“Grandmothers for Markey” recently addressed cards at the Groves. Left to right: Joan Kimball, Sonja Johansson, Carolyn Birmingham, Sally Meyer, Peggy Schmertzler. (Photo: Alice Waugh)
Ed Markey has some Lincoln ladies to thank for his recent primary victory.
The group of senior women, spearheaded by Lincoln resident Peggy Schmertzler, got together several times at the Ryan Estates and The Groves in Lincoln to work on cards asking recipients to support U.S. Rep. Ed Markey is his bid to win the Senate seat vacated by John Kerry. The work involved sticking address labels on the preprinted cards but also adding a personal hand-written note to each. Combining modern political techniques with the old-school personal touch, the women got their preprinted address labels from the Markey campaign, which found and printed names and addresses of Democrats and unaffiliated senior women voters who live in Plymouth and Whitman where Markey’s Democratic primary opponent, Steven Lynch, had a strong following.
Markey’s campaign isn’t the first go-round for these women, however. Schmertzler and two others, Betsy Hatfield and Margot Lindsay, started the group in 2008 as Grandmothers for Obama. In 2012, the Massachusetts pilot group established a website, GrandmothersforObama.org, and expanded to include hundreds of women in about 25 states who hand-addressed canary yellow postcards declaring support for Obama. The group doesn’t send money to any political campaigns, though they pay the postage on their postcards themselves.
Since the presidential election, the group has sent postcards on behalf of Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren as well as Markey. In their campaigns, they also advocate progressive stances on issues including the environment, women’s reproductive rights, rights to equal pay and health care, increased taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent to reduce cuts in services, and gun safety.
“In our combined mailings, we reached approximately 10,000 voters,” Schmertzler said.
Markey beat Lynch in the April 30 primary, so the grandmothers will soon be back at work on his behalf in preparation for the statewide special election on June 25, when he will face off against Republican Gabriel Gomez. Democrats are hoping that race will not have the same outcome as the 2010 special election, when favored Democrat Martha Coakley lost to Republican Scott Brown.
Although addressing cards may seem like a mundane task, the women enjoy working together to try to make a difference. “It’s very bonding because we all care about the same issues,” Schmertzler said.