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testimonials

In Minnesota and our larger region, one of the missing pieces of the “infrastructure” yet to be filled is a thinking and communicating entity or set of entities that generates ideas, arguments and new public policy from a progressive perspective and then works to persuade and rally citizens around those ideas. Tom Vellenga’s vision of an entity, if it can be sustained, is just what the movement needs in Minnesota and the region.

Jeff Blodgett
Executive Director,
Wellstone Action! and Wellstone Action Fund
Campaign Manager for the late Paul and Sheila Wellstone

 

In the world of ideas and education, progressives have been playing “catch-up” with conservatives for the past thirty-five years. Nowhere is this work more important than in the heart of the nation. We have got to get back to generating ideas of, by, and for the decent citizens who care about their communities, from the local to the global. A progressive think tank in the heartland – capable of integrating and articulating progressive thinking across sectors and proposing solutions to multi-sector challenges – would fill one large void in the struggle to restore our nation’s progress. Tom Vellenga was one of my trusted policy aides in the Congress and the White House. He served the nation above and beyond the call of duty then, and he will do the same in this cause.

Leon E. Panetta
Co-Director, Panetta Institute
Former White House Chief of Staff and Congressman

 

We are living in the second term of the most reactionary, corrupt, and incompetent Administration in many a lifetime. Here in Washington there are some organizations devoted to policies that will turn this around, but they are not reaching the rest of the nation. We're running in circles and shouting at each other. Now, thank God, from the heartland come voices of reason. Tom Vellenga and his group have taken on a big job. If anyone can do it, Tom can. As someone who believes the country and the world would be in a much better place if Hubert Humphrey and Fritz Mondale had been elected President, I say, "Hallelujah."

Rachelle Horowitz
Vice Chair, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
Retired Political Director, American Federation of Teachers
Former top aide to the late Bayard Rustin, civil rights leader