Outreach Update

Regarding our “Facing the Music” project, we wanted readers to know that — through a combination of tactics — we have made at least one contact with the campaigns of each of the following. This list is focused on the contenders who have issued a “Statement of Candidacy,” according to the WaPo’s tracking list, which seems to be generally up to date.

For the Democrats: Gravel, Kucinich, Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson.

For the Republicans: Huckabee, Giuliani, Hunter, Romney, Brownback, Thompson, McCain, and Gilmore.

Note: Several of us of have been impressed with Senator Hagel’s principled stand on Iraq and that made us curious about his positions on other issues. And so, even though he has not issued a Statement of Candidacy for President in ’08, we talked to his press office anyway, and posed the same five policy questions to him, plus a sixth re: his stance on widely-debated social issues, namely embryonic stem-cell research, abortion, and homosexual unions.

As we warned in our last post on this topic, we may be in this for the long haul. Some candidates aren’t comfortable committing to specific policy statements until they have an official “policy structure” in place for their campaigns. In the words of my former colleague who is helping us with outreach to the Dems, “that seems weird since most of these people are currently elected officials with a history on most of the issues covered (in your list) – (but) it’s just how the beast works.â€? That could mean weeks or months; it all depends on the individual candidates, their campaign resources, etc. At the very least, we’ll attempt to secure a preliminary indication from each about when they think they’ll be prepared to respond.

And with that, we won’t trouble you with further updates until we actually receive responses. However, if we happen to “go silent” for awhile during the waiting mode, and the curiousity is just killing you, don’t hesitate to email me directly for updates: abel.reply@gmail.com.