After the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, with its codification of imprisonment without charge or trial, I could no longer register voters for the Democratic Party - even with the hope of involving new registrants in the California Democratic Party's popular Progressive Caucus. If I could not ask someone to join the Democratic Party, I could not in good conscience stay in the party, even as an insurgent writing resolutions and platform planks to end our wars for oil.
Unfortunately, too many corporate Democrats, beholden to big-money donors or to a jobs sector dependent on militarism, vote for perpetual war and the surveillance state, replete with secret wiretaps, black hole prisons, and targeted assassinations. Far too many who are fearful or bought by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee vote for legislation that relegates Palestinians to second-class citizenship and threatens to take our country to the brink of an unthinkable war on Iran.
President Obama, despite his eloquence and initial popularity, has continued, and in some cases, expanded Republican Party policies under George Bush by escalating drone attacks on Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia; hiring deregulators from predatory banks to craft economic policy; repeatedly putting Social Security cuts on the table; lifting a 20-year moratorium on new nuclear power plants; signing NDAA legislation that eviscerates due process; increasing U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) raids and arrests of undocumented workers.
As the US empire crashes on the shores of rapacious greed, as power shifts from the federal to the local level, the Green Party can play a crucial role in creating and promoting local economies, worker or consumer-owned cooperatives, model municipal policy and participatory democracy. The time is ripe for municipal federalism with its emphasis on cities sharing expertise, policies, and strategies for community building in a sustainable world.
I want to be part of that movement to create a post-empire future that rejects perpetual war, addictive consumerism and vulture capitalism to embrace a life-affirming vision of sustainability with measurable goals for energy, water and food independence.
As more people struggle financially and the cost of energy and optional travel increases, Americans will stay closer to home to invest and recreate more intensely in their communities and neighborhoods. Our challenge in the age of withering empire is to set a new economic course that helps us invest our resources in ourselves, rather than multinational companies that extract our wealth and labor for the 1%.
While running Greens for federal office may help to register new Greens, to attract young people to the Party, the Greens' resources - economic and grassroots - are best used at the local level where the Party has experienced the most success in the United States.
In 2011, 8 out of 12 California Green Party members running for local office got elected.
In Richmond, California, the working class city's Green Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, representing more than 100,000 residents, took on Chevron, resulting in a 115-million dollar pollution settlement, enacted a waiver on residential solar power fee installation; and spearheaded one of the nation's toughest anti-foreclosure ordinances that exacts a $1,000 a day fine on banks who fail to maintain foreclosed property. McLaughlin was one of several Green Mayors to publicly oppose the dirty tar sands project, signing on to a letter to President Obama urging him to reject, as he recently announced, the XL pipeline that would carry the dirtiest crude from Canada across the United States to the Gulf of Mexico.
In the city of Fairfax in Marin County, Green Mayor Pam Hartwell-Herrero and a majority Green city council has banned intrusive Smart Meters, and authored successful ballot initiatives to ban plastic bags and the cultivation of genetically modified organisms. Fairfax is the third California city to have a Green majority on its town council, joining Sebastopol in Sonoma County from 2000 to 2008 and Arcata in Humboldt County, which had the world's first Green majority on any legislative body between 1996 and 1998 and then again from 2000 to 2002.
While water board races are not often high-profile races, water board seats may be the front line defense against corporate privatization of our increasingly-scarce water supply. Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, President of the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, understands this. The youngest Green elected to local office, Soppoci-Belknap is working to stop the sale of the county's watershed to keep water in the public domain.
In Los Angeles, LA Community College District (LACCD) trustee Nancy Pearlman, elected first as a Green before becoming a Democrat (something that happens too often to avoid Democratic Party rival candidates), advocated for tough sustainability standards which resulted in the LACCD becoming the first community college district in the nation to adopt a LEED environmental building certification standards. Under Pearlman's Green leadership, all nine LA community colleges developed green jobs training programs.
Nationally, Greens are leading the "Move to Amend" effort calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish "Corporate Personhood," or as former Green Presidential candidate David Cobb describes, "the legal doctrine that allows corporations to overturn democratically enacted laws seeking to protect citizens from corporate harm and abuse." Cobb is now the National Projects Director for Democracy Unlimited, a coalition of Greens, Progressive Democrats, libertarians, and Declined-to-States organizing forums and rallies to challenge unlimited independent political expenditures by corporations.
Greens are also spearheading efforts to pass city ordinances embracing a Sustainability Bill of Rights, which would set measurable goals for energy independence, local food production, and clean air, land, and water. While Pittsburgh became the first city in the nation to pass a law protecting the rights of nature against corporate exploitation, Santa Monica could be next in line, thanks to the work of a coalition called Santa Monica Neighbors Unite! led by urban gardener Cris Gutierrez and Green Party urban forest advocate Linda Piera-Avila. Greens in the city of Santa Monica, which previously elected one of the first Green mayors - Michael Feinstein, a co-founder of the Green Party in the U.S. - are in the forefront of this effort to pass a Sustainability Bill of Rights ordinance that would recognize "the fundament rights of natural communities and ecosystems to exist, thrive, and evolve" - and set a goal of 100% local water use by 2020.
Throughout the US, Greens and allies are at the fulcrum of the occupy movement, defending homeowners facing foreclosure, practicing participatory democracy in the street, and successfully altering the national discourse from deficits and taxes to wealth inequality and privilege. In Oakland, Green Samsarah Morgan helped start the Children's Village at Occupy Oakland, where children can play and protest peacefully. Former LA County Council Co-Chair of the Green Party Rachel Brunkhe mobilizes marches on Bank of America in San Pedro, home to the largest port in the country; former Green assembly candidate Peter Thottam organizes thousands at Occupy the Rose Parade, where Wells Fargo, one of the most notorious banks for robo-siging illegal foreclosures, was one of the parade's chief sponsors; Al Shantz, Green Vice President of Napa Valley College's Student Senate, launches Occupy rallies downtown and on the Napa Valley College campus; Harrison Wills, a Green President of the Santa Monica College Associated Student Body tells an Occupy crowd at his campus, "There's socialism for corporations and capitalism for the rest of us."
Rather than running candidates for every state and federal office, Greens can invest their energy in campaigning for local non-partisan offices, in electing Greens to neighborhood councils and city councils; union leadership positions, pension and credit union boards, associated student bodies - and to movement-building and media messaging that injects and accentuates a Green anti-consumerist pro-sustainability vision into the economic discourse.
Power to the cities!
Though our emphasis should be local, our scope global as we solidify relationships with Green Party members across the world. Let us hold the Greens from Europe to Africa close to our hearts as we reject nationalism - its attendant racism, xenophobia, and scapegoating - and embrace global citizenry and planetary-caretaking.
Let us look to the German Green Party, the first to enjoy national prominence and the catalyst behind Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022. Encouraged by the German Greens, we must challenge billions in U.S. federal subsidies for new nuclear power plants and demand plant closures from California to New York. With a void in leadership in the U.S. anti-nuclear movement, the Green Party can play a key role in re-invoking the moratorium lifted under the Obama administration.
Elsewhere in Europe, Greens have launched a Green New Deal (GND) aimed at "reducing inequalities within and between societies, and reconciling our lifestyles - the way we live, produce and consume - with the physical limits of our planet" through progressive taxation, tax incentives for green initiatives, and new economic indicators beyond the Gross Domestic Product. For example, in Vienna, Austria, a GND initiative built "bike city" - a housing project that includes bike rental and maintenance, a compressed air station, 300 bicycle parking spaces, and extra large elevators for bike transport.
Let us build a new American landscape of bike cities, urban gardens, municipal credit unions, barter economies, and city-owned utilities with Greens organizing a new power-sharing worker-member-owner paradigm a la the Mondragon Cooperatives Cooperation in northern Spain. Based in Basque region, the Mondragon is a federation of worker cooperatives employing 84,000 people in four critical sectors: finance; industry; retail; knowledge.
Electorally, I envision a fusion approach - whereby Greens support progressive Democrats, just as Los Angeles Green Party members recommended my candidacy when I challenged war profiteer Jane Harman for Congress, and just as Green Party activists in northern California support PDA's Norman Solmon to fill retiring Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's seat. Endorsing progressive Democrats - a la Congress Members Kucinich, Lee, Grijalva - on the national level - and Assemblyman Bill Monning and Senator Fran Pavley on the California state legislative level - makes sense until the Green Party is ready and able to successfully elect statewide and federal candidates of its own, either because the Party has exponentially multiplied its current voter registration, estimated at 300,000 in the nation; 110,000 in California, or because enough cities like Oakland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Portland have instituted instant run-off or ranked-choice voting to increase the likelihood that voters will not simply cast their ballots for pre-ordained winners or lessers-of-evil but instead choose a candidate who truly represents their vision of peace, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
Ranked choice voting must be a strategic priority for the Green Party in the U.S., with Greens in every leadership position - be it a partisan office or a non-partisan environmental organization - introducing ranked-choice voting into their respective organization. Strategically, Greens might organize a coalition of third parties - Greens, Peace and Freedom, Libertarians, and the well-funded centrist Americans Elect - to institute proportional representation through state ballot initiatives for ranked choice voting. Such initiatives would appeal to voters who want to save budget-starved states, counties or cities millions of dollars wasted on run-off elections.
In the meantime, until widespread adoption of ranked choice voting, the Green Party might leverage its power by becoming a fusion party, regardless of state laws like the one in California that prohibit candidates from becoming the nominee of more than one party. On the grassroots level, endorsing Democratic Party candidates active in Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) would address the "spoiler" charge and position Greens as a swing voting constituency, much as a swing state can decide a Presidential election. Let the Greens be wooed; let every candidate running for city, state, or federal office feel compelled to address the priorities of the Green Party, and let our party learn the lessons of the Swedes and Norwegians who successfully challenged the 1% by building strong coalition governments and coalition movements behind those coalition governments.
While it's true that California Democratic Party delegates can be stripped of their delegate status for endorsing Greens in elections, there is nothing stopping non-delegates active in PDA from participating in a blue-green coalition that endorses and works to elect local Greens. In fact, that should be the call to action, watering the Green seeds for the next generation.
In LA County, where there are 23,000 registered Greens, and over 900,000 Declined to States, the Party will participate in an aggressive voter registration campaign before the November 2012 election when a Green Party Presidential candidate, perhaps pioneering environmental health advocate Dr. Jill Stein, will likely enjoy ballot status in at least 17 states, including the largest state, California, with its 55 electoral votes, and swing states Ohio, Florida and Colorado. Other Green Party ballot access states or districts include Arkansas, Arizona, DC, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. Though Green Party strengths lies in bottom-up organizing, running a Presidential candidate can provide a strategic stage for the left to critique and challenge the status quo, while attracting "millennials" or younger voters to a party platform that refuses all corporate contributions, supports single-payer health care, advocates zero-waste, calls for a tax on the rich, and opposes not only pre-emptive wars for empire, but weapons sales to other countries.
With strategic planning and a shift in focus, those newly registered Greens can rock the world of monopoly capitalism with a sturdy footing in city soil and municipal radicalism.
I will proudly stand with them.
## ##
Marcy Winograd, a former congressional peace candidate, mobilized 41% of the Democratic Party primary vote in her challenge to war profiteer Jane Harman. Presently, Winograd serves as as a board member of the Ocean Park Association in Santa Monica and is a member of Santa Monica Greens.Winograd, a public school English and history teacher, helped organize OccupyLAUSD to protest education cuts in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Email Marcy at Winogradteach@gmail.com
Follow Marcy on twitter: marcywinograd
Friend Marcy on fb: Marcy Winograd II
I started to write that pretty much the worst thing that I could imagine in Orange County Democratic politics, short of someone's death, has happened today. That isn't quite true, though. What has been reported today is worse than anything I have imagined about our party -- and I have imagined plenty.
One's first tendency may be to hide it. I think that one instead faces it.
I hate to give the conservative-libertarian Orange County Register any hits, but they are the ones with the story, so click away:
A prominent Democratic campaign treasurer who works for federal, state and O.C. lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Rep. Loretta Sanchez and state Assemblymen Lou Correa and Jose Solorio has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of mail fraud, The Orange County Register has learned.
U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Thom Mrozek confirmed Saturday afternoon that Kinde Durkee of Burbank-based Durkee and Associates, was arrested by the FBI on a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento. Special Agent Steve Dupre of the bureau's Sacramento office said she was arrested in connection with her position as a campaign treasurer.
"Innocent until proven guilty," absolutely; I make no conclusions from this arrest. But this story is huge. Kinde Durkee was the one person always represented to me, since entering Orange County politics a little less than five years ago, as trustworthy and incorruptible. We will be reeling from this arrest alone, let alone the details, for a long time.
Much has been written about how Jane Kim beat San Francisco's "progressive machine" last week to win the District 6 Supervisor race. But a precinct analysis of the election results tells a far bigger story, and explains how she pulled it off. Just like Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy helped Democrats win nationwide, Jane Kim was everywhere - and conceded no part of District 6. Debra Walker carried the North Mission and a few progressive pockets, but racking up margins in some core precincts is not enough when your opponent actively contests every neighborhood. Kim beat Walker in the Tenderloin (where she had a better operation), and easily won the Chinese precincts - but also carried places like Treasure Island and the Western Addition. And as Jane's field coordinator for condos in Eastern SOMA, I'm very proud she won those precincts by a landslide - as we were the only campaign to show up. These were the Rob Black voters of 2006, but Kim proved that even a progressive can win those neighborhoods - if you bother to talk to them.
By Mollie Culver, California Democratic Party political director.
California is being systematically dismantled by an ill conceived rule that allows 1/3 of the legislature to block passage of the annual state budget.
That's right. instead of requiring a simple majority to pass a budget -- the standard for democracies worldwide - lawmakers have to placate an empowered "superminority" year after year.
As members of the California Democratic Party, it's up to us to oppose this anti-democratic rule and do what we can to restore fairness.
That's why we're proud to announce the formation of the CDP's Budget Rescue Team, a squad of activists committed to freedom, justice, and a state budget that actually reflects the will of the majority of Californians.
The mission of the Budget Rescue Team is to fight back against the "superminority" of Republican legislators who hold our state budget hostage year after year, making outrageous and unrelated demands to dismantle protections for consumers, workers, and the environment.
The more Californians join the Budget Rescue Team, the more effective it will be -- and I hope you'll join us by clicking here:
It's easy to see what gives rise to this problem. Ask a sensible person if he or she would rather have the legislature agree on things, and the answer will almost certainly be yes. Who wouldn't choose agreement over conflict?
But requiring agreement would only work if Republicans were actually here to govern. Since the Republicans in the California legislature are only here to tear government apart, this rule gives their tiny superminority a power the majority of Californians didn't want them to have.
The Budget Rescue Team will have two big chances to rescue our budget this year:
First, we're gearing up for the 2010 budget fight later this month, when slightly over 1/3 of Republican legislators will try to delay and obstruct yet again.
Members of the "BRT" will be on the front lines, fighting for the best budget we can get under current rules and making sure the public knows where the delays are coming from.
Second, we'll need all hands on deck to pass a majority vote budget initiative sponsored by a group of teachers, firefighters, and nurses this November so we can put an end to this anti-democratic practice once and for all.
If you're sick of California's yearly budget b.s., you need to join the Budget Rescue Team today, so click here!
Together, the Budget Rescue Team will keep up the fight for all Californians, no matter what.
The Republican Party representative had a scheduling conflict with his own party's meeting.
The SF4D meeting was open to the public. This was a moderated forum of two hours, with introductory statements, moderator questions, and audience questions. This report covers the points (my distillation, not verbatim quotes) that I found significant.
Marsha Feinland, Peace and Freedom Party:
The Peace and Freedom Party is an avowedly socialist, anti-capitalist party.
We tax sales of ordinary items such as shoes and school supplies; we should also be taxing financial transactions like stock trades.
The state should be taxing oil extraction. Richmond voted to tax Chevron, and Chevron isn't leaving.
A legislature that actually worked on behalf of the people would be a unicameral one elected via proportional representation. When I ran for the U.S. Senate, more people voted for me than did for sitting Senators in fourteen small states.
There's been a lot of analysis about why Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate race, because it was so obvious. Failing to accomplish what you campaigned on depresses your base, emboldens the enemy and convinces independents that you're a loser. The lesson is not that Democrats went "too far" - but that they didn't go far enough. If I had faith in President Obama and the Democratic Party, I would be hopeful that they learned that lesson. But only one person seems to get it - former DNC Chair Howard Dean - who was unceremoniously kicked to the curb last January. It was Dean who gave Democrats a backbone in the run-up to the Iraq War. It was Howard Dean's "Fifty State Strategy" (as opposed to Rahm Emanuel's recruitment of Blue Dogs) that won Congress in 2006. And it was Dean's playbook that Barack Obama used to beat Hillary Clinton in an historic campaign. Beltway Democrats resent Dean, because he cares more about helping progressives win than stroking their ego. And - what's most unforgivable - he's been proven right.
There's been a lot of analysis about why Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate race, because it was so obvious. Failing to accomplish what you campaigned on depresses your base, emboldens the enemy and convinces independents that you're a loser. The lesson is not that Democrats went "too far" - but that they didn't go far enough. If I had faith in President Obama and the Democratic Party, I would be hopeful that they learned that lesson. But only one person seems to get it - former DNC Chair Howard Dean - who was unceremoniously kicked to the curb last January. It was Dean who gave Democrats a backbone in the run-up to the Iraq War. It was Howard Dean's "Fifty State Strategy" (as opposed to Rahm Emanuel's recruitment of Blue Dogs) that won Congress in 2006. And it was Dean's playbook that Barack Obama used to beat Hillary Clinton in an historic campaign. Beltway Democrats resent Dean, because he cares more about helping progressives win than stroking their ego. And - what's most unforgivable - he's been proven right.
Gavin Newsom's decision to quit the race for governor has left California Democrats with just one option - two-term governor Jerry Brown, back for his third term after nearly 30 years. For the first time in a very, very long time (before 1934), there will not be a contested Democratic primary where there is an open seat in the governor's office.
This is not a positive development for the California Democratic Party or the future of our state. A contested Democratic gubernatorial primary is essential to not only a strong Democratic campaign in the fall of 2010, but more importantly, to rebuilding the shattered ruins of a once-golden state.
We need to first look at the big picture. As we're seeing in Virgina and New Jersey gubernatorial races, the deciding factor is whether the Obama voters of 2008 will turn out to elect Democrats in state gubernatorial races. The answer to that question is clear: where the candidate espouses openly progressive positions, as Jon Corzine has begun to do in New Jersey, he has some success in motivating the Obama voters to return to the polls and elect a Democratic governor. Whereas Creigh Deeds couldn't distance himself from Obama quickly enough and took anti-progressive positions, and now faces a resounding defeat at the hands of a wingnut.
To those who say "it can't happen here," I say your understanding of California politics is superficial. For over a century California voters default to electing Republicans to the governor's office. Since 1900 only four Democrats have served as California governor. Two of them served essentially one term: Culbert Olson was beaten by Earl Warren in 1942, and you know what happened to Gray Davis in 2003.
The other two were named Edmund G. Brown. The younger of the two Edmund G. Browns is the last man standing in the 2010 Democratic primary for governor. Now you might think that is a positive sign for Dems, that one of the only two Democrats to serve two full terms as CA governor since 1900 is likely to be the party's nominee in 2010. After all, Jerry Brown has a decent poll lead over the three Republicans, so we should be fine in 2010, right?
I am much less confident. A contested primary will only make Brown a stronger candidate should he indeed win that primary - and more importantly, it would give Democrats and DTS voters a chance to weigh in on the future of California, to have a real discussion about how to fix a broken state.
This began as a comment left in David's story announcing the budget deal, but with greater reflection my reaction has grown worse. What set me off is two things: Robert's comment as a story update that "The February deal was bad, but this is far worse," (my emphasis) and David's subsequent story suggesting (facetiously, I hope) that he didn't realize until now that the side that gave less of a damn about who suffered in the wake of a failure to reach a budget had a tremendous advantage.
I'd like to believe that this is all just bitter and spontaneous reaction to a defeat for progressives and the people of the state -- sentiments that, ideally, would not have found their way into print. If not, if this is truly where we stand, then the implication is that we were wrong in May and the regular politicians who predicted this were right -- and, furthermore, that they were right because they are less ignorant about how the system really works.
I don't accept that conclusion. I intend this as a sharp slap in the face to rouse people who are playing right into the stereotype of progressive activists as people who know how to complain loudly but don't actually understand political realities. Robert, David, and the rest of us are better than that. We were right about May, even taking this prospective result into account, and we should start acting like it.
I hate to be this way but it appears that the time to be that way has come.
The state Democratic Party, as is true of Democratic Parties everywhere, is really two parties (and usually more.) Broadly speaking, there are the Accommodationists and the Non-Accommodationists. I don't speak here of people who are willing to compromise, to find common ground; I'm all for that when both the moment and the stakes are right. I'm talking about people who will accommodate everything, right down to their core values, so long as they can blame it on circumstance.
There are some people, like Karen Bass, who I would not have pegged for Accommodationists. I'm surprised and saddened by the signs that she may turn out to be one. The same, although I've been less aware of him, with Darryl Steinberg. The Shock Doctrine is coming at us like high-speed rail and we have not only to decide what we are made of but to discover what each of our representatives are made of.
The California Democratic Party elected statewide officers today, and the results showed a seismic shift away from insider politics in Sacramento.
The party has been roiled by internal controversy over the diversion of funds for campaigns by the former speaker of the state Assembly, Fabian Nunez. Many Central Committee members in swing districts have also been disgruntled at the lack of state contributions to funding for regional campaign infrastructure, including campaign offices and staff.
As a result, two grassroots candidates stepped up to run for statewide officer positions. Hilary Crosby, a CPA and activist from the East Bay, ran on a platform of financial transparency and accountability of the party to its elected delegates and executive board representatives.
Recently, the first Vice Chair and Controller of the California Democratic Party joined a California Assemblymember to call for delegates to "help us rewrite the rules and make common-sense reforms...." They have proposed to change to one rule of the California Democratic Party.
I applaud their call for reforms. I support their call for rules changes to accomplish that reform. But, though the change they propose is an important one, it is hardly enough. Here are some other ideas that would actually bring the greater accountability these reformers call for:
In Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, Sr. Political Reporter Carla Marinucci writes about the race for chair of the California Democratic Party:
"Even as the Democratic Party rides an Obama-fueled wave of youth, enthusiasm and "change," the Democrats of California look to be bucking the trend: They're preparing to elect former state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, 77, the iconic, battle-scarred veteran of state politics, as their party leader.
It's a move not without controversy: The powerful former legislator, who first held the job of party chairman 36 years ago, is to his fans a colorful idol of progressive politics and to his critics the very symbol of old school, insider machine politics."
The article goes on to paint Senator Burton's election as nearly inevitable. But the comments are fascinating. In 6 pages of comments I read this morning, two supported Senator Burton. The rest were pretty consistent--the CDP needs to stop recycling retired politicians to lead the party. One poster wanted to know if this meant disco was coming back too. As hilarious as they were, they pointed to a pretty disturbing perception among California voters--that the CDP is resistant to, and even actively hostile to change.
A man asked me at the region 6 meeting on Saturday what I thought Democratic values are. I didn't give him a very good answer, but I keep thinking about the question and would like to attempt a better one--because it is something I've thought about, because it's the reason I'm working with the party.
It's pretty obvious who the Republicans represent: the rich and the religious right. The rest of us are irrelevant to them. In fact, I think they'd be pretty happy if we just all fell off the edge of the flat Earth some of them still believe in.
That leaves the rest of us two options: the Democratic Party or a third party. Since our system is structured to make it difficult for a third party, that leaves us with the current two. Since I'm clearly not part of the GOP demographic, the Democrats seemed like my best option. But I can't say the party was exactly representing the values I wanted it to. So here's what I think Democratic Party values should be:
So I was flying through Seacliff at about eighty miles an hour when the universe suddenly and spectacularly decided to align in my favor. An unseasonably glorious sun shone down on the 101 freeway, and as I threaded the California coastline's spine on my way north to Santa Barbara, I felt the soft and deadly tentacles of contentment wrap themselves around my decaying cerebrum-and I was okay with that.
Yeah, because the combination of dramatic scenery, agreeable weather, a fast car, and an adorably earnest song about the collapse of Antarctic icebergs erupting out of the stereo was quiet a potent one, yo. I mean, you try to be a cynical asshole when the coda of "Larsen B" dumps you in its warm bath of epic Euro-echo right when the Rincon headlands loom up ahead like inverted Cliffs of Insanity. It's virtually impossible-or at least that's what I told myself in that giddy moment-so I just let it happen, you know?
Yesterday on Daily Kos, I explained how my candidacy for Assembly District Delegate in AD-33 was a classic example of "crashing the gate." Younger volunteers from the Obama campaign are continuing to serve in their communities across the country.
In some communities, there is more than just a tiny bit of friction between us and the old timers and their clubs. I don't begrudge these long term volunteers their positions. But I do begrudge them their monopoly on local party positions.
If San Luis Obispo is famous for anything, it's probably the farmer's market. 20+ years before I moved to the area, I remember my family talking about visiting SLO to go to the Farmer's Market. Tonight, I went there and leafleted for my campaign.
In a diary Robert wrote this morning, a commentor "Sane Democrat" unleashed a troll-worthy response of how Democrats are dependent upon a few voting blocs: Millionaires, Gays, Welfare recipients, and State/municipal workers. Of course he is wrong on the underlying statement that we are dependent upon these voting blocs, but we do have the support of those voting blocs. I was suspicious of his categorization, so I thought I would take a peek at the data. You know the real facts and all. Luckily, the Field Poll recently (7/24/08) released a poll of the generic Congressional ballot and the crosstabs are available via CapitolAlert here.
The thing is, Democrats have the support of all but a very few voting blocs in the state. I'll rattle them (mostly) off here:
the egregiously poor, the working poor, the middle class, the upper middle class, the wealthy, Whites, Asians, African-Americans, Latinos, Catholics, the employed, the unemployed, renters, homeowners, high school graduates (or less), trade school graduates, college graduates, postgraduates, union members, non-union members, super liberals, mildly liberals, middle of the roaders, youngens, young-ish folks, middle aged, seniors, married Californians, divorced, never marrieds, people in LA, people in the SF Bay Area, other NorCal folks, people in the Central Valley, women, men, and, oh yeah, Democrats.
phew! That's a lot of voters who prefer Democrats. The list of voters who prefer Republicans: San Diego/Orange County (within the MoE), Other South (within MoE), strong and moderate conservatives, Protestants (within MoE), and Born-again Christians (within MoE), and oh, yeah, Republicans.
Ordinarily, you would say that we should have 2/3, if not more, of the Legislature. Unfortunately, if you are bothered by such things, we have clumped ourselves in such a manner so that we live almost exclusively with like-minded people. Thus, Republicans congregate in certain regions, as do Democrats, and drawing maps where we can win, say 80% of the seats, is tough, if not impossible. But, I'll spare our readers of another lecture on redistricting other than to sayNo on Prop 11.
Wow, it's a good time to be a Democrat; now we need to consolidate and expand these leads through grassroots action. Oh sure, I guess you elected officials can come along for the ride...
(A great recap of the CDP Convention. If you aren't following Sweet Melissa, you're missing out on some of the most insightful SF political commentary on the web. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Constant Readers,
In my final post about the California Democratic Convention, Ima write about the saga of Carole Migden and Mark Leno and the fight over who would and (perhaps, more importantly) who would not get the Democratic party endorsement for the District 3 State Senate seat.
Saturday
I've already written about Friday night, so let's start with Saturday. Over breakfast, I wrote a post about Migden's public display of lunacy on Friday night, then dealt with the proxy fiasco. After that, Beth and Brian D. (also proxies) arrived in San Jose and a group of us met up for lunch before we had to go vote. In anticipation of a boring afternoon, the booze flowed liberally as we debated the difference between a "nerd" and a "dork" - which is only something a bunch of nerdy dorks would do. Then we ambled on over to the convention center to engage in some Sauvignon Blanc-fueled heckling.
Here's how it works: before all of the CA delegates vote on whether to endorse a candidate, the candidate's Region has to hold an election to endorse the candidate. In this case it was Region 4 whose delegates needed to vote to endorse Migden or Leno. As the incumbent, Migden only needed 50% + 1 of the number of votes cast by delegates. As the challenger, Leno needed 70% +1 of the total number of votes cast by Region 4 delegates to get the endorsement.
One of the things that Republicans learned to do really well in the early 90s was branding. In the modern era of marketing, the impact is really hard to overemphasize. People are increasingly relying on branding information where they were once using real data. That stinks, but it's the way the marketing game is played these days. So, we either play it or get steamrolled by it. I bring this up to point out our own failings within the state to build the "Democratic" Brand. So, I poked around a few Congressional (electoral websites) for some good practices and some bad practices.
Over the past few weeks, there has been a wealth of information in the series of posts regarding the first Congressional run by a member of the netroots, and a campaign run by members of the netroots. In fact, the entire list of posts is below, so you can go back and see the most excellent things that have been written about Ron Shepston and his historic run for Congress.
We were treated to posts that outline the district demographics, the incumbent and his myriad of ethical issues, the political landscape in the district as well as some of the very fine people who are working on this campaign, and why Ron is both an awesome guy and the right man for Congress (and no, those two terms are NOT mutually exclusive). But what I want to talk about is why this oh-so-very important on many levels.
California is being systematically dismantled by an ill conceived rule that allows 1/3 of the legislature to block passage of the annual state budget.
