Yup, that's me there with Nancy Pelosi!

If someone asked you to take a day out of your life to help mothers and children who are the poorest of the poor, who need the things we take for granted every day – enough food to feed our children, vaccines to prevent diseases, medicines to keep our families as healthy as possible – would you do it?

What if that meant going to Capitol Hill and becoming a lobbyist for a day?  Sounds a little scary, doesn’t it?  OK, maybe it sounds a lot scary.  But I’m here to tell you it’s not as bad as it might sound at first.

When someone says “lobbyist,” the first thing that probably pops into your head is a guy in a suit who wines and dines other guys in suits to influence the lawmaking process on behalf of some giant corporation.  And that happens.  A lot.  But at the end of the day influence is never just about the martinis or the lobster dinners.   An effective lobbyist has to be good at face-to-face conversations about something he or she believes in.

That’s why mothers are naturals at the art of lobbying and activism.

Most people would likely scoff at that notion. (One person has actually laughed in my face at the idea).  But talking about what’s important for kids and families comes naturally to moms.  Moms “lobby” on behalf of their children every day – with teachers, doctors and anyone else who’s making important decisions that will have a lasting impact on their families. So as it turns out, moms inherently have the makings of being amazing lobbyists.

And that’s what I saw when I was asked to participate in a day of advocacy on behalf of ONE, the non-profit organization founded by U2 lead singer Bono, that’s committed to ending extreme poverty and providing vaccines for preventable diseases.  A group of ONE Moms who traveled with ONE to Kenya this summer to see the impact these programs have on the poorest of the poor recently took to Capitol Hill to meet with their elected representatives to use the power of constituency to ask that the federal dollars that help fund the programs ONE supports not be cut in the upcoming federal budget negotiations (less than 1% of our federal budget goes to international aid programs).

We were prepped and given lots of stats and facts about the amount of federal dollars that go toward programs overseas that ONE supports, like providing HIV/AIDS vaccines to mothers to lessen the chance that they will transmit the disease to their babies when they’re born, and what a big impact just a few cents can have in the campaign to create a healthier world.  I was worried I would never be able to keep all that in my head to make a compelling argument to the staffs of my senators and congressman.  Fortunately, people are just people, even when they’re sitting in those power suites in Washington, D.C.  And once we started talking, it was clear that the potential impact didn’t come so much from the exact statistics we used or the facts we recited.  What mattered was that we took the time to personally express our views, rather than expecting and assuming that our representatives would vote on certain budget issues in the way we hoped.

Of course, not everyone can make a trip to Washington, D.C., or even a state capital, to let lawmakers know what’s important to them.  But the people we met with were clear on this – they pay attention to what their constituents take the time to say, whether it’s in person or not.  A letter, e-mail or phone call can carry just as much weight as an in-person meeting.

So with the 2012 campaign season upon us, what are the issues you’d be willing to become an “activist” for?

Of course, you can read more about women becoming online activists in my book, Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America (Bright Sky Press, 2011), which explores not only a look at the rise of women and social media, but also features the work of over 50 amazing women writers from around the web.

Image courtesy ONE/Lauren Balog

Originally posted at iVillage

For many Tea Party supporters, our economic system isn’t about fairness so everyone should suck it up and manage on their own.  They’d really like the “have nots” to quit whining about the “haves.”

But try to compare the Occupy Wall Street to the Tea Party movement in terms of a populist uprising, and you’ll really see their eyes roll back in their heads and steam come out of their ears.  For them, Tea Party supporters are the backbone of middle America while those who are at the end of their financial rope should stop making such a fuss.

There is clearly a class war going on in this country.  Whether the poor get poorer, go hungrier and stay out of work longer is not much of a concern to some extreme conservatives.   But for those on the right who are scoffing at the protestors, but who also often like to tout their “Christian” values, I’ll just take a line from FDR:

Whether O.W.S. can sustain momentum is hard to say right now, but those Tea Party people started out exactly the same way — holding a few rallies and finding support from others who also felt alienated and cut-off from any way to change their lives.  Sounds like Occupy Wall Street is headed down that same path to me.

Image by Joanne Bamberger.  All rights reserved.

While at the BlogHer ’11 conference this past weekend, I got a sneak peak at this ABC News story that left me awed and in tears.

While I didn’t get to go to Kenya, I am honored to be one of the “ONE Team Member” asked to spread the word about how we, as moms, can make a difference for other families across the globe.r

I don’t want to compare one person’s need against another, but certain poverty in Africa is a kind that even most of the poorest Americans will never know — the hunger and dire unmet needs that come with famine and governments that sometimes use food and hunger as political tools.  Those two things are what prompted U2′s front man Bono to create the organization ONE some years ago in an effort to being more attention to the neediest of the needy especially among those of us who have so much.

Many of us contribute to organizations we believe do good work and provide help to  those who need it, be it cancer research, food banks or women’s shelters.  But that kind of giving is easy — write a check, send it off, charitable giving done.  No need to actually see what has to be done to put that money to work.  We can turn away from the actual face of an issue or problem even once we’ve decided to budget our funds for that kind of giving.

And for many of us, if we believe in the work of  ONE, we can do that, too.  But I’ve been following some women I know who stepped up to travel to Kenya with ONE to observe first-hand the extreme circumstances that many families must deal with and how the work of that organization is impacting those who need that assistance.  I’m still reading through all the posts and reports, but I can tell you one thing — this was no luxury boondoggle.

I know there’s a lot of budgetary stuff going on here at home, what with whole debt “crisis” thing, but there is still a need for us to help the tens of millions of people facing conditions we can’t even conceive of and governments have to step in — a little charity from our individual wallets isn’t going to make this crisis go away.

Don’t take my word for it.  Read the accounts and take in the moving images of some awesome Mothers of Intention like Karen Walrond, Lindsay Maines, Emily McKhann and Cooper Munroe and Jyl Pattee, just to name a few.  While I didn’t get to experience what they did, I was honored to be asked to be a ONE Partner blog to help reach even further into the amazing community of women online (there are 79 million of us social media mavens hanging out on the “interwebs” each week!) to raise awareness and build support for the work being done to help so many families who might not survive without it.

I firmly believe in the power of women to revolutionize the world — as people who love to network and connect, we were already doing it in our personal communities.  The world of social media has just made our community that much bigger and better.

I can’t wait to read more about the trip of a lifetime that these women took. And I can’t wait to see how many more opportunities come to women with the tools to help make change for families around the globe.

I’m not usually that optimistic.  But this time I am.

Image courtesy of ONE Mom (and wonderful friend) Karen Walrond via Chookooloonks

And don’t forget, if you’re at BlogHer ’11 or Women Create Media Conference, and you’ve purchased my book Mothers of Intention, come find me and I’ll enter you in the “PunditMom Scavenger Hunt” (you’re scavenging for me!) to win some great cool prizes, including a shiny new pair of New Balance running shoes and some fabulous, original art from Robin Plemmons (aka Balls to the Walls, Y’all).

Instead of sitting here at my computer doing it, I had to actually put on some nice clothes and make-up and talk to a room of about 25 women about the burning question of the blogosphere:

WHY?

Not just why we do it, but why they should do it. Is it worth the time of women who work for non-profit agencies to spend some time blogging, and networking with bloggers, to get the message out about their missions?

I was specifically asked to talk a little bit about what bloggers are saying online about issues facing low-income women and families and how those issues are being addressed by the remaining presidential candidates.

I thought, easy-peasy! A few quick bloggy searches and I was sure I’d come up with a variety of posts.

You know what — I didn’t find that much.

Yes, I have friends who are dedicated to talking about issues like these, but many of us focus on the things that impact our own lives and those of our friends. And while we’re not a bunch of gazillionaires, many of us are lucky enough not to fall into the category of families who would be seeking out their services.

I told these women that I had not really been able to come up with any conversations about these issues. Sure, we’ve got MomsRising and some other organizational blogs that address some related issues, but I was shocked that we’re not talking more about how we can help low-income women and families get a higher profile for their issues — Head Start programs, school lunch programs, access to reproductive health services, home instruction for preschoolers — especially in an election year. One presidential candidate was, but remaining ones don’t get around to that topic much.

Cooper Monroe and Emily McKhann were on top of helping after Hurricane Katrina. But I wasn’t coming up with much more.

So I told these women, who were mulling over the power of the blogopshere, that they should reach out to us. Not in the way that some for-profit entities have done, sometimes with less skill than you might expect, but in a thoughtful and informed way.

I could see the twinkle in some of their eyes, thinking about how they could enhance the way they help women and children with a little assist from us bloggers. I invited them to all send me information about their programs and I’m hoping they’ll take me up on it.

I suggested they poke around our blogs and see who was talking generally about the things they feel are important for helping families and children, and send us E-mails about their programs. You don’t mind that I’m sending them your way, right?

But I know there must already be some others who are talking about how we can all advance the causes of low-income families. Who am I missing?

President-elect Obama has his financial gurus all lined up, but plenty of people have been skeptical that they’ll approach things any differently than the current group has for the last eight years. Giving Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner major roles isn’t exactly instilling the most confidence for those who are hoping for a new economic agenda because it gives the appearance of more of the same. Kady at The Wonkess has a few suggestions for other economic types she thinks the President-elect ought to be listening to. How can it be a bad thing to throw some additional talented and experienced voices into the mix when we’re facing something no one has ever had to deal with in our lifetimes?

At this stage of the game, though, with the auto bailout plan in collapse and a Congress that can’t seem to make up its mind about how to keep hard-earned savings safe from further decline, it may be time for Barack Obama to come up with an even bolder plan, but one that doesn’t neglect the day-to-day issues.

I believe that Obama will do his best to turn this country around. But that’s going to take time — time that a lot of families don’t have. So what are the rest of us going to do in the meantime?

One thing is clear — it’s time to take more control over our finances to the extent that we can. i am bossy has taken the lead by starting her own daily Poverty Party blog to show us the way to dig out of the mess that, on some level, we have created for ourselves:

You see: Bossy and her family are broke and in debt. Many times in the past Bossy has grown serious about limiting her purchases to cash, and keeping a running record of transaction amounts throughout the day, and other tricks learned on Oprah. But that dedication only lasts a few weeks before Bossy caves-in to convenience. And boots.

But every indication suggests that right now is the time to truly reign-in spending and whittle down debt, where indication equals the breadline Bossy is standing in due to the collapsed economy.

BlogHer Contributing Editor Suzanne Reisman is excited about Obama’s plans to focus on our nation’s infrastructure and his desire to create new jobs. But she’s also worried that, as good as his plan might be, it leaves women wage earners out in the cold:

For all my excitement about investing in infrastructure (which I still think is vital), I hadn’t really considered what that meant in terms of creating a gender disparity in the new jobs. Then … I had lunch with some awesome women from the American Association of University Women, and they kindly (but firmly) plucked me off of Construction Cloud 9 with two facts: 1. Female headed households saw a stiffer decrease in income than those headed by men; and 2. Women make up less than 3% of the construction workforce. Oh. Shit.

I think it’s safe to say that Obama and his economic team have the big picture in their sights, but according to Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, Obama may have to entirely rethink his current economic plan from the one he presented in the campaign and take even bolder steps to keep things running, especially in a time when, she notes, that 37 million Americans live below the poverty level:

What’s even more ominous about the current recession as compared to those of the past, the [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities] report warns, is the truly depleted state of the safety net: “Because this recession is likely to be deep and the government safety net for very poor families who lack jobs has weakened significantly in recent years, increases in deep poverty in this recession are likely to be severe.”

Protecting home ownership? I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

Tax cuts for working families? Not likely now.

Work/family balance with increased paid leave? I’d be surprised if that gets attention anytime in the near future.

Catching up on his campaign sleep deprivation before January 20? Not likely as Obama is going to have to be willing to approach our economy’s failing health with the financial equivalents of tourniquets and transfusions.

Cross-posted from BlogHer, where PunditMom is a Contributing Editor for Politics & News.

Poverty is one of the issues that got me more excited than usual in this campaign year. But it’s a hard topic to get your head around. Many of us don’t know people who live in poverty.

Or so we think.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, please read this MSNBC article on the truth about poverty in America today. It’s getting worse, not better.

When soup and bread start becoming luxuries, things are worse than anyone could imagine. And it’s not going to get better any time soon.

So if I’m not going to write a lot and rely on the MSM today (in honor of my 25 x 2 b-day!), I can do this — for every comment on this Blog Action Day post by midnight Wednesday, I’ll donate $1 to the Capital Area Food Bank.

Ready, set, comment!

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Thanks to everyone who commented! I will be donating $110 to the Capital Area Food Bank in honor of all your participation!

I know I said I thought we’d be able to breathe today, but I was wrong. Yeah, that happens from time to time.

I’m not entirely surprised that Hillary Clinton was able to pull out the double-digit victory in Pennsylvania. Having grown up in the Keystone State, I have a pretty good feel for how people are feeling there these days and which way things might break.

In a way, Hillary’s win is a good thing. She’s a fighter and at least her tenaciousness can be seen as a good quality in a woman running for president.

But why the big surge in Pennsylvania as opposed to another state? Everyone is spinning this today — it was the women, it was the “working class.”

The double-digit factor in Pennsylvania is because of the economy.

While many have been focused on the race and gender aspects of this contest, there has been less focus on economic bias in our country, which is definitely there. Hillary has been doing better, as a general matter, with voters like my parents, who wonder from week to week whether their grocery budgets are going to reach because the price of cupboard staples have gone up so much.

The media are so busy focusing on divisions over race and gender, that we’re forgetting the one thing so many of us loved about John Edwards’ candidacy — a commitment to those who aren’t shopping at Whole Foods. But my parents aren’t. I hear about it weekly. As a semi-retired couple, how they’re going to get through the month is always topic number one.

Since we’re going to have more talk anyway since the race is moving forward, how about if the

candidates shift their focus to the economy in a meaningful way. Don’t do the John McCain pander thing about a summertime gas price respite. Barack and Hillary, focus on the economic divide and why, in 2008, my parents have to be worrying about the price of frozen waffles. I know neither of you do.

My parents, who are farmers, and their neighbors aren’t going to be contributing to your campaigns — they’ can’t afford to — but can you take a little more time to listen to their voices and talk about what you’re going to do so that fewer people go to bed hungry in this country, not more?

Because whoever can come up with a real plan for that is the person who should be our next president. Maybe that’s how the super delegates should decide.

Cross-posted from MOMocrats.

I was really hoping that John Edwards would hang in there long enough for me to cast my ballot for him, even though things weren’t looking good for his campaign for a while. Turns out I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Edwards had a vision of America that was consistent with my own — that we are a country divided, particularly in terms of the haves and have-nots, and that isn’t OK for many of us, especially if you grew up poor and now have a little something in the bank account.

While Oprah may proclaim at Barack Obama rallies that our nation has arrived in terms of gender and race because we have a woman and an African-American on the ballot as true contenders for the White House, we clearly are still traveling on the poverty issue.

As Barbara Ehrenreich of Nickel and Dimed fame pointed out in her Washington Post opinion column entitled The Boom Was a Bust For Ordinary People, we hear a lot of talk about how good the economy was in the 1990s and, even though things have slowed down, that for many of the George W. Bush years, the economy was growing and people were prospering.

For the millions of people who work at hourly jobs that don’t have health care or benefits, it just didn’t matter what the economists said. Their reality was one of a $5.85 minumum wage and Ramen noodles.

As good as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are on the issues of health care, the war, and the economy, John Edwards was the only who realized that unless we can get millions out of poverty in our country, making the economy better only for the middle and upper class won’t really do much good for those who keep trying to climb up the ladder, but keep slipping off the bottom rungs.

Many of us turn our heads and pretend that we don’t see the people sleeping under overpasses, pretend that there aren’t hungry and undernourished children in this country and pretend that those we euphemistically call “the working poor” aren’t right in front of us every day.

If Oprah and others like her really want an “America that’s about unity,” then we need to ask the remaining candidates what they’re really going to do about small family farmers struggling to put food on the table, workers who get laid off and can’t get back into the job market, and older professionals with graduate degrees who can’t find a job anyplace other than Home Depot.

Clinton and Obama pledged to Edwards that they would continue his fight. If either of them really want my vote, they have to convince me they’re not going to leave my parents, small family farmers on the brink of retirement, to scrape by while benefits from a new administration get funneled to businesses and the already well-off.

Make me believe you’re not going to forget about the Americans who struggle to make ends meet every single day, and you will have my vote.

On a lighter note, if the men all have muscle men coming out in support of their campaigns, Hillary needs a superhero, too! Check out my column at PunditMom’s Spin Cycle on the front-runners for Hillary’s Superhero!

After hearing her speak at last week’s BlogHer conference, I know if she was the one running for president, she would be getting my vote — hands down.

Not only is she exquisitely tuned in to the issues many of us think are the most important ones, she knows something else that seems to elude most office seekers — if you want support from women, you need to make connections.

Not just the ‘let-me-shake-your-hand-and-plead-for-your-vote’ kind of relationship. Don’t just talk at us with the catch phrases and soundbites that you think will garner our support. We’re about way more than that, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Elizabeth Edwards knows from her own personal experience what it means to reach out to people for help in coping when things don’t go as hoped or planned in life — connections that are real and personal.

And once you’ve made the connections, a candidate who wants our vote needs to be someone who can lead on the issues we care about – not just tell us how they feel or why things might be hard to accomplish. I had the sense that, given the chance, she could be that kind of leader as a politician — someone who would stand up and have the courage to say what she believes is right and important without regard to polls or strategists.

I marvelled at Edwards’ passion and outspokenness, hitting all the rights notes with the BlogHer women as she effortlessly talked her way through all the issues we’re focused on these days — the war in Iraq, health care policy, elder care, truly balanced and in-depth news coverage, caring for the poor, and realizing the power that we, as women, have if we use our voices, and our blogs, to keep the discussions going about what is important to us.

Edwards, who has her own blog, when asked if more presidential spouses should be blogging, responded:

“It is the ultimate way to communicate with voters.”

So why haven’t the other campaigns picked up on that yet?

I’m inspired by Elizabeth Edwards. Maybe John should consider her on the VP short list?