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.
Now that the Central Committee Race is over (I finished dead last BTW). I feel less constrained to guard my feelings and plans that I had for the Democratic takeover of the Inland Empire. The Democratic Problem in this county is that we do not have enough name recognition to get elected. We may be a blue county but we don't have the city council people, mayors, board of supervisors, ect. that are representative of the numbers that we possesess. We have to get local and build a foundational structure to launch candidates. It has to be bottom up, not top down in order for us to win.
(Joe is a great guy and would make an excellent City Council member. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
This is going to be a diary about my friend Joe Shaw, who is running for Huntington Beach City Council and the Bolsa Chica Wetlands. It's a diary I promised myself to write because Joe is one of my dearest friends who has been there for me over the last couple of years in ways that no one else has.
But let me start with the story of the Blosa Chica Wetlands via the Bolsa Chica Land Trust...
This has been another eventful week for me and I wanted to share something I wrote for our new local blog, I think it's universal and true for many here so that is why I share it.
Orange County, California is still a solidly red County but those of us living in "The OC", who are proud progressives, want to find a public space to voice our ideas and to push our agenda locally and eventually on the state and federal levels. Not only that but we want to encourage our fellow progressives to run in local elections and support them up that harrowing climb to higher office.
As we all know, none of this can happen though until many things are fixed about our election financing process and so on, but the progressive blogosphere has somewhat leveled the playing field but supporting such candidates and generously funding their runs for office.
That's right, I'm a candidate's wife, it happened rather quickly too. Well, I've been married to the guy for almost ten years, but the candidate part has unfolded in just a few days.
Now, why am I not the candidate? Oh, it's a long story and I've not been as good of a Democrat as my husband has been, really. I am still registered as Decline to State. Yes, how is that for a confession? But Gary, my husband, has been registered as a Democrat for many years and he unabashedly calls himself a party loyalist.
After seeing Gila's latest story on The Liberal OC, I've been thinking. I know, I know. That's a REALLY scary thought. But trust me, it's not scary.
All too often when we think of the netroots, we think of those big, glitzy, glamorous national blogs with all those hundreds of thousands of User IDs. We think of that huge convention in Chicago that just ended. We think big, and we think national. But when you really look at the big picture, the national scene is only a small part of it.
The SF Chronicle just caught onto this, and I'm glad to see them noticing. There's a giant segment of the netroots that hasn't been noticed much, but is nonetheless making a huge difference throughout California, and throughout the nation. Follow me after the flip for more...
Yesterday I had my first swearing in, ever. I pledged to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and protect them against enemies, foreign and domestic. I pledged to uphold my duties in office without mental reservation or purpose of evasion.
I am one of the newest members of the Sacramento County Democratic Central Committee. It is a committee that has done almost absolutely nothing and became so entangled in itself at one point, that it was completey destroyed and is being revamped.
Saturday we had the first retreat of the SCDCC. It was basically a 9 hour meeting where we really did get things done, an incredibly rare accomplishment. It took us about 2 hours to form a vision statement, but after that things ran pretty smoothly.
Being on the SCDCC is about as "local" as it gets in local politics. It's an organization that *should* have power, but hasn't in the last few years and our surroundings are becoming incredibly more red every election, even though we're the capital of one of the bluest states in the union. We're out to stop that, but of course, it won't be easy. There were about 40 leaders from the sacramento area there, and I was honored to be there seeing as how, compared to the others there, I'm not that great...
