But who's complaining? We've had a pretty good run of good news in the past week or two- something we haven't really been used to over the past few years. We come up with lots of ideas at the Courage Campaign, and obviously we think they're generally pretty good. But as we look forward to build on the momentum from recent victories, we need to hear from you.

That's why we've opened up the Courage Campaign Suggestion Box. Our Managing Director Eden James explained all the details yesterday via email:



It's kind of strange.

All of this good news feels a bit odd. After seven years of being beaten down by George W. Bush and his right-wing cronies in California, the tide appears to be turning.

First, there was the historic ruling on Thursday by the California Supreme Court that marriage equality should be the law of the land (at least within our state's borders).

Then, on Friday, the Courage Campaign got some surprising news on two different fronts:

* San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders issued a stop-work order to halt Blackwater's plans for a new base of operations in San Diego -- at least temporarily -- after City Attorney Mike Aguirre ruled that Blackwater's permits had been obtained improperly. Funny how using shell companies to evade public scrutiny is troubling even to to a Republican mayor.

* Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger chickened out of attending an actual "yacht party" in San Francisco on Friday, just days after the Courage Campaign hit the Sacramento airwaves with our provocative "Yacht Party 2" TV ad, re-branding the California Republican Yacht Party's support for a yacht tax loophole despite our state's massive budget crisis. (And this just in: Bill Moyers has requested to use our TV ad for an upcoming episode of Bill Moyers Journal, his weekly show on PBS).

While these news items are certainly signs of progress, we've still got a lot of work to do to defeat the anti-marriage equality initiative in November, block Blackwater's base for good, and kill the yacht-tax loophole.

As if that wasn't ambitious enough, we're considering waging other campaigns this year. That's why, as an organization driven from the bottom-up by nearly 100,000 grassroots and netroots activists, we need your people-power -- your ideas, not just your dollars -- to make 2008 a transformative year for progressive politics in California.

How can we move from battles with Blackwater and budget bottlenecks to building the California of our dreams?

Can you put your ideas into our Suggestion Box? If you could run the Courage Campaign, what would you do? What actions would you take? What causes would you support? Please share your thoughts with our team today -- just click this link to tell us what you think:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/SuggestionBox

We've got one more piece of exciting news.

On Wednesday, Al Gore will send a very special email to Courage Campaign members. It's an important message that could help change the conversation in California. We hope you will read it and respond when it arrives in your in-box tomorrow.

We're looking forward to hearing from you. After all, this is your Courage Campaign.

Eden James
Managing Director

P.S. Save the date: Next Tuesday, May 27, new Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and State Senator Pro-Tem-elect Darrell Steinberg will join us for our next "Courage Campaign Conversation". Both Speaker Bass and Senator Steinberg are focused on fixing our state's budget deficit -- including closing the yacht tax loophole -- and want to hear your thoughts on how to end this crisis responsibly.

We'll be sending you an RSVP announcement on Thursday, so be sure to reserve your phone line for the call when you receive it. Unfortunately, we reached maximum capacity on Arianna Huffington's call last week and had to stop accepting RSVP's.