The 2004 presidential election brought many new people into the world of politics! We also saw many activists from the 60's come out of "retirement" and get involved with grassroots candidates as Howard Dean, Wes Clark and John Edwards. People who had never been involved or had been on the sidelines came forth to work to change our country!
While our candidates did not win in the primary, nor did our nominee win in the general election, the energy that drove these folks did not go away. Out of this energy grew many grassroots organizations such as BE for Change, SoCal Grassroots, Take Back Red California, and Vote Blue. The leaders of these groups met together in December at a meeting of the CA Democratic Party Executive Board meeting and joined together, along with the CDP Rural Coaltion and the Red-to-Blue Coalition was formed.
Our first activity was the Red-to-Blue Dinner held in conjunction with the State Party Convention in April, 2007. Keynote speaker was Jim Dean, Democracy for America Executive Director and he was joined by Charlie Brown and Will Durston, two candidates for Congress who came mighty close to defeating the long-entrenched Republican Congressmen. We even had Governor Bill Richardson drop by to say hello!
The focus of the coalition is, as the name implies, is to turn "red" California districts "blue," at all levels - national, statewide and local. We are committed to working with grass roots folks in the "red" areas to elect more Democrats! Everyone seems to think that California is a "safe Blue state." We all know that this is not true. The largest growth in population is in the "red" areas of our state; while Republican registration is actually declining, we are not seeing growth in Democratic registrants. Most of the Republicans are re-registering as "decline to state," and while they are not happy with the Republican party, we don’t know that they will vote Democratic in 2008.
In Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties there is an open seat in the 19th State Senate District and we will be working hard to bring about a Democratic victory. Likewise, we will be electing a supervisor in the 3rd supervisorial district in Santa Barbara County and we’d very much like to change the majority on the Board. WE are planning on success in both of these races because the political climate in California is vastly different from what it was four years ago.
Working together, our organizations are aiming to make a difference throughout California. With your help, we can change a district’s elected officials, even if it is one district at a time!
---- Barbie Deutsch ----
