At the Campaign Institute in August 2004, trainees heard from many prominent speakers as well as trainers with significant experience running electoral and issue campaigns, including:

Jeff Blodgett is the Executive Director of Wellstone Action, the organization formed to carry on the work of Paul and Sheila Wellstone. Blodgett spent thirteen years as a senior aide, advisor and campaign manager to U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone. He ran all three of his election campaigns, including the upset win in 1990, the strong reelection in 1996, and the hard-fought 2002 race that was cut short by tragedy 12 days before Election Day. Blodgett also served for five years as the Director of the Senator's Minnesota offices and staff. Blodgett also has extensive experience in non-profit political advocacy. Before rejoining Wellstone for the 2002 campaign, Blodgett started and ran The Alliance Project for three years, a new national effort to increase the advocacy ability of organizations and individuals supporting alcohol and drug addiction treatment and recovery. Blodgett has also spent years as a community organizer in Minnesota and surrounding states and has been a regular guest speaker in classes on campaigns and elections.

Jerry Brown - Mayor of Oakland and former Governor of California

Jerry Brown is currently mayor of Oakland, California and was governor of California from 1974-1982. In 1992, he sought the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Dan Cantor - Working Families Party
Dan Cantor is the founding Executive Director of the Working Families Party (WFP), one of the three minor parties with official ballot status in New York State. The WFP is a community-labor party dedicated to advancing the interests and values of the middle-class, working-class and poor. Mr. Cantor has been a community, labor, and political organizer for 27 years. He was labor coordinator for Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1988 Presidential campaign, and has worked across the country to build multi-racial, class-oriented coalitions. He has written numerous articles on American politics, and is co-author, with Juliet Schor, of "Tunnel Vision."

David Donnelly - Director, Campaign Money Watch
David Donnelly is the Director of Campaign Money Watch, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy campaign that holds elected officials accountable on campaign finance reform and the special favors they do for their political contributors. He also serves as the Political Director of Public Campaign Action Fund. Most recently, Mr. Donnelly directed the organization's electoral activity in a handful of U.S. Senate and Congressional races, including a successful issue campaign in 2002 in the Arkansas Senate race against an anti-reform politician, then-U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson. From 1997 to 2002, Donnelly directed Massachusetts Voters for Clean Elections, which Included an on-going campaign to force state elected officials to implement and fund a reform law enacted by voters. The effort included an intricate strategy of citizen lobbying, media, legislative negotiations, electoral advocacy, and legal action. In the early 1990s, he also served in the office of U.S. Congressman Thomas Andrews and worked on political races. Donnelly's background is in media relations, campaign management and strategy, political advertising and organizing, and initiative and legislative issue campaigns. He managed two successful "Clean Elections" initiative campaign (Maine in 1996 and Massachusetts in 1998), where voters enacted far-reaching and ground-breaking overhauls of state campaign finance laws. Donnelly also offered strategic consultation and hands-on help to campaign reformers in Vermont and North Carolina, leading to the legislative passage of election reform laws in those states as well. In 1997, Mr. Donnelly co-authored Are Elections for Sale? which is in its second printing (Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts).

Cathy Duvall - National Organizing Director, America Votes
Cathy Duvall is the National Organizing Director for America Votes. America Votes is a new coalition of many of the largest membership-based groups in the country which have come together to increase voter registration, education and participation in electoral politics during the 2004 election. Ms. Duvall previously served as the Field Director for the Gephardt for President Campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In 1998, she ran and won the special election to elect Lois Capps to Congress from Santa Barbara, California. She has also directed numerous environmental campaigns including running regional offices for the environmental advocacy group "Clean Up Congress" which ran campaigns against anti-environmental politicians including Jesse Helms. She started her career in politics as a campus organizer with the state PIRGs in Oregon. She serves on the Advisory Board of Democratic GAIN, the Grassroots Action Institute and Network which supports the professional needs of individuals and organizations that work in Democratic and progressive politics. She lives in Washington, D.C. and an avid hiker and kayaker.

Jon Golinger - Public Interest Advocate, Media Consultant, Campaign Director
Since 1992, Jon has managed successful election and media campaigns across California on behalf of environmental groups, public health organizations, and reform-minded causes and candidates. His work has been featured on the CBS Evening News, Dateline NBC and the Today Show, in the New York Times, The LA Times, Washington Post and USA Today, in Parade Magazine and Time Magazine, on the Rush Limbaugh Show and on NPR. Over the last five years, Jon has managed a winning campaign to put an environmental leader on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, helped the Sierra Club protect two square miles of San Francisco Bay from being paved for new airport runways, and directed five successful ballot measure campaigns.

Donald P. Green - Director Of The Institution For Social And Policy Studies, Yale University
Donald P. Green is A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies. His central interest concerns the nature of political motivation and the conditions under which material incentives shape political and social behavior. He is the coordinator of the Yale Hate Crime Project. He is the co-author (with Ian Shapiro) of Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science, and is currently working on two other books, The Causes of Hate Crime and The Nature of Partisan Identification. His published work addresses racial prejudice, campaign finance, the statistical analysis of survey data, and the interplay between public opinion and public policy.

Mark Green - President, New Democracy Project
Mark Green is the founder and president of the New Democracy Project, a New York City-based national/urban affairs public policy institute. Mr. Green is the author/editor of 18 books and a commentator, public interest lawyer, former New York City Public Advocate and Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City in 2001. He is currently lecturing at New York University and appears weekly on a public affairs television program on NY1 with Ed Koch and Al D'Amato.

Scott Harshbarger - Former Massachusetts Attorney General
Scott Harshbarger’s lengthy career in public service includes experience as a prosecutor, regulator and public advocate, providing him with the expertise to provide counsel and strategic legal advice to CEOs, general counsel, trustees, public officials, and other boards of governance on such matters as fiduciary responsibilities, governmental inquiries, fraud investigations, and crisis management.

Mr. Harshbarger served as the President and CEO of Common Cause in Washington, DC for three years. In this role, he led the reform and renewal of nationally recognized, independent, nonpartisan citizens’ lobbying, advocacy and government and corporate watchdog group. Mr. Harshbarger also launched Common Cause’s corporate governance project in 2002 and dramatically expanded Common Cause’s national agenda to include election reform and monitoring the performance of executive agencies.

Mr. Harshbarger served as the Massachusetts Attorney General from 1991 to 1999. During this time, he was elected president of the National Association of Attorneys General after serving as vice president of the same organization. As the state’s leading law enforcement officer, Mr. Harshbarger worked to create a level playing field for businesses by prosecuting white collar crime, insurance fraud and enforcing child labor laws. Mr. Harshbarger led the passage of unprecedented brownfields legislation, helping spur economic development in formerly depressed neighborhoods. He was also the first Attorney General in the nation to work with the health care community and develop hospital and HMO community benefit guidelines. Mr. Harshbarger led the state’s effort to be one of the first five states in the country to sue tobacco manufacturers for the costs of health care associated with tobacco use. As a result of the lawsuit, Massachusetts will receive approximately $300 million per year for at least each of the next 25 years.

During his tenure as Attorney General, Mr. Harshbarger was the Democratic nominee for governor in 1998. He received 48 percent of the votes in a close election with an incumbent governor. Prior to his role as Attorney General, Mr. Harshbarger served as the District Attorney of Middlesex County from 1983 to 1991. He received national recognition for leadership as he created public protection bureaus for family and community crimes, and implemented projects for juvenile justice, child abuse and law enforcement training programs.

Arianna Huffington - Author, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of 10 books, including 2004's "Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America" and others like "Pigs At the Trough" and "How to Overthrow the Government." She is a social activist, political pundit, TV personality, and, most recently, an independent candidate for governor of California. She also co-hosts KCRW's nationally syndicated Public Radio show "Left, Right, and Center." Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with a master's degree in economics. Arianna lives in Los Angeles with her two daughters.

Kimberly Larson - Coordinator, Campaign Institute
Kimberly Larson is the Coordinator of the Campaign Institute, overseeing the training sessions and directing the operations of the Institute. She is also the Deputy Political Director for the National Association of State PIRGs. Ms. Larson conducts outreach to the arts and entertainment community and to national media outlets to cover the state PIRGs' state-level issue work. She has worked with the entertainment community to garner support for public interest campaigns, including Robert Redford, Martin Sheen, James Cromwell, Amy Smart, Krist Novoselic of Nirvana, and Bonnie Raitt. She has also organized media briefings in Washington, D.C. attended by many national outlets, including The Washington Post, C-SPAN, and Business Week Previously, she was the Assistant Field Director for the federal legislative office of the state PIRGs, directing grassroots campaigns on federal issues such as energy, clean air, and environmental health. Ms. Larson also did media outreach with CALPIRG in the fall of 1996 on a state campaign finance reform ballot initiative. She started her organizing career with Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, after graduating from the University of Vermont with a B.A. in Environmental Studies in 1995.

Christine Lindstrom - Campus Program Director, Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG)
Christine Lindstrom is the Campus Program Director, and oversee weekly trainings and meetings held with MASSPIRG campus organizers. She has been the Organizing Director of MASSPIRG's campus organizing program since 1999. She is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the campus chapters, including staff oversight, program development, and volunteer recruitment and development. She has been on MASSPIRG's campus organizing staff since 1992. Lindstrom graduated from the University of Miami in Florida in 1992.

Mindy Lubber - Executive Director, Coalition For Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES)
CERES encourages corporate environmental responsibility in a number of ways, from encouraging companies to endorse the CERES Principles, working with endorsing companies both on meeting their commitment and on environmental reporting through the Global Reporting Initiative, and mobilizing the network in activist projects like the Sustainable Governance Project and the Green Hotel Initiative. She is the former U.S. EPA New England Regional Administrator, and began her career in environmental policy at Massachusetts PIRG after finishing her M.B.A. Serving as program and legislative director, she spearheaded the organization's campaign to pass Massachusetts' Bottle Bill, a landmark recycling law, while she was also attaining her J.D. from Suffolk University School of Law in 1982. In 1991, she founded and became chief executive of Green Century Capital Management, which manages a family of environmentally responsible mutual funds owned by the PIRGs. She served at EPA New England from 1995 to 2001. She has been actively involved in Massachusetts politics for more than 20 years including serving as a Senior Advisor and Communications Director to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

Merrilee Milstein - AFL-CIO Field Mobilization Deputy Director for New England
Merrilee Milstein has had a career as an organizer and leader of District 1199, Health and Hospital Workers' Union for over 20 years. From 1995 to 1997, she was Deputy Secretary of the State for Connecticut, coordinating efforts to enhance service in that office and leading efforts to increase democratic participation.

Frank O'Brien - President & Partner, OMP
Frank O'Brien is widely recognized as one of the leading direct marketing fundraising strategists in the nation. In a 17-year period he has built OMP into a highly respected fundraising consulting firm with an ability to move with ease in the charitable, political and advocacy worlds. Both as a mentor to OMP staff and a hands-on partner with the agency's clients, Frank helps some of America's leading causes develop bold strategies, penetrating creative work and innovative program designs.

Carin Schiewe - Trainer, Political Consultant
Carin Schiewe, has been an organizer, trainer and political consultant to progressive electoral campaigns for the past 21 years. In her former role as executive director of the Commonwealth Coalition in MA, Carin worked closely with over fifty state representative and senate campaigns and played a major role in winning in over 75% of the coalition's endorsed races. Previously she was a staff member for Mass Choice and Mass Fair Share.

Doug Phelps - Trainer
Douglas H. Phelps is Chair and CEO of U.S.PIRG, National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups. Mr. Phelps is also head of the Fund for Public Interest Research, an organization which provides technical assistance to, and conducts programs for, state and national civic groups in the area of membership development, fundraising, staff recruitment training, and strategy. The Fund's major projects currently are with the PIRGs, Sierra Club, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, Greenpeace USA, and Save the Children. Phelps is currently on leave from both of the above positions to work on the 2004 elections. He directs Grassroots Campaigns, Inc (GCI), is a national organization which builds grassroots support for progressive causes, political candidates, public interest campaigns, and non-profit organizations. GCI is conducting two programs during 2004. One involves the Democratic National Committee in 40 cities. GCI's 1500 staff knock on 100,000 doors every day. The other program is a GOTV field program for MoveOnPAC. Phelps is a graduate of Colorado State University and the Harvard Law School. After graduating, he directed Harvard Law School's public interest & public service careers program for several years, placing many graduates in public service jobs throughout the U.S. He is founder or a co-founder of the Equal Justice Foundation, now called the National Association for Public Interest Law; the National Environmental Law Center; Green Corps; and the Green Century Funds.

Juan Proano - President & Co-Founder, Plus Three
Plus Three is a strategic marketing and technology agency serving major U.S. political organizations and world-class non-profits with innovative solutions. Plus Three has radically improved the way progressive organizations build constituent groups and fundraise by giving them immediate access to the widest array of contributors. Plus Three was founded in 2001 as a partnership by experienced entrepreneurs with deep expertise in strategic online marketing, creative design and software development. The company leverages a powerful combination of technology and marketing services to enable its progressive clients to forge relationships with an army of constituents. Its solutions have enabled organizations to redefine online fundraising as evidenced by its involvement in raising a record breaking $60 million in the first half of 2004 in support of progressive causes.


Ken Ward - Good Guys Consulting
Ken Ward has 25 years of campaigning and organizing experience. He is a senior trainer, master-level strategist, expert propagandist, and a seasoned veteran of building environmental and progressive institutions in the U.S. Ken has served as President, Executive Director or CEO with the State Public Interest Research Groups, Greenpeace USA, National Environmental Law Center, Public Interest GRFX, and The American Congress of Consumer Organizations. Ken played a pivotal role in founding Green Corps, the AmeriCorps WaterWatch Projects, Environmental Endowment for New Jersey, State PIRGs in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, and the largest door canvass in the U.S. He has served as consultant/trainer to Solar New England, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), USAction, and The Working Families Party. He led successful crisis management for Greenpeace USA and New Jersey PIRG, and has run numerous environmental and public interest campaigns. Ken is most proud of his former staff, 20 of whom, by last count, hold Organizing Director or Executive Director positions in public interest organizations.

Wendy Wendlandt - Political Director, U.S. PIRG National Association of the State PIRGs
Wendy Wendlandt is a Senior Advisor to the Institute. As the Political Director for the U.S. PIRG National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs). Ms. Wendlandt assisted the state PIRGs in fundraising, training, and developing and running campaigns and projects, including, most recently, the New Voters Project and the Genetically Engineered Food Alert Coalition. She was with the PIRGs for 20 years working in a variety of roles including serving as the Executive Director of the PIRG in Washington State during the late 1980s. In 1992, she took a leave of absence from the PIRGs and worked as the national field organizer for former California Governor Jerry Brown's bid for the Presidency. She is also on the board of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, which has trained hundreds of staff for careers in environmental organizing. She has a B.A. in Political Science from Whitman College, 1983. She lives in Los Angeles, California

Matt Wilson - Executive Director, Toxics Action Center
As the Director of Toxics Action Center since 1989, Matt has assisted more than 200 neighborhood groups fight toxic pollution in their communities. Matt has been an environmental organizer since 1983, when he graduated from Dartmouth College. He also serves as the Clerk of the Green Corps Board of Directors and has sponsored nine Green Corps organizers in positions with Toxics Action Center.