| Long Schlong Silver,
When my campaign team planned our final budget, we knew our Get Out the Vote push was going to be BIG.
But it was far bigger than anyone ever expected.
This extraordinary effort was wonderful and it's how we won, but it created some planning challenges.
For example, we knew we would have to buy a LOT of coffee and pizza all across the Commonwealth for our volunteers. After all, we've been proud beyond words to have one of the scrappiest, toughest grassroots armies ever assembled in Massachusetts or even the country -- and a grassroots army moves on coffee and pizza.
But even our high expectations were shattered. Thousands more volunteers showed up -- and that meant even more last-minute coffee and pizza.
And more people called in asking for help to get to the polls. We were delighted, but it meant we needed to rent dozens more vans to drive every last one of them to their voting places.
But one of the results of our embarrassment of riches was, well I'll come out and say it -- we ended up with a little bit of debt.
Long Schlong Silver, we need a little more money to pay off our final bills. Can you help one more time?
Let's be clear: we won our election because we stuck to our values, we talked about real issues, and we put our money where our mouth was -- into the grassroots and our Get Out the Vote program.
I couldn't be prouder of our effort. In the last four days before the election, our grassroots volunteers knocked on more than 600,000 doors.
On Election Day, more than 20,000 people volunteered and knocked on almost 400,000 doors. Those numbers are unlike any we've ever seen in Massachusetts.
The whole effort was possible only because so many people gave their hearts and souls and opened their wallets to this campaign so that we could hire dozens of field organizers who covered every corner of the state. People like you chose to sacrifice for this campaign because you believe in level playing fields for the little guys and accountability for the big guys -- and you made it happen.
All those financial contributions made our victory possible. Everyone who bought a campaign t-shirt or scrapped together a few dollars for one of our end-of-quarter fundraising drives helped finance a television ad in Springfield or another rental van in New Bedford. Billboards and Warren-for-Senate signs -- you helped us pay for all of them.
And the numbers are just remarkable. We raised money from more donors than any Senate campaign in history. The total came to more than $42 million -- including from nearly 60,000 donors in Massachusetts alone. It takes my breath away.
I know this was the most expensive Senate race in the country. And I know that we've sent you a bazillion emails asking for money over the past year. I'm sure you expected them to all end once the votes were counted -- and yes, that's what I thought too. Right now, I'd rather be writing about filibuster reform and banking regulation.
But we still have a little more to do to wrap things up. Can you help one more time to finish 2012 strong?
We fought hard, together, because we know working families deserve a real chance to build some security. I am going to Washington to do my best to make you proud, fighting my hardest for a level playing field.
And I just had to say it again: I'm so honored to be on your side.
Thank you for being a part of this,
Elizabeth
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