successful campaign proved last fall was that electors (you and I and the bozos down the street, too) will eventually donate money if hit up often enough. Russ's campaign is apparently taking this to heart. In the last week, I have received almost daily entreaties to contribute, some of them the identical copy, sent from different e-mail addresses. I have to think that if the Obama campaign proved that sympathizers eventually succumb to repeated requests like this, they failed to include a significant demographic group in their survey efforts, people like me: The Inexorably Principled.

Because, as you probably know, the Feingold campaign is not exactly the only group that was vying for your end-of-year loose change. I turned on the radio and my beloved Public Radio broadcasters were making the case for my last dollars (what dollars?). I brought in the mail and my beloved Planned Parenthood's fearless Cecile Richards was there in an envelope with another polite reminder that I hadn't yet sent in my usual year-end dollars (what dollars?!) And the ALS Society, which provides the most incredible support services to my beloved mom without ever requesting payment, greeted me when I opened my e-mail, wondering whether I'd prefer to charge this year's final donation of dollars (what dollars?!!).

Frankly, Russ, you didn't stand a chance this year in the queue for the crumpled up bills that I rummaged from the inky bottom of my messenger bag. But I'll be there when you really need me, just like I'm there for Planned Parenthood right now. They're going to have a heck of a fight ahead of them this year now that the religious right has wormed its insidious way back into the rotten apple of state's rights via the health care proposal, at stake once again women's ability to control our reproductive destiny. This is the front line, and Planned Parenthood will be there on my behalf.

And one more note, Russ. On that same mailing, when you wished me a happy and safe New Year? That word "safe." It reminds me of planes and missed screenings of noted high risk travellers, made me think of Detroit and then Manhattan and the towers and all the ways the last administration preyed and prayed upon our fearfulness. Wish me happiness, wish me prosperity, wish me good health and good skiing and good research. Wish me a meaningful, courageous, and creative New Year filled with good friends and good work...And I'll wish the same for you and even help you get there.