I was one of the first people to call Anne Dicker when I heard that Marie Lederer was retiring in February. Like me, a few of us progressive types around town had learned that the Fishtown Fumocrat was retiring, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to run a progressive for the seat. The 175th Leg District covers Queen Village, Old City, Society Hill, Fishtown, and parts of Kensington and Port Richmond. Anne Dicker, who lived in district, seemed like a natural candidate for the district. She had co-founded and run a grassroots organization, she was young, articulate, and knew how to run a field operation that could beat the party machine.

I guess enough people like me called Anne, and with lightening speed (one day’s pondering), Anne decided to run. Almost immediately, Anne and her supporters were besieged with calls requesting that Anne get out of the race. People I thought were my friends had decided to support Terry Graboyes because they said she was the one who could take on John Dougherty’s candidate, Mike O’Brien and win.

As usual, the fued between Doc and Fumo had overshadowed common sense and gotten far more attention and credibility than it deserves. The two most erroneous assumptions being that 1. Doc's guy was automatically worse than Fumo's and more importantly 2. that money alone--even without strategy--can win a race.

Senator Fumo himself told that if Anne ran, she would only serve as a spoiler and let O’Brien win. He said this to Anne, Hannah Miller, Jen Murphy, and me in his office almost 2 months ago now. He even implied there’d be hell to pay if we spoiled his race and let Doc win.

Well, guess what. All the results are not in yet, but so far, Anne is in second place and there’s a very good chance she’ll remain there proving that Terry Graboyes, not Anne Dicker was the spoiler. Fumo, and Angel Ortiz, and all of the other Terry Graboyes supporters- THEY spolied this race.

Click “read more” below to find out why.

There is a growing group of progressive leaders in this city who, when we looked at the way elections currently work, realized that very traditional get-out-the-vote efforts--like door-knocking and phone calling-- could beat the ward system. The Brady/Doc style of campaigning relies heavily on election day cash for ward leaders, sound trucks, massive lit drops, and the traditional standing-around-the polls-thrusting-lit-into-people’s-hands.

Meanwhile, those of us who have organized canvasses and volunteers realized there were much more effective and less costly ways to run elections- like actually talking to voters one-by-one, rather than relying on a title or 30-year old relationships to get out voters. Ever since 2004, there’s been a strong desire on some progressive parts’ to really test out a peer-based voter contact model that could win a race and also build the political process so that were left with more than we started with at the end of the day.

Terry Graboyes had to have spent at least $200,000 on this primary race. Between her t-shirts, network TV ads, multiple mailings, consultant fees, literature, and much, much more, she dropped a lot of dough. Despite that, she could not pull it off yesterday. Even if in the final count, Terry comes out a few dozen votes ahead of Anne, it's still proof that her big money did not equal big vote margins.

Meanwhile, Anne’s campaign spent about $10,000 on this race, if not less. Anne had no paid staff at all. She spent nothing on political consultants. She could only afford a few mailings, and no ward leader would have taken her bribe even had she one to offer. Despite this, Anne came in second place, only 300 votes behind Mike O’Brien, even though she was outspent 20:1 by both campaigns.

These facts not withstanding, Terry Graboyes still had the arrogance to make this statement to the Daily News about Anne last night:

"If you look at who voted, nobody voted. Nobody voted in the river wards. Nobody voted at all," she said. She also claimed Dicker had served as a spoiler, splitting the liberal vote.

"If Anne Dicker hadn't been there, I would have trampled," she said. "And I will still never understand [why she ran]. Obviously it was more important to make her point than elect a progressive woman to the House.

Terry Graboyes literally came out of the woodwork to run for this race. Sure, she is a committeewoman in the 5th ward, and she worked for Milton Shapp in Harrisburg 30 years ago, and she’s friends with Angel Ortiz. That’s about all of the “progressive credentials” she has to offer.

Beyond that, no one at Liberty City, Americans for Democratic Action, Neighborhood Networks, Planned Parenthood, or even NOW really knew who she was. She certainly hadn’t been to gatherings or events of those groups in years. She very well may have paid her membership dues to these groups, but for her to have claimed involvement in the progressive community is kind of laughable.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Weekly article and the Dicker campaign’s attempts to let the truth be know—particularly due to Hannah Miller’s hard work-- made it clear that Terry Graboyes was running at Senator Fumo’s behest to help him retain his power in the state house and to make sure that there was an ally in district to protect casino deals that he worked out.

O’Brien also certainly has financial interest in the district between his land holdings and his own casino interests. However, from a voter’s perspective, O’Brien, as Rep. Lederer’s former chief of staff, at least had a track record of public service and relationships with constituents in district.

Dicker, who has only lived in district for 6 years, did not have O’Brien’s history in the neighborhoods she sought to represent. She did however have the humbleness to go to doors of residents in the district and personally introduce herself to them. Anne knocked on doors every single day, starting in February, to talk to voters. She was able to communicate directly and effectivly, and her sincere desire to represent people in Harrisburg shone through.

Yesterday, I worked at a poll at 7th and Catherine, and voter after voter came up to me and said, “you tell Anne I'm voting for her only because she came to my door.” Jen Murphy told me last night that Terry tried to knock on some doors, but said that it was “too hard” and decided not to do it.

Not only did Anne and her battalion of volunteers knock on doors in places where it was easy, like Queen Village, they went where it was hard. Jen Murphy even organized a Spanish-langauge crew to knock on doors in Kensington--doors that had never been knocked on before by a candidate in the 175th. The result is that is places no one thought we could win, like O’Brien’s home turf in Fishtown, Dicker pulled in a respectable amount of votes. In most cases so far, she has beaten Terry in those places.

Terry Graboyes thinks Anne spoiled this race? She spoiled the race!

When Senator Fumo asked Anne to pull out of the race, he asked her to put “her people” behind Terry. Anne has no people. Anne has a relationship with many everyday Philadelphians who sincerely want to make change in our city. Anne was one of these people a few years back, and her passion and skills as an organizer made her into a leaders. As the co-founder and first chair of Philly for Change, without fail, every month Anne came up with some way for people who felt powerless about politics in this city and country to get involved.

When she decided to run for the 175th state house seat, she asked this same group of people to turn their desire for reform and justice into support for Anne’s campaign and they did. You can’t just turn that kind of enthusiasm on and off and then on again for another candidate. Even if Anne wanted to get out of the race, she could not have turned her base of support over to Terry Graboyes.

Terry should have pulled out of the race.

If even one-quarter of her resources had been given to Anne, we would have won yesterday. With just $20,000 more, the Dicker campaign could have hired a full-time volunteer coordinator and/or field manager. If Josh Richards and Sam Durso, the amazing volunteers who filled these roles, could have had a little more help, 700 more doors could have been knocked on, and ultimately 300 more voters could have been pulled out.

Instead, Terry stayed in this race.

She spoiled Anne’s campaign and the result is that we have one less woman in the PA House come January. If Terry is upset about this, she has only herself to blame.

Terry also sullied the political process even more. I can’t prove it, but there are a lot of rumors that she “bought” entire wards, convinced ward leaders to let their machines be “broken” on Election Day and more. Terry’s run has also caused rifts in groups like ADA, NN, Lib City, and more. Terry’s campaign has left in its wake a trail of tears with literally nothing to show for it except that we all know more about window installation than I ever thought possible.

In the meantime, Mike O’Brien is a new state rep.

I spent a lot of time at the polls yesterday observing his base of support- Local 98. I am sure there is some truth to the rumors that Local 98 members have used physical intimidation in the past. That was, however, not the case yesterday. The Local 98 members I worked with were very nice. They also were experienced and knew the Election Day drill. They knew how to lit drop, phone-bank and more. The main shortcoming of Local 98 members though is that they really don’t care.

The Local 98 members at my poll were not from in-district and didn’t seem to know who Mike was, and didn’t care. In fact, Dan tells me that at the poll he worked in Fishtown that he had convinced Local 98 members to support Anne by the end of the day. There are even reports of O’Brien folks trading the t-shirts his campaign had given them for Dicker’s blue shirts.

I am not sure what Mike O’Brien will be like as a state rep. I am not convinced that Graboyes was the lesser of two evils between him and her (and I am not sure I think that really anyone is "evil" here). I do think that O’Brien represents more of the same-old, same-old. I think he will fight with “moxy” for bread-and-butter quality of life issues, but that he’ll stay away from the bigger things, like casino development. I don’t think he will contribute to any movement for real progressive leadership in Harrisburg and I don’t think the way he ran his campaign brings new and disengaged voters into the process.

All that being said, the 175th races boils down to this:

Anne Dicker and her amazing all-volunteer campaign came in second place with a huge monetary disadvantage. If DC 47, SEIU, Liberty City, ADA, and Neighborhood Networks had offered a base of volunteers—not even financial support, just volunteers—Anne could have beat O’Brien and won the seat.

Leaving the past behind, no matter what Anne does, people who have an ideology that includes economic justice, ethical reform, and true voter empowerment need to take way the net and run a real grassroots volunteer campaign like Anne did.

Real campaigns for change are not going to be won with media spin, or secret meetings with ward leaders, or tens of thousands of dollars being paid out to consultants (or “consultants”), or even with really good blogging or email writing.

No, if you truly want to be a progressive, and run for office in Philadelphia, you have to motivate and build trust with enough people who will volunteer to knock on enough doors to talk to potential voters and actually get them to go out and vote for you on Election Day.

Anne’s campaign was truly a model of how this can be done, and maybe some of the haters who backed off from giving real support to Anne, or the shysters who paid lip service to Anne’s campaign, but then played it all ways behind the scenes, will do the right thing next time around.

Meanwhile, the scoreboard in Philadelphia just got a little bigger:

Doc: 1 Fumo: 0 Progressives: 0 (but we’re here!)

It’s been a long few days, and I am out of steam, but look for another post soon on Tony Payton’s race in the 179th. Dan will hopefully get to this sooner than I can, but what happened to Tony is a travesty and is also proof that our way of running races is still the best way.