With two weeks left, many of us have made up our minds on how to vote in this election. We've stomached the Presidential race, we've listened to our local representatives, and we've learned about the judicial retention issues. In many Kansas counties, you can cast your ballot today.

There's never been anything like it. Not in Kansas. Not anywhere, really.

Any citizen will agree that we are in a time of... contentious politics. From the national stage to local precincts, we find people at odds not just on facts and policy, but intent and attitude. We won't attempt to diagnose the problem, nor fix it, in this email. MainStream works to bring all sides together around issues and values, but the job of making that successful, well, it is too great for one group.

Activists. You've seen them. They're everywhere. Masquerading as soccer moms. Teachers. Entrepreneurs. Accountants. Businesswomen. Pastors. Rabbis. College students. Office workers. Checkout clerks. The establishment is not safe anywhere, these days.

The members and supporters who make MainStream's work possible are much on our minds today. We would certainly not be the organization we are, nor be able to encourage the change we have in Kansas, if it were not for your time and generosity. In girding ourselves for the next month before the general election on November 8th, we looked back at what we have done together this year. Of all the efforts and events, of all the money donated and money spent, one singular product stands out. the candidate endorsements made by MainPAC.

One billion dollars. That's a lot of money. You've seen the state miss revenue estimates almost every month for years now, as Brownback's tax policies continue to fail. And each time, we see him go back to the well, stripping services, slashing education funding, borrowing from one fund to feed another. And we are rightly aghast as this process continues to drain our state of its bright future. But every month it's a few million dollars. Maybe thirty million in a bad month. It's not a billion dollars.

MainStream is a non-partisan organization. We advocate for moderate values, strong schools, good government, compassionate health care... those are the broad strokes. It does not matter to us what party you belong to, so long as those are the values you espouse. We understand that partisanship is difficult to overcome. Even the best among us can find it difficult to look past the labels. And sometimes, admittedly, even on moderate issues we don't see eye to eye.

When we received a recent donation of $10,000 towards the general election activity we were planning, we were thrilled. This donor had seen what grassroots efforts could accomplish in the primary, and believed more could be done. But it was a matching gift. We needed to raise another $10,000 from our members and supporters to get that donation.

When you work in politics, it is hard to get away from Hamilton: The Musical, so much of it is so delightfully relevant. So too, today, when we are talking about celebrating Women's Equality Week.

Last week we showed you how the primary election on August 2nd was a tremendous victory for moderate values. We also took pains to remind you that there is more work to be done, we've only begin to turn the ship around, and more critical races are being decided in November. We will talk about those races, but today, we wanted to talk about how these primaries were won.