I want to welcome everyone to nourishing your body. It is everyones body nourished . Everyone avoiding the great coupon . Excellent. To open up the session im going to invite up to the stage abcofounder who started this lovely organization 24 years ago. Im going to invite him to the stage right now and joining him is brother jimmy jones and he is an eight Year National board member. If the two of you could please come up on stage and do the real opening we could get the show on the road. [applause] abgood afternoon to all of you. Welcome to care 2018 National Leadership and policy conference. Thank you so much for joining us. Many of you have traveled from out of town. Welcome to washington dc and those of you coming for the second or more than the first time, welcome back to washington dc. For those of you who are joining us for the first time at care. Let me give you a brief description of what care is. The council on American Islamic relations is americas largest muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. It was founded in 1994 in washington dc. And we have today more than 33 chapters and offices nationwide. Main vision of cair. Is to be leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding. Our mission is to enhance the understanding of islam, obviously theres a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation about islam and muslim today in the united states. Protect civil rights, protecting the civil rights of all americans. Promoting justice, justice for all. Empowering american muslims and martial law all praise be to god. We have seen how the American Muslim Community is coming up as the proud engaged Muslim Community. The theme for this conference is we the people. Organizing for justice. Vision 2020. Just a few moments ago hassan, do executive director of c. A. I. R. La gave a beautiful ceremony friday. You all know and viewers watching from cspan that muslims conduct their weekly prayer on friday around noon. Has some, today delivered the weekly sermon at the beginning of the conference. And focused on the concept of justice. Justice for all. Not just for us. Justice for everyone whenever you witness injustice, injustice, its not only about the injustice inflicted against people. It becomes about you, about your role. What do you do . Are you a witness . Are you a bystander . Do you get involved . Do you make a difference . Do you believe in yourselves . You have to be involved and you have to make a difference. You have to speak up. You have to organize. Today the American Muslim Community as brother hasam said is facing difficult toasty not only in the past few years but for many years. But in particular in the past two years islamophobic is on the rise. Ontime muslim discrimination is on the rise. Antimuslim bullying in schools is on the rise. We muslims are not alone. Were not alone in the fight against injustice. We are together with so Many Americans who believe in justice for all. Weve witnessed millions of americans going to the street protesting, speaking, speaking up and standing for american muslims, not muslims themselves but they believe in the values that you and i hold dear, justice and equality for all. Likewise, any injustice in this society is injustice against us as muslims as americans, as citizens of this great nation. We have to be involved in every social justice issue in our nation. It is our cause and we have to be there in the front line. But also realize that we and many people who reject hate. Who reject islamophobia and reject antiafricanamerican signifies asian and discrimination, those who reject unjust laws to prevent migration and immigration for the country, those who reject separating families at the border. Those who believe in equal pay, equal work. We should not be outnumbered. And we should not be out organize. And thats why we are holding this Conference Today and this weekend. We need better tools to organize better. To be more effective. And to make sure our voices are heard. Thats why we look forward to hearing from those who organize in the past year who ran for Public Office and who one. Who are so proud that the Muslim Community is not hiding and running away from politics. The American Muslim Community like many other communities are moving to the front and running for Public Office. C. A. I. R. Is not an organization that endorses any candidates but we are very proud with the fact that we have two muslim sisters running for Public Office and hopefully they will be the first two muslim women in the u. S. Congress. This is very important. [applause] i would like you, many of you, to think about your future. Im so glad that we have so many young people we would like you to think about your future. As a leader. As a leader not only as a follower. We have great organizers who succeeded in their campaigns and we would like to hear from them. Please keep this in mind as we move forward in the weekend. Network. Dont just sit down with people you know. Shake hands and moved to someone you dont know. You have not seen before. Introduce yourself. Where you are. What you do. And then learn from them. Tell them about who you are and what your plans are. And think about the future. And let me conclude, if donald trump with zero political expertise, and almost 0 respect for others, managed to run and win, i assure you you those who have values and care about this country and its future, think about running because you will win better than donald trump in the future. Thank you. [applause] being that im one of the oldest people in the room i thought it might be helpful to give some perspective on this struggle and whats been over the past halfcentury. Yes i am that old. I want to talk for a few minutes about cair and the cave. Cair and the cave. I want to do so by citing five time points. One is 1968, the second one is 1979, the third is 1997, the fourth is 2010, in the fifth is 2016. 1968 i left Hampton Institute and went to Yale Law School because i was focused on social justice primarily for africanamerican people. My plan was to go to Yale Law School, to graduate and go to congress and change the world. That didnt work out so well for me. In 1968 this was the year the Democratic National convention and it stunned me to see that young people were being beaten in the streets, young black and why, chicano people were being beaten in the streets in 1968. 1979 i took g hada after a very long journey to islam and reading books for malcom x, it was a lifechanging experience. In 1997 my son Monique Jones was murdered by Police Officer in new haven connecticut. I still havent gotten over it. In 2010 i joined the board of of care. Ive been on the board for eight years. Ive learned a lot about cair and the cave. What is this about cair and the cave . Believe it or not, in the Muslim American community and the broader American Community there is a debate going on about how you protest and should you protest. We know in the Broader Community there is a debate about this and we know in the Muslim Community there are people who say its harder on orbit into protest. Or forbidden to run for office. The reality is that if we think for a moment and many of us who are muslims who are practicing muslims, we have every friday. And then you have the cave. The story of the young man who betook themselves to the cave because of what was going on out there. But the reality is if you hold onto something thats what we should emulate. You will see that muslims believe that karen is the word of god. We have examples of examples of being involved in what we call cynically involved in helping to change and improve the world. All you have to do is look at the story of sam talked about today in that same. What does this say to us about cair and the cave . The reality is our two founders we had and abraham their personalities we need you know them very well. Theyre not the same. The reality is we have different talents in this room. The reality is, we take on our responsibilities for social justice in very different ways. So its not either or. Its not either join cair or the cave. Its about the business of being an american, being a part of the american tradition. About making change and looking at 2020 as a time when we all need to come together. Muslims and nonmuslims. As malcom x said in his autobiography, which started by he says im the truth no matter who speaks it. Im for justice no matter who its for or against. Im a human being first and foremost. That is as such im whomever or whatever benefits humanity as a whole. Either cair or the cave is a false choice. Lets join together to make this country better for everybody. [speaking arabic] [applause] thank you so much so much. Are we going to change the structure of the strange right abthe structure of the stage right now. Bear with us we are going to make it more one on one style and get the podium out of the way for the conversation. If we could get our speakers up on the stage for the first session, that would be great. This is our first primetime session. This is spurred to action, cultivating promising Muslim Leaders to run for office. How to build a movement behind your campaign for office. My name is robert mccall, im Cair National Government Affairs directors. Ive been with cair for seven years. Im delighted to have on stage three people that have run for office, been elected to office, or hold positions or running for office right now. To the left of me i have doctor abdul sayyid, former candidate for governor of michigan and the democratic primary. He received 340,000 votes in the michigan primary. Its amazing in itself. [applause] its a hallmark for the Muslim Community. He is also a very dedicated public servant. To his left we have yasmin sayyid first muslim elected to the Democratic National council. And shes running for state senator in virginia. Very excited to have her up on stage. Then we have to her left, nadine mazen, who just retired. From the Cambridge Massachusetts City Council and hes a cofounder of jet pack which is a muslim focused tax developing leaders in the Muslim Community getting them ready to run for office and then helping them once they are there. Two sides of it. [applause] instead of going into each ones biography i really want to get right into the questions which really just get into the synopsis of todays panel because we want to have some great five minute responses, quick fire and then we really want to hear from you the audience asking some questions and finding out how you hopefully aspiring muslims who also want to run for office, what you can do to get your campaign lifted off the ground. So the first question for all the panelists here is, how did you successfully build a Grassroots Campaign that reached beyond the Muslim Community . Did you Start Building momentum from within the Muslim Community . And branch out . Or was your movement rooted in the multitude of different communities that you are a part of . Who would like to go first . A very polite group appear. First and foremost i just want to say hi to cair, thank you for hosting a conference that i think is really important, particularly right now. Im really honored to be joined with two pretty awesome folks and im really excited to see what both of you do and good luck with your race. For me of always try to be but rooted in the Muslim Community. Both my parents have been very active. But i will be honest with you, when i struck out and sarah got a run for governor, the folks who were the first to question whether or not it was even possible tended to be the Muslim Community. Its not to say that folks did it come around in the end but it is to say that we as a community are often very very quick to undercut our own. I remember sitting down with an uncle early on and i said, if i looked exactly the same and had the exact same pedigree and background, but my name was juan and he came from the Latin Community instead of the Muslim Community you would be all about this. But my name is aband you remember me being a punk in high school so theres nowhere in your mind that i could ever run for office. Politicians, ive always been told, dont look like me. So that was important learning from me. There a lot of folks in the community who said no way but there were also those in the community who said we are behind you. For me i was really blessed and lucky i have one of the best father in laws in the world. You can imagine coming up to your fatherinlaw and saying, im gonna run for governor, meaning im not can be employed for 18 months and ask everybody i know for money. Them being, weight, so the whole time you intend to stay married to my daughter . Thats what youre saying . [laughter] they wrote me my first to maxed out checks. We had a baby in the middle of the process and moved in with them. So im just very very thankful for that. There were the true believers in the Muslim Community from the get go who said we are behind you and we are going to be with you. But really my biggest early support came from the progressive community. I think building movements is kind of like gardening. He planted a number of seeds and you tend to them what an attack. Not trying to water all of them at the same time. You can get one water give the next one water. Come back to that want to make sure theres no bugs on the leaf. So youve got to really build multiple movements at the same time. What i will tell you is that watching those movements come together and crest and having rallies where you have the muslim group in one corner, progressives in another corner. Blm activists in the third quarter. You have individual and a group of a soccer moms from the suburbs in the fourth quarter. The all coming together around one movement and watching the Muslim Community see that in the validation of that i think was incredibly important. And we didnt win our primary. Thats not how it ended up that we were able to build a movement of people who kept each other together and were engaging in each other and those are still relationships you will talk to some auntie and she will tell you about somebody she met at one of your rallies. Blm activists. Shell ask how is that im doing. Its a beautiful thing to see. Thank you. I think there are some probably amazing then diagrams between aunties that are blm and indivisible edits carful to see how you uplifted the community and give them a new vision for what muslims can do. We would like to go next . Thank you so much. Thank you to all of you for being here, for all the great work cair does for our community on a daytoday basis. I tend for better or worse, i tend to agree with abdul in terms of my experience in the races i ran. I do want to quickly talk first about my experience running for the Democratic National committee in 2016 and then i will pivot over to what ive been experiencing right now running for state senate. In 2016, first of all, the seats that folks are elected to the Democratic National committee, every state has about a handful of box on the dmc. These are pretty coveted seats. Virginia has five elected representatives the Democratic National committee. For your terms. These are the infamous superdelegate positions that you continue to hear about. When i initially decided to run for the position back in 2016 most of my very early supporters came from my friends. Millennials. Progressives. I didnt really have the strongest support came honestly from the community as a opposed to my own community. Its difficult. For folks that when folks put themselves out there, people from our community when we actually step up to run for office, its not easy. It really is it. When we are talking about running for office during this administration. Administration that on a daytoday basis is demonizing our community and attacking us. Folks like everybody in this room working on issues that we are trying to fight for our communities. Trying to defend our rights and liberties and individuals running for our community are the best people that will be able to fight for us. Who else will be better to represent us then someone from our own communities. I mention this because its been this ongoing battle where there are folks from our community that are so incredibly supportive but then others who are not that optimistic that we will be elected. That they want to see certain benchmarks reached for them to eventually invest and support and contribute to our campaign. When i was running in 2016 and ultimately got elected, i became the first muslim woman to be elected. That was great. It was almost shocking to me that i was the first man. That was the year that we got a handful of other muslims elected to the dmc. I want to mention that race because i want to encourage folks in this room to run for these positions. When we are talking about making sure that even our allies are constantly speaking up for us. Im sorry that if there is one party right now that is trying to fight for us but we still hope in that party on a daytoday basis to fight for us. To push back on this administration. And for us to be able to do that we need to be at that table. The only reason that you will see resolutions coming out of the dmc now highlighting issues and important to our community its because theres muslims in the dmc now. Are constantly talking to the top because we have a deputy that Muslim American himself. Thats huge for our community. First i wanted to mention that and then pivoting to my state senate race. I announced for state senate of virginia a month ago. The primary is in june of next year. Similar to abdul, the strongest supporters and donors, honestly, to my campaign by far had been leading progressive figures in virginia politics. Our campaign that we are running right now is really based on this Inclusive Campaign thats going to be pushing wage living wage and bridging it to 15 per hour. Making sure we are prioritizing and defending communities in virginia the district on running and is a majority minority district. More than 60 are nonwhite. Its been represented by the same 40 years thats been missing. Has honestly in my view has done nothing for these communities. Our community itself, every Muslim Community, for the one thing you are familiar with that district. There are thousands of muslims in that district. The person who has represented this district the last 40 years has not step foot in that. Weve had top invested, press config at that with congressman byer and other electives. It never set foot there. Theres a reason why im running. Theres a reason why its so important for us to step up and run for office and if so incredibly important for us to support one another. We are, its so challenging running for office during this time and i think that not to get pessimistic and disappointed but it makes it even more challenging when folks from our own community doubt us. But for the most part, i think that the number of candidates running from our community has been amazing add ive seen care and other organizations so incredibly supportive and encouraging of that and im incredibly thankful for that. Nadine. Thank you so much for having us. I have to echo the statements of my colleagues. Who by the way, both have great choices in shoes. Welldressed. Im so proud to see our generation coming up and looking sharp while youre doing it. [laughter] ive had the same exact experience. When i ran the first time the muslim communities in my city is large, its not majority minority in aggregate but certainly theres a huge amount of opportunity in the city of cambridge and Greater Boston and across this country. For more diverse representation and were not making good on that potential. Indeed the folks within my community were not as supportive they could have been my first time out. I had one gentleman say, you got to deemphasize your muslim heritage. Not that i was emphasizing it at all. Then i will donate to you. When i ran i just ran as myself. Someone who sticks up for social justice issues. I built a Grassroots Campaign by going doortodoor. I didnt go to the muslim doors, i did go to the black neighborhood doors, i did go to white neighborhood doors, i went to all the doors. When we go to all the doors and meet people you get to the grassroots issues and he realized that the truth that the social justice priorities that the obvious projects and improvements we want to make in our city or in our country, are on the lips and in the hearts of almost every Single Person you meet. Yet somehow theres a huge disconnect between almost every elected body and that sense of almost obvious social justice tenure that there is an internal abi dont want to say for trauma abtheres an internal compass that most people in this country have in terms of looking out for others. In terms of planning for the future. In terms of cutting out corporate interests. Even the Republican Party now the company of big business is parroting the social justice mantra of draining the swamp. Whether or not theyre doing it. Its so popular to be just. But we are so disconnected from the opportunity to do so. When you visit peoples homes, when you engage them, when you reengage them over email, over social media, by revisiting, by sending postcards. You build the grassroots support and its very powerful. Let me say one more thing the way politics goes now is almost like someone saw how grassroots organizing work from like 100 feet away and they are light, replicate what that person is doing and its blurry and i cant quite see it. Its like send out a thousand mailers. Post 1 million in assets. Sounds like you care. Tell people you were in the military. Do all these things. Those things were good at a time in history because they meant that you were fighting from authentic position of caring for other human beings. Now we have a lot of folks who are using essentially the marketing aspect of grassroots organizing and they largely fail or waste a lot of money because theyre not doing so with the authenticity that my colleagues have demonstrated in their work. A few more things. I engaged stakeholders that were preexisting. This work is so fraught and so stressful that you may make an enemy in your work with someone who should be an ally in the same work if you do not honor and understand the work that has gone on for decades prior to you coming on the scene. As this audience is very young and we are fairly young, is totally crucial to build a Grassroots Movement by understanding whats there and by being extremely diplomatic. Even when he dont always find a way to build a coalition or agree with your allies. Indeed in my second run for council the folks who had been most difficult for me were huge supporters and it was because we were patient with one another. I will wrap up by saying better than being patient is being accepting of reality. I spent so much time over the last four or five years being upset. Upset with things that didnt go the right way. Upset with people who didnt seem to be asking honestly. Upset with the election of a president who didnt seem to be authentic or represent the values of the people. Neither his people or our people. And patients is like holding on. Its like holding onto the monkey bars and eventually are going to lose your grasp. But acceptance is passive and easy. We can live in a difficult society and i gather it will become more difficult as time goes on, not less. Without diminishing our strength and our ability to organize. We must organize and we must continue to organize irrespective of the enormous weights and enormous hurdles placed in front of us. Dont bear the difficulty ahead of you with patients in your organizing. Instead grasp or reach toward the higher and more sustainable standard of doing the work you want to do of knocking doors, reaching friends, connecting with people over social media. Do so with absolute forbearance and absolute acceptance of whats not going right. Thank you. Followup question drills down a little bit deeper. If you look into the audience i dont think we have really many people that have ever run for office before. So what advice would you give to a first time candidate, someone exploring their options to run for office. And how do we get them past exploring to just, jumping into the fray and building a campaign behind them . Building an authentic movement. We heard some organizing skills from all of you. We heard some of the initial skepticism that you could get from some in the Muslim Community also how you can draw support from that. But what would you say is the first time candidates looking to fill the movement behind them. How do they find that authentic what would you tell them to push them forward . Im going to look at this part of the room. Just because its the youngest part of the room. Im looking right at you. [laughter] i have so much hope in the future. Because of the young people i see and the passion and the excitement who always are building on all the incredible work that the generation has come before has done and will continue to do. There are couple concerns i have. Im just gonna lay them out. Number one, politics is not a ait is not a shortterm enterprise. I was talking to a group of young people and when i was probably 13, 12 or 13, we didnt have mp3s. If you wanted to hear a song you can just pull it on your spotify and play it. I was hanging out with my younger sibling and spotify wasnt working. She really wanted to show me something. We both got really frustrated at spotify. I started thinking for a second, back when i was young if you wanted to listen to something, maybe you got lucky enough to have a tape recorder and you could taperecord it off the radio and your mom would be yelling in the back because of course you are listening to something she probably did want you to listen to so it was in your radio. Your mom reminding you shouldnt be listening to this. Then maybe you could play two minutes of what youre wanting to listen to. All im saying is that politics is similar. If you think you are going to get any sort of Immediate Gratification from doing this work is not going to happen. Thats because it is deeply human work. Human work takes a long time. Building the skills of human work is one of the most important things i think people have to do as they think about potentially engaging in politics. What do i mean by that . Learning how to listen before you speak. Learning how to stay positive in the face of a frank, sometimes abusive, being told you are not good enough. You cant. They wont. Whatever it is. Youre going to be refused over and over and over again. Number three, recognizing that optimism goes a long way. How many times abim sure each of the other folks appear abhow many times have you had the experience of being told no and no and no, and then meeting somebody whos told you know five times and on the sixth time they are like, im super excited about this. Ive been with you all along in your like in the back of your head you like, what . You are like, i know you have. Thank you. The ability to be able to sustain a patience and optimism in the face of refusal, is critical. Number four, our community and specifically we as a generation take things personally. If you are going to run for office, looking like we look, with a name like we have, praying like we pray, you cant take it personally. One interesting conversations that i watching is this conversation about safe spaces. I understand the importance of having a safe space in moments where you are not quite geared up to be taking the kind of abuse in the world. But i just want you to think about people like Martin Luther king or malcom x. These are not people who demanded a safe space and that real upset when the safe spaces violated. Their goal was to create a safer space for everyone else. And willingly engage the challenges of their space. And to do it honestly and take it for the team. And look at what they were able to do. In our community we got to be willing to engage to keep a smile on our face, to have a conversation. So everybody watched the habib fight. One of the interesting things is that habib fought a great fight and that he went and did what he did. The question becomes, is he justified . Is he not justified . If you want to jump in the arena of politics, you play on those rules even if sometimes theyre not fair. The last thing i will just say is find really good people and build really strong relationships with them. Seek to always be generous, even if sometimes the circumstances are not generous to you. [applause] wow, thank you. Yasmin. Okay first time candidate advice, i think for anyone that is interested in either running for office or just getting involved in politics, you have to be in it for not only just the right reasons but you have to be in it for the long haul. Generally when someone approaches me and tells me that they are interested in running for something in the community. I tried to give them kind of concrete steps and advice in terms of what they should try to do before announcing. For instance, if this is someone that has recently moved into the community or has just gotten involved, definitely anyone interested in running for office, i would say first reach out to your local commissions to see if you can get appointed to a local commission. These are advisory boards. On different issues that you can get involved in. Try to see if you can get involved in state commission, state board that your government appoints folks to. From the state. And making sure that you are out in the community. Whether if its someone from our community, making sure that you are there for the Service Events that the aep i community is doing one weekend. Or there at the churches. Filling out the thanksgiving baskets. For folks interested in running for office i do absolutely think that the first and most important thing is you have to be in it for the right reasons. So long as you know that you want to run because you want to serve as a representative for your community because you feel as though you would be a better voice for your entire community, then those are great reasons to run. As you are working toward building that support and taking the concrete steps to make that official launch into running for office, i think its also critical that you reach out key allies and key folks. Its been mentioned folks from different communities that we need to be working with. This is the waiver community, if this is the progressives. This is the faith community. Right before i announce my bid to run for state senate a month ago, i had dozens and dozens of conversations with the leaders in leading progressive organizations. This is move on. Org, this is indivisible, some of the leading labor unions. Because i wanted to first have a conversation with them. Let them know that they matter to me. That the issues that members of their communities raise with them, it matters to me as a candidate. And i wanted to learn from them. I wanted to see how i can better champion those issues as a member in the virginia general assembly. You have those conversations to show that not only you care for the rights and liberties of any everybody in your community but you want to show that youre being respectful. You want to show that, i think abdul mentioned this as well, for anyone that runs for office, you will see that its an incredibly humbling experience. Its a lot about listening to concerns of your constituents. Going doortodoor, talking to them about ways you can be a better person. Ways you can serve them that are in office. And making sure that you are doing everything you possibly can to make yourself a better candidate. I would say that as long as ab if you are interested in running for office, dont be discouraged. I agree with abdul that you will hear a lot of nose leading up but the more you invest in the process and the more folks that you talk to and surrounding yourself with great caring people that support you and want the best for your community at large, i think thats the right approach to take. Thank you. Nadine. First of all, if you think you for running for office you should go to the jetpack website right now it je t a as a nonprofit we are training folks before they run for office. Were training you to be a Community Organizer first. An authentic social impact committed person before you stand up and go for the higher level recognition. Theres far too many people running for office from a position of ego and want you to run for office as a position of service. In my story i ran out of obligation. I told my community a lot, the only really thing i talked about with my Muslim Identity is the idea of if a social obligation of the whole is not being met, its up to each and every one of us to drop what we are doing to ensure that obligation for the collective. There are many obligations that are not being met in america from housing to fair wages, to all kinds of health care, elder care, social care, care of the sick. All kinds of stuff. Thats the American Social contract, let alone the higher level contract that Many Americans have with god in giving of themselves in charity and service. I ran, i tried to get four or five other people to run. I started going to city council meetings. I said this is crazy people have been here for so long. Theyre not telling the truth, theyre not being clear, not operating out of service. That is so obvious were not going to run to displace these folks. I try to get four or five people to run and they were too busy. And i was too busy but i ended up doing it and i won my first race by just six votes. That gives you a sense of the importance of knocking every door and chasing every dollar. Heres what i encourage you to do in particular, i encourage you to look at how few votes it will take you to win in your race. I had a friend who ran for congress, u. S. Congress, hope house of representatives, majority minority district with somebody who had been not working as hard as he could for very long. She won that seat with like 12,000 15,000 votes. One of the highest offices in the land. With 12 or 15,000 votes. You can get that in line at starbucks if you spend 10 years doing it. Meet people at starbucks is how i ran by the way. Everywhere i went i took peoples contact information. If you met three people a day for the next 10 years youd be pretty close to a congressional seat. One year for a local campaign. Two years for state senate. If you want to raise money and do it faster you can get it done in three or four months. The people as you go. And figure out what your targets are. Be a solid analyst. Its crazy to me that politicians are analysts. You look at the budget and you understand where waste is happening. You look at minority communities and socioeconomic equity and educational in equity and its obvious that black communities in cambridge are not getting the same educational experience as white communities. Be the analyst who looks at it and says this is not right. This is not how we spend money. This is not how we train teachers. You raise the question, tell the truth and create a solution. We allocated 30 million to arts and culture in cambridge that i had to fight for tooth and nail even against my allies at one point when they thought it was a lost cause. That money was going to go to high end coworking space. You can have a huge impact if you can actually read between the lines and look at where the opportunities lie. Very briefly because i know we are running into question time. We do need help in the party. Im a member of the massachusetts democratic statement committee, and the Senior Member of the Minority Outreach Committee at this point. Im the Senior Member guys. We need your help. If youre republican the Republican Party definitely need your help. And i can tell you for sure not doing a good job. I travel, and busy, i teach, im here, im in san francisco, im in boston. We need your help if you are a solid contributor and you dont have to grab the title or be appointed to any given thing to make a huge difference where people need your help. Lastly, i didnt really have to compromise a lot on counsel. I went from winning by six votes waiting by the most votes running for counsel and were all at large in cambridge. That means i got the most votes by people who are running for 20 years. Youve got to bring the people to the conversation. The people are not in the conversation. When the calling thats sitting next to you sees 25 people from his neighborhood that should be voting for him, showing up and speaking on behalf of your obvious observation about social justice, thats scary for incumbents. We have incumbents in cambridge switching their tune from a corporatist to or from i will say whatever people are noticing or whatever they need to hear tune. To i say the right thing and do the right things tune because of whos showing up in cambridge massachusetts discussions and was beginning to show up across massachusetts. Massachusetts is a purple state. Not a blue state. Its one of the bluest states in the nation. If you have a particular ideology and you believe you want to see it and you believe those around you would like to see it committed into law into government, funding, that ideology needs to be committed through showing up and actually doing the work. Not just you but your neighbors. For all the naysayers watching wondering what i mean by ideology, talking about the prison industrial complex. Im talking about a living wage. Im talking about workers. Talking about white bluecollar workers in ohio. Im talking about black workers in pennsylvania. This is the ideology of those who been paying attention. We need those people who been paying attention to actually show up on the municipal level on the state level, on the lower left glamorous levels to all the meetings and committees to share their voice. Thank you very much. With that we have about seven minutes abnot yet. Dont clap because now its your turn. We have about seven minutes which means we have about two or three questions that can be asked from the audience. We should have someone with a microphone. We will take the first question right here. If you can borrow mike from the stage. Second row. I have a question, and with amohammed in washington. I listen to all of you talk about your techniques and steps and i was just fascinated that you all talked about the importance of going door to door. Im curious as an older guy, how do you integrate grassroots stuff with the social media and the stuff that all young people are doing now in a campaign . Iran statewide. There is no way in gods name even in 18 months even if you start now and knock on every door but you build people who knock on doors. Our campaign not done probably about b,1. 5 million. Thats because we were having the same conversation. One of the things that none of the three of us said but i think its critically important, dont run to be something. In the book words of president obama. Run to do something. There needs to be a set of things you want to fix and reason why you want to fix it. That conversation you need to be having with everyone, via every platform, all the time. People talk about this technical idea of message discipline. Message discipline is knowing exactly what you want to run and being willing to say it over and over again in every different medium. Each week the same message as you facebook as you facebook live, as you say that the doors, as you say on the phone, as you say via text. Its just being consistent, deeply consistent. Making sure that message shines through. What you about . Im about getting corporate money out of politics, giving people healthcare, making sure the environment is taken care of, knowing we have a real employment issue coming forward. Because we have two minutes left and going to try to get one more question asked and we can have one more panelist. Make sure if youre Going Digital to do video. Video summaries, highquality video. The video package for your group will call you thousand abcost 2000. It takes an hour or two to get trained up and disseminate with quick one or two minute videos. Its a huge impact. You might not get a ton of both but you will disseminate a lot of critical information that will change peoples lives. I watched your candidate announcement video first summit and i was really moved by that. I saw it on facebook. If you can give us a little piece on what that was like. Shirt. You can actually go and watch the video is about three minutes. Its on my website. Yasmin for virginia. Com. In the video clearly articulated why i was running for the position but i think, for any candidate running for office i think part of your narrative has to also be about who you are. Your personal story. We all have very compelling personal stories. The reason why the announcement video was powerful was because i talked about my personal story. But then i related it to my district. Which as i mentioned is an immigrant heavy, its a majority minority district. When i talked about how my family and i fled as refugees and came to the u. S. And we actually came to the u. S. Through the southern border. We jumped over a fence. Because representation matters. We need to ensure that our elected officials represent a better representation of our communities. Thank you so much. I have time for one more question. One more minute. Back there. Get the mic over. High. The question was, what can we as a Younger Generation, what do you think we can do to help our community . Thirty seconds. What can we do to make sure our community what . What should we do to help the community and the elections for the Younger Generation . How can the Younger Generation and packed this election . Money votes and analysis. We need to make sure that your parents and eventually when you are earning, or giving. To charity, required to give to charity. Then we give over and above and make investments for our future. We are too tight as a community. There are communities that are outspending us by the digit of intercom. We must give to politics. We must be going to doortodoor. Know your neighbors. Its more likely to invite summary to an event through facebook then to go down and invest in person. Learn to be personable and humane. And analyze. Be a voracious watcher of cspan. [laughter] or a reader of content. Theres quite of good a bit of good analysis and we should be about to spare out what is good and pick out what is good and distinguish what is fluff. There is a lot of fluff on the left. We need to be much more diligent. So i think the most important thing for young people from to do, less than three weeks away, is obviously making sure you are encouraging your friends, your colleagues, your parents, family members to vote. Making sure you are doing everything you possibly can in the next two and half weeks to volunteer, give your time to those candidates that are going to be fighting for our values. There are candidates right now in this area, for the tenth Congressional District in virginia, very critical race, we have one candidate who is going to be fighting for our community, standing up for us, we need to make sure that that candidate is elected. The very key thing, young people from our community can do, well be leading up to the midterms, if you can volunteer your time, making sure everybody will vote. That would be huge. Im going to give you a challenge. Three things. Number one, i want you to go to a political meeting. Dont just go into the back, go, raise your hand asking questions get involved, talk to the candidate. Knocking on doors for whatever candidate you want to knock on. Somebody for school board, senate, i dont care, knock on doors. Number three, have lunch with somebody you know you disagree with. So them down, talk it out. That ability to sit there and deal with this agreement and learn how to have a conversation, where the most crucial skills youll ever built. [applause] isaiah round of applause that we article one. We are going to transition to our next general. We got two different panels. A fiveminute break. Just remember that the seat nonprofit, we dont endorse any candidate or party but we wish all candidates and parties a good look. [applause] [inaudible] [background noises] members will be back for vote on tuesday november 13. The house is expected to take up legislation funding the federal government past the summer seven. The senate will take up coast guard programs and a nomination for the Federal Reserve board. When congress returns, you can see the house life on cspan, watch the senate live here on cspan2. With election less than a month away, and the control of congress in question, see the competition for yourself. On cspan, watch the debate from key house and senate races. Make cspan your primary source for campaign 2018. I was republican governor, kim riddles debated in sioux city. This is about an hour. Good evening everyone. Welcome to tonights Iowa Governor to real debate between wrapup