page_title: Marianne Williamson
section_title: 2014 U.S. House of Representatives campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Marianne Williamson / Political career / 2014 U.S. House of Representatives campaign
caption_attribution_description: Summer Concert Series artist showcase at 41 Ocean Club in Santa Monica California on Thursday April 24th, 2014. Featuring Anchor &amp; The Bell (Noah Needleman and Emily Herndon), Katie Cole, Connie Lim, Moi Navarro, Justin Hopkins, Angela Wood, Carmen and Camille, Clayton Severson, Sens Musiq, Danielle Withers, Kate Farwell, and others. The showcase was put together by Noah Needleman and Joe Simpson, and took place immediately following a rally for political candidate Marianne Williamson (hence the banner on stage in most of the photos). This was a very challenging shoot, since the stage lighting at 41 Ocean is norotious for being excessively dim. It is one of the most difficult venues in L.A. to take decent live music photos at... unless you are standing less than 5 feet away from the artists. Consequently, most of my photos are not quite in focus, since most of my shots were from 15-30 feet away.
context_page_description: Marianne Deborah Williamson is an American author, spiritual leader, politician, and activist. She has written 13 books, including four New York Times number one bestsellers in the "Advice, How To, and Miscellaneous" category. She is the founder of Project Angel Food, a volunteer food delivery program that serves home-bound people with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. She is also the co-founder of the Peace Alliance, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization supporting peace-building projects. She has received national attention as a result of her frequent appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and was known as Oprah's "spiritual adviser."
  In 2014, Williamson unsuccessfully ran as an independent to represent California's 33rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.
  On January 9, 2019, she announced her campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election. She suspended her campaign on January 10, 2020, a few days after laying off her campaign staff. She later endorsed Bernie Sanders at a rally in Austin, Texas on February 23, 2020.
context_section_description: In 2014 Williamson ran as an Independent for California's 33rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.  She was praised as a "tireless" campaigner but criticized for not articulating specifics in her plans. Her supporters deemed her lack of plans a strength and said she was not a "made-to-order candidate" who gave "lip service."
  Prominent elected and public officials endorsed her campaign, including Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream); former governors Jennifer Granholm and Jesse Ventura; former representatives Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson; and Van Jones. Alanis Morissette wrote and performed Williamson's campaign song, "Today".
  Williamson campaigned on progressive issues such as campaign finance reform, women's reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality. She raised $2.4 million, of which she personally contributed 25 percent.
  Williamson finished fourth out of 18 candidates, with 14,335 votes or 13.2 percent of the vote (Republican Elan Carr finished first in the primary with 21.6 percent of the vote, but then lost the general election to the top vote-getting Democrat from the primary, Ted Lieu). Williamson said of the process and its outcome:
  This conversation of a politics of conscience, a politics of the heart, is much bigger than any one woman winning a congressional seat. And if that woman loses, the conversation goes on. My losing the congressional seat is small; what's big is the larger conversation. [...] [Y]ou impact the ethers, and that energy goes somewhere.
caption: 2014 campaign
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