BE for CHANGE

Red Alert: New post on The Broad View

You can read the full series of my posts on this subject at The Broad View. And you can click on the Red Alert! box in the right sidebar and follow the trail of this year's deplorable GOP election-stealing effort through press reports, blog posts, and ACTION ITEMS!

Red Alert!!

If you read Hendrik Hertzberg in the August 6 New Yorker, or Jonathan Alter in the August 13 Newsweek, or Hannah-Beth Jackson at her Speak Out California website, then you'll know that we California Democrats may be facing a daunting challenge in June 2008.

Note the way the three publications have slugged their pieces: Hertzberg calls his "Votescam." Hannah-Beth tells us that the Republicans are "Trying to steal the Presidency — again!" Alter goes with a three-fer: "Is California GOP Trying to Steal the 2008 Election?" "A Red play for the Golden State" "There's some malicious mischief at play in efforts to reform our electoral system." Bam! Bam! Bam!

This is serious stuff, and will require us to be on our activist mettle at the very moment we'd most like to take a breather. Dammit, we have another election — in June 2008. It's only the presidential primary that's been unbundled from our usual June ballot. The primaries are held then for all the other offices up for a vote in November. It's the perfect opportunity to put stealth initiatives on a ballot that too many people will regard as ho-hum.

The Repubs will be angling to get us to vote for something they've named with perfect Rovian pitch. Here's how Alter describes its intended effect:

The Presidential Election Reform Act would award the state's electoral votes based on who wins each congressional district. Had this idea been in effect in 2004, Bush would have won 22 electoral votes from California, about the same number awarded the winners of states like Illinois or Pennsylvania. In practical terms, adopting the initiative would mean that the Democratic candidate would likely have to win both Ohio and Florida in 2008 (instead of one or the other) to be elected.

[Alter tells us that Democrats are hoping to do a similar deal in North Carolina, where far fewer votes are at stake. In all fairness, we should stand in opposition to that ploy as well.]

The California effort may, in fact, not be legal. Will it pass a court test? We don't know that yet. But this is a development that bears close watching, and major action when and if the initiative is cleared for the ballot. You can be sure our Red-Blue Coalition (see left sidebar) will be all over it.

Meanwhile, please read the linked articles, know the stealth terminology, and stay wary.

Barbie reports on California's Red-to-Blue Coalition

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 ----