Together We Elect celebrates the outstanding work of our volunteers and allies who have gone above and beyond in the work to elect Democrats to Congress.
Read how Keith has made a great impact making calls to inspire volunteers give their time to help the U.S. go blue in 2022.
“I’m not any big kind of activist,” says Keith Attenborough. “I’m doing the little bit I can.” But what Keith sees as a “little bit” adds up to a sizable impact. He’s been making V2V (Volunteer to Volunteer) calls for Together We Elect and writing postcards with another group. He has been an activist with local organizations through several election cycles.
Keith describes himself as “twice retired,” because he spent 21 years in the Air Force, then another 21 years as a project manager with IBM. Off the job, he spent two decades as a sea kayaker, but has been a dedicated canoeist for the last six years.
He finds V2V calling enjoyable, not stressful like some phone banking. “You’re not cold-calling folks. You’re talking to people who have been involved before — somebody who’s not apt to yell at you and hang up.” Soon, Keith plans to switch to working on a specific campaign — he’s thinking about one in New Hampshire. “It’s hard to figure out which elections are actually contestable,” he says, and he appreciates that Together We Elect has an excellent research team to identify and focus on winnable races.
A long-ago “Rockefeller Republican” — his phrase — Keith (now a Mayor Pete Democrat) sees his former party as tragically off the rails. For him, the stakes in the 2022 midterms couldn’t be higher. “We need to be the majority caucus on both sides, or the extreme conservatives are going to run the agenda. As far as I can tell, their goal is to control the culture and govern your personal life.”
Even though democracy itself is in the balance, Keith agrees with TWE’s spirit of not pressuring volunteers to spend all their waking hours electioneering. “Together We Elect leaves you to pick when and how and how much. There’s no contribution, no matter how small, that isn’t important.” Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s in favor of slacking off. “Obviously, the more you can do, the better. Twenty twenty-two is going to be a much harder win for us.”
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