We Did It, Yes We Did!!!

I'm bone tired, sleep-deprived, and can't remember a time I was so excited.

Obama wins

Prop 2 passes

Prop 1 passes

Progressives sweep the State House

Diane Hathaway unseats Cliff Taylor for State Supreme Court

Oakland County elects a Democratic Prosecutor, Treasurer

Amazing, amazing, just amazing.

To all of you out there who helped all of us make Proposal 2 a reality, thank you from the bottom of my heart!!

Twas the Night before the Election...

It's been a busy place here in Lucy Land these past couple days, but it all boils down to tomorrow. It's both a relief and slightly terrifying at the same time.

Did we reach enough voters? Did we dispel the lies? Did we quiet the fear? Did we touch enough lives?

In my never-ending desire to do more and be more, the quiet answer comes from a far corner in my mind "hopefully" but based on the overall weariness and exhaustion that I physically feel, I know it is really a resounding 'yes'. And I have to be satisfied with that.

So on this election eve, I'm reminded of two seemingly separate but very connected things.
1) This blog is now 2 years (and almost a month) old.
2) Today would have been my grandmother's 93rd birthday.

So why, on the night before such an important day does this matter?

I started this blog way back in 2006 because I wanted to share forward-thinking ideas for our state, and more specifically the mid-Michigan area.

So if you haven't already figured it out - this blog is about how we become closer as a community, stronger as a state, and more invested as global players. You might hear a lot on elections, healthcare, education, the economy, and like any good liberal, I hug a tree or two. Regardless the topic, this blog is bigger than me or my dreams. It's about Michigan, and how we as a community realize our hopes and dreams into a reality for our great state.

In the two years between now and then, that hasn't changed. A lot of other things have changed, but it's still what I believe in and work towards every day.

My grandmother is a big reason why I work so hard each day for justice and rights for all of us. I miss her as much as I did when we first lost her to ALS over 4 years ago. She was a fighter, and each day as I start the day, I'm reminded of her, and all the adversity she over came to fight for others. She's also a big part of why I'm so passionate about Proposal 2 passing.

Like I've said before, I have so much invested in this fight tomorrow. It's so personal, it's so raw, and the very idea that people and an organized faith would work so hard and spend so much money to fight against giving hope to people who suffer as I do and as my grandmother did is at it's very nature offensive. Don't we all deserve at the very least a hope for a good quality of life?

Please, go out and vote, and vote Yes on Proposal 2.

This is about as personal as it gets

This is me and my mother, and really, this is about as personal as it gets.



Watch this, send it to every registered Michigan voter and tell them why YOU are voting on Proposal 2.

Brought together by pain and disease, moving forward toward hope

Thanks to this campaign, I had the opportunity to meet another really great person who's working just as hard on this issue. Mitch is a freshman at MSU who has chronic hereditary pancreatitis. If it sounds painful, it's because it is. Mitch is someone who just like me, could personally benefit from embryonic stem cell research. Check out this great piece he did in his hometown paper, the Holland Sentinel.

I am constantly awed by the amazing people that I am blessed to meet along this journey. We're brought together by pain and suffering, and I think it's safe to say that we all feel lucky to be able to channel that through working towards something that could benefit so many of us. All we can do is pray that Michigan voters give us an opportunity to hope by passing Proposal 2.

More Good News on Prop 2 Abounds

I was invited to write a piece for RH Reality Check about why Michigan needs embryonic stem cell research. RH Reality Check is a nationally-recognized site for reproductive health issues (hence the "RH") with a large audience. I hope that my piece can be used to sway some more Michigan voters in favor of saying YES on Prop 2.

This weekend my column also ran in the Lansing State Journal, coming days after the LSJ endorsed the proposal, along with the Flint Journal, Ann Arbor News, Jackson Citizen Patriot, and many other media outlets. What great news!!!

Already Going to Vote Yes? Great, there's one more thing you can do!

If you're already planning on saying Yes on Prop 2, will send you a brief email to everyone you know in Michigan and share with them your personal story why you're voting Yes? Personal stories of hope and even pain are what can bring us together and defeat the messages of fear-mongering and deception that the opposition is banking on. Who knows, your email could be the difference between Prop 2 passing and not.

Please, say yes to Prop 2 and allow us all to have hope for cures and relief.

The Tubes are buzzing with Yes on Prop 2

Eleven days to go. Just 11 short days until so much is decided both here in Michigan and across the country. The ads will stop, the yard signs will come down, and people like me who are working so hard on it can sleep and breathe again.

But there's still so much to do in those 11 short days, especially make sure we turn out the Yes vote on Proposal 2.

Here's Cure Michigan's latest ad, Clinics



These blogs are all proud to show their support for Prop 2, so please show them a little love and stop by to say hello -

The Trusty Getto (Ypsilanti)
Conservative Media (Livingston County)
60 Second Blog (Metro Detroit)
The Only Baggage You Can Bring (Metro Detroit)
West Michigan Rising (do I need to explain this?)
Blogging for Michigan (statewide)
MichiganLiberal (statewide)
The Enlightened Spartan (Go GREEN!)
Michigan Sports Center (Wolverines, the other white meat)
Got Detroit (In the 'D')

CureMichigan is also on Twitter, so be sure to follow them along as well.

Many thanks (again) to my family, who posted their first blog post ever yesterday at MichLib.

So please, keep spreading the word, passing the yard signs out, and of course - make sure to flip your ballot over on November 4th and vote YES on Proposal 2!

YouTube, Widgets, and Endorsements, Oh My!

My family recently took to YouTube to talk about why they're supporting Proposal 2, and I'm thankful to them for speaking out!



Most of you have probably already seen Laura Jackson's ad on tv. We need to make sure that every Michigan voter has the chance to hear her story and understand why voting YES on Proposal 2 is so important. We can make this happen by donating to the campaign today.

Also, if you give to the campaign before midnight tonight, your gift will be doubled, thanks to a generous donor. Please give as much as you can today so we can keep these ads on the air. Perhaps you'd even be willing to give in honor or memory of someone you know whose live could be improved through the hope that embryonic stem cell research brings.

Are you a fellow blogger? You too can have this great blog widget located to the right to put on your blog to show your support of Prop 2, made by the good folks at Cure Michigan. Email me if you're interested.

And in the last bit of good news, I'm pleased as punch to see that the Lansing State Journal has endorsed Proposal 2, because they too recognize how much our state needs it.

Here's to you and yours and making it a day we can all be proud of!

And now a word from Laura

Say 'Yes' to Hope.

Say 'Yes' to Prop 2.

Prop 2 is all about Hope

This has been a busy week for me as I continue to try and get the word out about the importance of Proposal 2, and why Michigan needs to vote 'Yes' on it.

I've been doing plenty of outreach to friends, family, and acquaintances. I've written my fair share of blog posts, I've spoken with multiple media outlets and helped participate in a couple press conferences on the topic as well.

But it's more than just a need to see something positive happen for our state. It's a very personal issue, and the more I meet people around the state who are working just as hard as I am, the more I am touched by not only their dedication, but how much this means to them as well.

As I've said before, my case of Crohn's Disease is significantly more severe than most. While I'm now technically in remission, there's not much more than can be done surgically should my disease flare up again.

That being said, I truthfully do not know that I could personally benefit from an advancement in the research and understanding of my disease should it happen as a result of the passage of Proposal 2 to allow embryonic stem cell research in Michigan.

But that's okay.

What's not okay is the idea that today, tomorrow, this next week somewhere in this state, someone else is going to get the news that will turn their world upside down just like mine was almost 15 years ago.

They'll go through the pain of the disease, the frustration of learning about a disease of which they had probably never heard of, the anguish of discovering there is no known cure, and that as far as the medical community goes treatment is just a giant guessing game. And that's just for those who will share my illness.

There will be others like Laura from Livonia, someone who never got sick, but broke her neck during cheerleading tryouts and now lives her life in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the neck down.

Yesterday the two of us did a press conference to announce the release of an ad for the Cure Michigan folks featuring her, and afterward her father was interviewed. I felt my heart break as I heard him say "All I want is my daughter to be able to give me a hug again."

Saying no to Proposal 2 is telling Laura's father that he can't have hope that one day his 19 year-old daughter will be able to wrap her arms around him and show him how much he means to her. Do you want to be that person to say no?

At the very least, Proposal 2 is about hope. It's about taking something that's being thrown away in the trash and turning it into hope. With times like these, and with people like Laura, her father, and the countless others that you know that live with a chronic illness or injury, can't we all use a little hope?

(Yes on Prop 2 yard signs are now available. Email Minda at Cure Michigan for yours today. Picture swiped from photo-genius WizardKitten over at Blogging for Michigan.)