Thank you

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Thursday February 07, 2008 · 7:24 AM PST

2008/02/07 · 07:24

Dear Friends,

First off, I apologize for not writing sooner. We spent all day Wednesday moving out of our campaign offices and my staff and I are finally getting a chance to take a breath.

I know you that by now you have probably seen the results from Election Day here in Cook County. Like many of you, I was very disappointed. Our hard work was not enough to cut into the incumbent vote and we lost by a fairly wide margin. There were many fine, reform-minded candidates who lost across Cook County. In just under six weeks, we'll get to see exactly how the numbers broke down precinct by precinct. I feel like we did everything we could during our campaign and I'm proud of our effort. We stretched every dollar we raised. Overall, more than 82 percent of our expenditures, including taxes, went toward voter contact.

Mark Pera

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Monday February 04, 2008 · 11:56 AM PST

2008/02/04 · 11:56

Dear Friends —

We received a tremendous response again this morning from voters across the district. Our volunteers and I, as we have been for many weeks, were out early greeting commuters at Metra train stops as they headed into the city. I can’t tell you how many people said, "You have my vote," or, better yet, "I early voted for you!"

I have a great feeling about tomorrow.

While we were working this weekend to get out the vote on Tuesday by running phonebanks and canvassing door to door, Dan Lipinski was trying desperately to make up for lost time by taking cheap shots at our campaign and our supporters, volunteers and staff.

(cross posted at PrairieStateBlue, MyDD, Booman Tribune and OpenLeft)

Mark Pera

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Thursday January 17, 2008 · 10:02 AM PST

2008/01/17 · 10:02

Looking at ActBlue early this morning before heading out to meet voters at a train station in suburban Oak Lawn, I noticed that, in the wee hours of the night, the contributions were still flying in from across the country. It's great to know that when the campaign closes up shop for a few hours every night, our supporters are still hard at work, drumming up more contributions and spreading the word about our campaign for change here in Illinois' Third U.S. Congressional District.

As of this morning, our campaign has received a total of 1,029 new contributions for almost $35,000.

Mark Pera

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Tuesday January 15, 2008 · 4:48 PM PST

2008/01/15 · 16:48

Dear friends,

I am so pleased to that the Netroots community - including DailyKos and many of the country's most influential progressive political Web sites - has united again behind our campaign for change in Illinois' 3rd Congressional District.

I want to thank the people at AmericaBlog, Archpundit, Chicagoist, Crooks&Liars, FireDogLake, OpenLeft and PrairieStateBlue — and anyone else I may have missed — who are helping with the "5,000 for Pera" push.

Just to give you a quick update, so far, we've received about 500 contributions for more than $16,000. The coverage we're receiving across the Internet, and the interest in our campaign, is off the charts.

Mark Pera

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Thursday December 20, 2007 · 1:08 PM PST

2007/12/20 · 13:08

Congress’ passage of its omnibus budget this week provided Congressman Dan Lipinski with another opportunity to try to have his cake and eat it too.

I think he exceeded everyone’s expectations this time around.

He, like many Democrats, voted against the omnibus budget bill. Now take a look at this press release, in which Lipinski takes credit for the federal funding for state, county and local projects included in the bill that he had just voted against.

How can he claim to bring home funds when he voted against the budget bill? This is simply wrong on so many levels, but it’s par for the course for Congressman Lipinski. On top of that, we have here the quintessential back-bencher, someone who is widely regarded as among the most ineffectual member of the House, brazenly trying to take credit for the collective efforts of the entire Illinois delegation.

While Lipinski was taking credit for funding initiatives that he voted against, he was also engaged in another shameless act of desperation, one familiar to those of you who have been following our campaign.

Mark Pera

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Sunday November 11, 2007 · 8:16 AM PST

2007/11/11 · 08:16

Wednesday evening I had the honor of attending the first annual Northside Democracy For America's "Small Change for Big Change" fundraiser in Chicago.

I wanted to take a moment to offer congratulations on a great event and again thank you for the opportunity to show my appreciation for all Northside DFA has done and will do for our campaign in Illinois' 3rd Congressional District.

A great deal of our success thus far, in the district and on the Internet, is attributable to the organization and its members. Northside DFA is sending us volunteers almost every weekend to knock on doors, write letters and assist in the office.

In less than a week, National DFA raised over $15,000 in low-dollar contributions.

Hours volunteering on the weekend, ten and fifteen dollar contributions – these investments represent a very real and conscious choice being made by Americans.

Mark Pera

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Friday November 09, 2007 · 7:17 AM PST

2007/11/09 · 07:17

As an assistant Cook County State's Attorney, I have spent the last 10 years ensuring that people are equally protected under the law.

I believe it is one of the bedrock principles of our country that every American is entitled to be treated fairly regardless of their age, gender, race, national origin or religion. The Employee Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3685), or ENDA, simply makes it illegal to discriminate against any American in the workplace because of his or her sexual orientation.

No American should be subject to employment discrimination or have their right to work revoked because of sexual orientation.

Congress has a responsibility to ban any form of discrimination in the workplace in order to protect the rights of all workers against the biases of their employers.

Mark Pera

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Wednesday October 31, 2007 · 1:13 PM PDT

2007/10/31 · 13:13

I hope you have all had the chance to watch our new campaign ad.

If you haven’t, please take a look. We’re calling the 30-second spot "It’s Time," because I believe it’s time for our Representatives in Congress to stop making excuses and to act to end the Iraq war. It started running on TV on Monday.

To view the ad click here or click on the image below:

Mark Pera

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Friday October 05, 2007 · 1:05 PM PDT

2007/10/05 · 13:05

I had a great time talking to all the folks who came out last night at the Chicago Dailykos Meetup.

I wanted to write specifically to thank Ahila and Jeremy for organizing the event and for bringing out so many Democrats to talk with me about the campaign. The netroots have been a huge asset to us and it was so nice to meet some of the folks who are doing work on our behalf.

Out of all the good questions I received last night, the one I heard over and over again was, "What can we do to help?"

Mark Pera

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Tuesday September 25, 2007 · 10:03 AM PDT

2007/09/25 · 10:03

Before I get into the main part of my post, I want to tell you all how much we appreciate the generous contributions the netroots community is sending our way. It means a lot to me to see people all across the country embracing our campaign's message — "It's time for a change."

Together we raised nearly $7,000 from more than 140 contributors during the last 14 hours and we're back in the Top Five on Act Blue.

Markos has done us a great service with his writing and the response from the readers has been tremendous. Thank you!

...

On Sunday, my cousin, U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo and her neighbors, Vega and Steven Gerber, graciously hosted a fund-raiser for my campaign for Congress at their home in Atherton, California.

First, I should tell you that my cousin, Anna, a Democratic Congresswoman from California, and our respective families share a very close bond.

During the Armenian Genocide, both Anna’s grandmother and my own grandmother, Esther, escaped their homeland together to America. Their journey lasted three long years.

Mark Pera

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Monday September 17, 2007 · 10:02 AM PDT

2007/09/17 · 10:02

I’m writing today because I wanted to keep you all up to date on my campaign for Congress.

But before I get into the update on the race in IL-03, I wanted to tell you about an extremely important deadline coming up. I’ll touch on it more below, but on Sept. 30, we submit our third-quarter campaign financing information to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). It’s crucial that we show strong numbers to convince those who haven’t signed on with our campaign to join us.

As many of you know, my opponent is out of step with the values of real Democrats. It is time for change and, if you agree with me, I hope you will contribute to my campaign.

Mark Pera

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 13, 2007 · 8:48 AM PDT

2007/09/13 · 08:48

It’s been quite a week for our campaign here in IL-03.

The coverage we’ve received on DailyKos, FireDogLake, DownWithTyranny, Open Left, ArchPundit, The Booman Tribune and other sites has been tremendous. I want to thank you, the authors and readers, for your time and effort. That kind of writing has awakened the Netroots and it’s rallying people from across the country to our campaign.

For all of us, it’s inspiring to see bloggers hitting their stride five months before the Feb. 5 primary in Illinois and one of my goals is to keep you all engaged as we move forward.

Some of you have heard a lot from us this week and you should expect to hear more because this is a crucial campaign.

It’s also been quite a week for my opponent, Congressman Dan Lipinski, and not in a good way.

RSS

Thank you

IL-03: My supporters

IL-03: 1,000 contributions ...

IL-03: "5,000 for Pera" - Thank you

IL-03: Lipinski wants to have his cake and eat it too

Northside DFA's big contributions toward "Big Change"

Yet another troubling vote: Lipinski on ENDA

Our new TV ad: "It's Time"

Chicago Meetup: Thanks for coming out

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and the netroots make for a great weekend

Mark Pera for Congress: Campaign update 9/17

I'm taking on a "Bush-Dog Democrat"