Western Democrat

Kari Chisholm

WesternDemocrat was founded by Kari Chisholm, whose editorial Let us look West, Democrats started this off. Once a political campaign hack, Chisholm now runs Mandate Media, a consulting firm that does "internet strategy for people changing the world." His personal blog covers Politics & Technology and he's a founder of BlueOregon. In 1999-2001, Chisholm was the volunteer board chair of X-PAC, a nonpartisan group that sought to build a new generation of political leaders and community activists in Oregon.

Emmett O'Connell

Emmett O'Connell is a PR flack, a graduate of Evergreen State College and was a small town reporter. What started as a passing fancy more than a year ago when he noticed that none of the Democratic Presidential candidates were from west of Denver has turned into an obsession. Emmett has become almost consumed with this idea of Western Democrats coming to the rescue. He has also been involved in several local campaigns, is secretary of the Thurston County Young Democrats and his other blog is Olympia Time.

Our Contributors

Leo Brown

Leo Brown is a graduate of the University of Utah and has a Ph.D. from Harvard University in chemistry. He resides in La Jolla, California where he works in sales for a small software firm. He is a disaffected Republican, frequent behind-the-scenes contributor to One Thousand Reasons, and a big fan of Senator Harry Reid. He discovered Western Democrat while surfing the net and believes that its program provides the best hope that America and the Democratic Party can find its way out of the political wilderness.

Ken Camp

Ken Camp is an alumnus of the University of Southern California, who has previously worked for the Vice-President of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, a Los Angeles City Councilmember, and has spent the past 4 years as a Legislative Assistant to a Washington State Senator. He lives and works in Olympia, Washington. He also blogs at KenCamp.net.

Jenny Greenleaf

Jenny Greenleaf, a relative newcomer to politics, signed up as an active Democrat three years ago. Since that time, she's been on a mission to figure out how the Democratic Party works and then to revitalize and reform it. Fleeing a dot.bomb job and a 20-year career in high-tech, she became a full-time volunteer for Democrats in 2002, and has worked on several projects including volunteering on the 2002 and 2004 Coordinated Campaigns as well as the Dean campaign, organizing fundraisers, wrangling volunteers, and training precinct workers. She advocates for party simplification, for organizing around activists instead of Party positions, and for making politics more fun. Jenny was elected by the Democratic Party of Oregon to serve on the Democratic National Committee in December 2004.

Nat Grossman

Nathan "Nat" Grossman" will be a freshman at George Washington University in the fall. He is a resdient of Indianapolis, Indiana, and until recently, wrote a weekly column for the Indianapolis Star. While Nat is a midwesterner, he loves the Western Democrat philosophy and believes there is a good chance it could save our struggling party.

Landon Mascareñaz

Landon Mascareñaz definitely considers himself a child of the western United States. He was born in Fresno, California and spent the early part of his life there and in San Francisco. Following this he lived in Littleton, Colorado during his teenage years and then graduated from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He was heavily involved in the Dean campaign during the 2004 primaries and remained active in Oregon politics until he graduated. He currently teaches first grade on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. Landon strongly believes in the Western Democrat as both a reality and a strategy for the future of progressive politics.

Jonathan Singer

Jonathan Singer, a junior politics major at Pomona College in Claremont, California, grew up in Portland where he graduated from Wilson High School. Jonathan has a background volunteering for a number of Democratic campaigns, including those of Ron Wyden and Al Gore. He has also run the political blog, Basie!, since June 2004, receiving more than 35,000 visits and interviewing notables like former Presidential candidates Gary Hart and John Anderson.