“It always circles back to politics” (w/ Chloe Maxmin and Canyon Woodward from Dirt Road Revival)
So you live in a rural community that’s been ignored by the Democratic establishment, but you want to get involved in the political system. So, what do you do?
For Chloe Maxmin and Canyon Woodward, taking the lessons they’d learned while working in the climate movement and applying them to what they knew about Chloe’s rural home community taught them a lot about how to win campaigns in rural spaces. After working together to get Chloe elected to the Maine statehouse - the youngest woman ever to serve as a Maine Senator - they collaborated again on a book filled with helpful action items for Democratic rural candidates looking to run successful campaigns.
Episode Links:
- Dirt Road Revival: Website
- Rural Runners: Website
- Chloe Maxmin: Twitter
- Canyon Woodward: Website | Twitter
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Credits:
To the best of our knowledge, all audio used by What Can I Do is in the public domain or is used with permission. Our theme song is Good Deeds by Serj Anto, and we hold a license for use of the song through PremiumBeat.
Original artwork is by Matthew Weflen and used with express permission.
Chloe Maxmin
Chloe Maxmin, hailing from rural Maine, is a Maine State Senator. She founded the Climate Action Club at Lincoln Academy and co-founded Divest Harvard at Harvard College, a campaign that grew to over 70,000 people. She was elected in 2020 after unseating a two-term Republican incumbent and (former) Senate Minority Leader. In 2018, she served in the Maine House of Representatives after becoming the first Democrat (since redistricting) to win a rural conservative district. Chloe is about a new politics for rural America. She is the co-author, alongside her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, of Dirt Road Revival: How to Rebuild Rural Politics and Why Our Future Depends On It, published by Beacon Press on May 10th, 2022. She is 30 years old and the youngest woman ever to serve in the Maine State Senate.
Chloe was raised on her family’s farm in Nobleboro and has been a community organizer for fourteen years. At Lincoln Academy, she started the Climate Action Club and worked with students, teachers, community members, and businesses on local environmental and climate issues. At Harvard, she co-founded Divest Harvard–a campaign calling on Harvard University to divest from fossil fuels that ultimately drew 70,000 supporters. Chloe also founded First Here, Then Everywhere to empower youth climate activists.
The day after she graduated from college, Chloe moved back to Maine. She has worked on political campaigns since then to advocate for Maine. She ran for the Maine House of Representatives in 2018, winning her Primary with 80% (breaking record turnout) and the… Read More
Canyon Woodward
I am a political strategist, author, and trail runner.
Born & raised in the beautiful backwoods of Southern Appalachia and the North Cascades, mountain trails underfoot have been a constant for me ever since I took my first steps. I have been running as a means of play & exploration for most my life, frequently startling deer and foxes in the open meadows and farmlands near our home and ducking through forests of rhododendron to link up forgotten logging roads hidden deep in the mountains. I keep coming back for the grounding sense of connection - to self, others, and the land - that flows unrestrained on the trail, and which feels all the more essential amidst this digital world. It's those same things, manifested in a very different way, that draw me to the work of organizing for political change.
In 2018, with my dear friend and fellow climate activist Chloe Maxmin, I set out on a journey to explore what might be done to rebuild rural politics. We had become organizers in college co-coordinating the campaign to get Harvard to divest from fossil fuels and saw a need to bring those skills back to fight for the places that raised us. Chloe ran for the District 88 Maine House of Representatives seat where she grew up and I managed her campaign, knowing we faced steep odds. Our approach worked, and it was the first ever Democratic win in a rural district that had voted Republican by a 16-point margin over the past three elections.
In 2020 Chloe ran for State Senate in the most rural county of the most rural state in the nation, chal… Read More
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