Hey, John —

If you’ve been following along the last few days, you know that I’m currently engaged in a mini-campaign to spend less time on the phones and more time out in the community. And we’re making progress, with $987 raised towards the $2,000 goal my team set! Will you make a donation now to help me get out of this windowless room?

Since I’m sharing with you the weirdness that is my finance team locking me in a room with just a landline and a rolodex (they gave me a computer — but no internet connection — to write this email), I thought you also might be interested in a snippet of what, exactly, my conversations on the phone look like.

First I introduce myself (we’ll skip that since you’re already here), but then we get into the questions that donors have — questions you might have too:

What’s going to make you effective at legislating?

We’re at a crisis moment of polarization in this country, and we’ve got to find a way to bring down the temperature. To get anything done, you have to be able to work with others and build consensus. At my core, I am a consensus builder. Politics is a relationships business and if no one wants to have a relationship with you, you’re not going to be very effective.

Where do you stand in the ideological spectrum?

I’m a progressive. I think this country needs bold solutions from everything from health care, to climate change, to saving our democracy. But I don’t think compromise is a dirty word. At the end of the day, folks want to see Congress deliver—like we just did with Build Back Better.

What sets your campaign apart?

I’m so glad you asked! I actually used to do comedy. And the reason I mention that is I’m trying to bring some of that creativity and a sense of humor to my campaign, because nearly everyone I talk to thinks Democrats are constantly losing the messaging war. So, we need to be more creative in our messaging and figure out how to bring new voters on board and beat the Republican message machine. And from what I’ve seen, folks are really responding to a campaign that doesn’t look like it was grown out of a laboratory in D.C.

So, what do you say? Will you chip in to help me 1) spend less time dialing for dollars and more time out in the community but also 2) protect democracy and elect a progressive who will fight for working people and run a campaign that seeks to bring people in, not drive them apart?

— Eddie (*dial tone*)