Organizing Committee
The Organizing Committee is a vital part of ACT NOW. They meet regularly to plan our campaigns and to advise the Board of Directors, which relies on their judgment to make strategic decisions. As our on-the-ground leaders, they organize most of our events, canvasses, and phone banks. ACT NOW would be nowhere without them. The O.C. includes:
Allison Tupper
Allison Tupper’s political activism began with running a recycling center in the West Village, registering voters for McGovern, and fighting Westway. Who remembers neighborhood recycling or McGovern or Westway? Read More
Craig Mills
Opinionated, passionate, and ready for discourse, yet civil and tactful (well, most of the time), Craig enjoys discussing politics and policy. He works as a communications strategist at his new firm, where he likes to help progressives and plain-old entrepreneurs promote their messages more effectively. While he is most definitely not one for “debating” online, if you want to get him going, just say something provocative around him.
Ethel Sussman
Ethel Sussman, red-diaper baby, feels as if she’s been involved in politics for her entire life, having been deeply affected as a child by the Rosenberg case and the McCarthy period. Read More
Frieda Klotz
Frieda had her first taste of American politics when she came to New York in 2008, just in time to witness the beginnings of the financial meltdown and Barack Obama’s election. Before that she lived in London, where she spent five years studying ancient Greek literature. Read More
Kathy Kline
Kathy has been involved with politics since her early years helping her parents’ efforts to elect Adlai Stevenson president. She attended American University’s School of International Service following an interest in international affairs as well as wanting to be in DC where John F. Kennedy was president. After his death, she worked as a volunteer for Robert Kennedy and for Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana as well as in the presidential campaigns for General Wesley Clark, John Kerry and extensively … Read More
Mary Drayne
Mary Drayne’s interest in both politics and television journalism began early, when she accompanied her father to several national political conventions… back when those were big TV extravaganzas covered “gavel to gavel” on all the networks. That led to a career in network news and public television where she counted stories about environmental pollution vs. the public‘s health among her favorites. Post-journalism, Mary began volunteering with ACT NOW in presidential races — knocking on doors in Pennsylvania first for John … Read More
Merle McEldowney
Merle’s first political activity was when, as a child, she slept in church basements to ring door bells for Eugene McCarthy. Walking through the snows of New Hampshire carrying stacks of three-by-five cards for his campaign was just a rehearsal for 2004, when she walked the streets of New Jersey with America Coming Together, carrying computer-generated lists of voters for the John Kerry campaign. Since then Merle has been involved with ACT NOW and other organizations to promote voting and … Read More
Michael Bouldin
Michael Bouldin graduated with a Masters in Communications, Political Science and Comparative Literature from a European university and has been a New Yorker since 1998. The stolen election of 2000 and the start of the Iraq War in 2003 pushed him from contemplation of the political sphere into active engagement with it, escalating by degrees from fuming into marching to blogging and beyond. Read More
Paul Weidner
Paul Weidner, toward the end of a successful life-long career as a stage and theater director, and at the beginning of a so-far very short career as a novelist (Memoirs of a Dwarf, Terrace Books, in fine bookstores everywhere), got so fed up with the Bushies that he joined America Coming Together in 2004 to phone bank, do voter registration and spend a year—OK, so actually, it was a week—in Akron, Ohio working for supposedly non-partisan, 527ish progressive causes (read: the Kerry campaign), which actually won in Akron if not in Ohio as a whole (sigh). Read More
Organizing Emeriti
Over our eight years together, we’ve had the fortune of working with some pretty exceptional people. They’ve made invaluable contributions to the development of ACT NOW. And they’ve been good friends. Just as New York brings incredible people from all over the world together, it has sent these folks off on new missions, both personal and professional. Many of them are working for a progressive future in other parts of the country. We’re grateful for their dedication to ACT NOW and proud of what they continue to do.
Albert Socolov
Albert Socolov’s introduction to political activism was at age 15, speaking on New York City street corners to raise money for the loyalists during the Spanish Civil War. After college and four years in the army during World War II, during which he participated in the Normandy landings, Al entered NYU Law School, where he was a founding member of the NYU Student Division of the National Lawyers Guild. Read More
Alexis Hult
Unwilling to take it any more, Alex Hult went to Cincinnati in the fall of 2004 to work with America Coming Together. Intending to stay only for the weekend, he found himself there through Election Day organizing volunteers. Read More
Brooke Brod
Brooke’s involvement with ACT NOW can be viewed as an inspirational or cautionary tale depending on your point of view. Looking to do more than simply vote in 2004 Brooke found ACT NOW and one glorious bus trip on the Jersey Turnpike and an afternoon spent knocking on doors was all it took. Read More
Carolyn Jackson
Carolyn Jackson worked in Cleveland with America Coming Together in 2004 to defeat George Bush, and joining ACT NOW when she returned to NYC proved therapeutic. Read More
Gene Hill
Gene Hill’s roots in politics go back many generations. A descendant of New Mexico’s early governors (when Spain and Mexico ruled) and grandson of that state’s Democratic Party chairman from the FDR era, Gene acquired his earliest political experience serving on the student senate (and then as entertainment chairman) of the University of New Mexico. Read More
Greg Kirschenbaum
Greg Kirschenbaum’s experience with local politics started in the summer of 2006 when he worked as a volunteer coordinator on a State Assembly campaign. Read More
Jessica Vicuna
Jessica Vicuna always had a passion to fight for those who were treated un-justly – especially for political prisoners. In 1995, as a young high school student, she traveled back and forth to Pennsylvania to protest the death warrant of Mumia Abu–Jamal. Jessica also wrote several political pieces in New Youth Connections, a non-profit newspaper that is distributed to all NYC high schools in the 5 boroughs. She took a 14-year sabbatical to start a family. She is also receiving … Read More
Jordan Budd
Jordan Budd, a native of South Florida, left his family’s burgeoning pizza parlor to study at New York University, concentrating in Black Intellectual Thought. During his freshman year he was bitten by the political bug and began to help organize in the presidential primary of 2007… Read More
Nathan McNeil
Nathan McNeil worked with some of the Act New York crowd during the 2004 election cycle, and spent that Election Day weekend running around Philadelphia with posters and canvassing sheets. Read More
Robert Silberstein
Robert’s recent stint in activism began by flying to Florida in 2004 during the final days of that presidential campaign volunteering at the early polling stations, phone banking and doing election day poll watching. Read More
Sasha Wolf
Sasha Wolf began working with America Coming Together in the fall of 2004, and eagerly stayed on when ACT NOW became a Political Action Committee in its own right. Read More
Fellowship Emeriti
ACT NOW’s fellowship program allows young activists to hold positions of significant responsibility in a fast-paced environment, developing political organizing skills, working closely with experienced activists, and building relationships with elected officials, their staffs, and other political organizations.
Dima Slavin
Dima Slavin began working on campaigns before he could even vote. Since his first (sadly unsuccessful) campaign in 2004, he has not taken a campaign season off. Read More
