After driving down yesterday(April 16th) to register and pay my fees/dues, which were graciously picked up by the club (THANK YOU OVDC), I decided to take the Amtrak from Ventura this morning. Mostly because of the e egregious cost of parking and my love of taking the train and my bike.
I like riding the 2003 Stumpjumper FSR (modified) (resurected) through downtown L.A.
I got to the Convention Center and rode my bike right past the pay arm at the parking kiosk, through the congested garage and locked my bike up next to the elevator to the lobby. No stress and the coffee wasn’t too bad on the train. Oh, and I balanced my bank account on this computer during the ride down. SO EFFICIENT.
Anyway, I got there and I was very pleased to see that Region 10 was right front and center before the stage. Great seats, too bad it was just to watch politicians talk. Well, I’m a political junky, so I was stoked.
First up to speak was Barbara Boxer.
There is a little bit of worry with Boxer’s reelection because of the Citizens United decision by the Roberts Court and the fact that her likely rival will be former CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina. You remember her right? The one that offshored more then 16,000 jobs and then tanked the company while leaving with a tremendous severance package. You’d think there’s be nothing to worry about given the economic environment and the public’s mood toward CEOs and Wall St. Unfortunately, Roberts has made it possible for corporate america to spend as much money as they like in elections. So we’re worried. Though, I’m not sure that Boxer’s run in an election where she wasn’t the perceived underdog. The Republicans and the corporatocracy have wanted her gone since before she ever won the first time.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Senator Boxer at the home of Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen when she came through Ojai for a fundraiser (Thanks OVDC again). She is my favorite Senator, after Senator Sanders of Vermont of course. At the fundraiser we had a very good discussion about my worries for her and Senator Kerry’s Carbon Market legislation. Naturally I would prefer not to have a market for credits that will inevitably be controlled by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Wall St. I, like most Progressives, want to see a straight up carbon tax with no loopholes that gets ratcheted up over time. She listened to my concerns and made her case. I’ll go more into that when that legislation comes up in Congress.
I also talked to her about the need for a Security Turnover Excise Tax(STET) that would seriously curtail the out of control speculation on stocks, bonds and commodities that we see and which will be driving our gas prices up toward $4/gal this Summer. She was very interested in the STET tax idea. She expressed the usual concern that the traders will leave Wall St and the US which is a nonsense Wall St talking point, London has a STET tax, and she said she would look further into the issue, though she is not on the Finance Committee.
Boxer gave a good and rousing speech. She hit hard on the jobs issue which is exactly where her Republican challengers are weakest.
More later, next up Jerry Brown for Governor!
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**UPDATE #1** So sorry I had to go, but I was getting later and later for the Progressive Caucus which is kind of my raison d’être.
Back to Jerry first.
A lot of enthusiasm for Jerry which is interesting considering most of these folks probably spent a night parting, if they could afford it, at “L.A. Live” which is basically a large outdoor mall similar to city walk at Universal, but this one is by the Staples Center, the Nokia Theater and and the Convention Center. Jerry came on strong and despite his age, he is still extremely sharp. He said a lot of the right things and the theme, in tandem with the Boxer campaign of course, is jobs. Jerry is being challenged by another female, former CEO — Meg Whitman of Ebay. All of the things I said above about Fiorina basically go double (or triple or quadruple but not quite a googleplex-le) for Meg as she is actually a billionaire. She’s already spent $57 million if you can believe it. I think we’ve had about enough these type of governators thank you very much.
After Jerry, we confirmed by acclamation the following candidates:
John Chiang – California State Controller(John is a great guy)
Bill Lockyer – California State Treasurer
and maybe some others, but I was a little late.
After the morning session we all went over to the previously mentioned JW Marriott where all of the caucuses and training workshops are being held. Really not impressed with the overt scalping that goes on at this hotel. First of all, there is no free internet connection except down in the lobby. Thankfully, this is adjacent to the bar, however, martini’s are nearly $15. Par for the course for so called “upscale” joints in L.A. but too much for me. In fact, I’m dreading the bill for this 12 oz Blue Moon beer I’m drinking as I write this. But I digress…
I have a theory on the no internet thing. The chair of the CDP is John Burton. He’s a bit older, in his seventies and he doesn’t actually own a computer. I’ll wait… So yeah, doesn’t own a computer and see no real use for the internet so apparently the CDP didn’t pay to turn it on for those of us who do have computers. This is being called a cost cutting measure. So… yeah. I actually think that the main reason is that most of the wire heads like me are Progressives and we caused a bit of trouble at the last convention in Sacramento. We took hold and steered things around, much to the consternation of the some in the leadership.
Anyway, I came back to the hotel after locking up by bike for free in the same garage I had to pay $25 yesterday and went directly to the Organizing For America(OFA) strategy meeting. I really wanted to go to this and see what was going on. When OFA started, as a outgrowth of the Obama campaign, there was some question as to whether or not it would even be a Democratic organization. Well, that got settled and they are under the DNC. They are national and they have operations on the ground in all 50 states with the aim being to help Obama any way they can. I can dig that. The complaint from the rank and file Democrats has centered around how seemingly aloof the OFA is toward Democratic clubs and central committees.
The good news is that the OFA California, and in fact nation wide, is going to focus on getting the first time voters who registered just to vote for Obama out to vote in the primary in June and in mid-term November. Those voters, really their people, have proven very difficult to reach. The OFA strategy to GOTV of those first time voters is a very smart move and it will be incredibly helpful. I definitely plan to work with and coordinate efforts with them in VC and the Ojai Valley.
Next up, The Progressive Caucus Meeting/Showdown
This was great. I came into the room
and Jim Hightower was already speaking. That made me happy as I like Jim Hightower a lot.
More in a little while.
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**UPDATED 2** Train ride home mega update.
Okay, so Jim Hightower reminded us all not to forget Mr Humor because what happened next was fairly contentious.
But first, the emcee introduced Sen. Loni Hancock who is the author of Prop 15 which is a pilot program, just for the Sec. of State elections at first, that most people will remember as the clean money initiative. This will be a pilot program that will enable anyone wishing to run for the Sec. of State position to qualify for public funding if they get, I believe 5,000 but it may be less, signatures of supporters as well as the same number of $5 donations. Once they have reached this threshold, they qualify for $1 million in campaign funds for their campaigns. They are not allowed to raise money from any other sources. No contributions from corporations, etc. Further, if their opponent starts spending more then that amount, all the publicly funded candidate need do is document the fact and the state will match the funding. The number $1 million was arrived as because that was the cost of the last successful campaign for the Sec. of State seat.
Now here’s the part you’ll really like. The funding for this will be coming from an increase in the fee lobbyists have to pay for registration in our state. Currently the fee to register as a lobbyist in Sacramento and smoke a cigar with Schwarzenegger in the “smoking tent” is $12.50! This initiative will raise that fee to $350. Hahahahahahahahahahaaaa. Needless to say, the lobbyists are already gearing up to defeat this initiative. I have to check these exact numbers and update this update as I am on the train and I am still plagued with no internet, despite the fact I’m in business class on Amtrak. Insane! It’s not hard to believe that we are 27th in broadband penetration and technology among industrialized countries after this weekend. Anyway,
VOTE YES ON PROP 15
Then Sen. Hancock who, as you can imagine was a darling with the Progressives because of Prop 15, got all mad at several of us including me.
After talking about Prop 15, she launched into an impromptu talk about the initiative currently touted by the CDP leadership to repeal the 2/3 rule on budget that is gathering signatures right now. She spoke in favor of this initiative and said that the Lakoff initiative called the California Democracy Act that would repeal BOTH the 2/3 rule on budget AND the 2/3 rule on revenue was not worth the effort because it “did not poll well.” Naturally this irritated several of us who knew this is not true.
I’ve seldom gone from very pleased with a person to extremely annoyed with them as fast as I did then. I’m going to write a separate blog all about Prof. George Lakoff of UC Berkley and his California Democracy Act and the Californian’s for Democracy group behind the effort a little later. Suffice it to say for now that there are two totally anti-democratic rules that are in our Constitution here in CA. One calls for a 2/3 majority vote of the legislature to pass a budget and one calls for a 2/3 majority to pass any law regarding revenue; raising or lowering taxes on anything anywhere. These two rules together are largely responsible for the extremely dire economic straights in which we find ourselves as a state. Essentially the state of California is bankrupt, but because the Federal government won’t allow states to declare bankruptcy, we are in a hellish limbo where we are seeing our state’s credit rating lowered and our debt subsequently extending into the future for our children who will receive fewer and fewer benefits in everything from schools to health to public transportation and the lack of internet on this train. Effectively, California is ruled by the minority party because all they have to do is get 33.4% of the Assembly and the Senate to say NO. NO NO NO NO NO.
So Loni spouted what has become the conventional wisdom – you cannot pass a repeal of the 2/3 rule regarding revenue. She cited extraordinarily flawed polls run by the leadership of the California Democratic party using the framing of the Republican party to prove that this is so. Well, the Lakoff initiative and Californian’s for Democracy ran their own poll that proved that if you ask people what they thought the fact that a minority could thwart the will of the majority of their elected legislators, those polled were for the repeal of both 2/3 rules by 73%. Later in the Progressive Caucus meeting, George Lakoff spoke about exactly this issue and the framing of this issue and the total ineptitude of the leadership of the CDP in their handling of this matter. The link above goes to a Truthout article written by Lakoff which closely parallels what the Professor had to say.
Like I said, I need to write a different article/diary about his issue later. All I can say here is that Loni showed that even someone like herself, who is so good on the fair elections issue and other issues of importance to Progressives, is still wrongheaded about these rules that are destroying our state.
So, before all this transpired with Lone, candidate Marcy Winograd was on the panel with the emcee, Jim Hightower, Jane Hamsher and Loni Hancock. The emcee informed us that Jane Harman has also been invited but had so far not shown up.
Marci Winograd thanked the Progressives for her support and decried her opponents many transgressions against the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” as later guest, Prof. George Lakoff, termed us. At the same time that the Progressive Caucus was going on, there was a vote going on for endorsements in the insurance commissioner race between Hector De La Torre and Dave Jones and in the face for Lieutenant Governor between Janice Hann and Gavin Newsom. Marcy had to leave the panel early to go and vote and for a previously scheduled interview.
After that Sen. Loni Hancock spoke as mentioned above and then Congresswoman Jane Harman actually showed up at the Progressive Caucus.
It was a bold move on her part and you just have to admire that kind of brazen disregard for reality. She sat down and the emcee immediately started asking questions. Jane Harman was elected to the 36th District in congress in 1992 and has since shown herself to be a Democrat mostly in name only. She is a member of the Blue Dog Caucus and she has made some horrible decisions from the point of view of Progressive Democrats. From the online blog CommonDreams:
Some will speak of Harman’s pro-war record. Some will recall her support for warrantless wiretapping, followed by her irony-free indignation when it turned out that NSA snoops had taped her own phone conversations. Some will recount Harman’s long public silence after being briefed on torture by the U.S. government.
The emcee asked why Harman was a member of the dreaded “Blue-Dog Caucus” and not the much larger Progressive Caucus. Harman said that if you, meaning the emcee apparently, wanted to invite her she just might join. The audience was confused because it seemed she meant to maintain her membership in the Blue-Dogs at the same time, as if being a member of the Progressives was just a name thing with apparently no real meaning backing it up. Now, I have a problem with the Progressive Caucus in the House because they all caved on the so-called “Health Care Reform” and voted yes after promisiing to vote NO unless there was a “robust public option.” This cave begs the question, are you really a caucus if you have zero power? Nevertheless, I still wouldn’t assume that they were just a caucus in name only. Close, but not quite. Anyway, it was very strange. Either she was suffering from a dis-associative disorder or she truly thought she could just join the Progressives after her serious and multiple transgressions.
As Harman was taking hits, suddenly Winograd was back in the room and back on the panel.
ooo… and Winograd – 
That’s when the fun and games really began.
It turned into a knock-down, drag-out, impromptu debate between Winograd and Harman with, incredibly, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake moderating in an obviously biased fashion. Of course, I agreed with the bias.
A lot was said and I didn’t record any of it. Suffice it to say that after a fairly short period of this flak, Harman got out her giant can of what about Israel and sprayed it all around the room to try and nail Winograd on her supposed lack of support for the mythical “two-state solution”. Shortly after that fight, Harman fled the scene.
Winograd left shortly thereafter, needless to say she was happy. (sorry for the blur)
Marcy Happy – 
More tonight… just got home
Next up: the rest of the Progressive Caucus meeting, bike riding, public transpo and the Winograd / Harman battle moves to the floor of the convention center.
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**UPDATED 3** Progressive Caucus Pt. 2
After the whole impromptu debate happened we moved on to Prof. George Lakoff I’ve already covered most of what Lakoff said about the 2/3 rules and the need for a better understanding of framing. While he was talking, I noticed that some candidates were coming into the room. I was listening to the next speaker, Rose Roach,
as she gave us the low down on the recent Health Care Reform bill that she referred to as the Health Insurance Reform. I agree on most of her points that this bill is crap. I gives at least $50 billion dollars in tax payer dollars as subsidies to lower income people who are uninsured. The uninsured people who actually qualify for the subsidies once they kick in in the future have to then give it directly to the private, for profit insurance companies. The bill does have some insurance reform and the bill for this reform was the individual mandate. 40 – 60 million people now have to purchase private health insurance. Roach prefaced her statements by holding up a little troll, the kind with the neon hair that goes straight up. She put it on the floor right in front of her and told us about the name that most of the “liberal” blogs like Daily Kos call us who actually wanted a public option or, god forbid, single payer health care. Anyway, I was listening to this when a man in a nice suit and perfect, brushed back hair and gleaming white teeth took the empty aisle seat next to me. Of course, it was the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom.
I shook his hand and then it was his turn to address the Progressives.
I like San Francisco, it has universal health care. He made a joke about the Federal government finally catching up on the health care issue, well sort of. I like Gavin for Lt. Gov. over Janice Hann. I don’t have anything against Hann I just like SF and I think Gavin will bring some serious energy and ideas to the top of the ticket that could end up helping Brown.
Peter Schuman, founder of MoveOn, also spoke to the Progressives. He’s running an all grassroots campaign for Governor to pressure Brown. I appreciate the intent, but I think it is little more than a token effort.
That was pretty much it for the meeting but I did get to meet George Lakoff as he was leaving the hall. He remembered my email about having him come and speak in Ojai and said we might be able to schedule that. He had gotten a little busy since we were trading emails what with the California Democracy Act and all.
So I was going up to stay some friends near South Pasadena. I mentioned earlier that I was the only person I saw at the whole Democratic Convention riding a bicycle as my main form of transportation. That’s kind of unreal to me, but there it is. I rode from the JW Marriott to the Metro Red line about three blocks away at 7th and Metro Center.
I took the Red Line to Union Station where I picked up the Gold Line toward Highland Park and Pasadena.
I hoped off at the Highland Park station and rode about a mile and a half to my friends house.
It really isn’t that difficult folks.
Sunday 4/18
This is just one of the reasons I stayed with my friends house:
Thanks Patti and Garret!
I did the reverse on the public transportation and the Stumpjumper FSR (modified) (resurrected) mountain bike and got back to the Convention Center(again no other bicycles were there) just as the endorsement fight was breaking out on the floor.
When I walked in I saw about two thousand Winograd signs and literally three Harman signs. People were up at the mics making arguments for and against setting aside the pre-endorsement vote that took place in the 36th District in March. This whole fight was happening because Winograd had successfully had the pre-endorsement nomination pulled earlier in the month. Harman had won the pre-endorsement vote in her district with 72% of the vote of those delegates in the district that voted. Most of the arguments against setting aside the pre-endorsement vote revolved around the idea that the state party shouldn’t vote to countermand the wishes of the constituents. Now I don’t know what happened at the pre-endorsement, but Winograd should probably have pulled out a better performance. That said, I feel that Democracy demands that we hold our representatives accountable, and primary races and this type of action on the part of PDA and the Winograd campaign are how this is done. If the vote were in favor of setting aside the pre-endorsement vote, it would mean that effectively the CDP wouldn’t endorse either candidate in the race, not that Winograd would be endorsed.
Chair Burton and the leadership including Eric bauman were actively hostile to the Winograd campaign and the Progressives. After calling for an initial vote where the people for Winograd were to hold up their credentials, Burton dithered strangely and things became confused up onstage. It was weird and there was no one counting the votes. Then they started all over again and called for the vote starting with the Harman people.
They counted fairly quickly. Then it was the Winograd supporters and the Progressives turn.
To me it looked like the Progressives had it. There was more dithering and conferring on stage and the vote took forever to count for some strange reason. Burton was really insulting to the Progressives, especially when he finally doddered over to the podium and belatedly told us to put down our hands as if he’d forgotten there was a vote going on. It was very strange and vindictive behavior. He then yelled at the crowd, apparently because someone had yelled something at him. Something about how he didn’t think it was right for the state body to overturn the districts vote and he lauded Harman which he’s not really supposed to do.
Anyway, the vote totals they gave us were 599 for Harman and 417 for Winograd. That definitely didn’t look like what I saw, but whatever. I will say, Burton continued to act strange when he came up to the podium by saying that he didn’t believe that the people counting the votes were “blind or that they can’t count” which was kind of strange. This was before he told us the numbers. Again, whatever. My guess is that during all the strange dithering while they were counting the Winograd vote, they might have made a decision to include the votes from the pre-endorsement the month before in the vote there on the convention floor. It would explain all the strange behavior.
Anyway, if you want to help get rid of a Blue Dog Democrat right here in our own state, go to Marcy Winograd’s website.
One more Update later…
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**UPDATED 4 – Final**
Okay, nearly finished here folks. After the fun and games of the Harman / Winograd fight, Senate President Pro Tem, Darrell Steinberd came out to talk to us.
He came out to warn us all about the potential threats to California’s global warming bill, AB 32. Meg Whitman and the Republicans are hip to cancel that piece of legislation. The ass clown CEO of the Texas oil company, Valero, is trying to pay money to get signatures for an initiative in time for the November ballot to then spend untold gobs of money to suspend AB 32. Once again we have out-of-state, special interests spending tons of money to manipulate our direct democracy. We had the Mormons spending millions and millions of dollars to deny the LGBT community equal rights. Now we have some Texas oil criminals trying to cancel our provisions aimed at dealing with global warming. Fuck that!
BOYCOTT VALERO!
We were then told by the Resolutions Committee which Initiatives were endorsed by the CDP.
Prop 13 – YES
Prop 14 – NO
Prop 15 – YES!
Prop 16 – NO
Prop 17 – NO
We were also told the results of the previous day’s voting in the Insurance Commissioner race and the Lt Gov race.
In the Insurance Commissioner race between Dave Jones and Hector De La Torre, Dave Jones was victorious. Getting out in front of that Anthem Blue Cross rate hike and stapling his name to a visible fight against them certainly had to help with the delegates. I voted for Jones, his organization had extraordinary outreach and he actually personally called me twice. I heard from De La Torre’s campaign only once and the volunteer who called me couldn’t give me any reason I should vote for him over Jones. That’s not what prompted my Jones vote, but it sure didn’t help.
There will be no endorsement in the Lt. Gov race between Gavin Newsom and Janice Hahn????. Gavin won the vote but I believe they have to win by 10 percentage points to actually get the CDP nod over another Democrat. This outcome is probably for the best–just leave it up to the voters. There are very passionate supporters of both candidates and they have various reasons for their feelings. If you read above, you know I was supporting Gavin, and not because I met him. I met Hahn too. Despite the fears of Gavin’s personal life, whatever those may be, I think he would bring a certain level of vitality to the top of the ticket in November that would likely benefit Brown and the goal HAS to be to get a Democratic Governor elected.
Other endorsements of importance to us in the 35th, 37th AD and the 24th CD are as follows:
AD 37 – Ferial Masary
AD 35 – Das Williams
CD 24 – Tim Allison
After that we were treated to the ads by the six candidates for Attorney General. Because there are so many candidates for Jerry Brown’s current job, and because the candidates together decided not to seek the CDP endorsement, we didn’t have to vote among those candidates. We did get to meet them during the campaign and see their ad for us at the convention.
Of the six, I had two favorite ads, our own Pedro Nava and Chris Kelly’s. Padro’s was cool because he walked off from scene to scene where he revealed his endorsements. I have to say, we had seen this exact same type of ad the day before when Gavin Newsom ran through the Mayor’s house in San Francisco touting his achievements and endorsements. The weird thing that happened during that screening was that the audio cut out at a crucial narrative moment during the ad. It was the moment where the set up for the whole speed walking through the mayor’s house happened. It was unfortunate and as a filmmaker I cringed… a lot.
Chris Kelly’s ad was so simple I liked it. It was the POV of someone navigating the Chris Kelly for Attorney General facebook page to a happy little tune. Very clever, very inexpensive.
The convention’s favorite, if applause are any indication, was Kamala Harris followed closely by Alberto Torrico.
CDC Chair Henry Vandermeir was next up.
Then it was time for the volunteers of the year to be brought up on stage by all 20 Region directors. There was some general groaning and eye rolling to realize that we now had to sit through twenty different regional directors telling us about their top volunteers. But then you have to realize that these people who came up on stage are the backbone of the party. They and people like them all over California are the reason we’ve had any of the success we’ve had thus far and they are certainly the key our future success.
I wish I had time to go through it all now to honor each of these wonderful volunteers, but I’m exhausted. Thanks for reading.
One last thing on public transportation and bike riding in LA. I left the Convention Center and rode up to have lunch with the other delegates who bothered to stay through to the bitter end. I then rode to the Red Line and took it to Union Station where I then hopped on the 2:55pm Amtrak Surfliner. It really isn’t that hard to do folks. And after those fu*ks from Texas overturn the nations most ambitious global warming legislation, the only way we’ll be able to have any effect on the carbon problem is individually.
Oh and they serve
On the train.
Cross posted at Ojai Democrats and at the OjaiPost
The Thursday, May 6th meeting of the Democratic Club of Camarillo will feature Timm Herdt, Sacramento Bureau Chief for the Ventura County Star. Timm will speak about the current state of politics in Sacramento. He has been a writer and editor at the Ventura County Star and its predecessor, the Ventura County Star-Free Press, for 30 years. During his tenure, he has done everything from reporting at the sidelines at high school football games, to covering city halls, to serving as the Opinion page editor from 1985 through 1996. In 1997 he opened The Star’s bureau in Sacramento, reporting on state government government and politics from California’s capital.
