Rain Perry

Hello!!

Since this is a "weekly, unless a topic becomes timely" email, here you go with a few quick updates.

Do yourself a favor and listen to at least the first few minutes of the Simon Rosenberg/Tom Bonier zoom "Why the data makes us optimistic." It's so great. You'll see why these two guys kept me sane in 2022 when everyone was flipping out over the polling, and they were spot on.

Data for the 2024 presidential election are starting to come in -- actual data of voter behavior like registration rates and early voting trends. So I'm thrilled to let you know that starting next week, you can visit the TargetEarly website and track all of it. This will help you internalize the calming mantra "watch the data, not the polls; watch the data, not the polls; watch the data, not the polls."

I'm always talking about the "Thirteen Keys" presidential election prediction model. Well, Professor Allan Lichtman made his 2024 prediction yesterday which debuted in a video report from the NY Times. Their reporting is cutesy and a little condescending, but it does give Lichtman a chance to explain his thinking on how each of the keys are playing out in this election. Make of the whole thing what you will, but his track record of correctly predicting, early, nine out of ten of the last elections (the outlier being Bush v. Gore) indicates that this oddball is on to something.

Hello activists!

It truly feels like a month since the last email, which I sent the night before Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate. And what a week. Thrilling, packed rallies in the swing state cities of Philadelphia, Detroit, Eau Claire, Phoenix and Las Vegas, buoyed by a growing coalition: Black women, Black men, Latinos, White women, White dudes, AAPI, Republicans, Rural Americans, Latter Day Saints, and more. Comics, too (including my fave, Trae Crowder). I'm aware of a "Fiber Artists for Harris" zoom in the making.

Hey everyone!

We've got some new folks here, so I'll take an opportunity to say hi and introduce myself. I'm a songwriter and performer from Ojai, California. I'm not a TV talking head, nor a party strategist. But I've spent a lot of time doing political work as an organizer and volunteer, and I've learned a thing or too. So welcome! Thank you for signing up.

This email was intended to go out weekly, but things are happening so fast, I'm adapting that schedule to "whenever a topic reaches critical mass!"

Hope

First off, go Tennessee!

That's the kind of data we should be paying attention to, not polls. In election after election since the Dobbs decision, voters across the country have been trending more blue, often dramatically so.

Hey there!

Quick update, since several people have asked about whether the GOP could just refuse to certify the 2024 election. I was going to wait and address this next week. But things are moving so fast, who knows what we'll be needing to talk about next week?

This issue came to the forefront this week for two reasons: an article in Rolling Stone and a piece on the Rachel Maddow Show. The gist of the worry is summed up in this, from the Rolling Stone piece:

"If local election officials nationwide decide en masse to refuse to certify election results this year, it could slow the certification of statewide tallies crucial to determining the next president — and create chaos."

What if the election is sent to the Supreme Court? Will we have a repeat of Bush v. Gore?

Before I could vote, I stood outside a Safeway getting signatures for a petition about the Nuclear Freeze. I was arrested in college protesting investment in South Africa. I wrote letters to voters from the bleachers at my kids' sports practices. Political activism has always a part of my life.

In 2018 I was in Texas working on my album Let's Be Brave and went to a Beto O'Rourke rally. A friendly volunteer signed me up to text voters from afar, and by Fall I found myself in Houston for the campaign.

Beto HQ Houston, Team Dinner, Saturday before Election Day 2018

I'm in this picture somewhere.

If I could pick one word to describe the folk music world, it would be "community." In fact "The Folk Community" is pretty much how everyone  describes it, because we are a group that values musical connection and giving our time to causes and supporting each other in times of need. My music doesn't fit neatly into a genre called "folk," but in terms of values and approach, this community of people is my people.

So it was distressing recently to learn some ways in which our community is not living up to its ideals.

That is my neighbor. She's passed through outside my house the last two nights between 5:30 and 6:00 am. She's big and healthy, making the rounds of my neighborhood, which borders the National Forest. My husband decided her name is Betsy. Betsy the mountain lion.

On the wildlife camera near the house and one that points over the back fence, we've also gotten videos of a mama bear and her two almost-grown cubs (one dark, one blonde), foxes, coyotes, raccoons, bunnies, squirrels, a little herd of six deer, bobcats, skunks, some neighbor dogs, our own dog and our two housecats. On one video, a fox comes up and sniffs the nose of a baby deer who is not afraid. The fox leaps away. Fascinating.

Were they all passing through our backyard before we got cameras? Probably.

I've reached an age - 56 - when I can say things like "I've lived here for nearly 35 years." Crazy, but true. After moving a couple dozen times as a kid, I have lived right here for almost 35 years. And in all that time, we've only lost one cat. When our dogs are outside they keep the critters away, and we bring our cats in at night. Mountain lions and bears and foxes don't want to hassle with dogs if they don't have to. It all seems to work out. But still...it's really something to see video of Betsy the lion walking calmly by 30 feet from where I'm sleeping.

It means a lot to me to live on the edge of the forest. It's kind of like being at the beach -- you're at the border of something vast and wild. It's good for my soul. I love that the animals pass through. I love that my neighbors respect them and recognize that we're coexisting in the same community. When I put up posts on our neighborhood facebook page, everyone says stuff like "she's beautiful!" and "I hope she stays safe."

I've posted a couple of critter videos on my instagram if you want to see them.

Ever grow watermelons or cucumbers? If so, you will know what I'm talking about. You go out and look at the vines and there's no fruit. You look the next day and suddenly there's a full size watermelon or a foot long cucumber just sitting there. Where did it come from? Yesterday there was no baby cucumber or wee watermelon, you're sure of it. How did that happen?

Here's my favorite quote about politics:

"I think of voting as a chess move, not a valentine." -- Rebecca Solnit

Once you let go of falling in love with politicians, and think instead of who is strategically most likely to succeed in making your values and goals a reality, life gets so much simpler. You aren't so shocked when politicians compromise, or when they are arrogant or timid or fallible. It takes a certain weird kind of ego to run for office in the first place. A healthy skepticism and an attitude of "what are you likely to do for the issues I care about" is called for.

In love, I recommend giving your whole heart, even if it might be broken. In politics, I don't.