as reported in the Ventura County Star 1-27-10

The first voter-registration report of this election year shows Democrats have widened their lead over Republicans among Ventura County voters. The report submitted to the secretary of state reflects registrations as of Jan. 5. It shows there are now 13,444 more registered Democrats than registered Republicans in the county, up from a difference of 11,829 a year ago.

As a percentage of the total, Democrats now make up 40.1 percent of the county electorate, compared to 36.9 percent for Republicans. Nonpartisan, or “decline-to-state,” voters make up 18.3 percent, with the remainder registered as members of the American Independent, Libertarian, Green or Peace and Freedom parties.

The new report reflects a continuation of a trend that saw Democrats surpass Republicans on the county voter rolls in 2008, reversing more than 20 years of GOP dominance in the county. At the same point two years ago — 154 days before the California primary — Republicans in the county were still clinging to a 2,200-vote advantage. Since then, Democrats have registered steady increases in all areas of the county, closing the gap in Republican strongholds in the east county and widening their leads in Democratic areas of the west county. Over the two years, Democrats have increased their percentage of registered voters by 1.3 percent in Simi Valley, 1.4 percent in Thousand Oaks, 2.4 percent in Ventura and 2.5 percent in Oxnard.

Inspired by the “Camp Obama” trainings that powered neighbor-to-neighbor organizing across America in 2008, Camp Courage is an intensive two-day training designed to teach the principles and skills of community organizing to activists working to restore marriage equality to California.

Drawing on techniques honed for decades by progressive social movements, Camp Courage teaches empowerment, team building, leadership development, and grassroots organizing skills. Camp Courage is designed primarily for new activists or those who have never engaged with the broader community about marriage equality as well as veteran LGBT activists and allies.

Camp Courage trainings have already been held in Los Angeles, Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento, D.C., San Diego and East LA. All seven events have received phenomenal reviews from participants, with evaluations averaging 9.06 (on a scale of 1 to 10).

To see highlights of the East Los Angeles training, watch the YouTube at http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/CampCentralCoast.

Camp Courage Central Coast will be an opportunity for activists and organizers to come together, recommit our energies and our talents to the marriage equality movement, and show the nation that we will not rest until all Californians are treated with the equality they deserve.

WHAT: Camp Courage, for marriage equality activists and organizers
WHERE: Santa Barbara (location provided once registration is confirmed)
WHEN: January 30-31, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
SIGN UP: http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/CampCentralCoast

Camp Courage will cover basic community and political organizing skills, including:

* Finding your voice by telling your “story of self”
* Leadership development
* Principles of successful organizing
* Developing collaboration and building effective teams
* Techniques of voter persuasion
* Organizing a phonebank
* Canvassing
* Tabling
* Throwing house parties
* Online organizing

In addition to providing these essential tools Camp Courage provides a unique opportunity for community members to meet like-minded individuals.

A background in community organizing or an organizational affiliation is not a requirement to attend Camp Courage. The only requirements are energy, commitment, and a desire to broaden your leadership abilities.

Camp Courage is organized by our faculty Torie Osborn, Mike Bonin, and Lisa Powell. Osborn is a senior advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the United Way, and former executive director of the Liberty Hill Foundation and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Bonin is a former regional field organizer for Obama for America, a veteran campaign staffer, and a community activist. Powell is an attorney, longtime trainer, community leader, and co-founder of United Lesbians of African Heritage.

Several amazing organizations will be represented at Camp Courage Central Coast, supporting the event or sending staff to participate or present, including CAUSE, COLOR Ventura, Equal Roots, FUND for Santa Barbara, Marriage Equality USA Santa Barbara & San Luis Obispo Chapters, McCune Foundation, Pacific Pride Foundation, San Luis Obispo Equality Team, Santa Barbara City College Queer & Ally Club, Stonewall Democrats of Ventura County, Strategic Alliance for Marriage Equality, UCSB Campus Democrats, UCSB Associated Students Queer Commission, UCSB Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, and the Ventura County Rainbow Alliance.

Our Central Coast training is one of many planned in 2010. If you are interested in our future trainings, please email CampCourage@couragecampaign.org.

If you have any questions, please email: CampCourage@CourageCampaign.org

At our 11/13/09 – 11/15/09 California Democratic Party Executive Board meeting, members voted to support HR 2404, which will require the Secretary of Defense to define an exit strategy for Afghanistan, so we can start bringing our troops home.

For more than seven long years, brave men and women from the American armed forces have been fighting and dying in Afghanistan. The time has come for the people of Afghanistan to assume full control of their own country. It’s also time for American troops to come home – not only from Iraq, but from Afghanistan too. The first step is an exit strategy.

Please help bring our servicemen and servicewomen home by urging your member of Congress to support HR 2404.

Single payer health care—an improved Medicare for all—was the topic Wednesday night at the Thousand Oaks Library where the Democratic Club of the Conejo Valley joined forces with Progressive Democrats of America chapters of Los Angeles, Santa Monica Mountains, and the Central Coast to present a health care forum.

By meeting time of 6:30 pandemonium had engulfed the parking lot, entrance way, and hallways of the library. The overflow crowd included Republicans, Independents, and Greens as well as Democrats—disgruntled Republicans featured their own speakers in front of the library while Democrats screened the membership admitted to the meeting.

The meeting began with a viewing of producer Don Schroeder’s short documentary, “California One Care: Full Care, For All, For Less.” This excellent film explained why our health care system is broken and how it can be fixed, complete with a clear strategy for accomplishing single payer health care, starting with California. The California One Care campaign will begin this fall. Details, and a preview of their ad campaign, can be viewed at www.californiaonecare.org. The first ad, starring Lily Tomlin, is terrific. Don’t miss it.

After the film, Dr. Jo Olson and Dr. Susie Baldwin were featured speakers, giving examples from their own medical practices and joining the panel that fielded questions from the audience.

Conejo Valley Democrats were the most recent to host health care forums. Other Ventura County Clubs have also hosted such events. The one in Ojai last month was particularly effective. The Good Club in Oxnard, inspired by President Al Dirrim, is holding demonstrations for single payer every Friday evening at 5:00 p.m. on Vineyard Avenue near Esplanade—in front of the financial center–and would be most pleased to welcome anyone who is able to join them. Bring your own signs.

The Ventura County Democratic Central Committee passed a resolution at their July 28th meeting imploring Councilwoman Lois Capps, elected to Congress by the Democratic voters of the 23rd Congressional District, to sponsor and support single payer health care legislation. But whatever happens in Washington, it seems that the best chance for single payer health care lies with California, and that the Democrats of Ventura County will do whatever is required to achieve it.

News from Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Democrats have been working on their own County Platform for some months now. It’s a new and exciting way of bringing the activist community together to focus on a shared vision for the county – not re-inventing the state Political Platform but narrowing the focus to Santa Barbara County politics.

It’s an exercise that all County Central Committees should note and adopt as part of their own program as it has proved to be challenging and thought-provoking as well as bringing in new ideas and fresh enthusiasm, building interest in the local Party and reinforcing the Democratic mission.

Santa Barbara Democrats are meeting this Sunday to work on a final version which will be presented to their Central Committee for approval in July. Copies will be made available for Ventura and San Luis Obispo to consider, and hopefully to benefit from, as they go ahead with plans of their own.

The Roosevelt-Hamer Dinner originally set for May 9th has been rescheduled. Postponed because of the Jesusita fire, it will now be held on June 27th 2009 at the Santa Barbara Women’s Club (Rockwood) at 670 Mission Canyon. Reservations for the original event will be honored but guests are urged to re-confirm at sbdems@gmail.com or leave a message at 805-965-8030.

Santa Barbara Democrats helped to host a presentation on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) on May 26th. The Employee Free Choice Act, supported by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, would enable working people to bargain for better benefits, wages and working conditions by restoring workers’ freedom to choose for themselves whether to join a union. Speakers at the Santa Barbara Forum included two of the journalists who were dismissed by the Santa Barbara News Press for trying to form a union, and they made a powerful case for the need for this legislation to pass. Forums supporting EFCA give Central Committees an opportunity to get this issue into public awareness. Let’s hope for more local action putting pressure on the last stand-out Senators, which include our own Senator Dianne Feinstein!

Dear Region 10 Delegates and Central Committee members;

Today, June 8th, the California Primary is exactly one year away. This is surely the time to concentrate on setting up Candidates Committees, Voter Registration Task Forces and Field Operations so that everything is in place and leadership designated to take advantage of the trainings on offer. I have been putting together an inventory of training materials, so please contact me for specific manuals and materials.

Foremost is the great weekend ahead for San Luis Obispo County with the Progressive Caucus meeting on Saturday June 27th and the long-awaited CDC Leadership training for Sunday June 28th.

Also, not to be missed are the two Region 10 meetings on June 13th and 14th when you have an opportunity to introduce Resolutions in time for consideration by the E-Board meeting in Burlingame on July 17th and 18th. (I apologise for the short notice – I was trying to schedule a meeting in Santa Maria, but it was not to be.)

I continue to enjoy meeting with other clubs and attending events – most recently, the Santa Maria club meeting and the 41st AD meeting as well as Central Committee meetings and the very successful Ventura County Spring Fling, with speeches from Attorney General candidates Pedro Nava, Ted Lieu and Alberto Torrico as well as Congresswoman Lois Capps, State Senator Fran Pavley and former Assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson. And a very special visit Sunday was to the Atascadero Democrats’ event in a winery in perfect weather in glorious countryside. Well worth the long drive!

Sincerely,
Sue Broidy
Director, Region 10

The nation watched in amusement this week as Republicans laid out their plans promised an April Fool’s Day Budget complete with incomprehensible Kindergarten garbage they call charts. Some of us laughed. I hope that some of us cried; certainly, were I a conservative Republican, tears would be my reaction at the ineptitude of my so-called “leadership”.

But if you were like me, the presentation of such pre-adolescent tomfoolery was deeply offensive in a way that seemed to elude immediate articulation. Offensive in such a way that even outright mockery seemed insufficient in response.

After a day’s contemplation, I think I understand. The offense lies in the juvenility of the response; the utter rejection of seriousness as even a pretended modus operandi for one of our two great political parties; the seeming abdication of any real responsibility for actual participation in the purported governance of our great nation.

But more even than that, it lies in the brazenness of the GOP’s assumption that anyone with a sensible eye toward policy outcomes is even interested in their ideas or “solutions” at this point.

The GOP has been grounded. They trashed the American house, flooded the basement, broke nearly every piece of furniture we own, went on a spending spree with the parents’ credit card pretty much forcing us into bankruptcy while handing out party favors to their friends , and should by all rights be locked up in Juvie for assorted crimes petty and great.

And the American People said Enough. You’re grounded. Go to your room and don’t come out until you think about what you’ve done. Oh, and while you’re at it you can start by cleaning your room.

Because these proud ignoramuses can’t even get their own act together. Their own leader pwns himself on national television again and again, then says it was all part of some secret diabolical plan on his own part. The Republican Idol is a drug-addicted legend-in-his-own-mind radio star with an approval rating lower than dirt. Someone should seriously ask the GOP whether, if all their friends went out and jumped off a cliff, they would, too. Heck, these are people so emotionally stunted they’ve got posters of Chuck Freaking Norris hanging over their beds and Ayn Rand drivel on their bookshelves to make them feel tougher than their real emo, weepy, tantrum-throwing selves. The rest of us grew out of that phase when we turned 14. They can’t even manage to clean up their own backyard. And don’t even get me started on your girlfriend Sarah. The only person who sees starbursts when they look at her is you. It’s just…pathetic.

And these punks think anyone wants to hear anything they have to say? Why? As any responsible parent knows, respect is earned. And these two-bit jokers haven’t earned a shred of it. I mean, seriously now…Joe the Plumber? Dungeons and Dragons nerds live in a fantasy world more realistic than that.

The sheer notion that these delinquent ne’er-do-wells would interrupt adults attempting to fix the messes they created to take a gander at their cartoon drawings isn’t risible. It’s infuriating.

Just…go to your room, GOP. Don’t come out until you’ve had a chance to put on that dunce cap that suits you so well, think about all the damage you’ve done, and atone for it. You might want to try cleaning yourself up a bit and straightening your own room while you’re at it.

The nation watched in amusement this week as Republicans laid out their plans promised an April Fool’s Day Budget complete with incomprehensible Kindergarten garbage they call charts. Some of us laughed. I hope that some of us cried; certainly, were I a conservative Republican, tears would be my reaction at the ineptitude of my so-called “leadership”.

But if you were like me, the presentation of such pre-adolescent tomfoolery was deeply offensive in a way that seemed to elude immediate articulation. Offensive in such a way that even outright mockery seemed insufficient in response.

After a day’s contemplation, I think I understand. The offense lies in the juvenility of the response; the utter rejection of seriousness as even a pretended modus operandi for one of our two great political parties; the seeming abdication of any real responsibility for actual participation in the purported governance of our great nation.

But more even than that, it lies in the brazenness of the GOP’s assumption that anyone with a sensible eye toward policy outcomes is even interested in their ideas or “solutions” at this point.

The GOP has been grounded. They trashed the American house, flooded the basement, broke nearly every piece of furniture we own, went on a spending spree with the parents’ credit card pretty much forcing us into bankruptcy while handing out party favors to their friends , and should by all rights be locked up in Juvie for assorted crimes petty and great.

And the American People said Enough. You’re grounded. Go to your room and don’t come out until you think about what you’ve done. Oh, and while you’re at it you can start by cleaning your room.

Because these proud ignoramuses can’t even get their own act together. Their own leader pwns himself on national television again and again, then says it was all part of some secret diabolical plan on his own part. The Republican Idol is a drug-addicted legend-in-his-own-mind radio star with an approval rating lower than dirt. Someone should seriously ask the GOP whether, if all their friends went out and jumped off a cliff, they would, too. Heck, these are people so emotionally stunted they’ve got posters of Chuck Freaking Norris hanging over their beds and Ayn Rand drivel on their bookshelves to make them feel tougher than their real emo, weepy, tantrum-throwing selves. The rest of us grew out of that phase when we turned 14. They can’t even manage to clean up their own backyard. And don’t even get me started on your girlfriend Sarah. The only person who sees starbursts when they look at her is you. It’s just…pathetic.

And these punks think anyone wants to hear anything they have to say? Why? As any responsible parent knows, respect is earned. And these two-bit jokers haven’t earned a shred of it. I mean, seriously now…Joe the Plumber? Dungeons and Dragons nerds live in a fantasy world more realistic than that.

The sheer notion that these delinquent ne’er-do-wells would interrupt adults attempting to fix the messes they created to take a gander at their cartoon drawings isn’t risible. It’s infuriating.

Just…go to your room, GOP. Don’t come out until you’ve had a chance to put on that dunce cap that suits you so well, think about all the damage you’ve done, and atone for it. You might want to try cleaning yourself up a bit and straightening your own room while you’re at it.

Throw another one on the “no one could have predicted” pile: Tony the Jolly Green Independent Strickland has proven himself a reliable enough GOP shill to become the Assistant Senate Republican Leader in just three months’ time. That’s an enormous level of trust for the Yacht Party to place in a guy who refused to even campaign using the word “Republican”, right?

From KHTS:

California State Senator Tony Strickland proudly announced that, in just his third month in the state senate, his caucus has showed confidence in his leadership abilities to elevate him to Assistant Senate Republican Leader. Senator Strickland will serve the Senate Republican Caucus under newly elected Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth.

Says Strickland:

“I am honored to have the confidence and trust of my Republican colleagues to serve as Assistant Senate Republican Leader. I look forward to representing the views of my caucus as well as the constituents in my district as we continue to address Californians dire economy.” Senator Strickland added, “As the Assistant Senate Republican Leader, I will continue to focus on transitioning to a renewable, more energy efficient economy to jumpstart the economy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, improve the environment, and lower energy prices.”

Wow. All of a sudden, Tony Strickland manages to find the word “Republican” in his vocabulary. Amazing. Who could have predicted?

The only question at this point is whether the voters of SD-19 will allow themselves to be conned again by Phony Republican Tony Strickland four years from now.

Throw another one on the “no one could have predicted” pile: Tony the Jolly Green Independent Strickland has proven himself a reliable enough GOP shill to become the Assistant Senate Republican Leader in just three months’ time. That’s an enormous level of trust for the Yacht Party to place in a guy who refused to even campaign using the word “Republican”, right?

From KHTS:

California State Senator Tony Strickland proudly announced that, in just his third month in the state senate, his caucus has showed confidence in his leadership abilities to elevate him to Assistant Senate Republican Leader. Senator Strickland will serve the Senate Republican Caucus under newly elected Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth.

Says Strickland:

“I am honored to have the confidence and trust of my Republican colleagues to serve as Assistant Senate Republican Leader. I look forward to representing the views of my caucus as well as the constituents in my district as we continue to address Californians dire economy.” Senator Strickland added, “As the Assistant Senate Republican Leader, I will continue to focus on transitioning to a renewable, more energy efficient economy to jumpstart the economy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, improve the environment, and lower energy prices.”

Wow. All of a sudden, Tony Strickland manages to find the word “Republican” in his vocabulary. Amazing. Who could have predicted?

The only question at this point is whether the voters of SD-19 will allow themselves to be conned again by Phony Republican Tony Strickland four years from now.