Email of the Week (v13)

Another Thursday, and another accounting of the week's candidate emails...

This was a challenging week for several of the gang. With our week running Friday to Thursday, we had both the South Carolina and Super Tuesday primaries to influence messaging, which you can see in the chart below. There was one additional email, from Tom Steyer, which is not reflected above, as I stopped tracking a while back. 

So, with this being the week it was, how do I choose the coveted Email of the Week?  Well, I don't. Instead, I'm intermingling excerpts from  the campaign suspension emails from the five candidates  who dropped out of the race this week. 

I am so deeply inspired by how many dedicated Americans showed up to participate in our democracy — voting in the early states, volunteering countless hours, giving your all to support the candidates and values you believe in. (Tom Steyer)

Ever since I announced in the middle of a Minnesota blizzard that I was running for President, this team has shown grit, determination and an incredible dedication to America’s future.

Traveling all over the country and talking with so many of you has been one of the greatest honors of my life. You’ve shared your concerns and ideas about how we can make progress on important issues like health care, climate change, gun violence prevention and justice and democracy for all. I will never forget those conversations and I will be taking them with me on the road ahead. (Amy Klobuchar)

I joined this race in the belief that becoming the Democratic nominee was the best way for me to ensure that we defeat Donald Trump and usher in a new kind of politics defined by bringing people together.

At this point in the race, the best way to keep faith with those goals and with the ideals our campaign has been built around is to step aside and help bring our party and our country together. So tonight I am making the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the presidency.  (Mayor Pete)

Three months ago, I entered the race for President to defeat Donald Trump. Today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump -- because it is clear to me that staying in would make achieving that goal more difficult.

I'm a believer in using data to inform decisions. After yesterday's results, the delegate math has become virtually impossible -- and a viable path to the nomination no longer exists. But I remain clear-eyed about my overriding objective: victory in November. Not for me, but for our country.  (Mike Bloomberg)

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything you have poured into this campaign.

I know that when we set out, this was not the news you ever wanted to hear. It is not the news I ever wanted to share. But I refuse to let disappointment blind me — or you — to what we’ve accomplished. We didn’t reach our goal, but what we have done together — what you have done — has made a lasting difference. It’s not the scale of the difference we wanted to make, but it matters — and the changes will have ripples for years to come.

What we have done — and the ideas we have launched into the world, the way we have fought this fight, the relationships we have built — will carry through for the rest of this election, and the one after that, and the one after that. (Elizabeth Warren)

This year’s election is going to be the most important of our lifetimes. And with so much at stake, we’ve got to keep pushing to make sure Democrats win big in November.

We need to defeat Donald Trump. But we can’t stop there. We also need to elect Democrats all over the country and up and down the ballot to put America back on the path to progress. I am fully committed to doing everything I can to make that happen. (AK)

I will no longer seek to be the 2020 Democratic nominee for president. But I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that we have a Democratic president come January. (MP)

And so while I will not be the nominee, I will not walk away from the most important political fight of my life. (MB)

But I have always said that win, lose, or draw, I am in this fight. So am I going to continue to work on the issues that got me into this race? Yes, I am. You can count on that. Namely, the existential threat of climate change we’re facing on this planet. The racial injustice that pervades every single policy issue in this country. An economy that actually puts people ahead of profits and big corporations. (TS)

We have shown that it is possible to inspire people with big ideas, possible to call out what’s wrong and to lay out a path to make this country live up to its promise.

We have shown that race and justice — economic justice, social justice, environmental justice, criminal justice — are not an afterthought, but are at the heart of everything that we do.

We have shown that a woman can stand up, hold her ground, and stay true to herself — no matter what.

We have shown that we can build plans in collaboration with the people who are most affected.

This campaign became something special, and it wasn’t because of me. It was because of you. I am so proud of how you fought this fight alongside me: you fought it with empathy and kindness and generosity — and of course, with enormous passion and grit.
(EW)

That we made it here at all is proof that Americans are hungry for a new kind of politics, rooted in the values we share.

In a moment of deep division, we saw a rising American majority of Democrats, joined by Independents, and, yes, some of those future former Republicans, choose a politics defined not by who we push out, but by how many we call in; not by who we exclude, but by how we help people belong. With every passing day, I am more and more convinced that the only way we will defeat Trump and Trumpism is with that politics that gathers people together. 

And I urge everyone who supported me or ever even considered it, to be prepared to do everything we can to support the eventual nominee -- and the absolutely critical down-ballot races playing out across the country. There is simply too much at stake to retreat to the sidelines. (MP)

A year ago, people weren’t talking about a two-cent wealth tax, Universal Child Care, cancelling student loan debt for 43 million Americans while reducing the racial wealth gap, breaking up big tech, or expanding Social Security. And now they are. And because we did the work of building broad support for all of those ideas across this country, these changes could actually be implemented by the next president. A year ago, people weren’t talking about corruption, and they still aren’t talking about it enough — but we’ve moved the needle, and a hunk of our anti-corruption plan is already embedded in a House bill that is ready to go when we get a Democratic Senate. (EW)

As I’ve said before -- at its best, politics can be magnificent. Because it’s not just about policy, it is soulcraft. And it is moral. And we don’t have to win the nomination to be part of that. I don’t have to become the president in order to support that. We don’t have to win Super Tuesday for my campaign to do our part to win the era for our values. (MP)

And we also did it by having fun and by staying true to ourselves. We ran from the heart. We ran on our values. We ran on treating everyone with respect and dignity. But it was so much more. Four-hour selfie lines and pinky promises with little girls. A wedding at one of our town halls. And we were joyful and positive through all of it. We ran a campaign not to put people down, but to lift them up — and I loved pretty much every minute of it.

I may not be in the race for president in 2020, but this fight — our fight — is not over. And our place in this fight has not ended. (EW)

This primary is a journey towards the necessary defeat of Donald Trump and his corrupt administration. It is because of patriotic Americans like you that we will beat him and put power back in the hands of the people. (TS)

The past few months have been some of the most inspiring of my life, and I want to thank the tens of thousands of Americans, from Maine to California, whom I was privileged to meet -- and who every day, with their voices and their ideas, made this campaign such a powerful experience. And I am intent on making it a lasting experience: I want my supporters to stay engaged, stay active and stay committed to our issues. I will be right there with you. And together, we will get it done.  (MB)

And we walk on in the knowledge that better leadership is possible. That if we reach for it, if we work for it, if we hold that hope in our hearts and fire in our bellies, then one day we will stand in the future we create, a future where every American is empowered and everyone belongs. (MP) 

So if you leave with only one thing, it must be this: Choose to fight only righteous fights, because then when things get tough — and they will — you will know that there is only option ahead of you: nevertheless, you must persist. (EW)

And I look forward to continuing this fight together. (AK)

Thank you.

Amy, Mayor Pete, Mike, and Elizabeth 

After 12 weeks of Who Loves Me, Baby? posts tracking emails from a whole lot of candidates, to now 13 editions of the Email of the Week posts, are we nearing the end of this stuff? With another round of primaries next Tuesday, we just might be.

I'll let you know next week.