Crossposted at DK, TPM, Prairie State Blue, and Swing State Project

Last Monday July 21st Sarah Topy and her staff at the Scott Harper campaign were looking forward to a week of data processing, fundraising and preparing for a big push in August after the immensely successful event they organized called "13 for the 13th" on July 13th, the single biggest Dem canvass ever held in IL-13.

There was a lot of file updating yet to do and wouldn't you know Monday was the day the state guys finally had the new voter file ready to download. The new VAN basically updated and transformed all our files to new software and it was an all day procedure installing it. The files were still offline Monday night when I showed up at campaign HQ to make some calls. Rich Caparrell the field director was in Maryland for a much deserved long weekend off. We had another canvass scheduled for Saturday but volunteer turnout was expected to be light in the middle of vacation season and especially so soon after the big effort on July 13th. It wasn't downtime but it's as close as they'll get in the next few months on Harper's campaign.

Well that was the plan anyway, but it wasn't to be. Read on for how those best laid plans went out the window in an instant and what happened next.

Crossposted at Kos and TPM

Tomorrow Saturday July 26 marks the beginning of the 100 Days to Victory campaign. I'm calling on anybody and everybody across the country to help Scott Harper in IL-13 by phonebanking for half an hour calling just 5 people from a list of names and numbers and a script we'll send you via email or fax. This is an excellent opportunity for newbies to get their feet wet volunteering for a campaign and you don't have to be anywhere near Illinois to participate. You don't need any campaign experience to help. If you know how to use a telephone that's good enough. Of course if you're an experienced activist who wants to do more you can make as many calls as you want and we'll also be canvassing and phonebanking from many locations across the district. If you're close by campaign HQ in Naperville we're meeting at 1pm for a group photograph. We're gonna have with free pizza, so bring the kids and we'll have a great time.  

So read on for details about why you should spend a little time tomorrow and links to how you can help.

This was posted earlier today by Scott Harper who is running against Judy Biggert in IL-13 at Kos. I'm going to be crossposting here, MyDD and TPM. If you any questions, advice or comments for Scott please go to the Kos diary to leave them so he doesn't have to chase all over to find them.  

Although I have been blogging on Prairie State Blue in the last month, this is my introductory diary in the broader blogosphere. I am a progressive Democrat running in a Republican-leaning, highly educated, independent-minded, suburban district west and southwest of Chicago. The most well-known towns in the district are Naperville and Hinsdale, which anchor the northwest and northeast corners of the district respectively.

I was inspired to run for office at YearlyKos, which I attended because of a tip, yet without the requisite knowledge of the community. My plan to volunteer on a campaign or campaigns took a radical turn.

I loved the environment of having all these decent, knowledgeable, passionate people around. I was inspired by the Future Leaders forum, and I was inspired to want to join their ranks, all of us working to make a difference for our country.

While most of our sitting reps and senators don't have much to say about "Small Price" Boehner's comments Scott does. This is the first of what I hope will be many diaries here from the Scott Harper campaign. After the jump is an open letter we just sent to all the local papers in the IL-13th. We'll see if any print it.

In the coming days I'll be writing a bio piece about Scott whom I met at Yearly Kos and helped recruit to run against House non entity Judy Biggert. Scott will also be posting in the near future himself.

Read on for more info and if you'd like to learn more about him or send some cash his way (we're gonna need a lot) here's the webpage:

http://www.scottharperforcongress.com/in dex.htm

This morning at 10am there will be a press event calling on Roskam to support parts of the First 100 Hours agenda in Schaumburg. I know it's late notice but I only got the email yesterday. Read on to see how you can join in and help force lil Petey's hand or if he sticks to his guns highlight just how out of the mainstream he is.

This is it folks. By the time you read this we'll be knee deep in the last few days of canvassing/phonebanking and then GOTV. Below the fold we have a onestop shop of the ads from both sides currently playing.

We've eked out a lead folks even though The Repubs have spent much more on TV commercials. We've done it by having a better ground game and a better candidate. We need to finish the job.
Come out and help us put Tammy Duckworth in congress.

Read on to see how the GOTV works, how, where and when you can get in on it, and where the mother of all Victory parties will be on Election Night.

Tammy has made it a clean sweep of the 3 major papers in the district getting the Sun Times endorsement this morning. Read on for that and a desperate flub on the part of the once and future nuisance lawsuit filer Peter Roskam.

Below the fold is a list of times and places for canvassing and phonebanking as we come down the stretch. Some are in the city for people who don't want to drive all the way out to the burbs. Please look them over, see what fits in your schedule and if you can help please do.

Roskam can count on thousands of fundies, racists and gun nuts (the NRA is providing bodies and $$) to GOTV in the final weeks. We have to match him to get all those drop off voters to drop in at the polls this time.

Even if we could match him flyer for flyer, commercial for commercial, nothing compares with person to person contact, face to face, to get them to the polls.