I am a Member of the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
I had no illusions about winning a spot as CDP Assembly Delegate in AD-12. I was not on one of the two major slates: Progressive Slate endorsed by State Senator Leland Yee-D SS-08 and Burton Machine acolyte Assemblyperson Fiona Ma-D AD-12, each running 6 Female & 6 Male Candidates.There were 9 Female candidates and 14 Male candidates running unaligned, not on slates. In the contest for the E-Board position, there was 1 Ma Slate and 1 Yee Slate candidate.
There were 484 voters present in our heavily Democratic district.
AD-12 Meeting Info Details:
Date: Sunday, January 14, 2007
Time: 2:00pm
Location: Westlake Community Center Complex
Pacelli Event Center Building, Merced Room
145 Lake Merced Blvd, Daly City
More (including final results) after the fold
I was unable to get any response or assist from Progressive Slate and had few Grassroots contacts. I’ve held positions as Precinct Chair (Captain) and County Democratic Party Treasurer and Convention Delegate in North Carolina & Virginia, but since moving to California 10 years ago my activism has been pretty much limited to Netroots Blogging and assisting various campaigns in the field for certain favored candidates. Read: I’ve done no real Networking which is requisite in the Off-line world.
But, I gave it the good old try anyway with the hopes of getting my feet wet and beginning a Networking Process for activism and change within the CDP and being a Netroots presence in this process
I had some great discussions and met some really nice people including a fellow Kossack, willy mugobeer, Judith A. Christensen – Daly City Council Member & Treasurer of the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee, Patty Senecal-Field Organizer for the SF Democratic Party, Susan Pfeifer-Delegate Candidate on the Yee Slate & Vice Chair for the SF for Democracy Organization and LeAnn Prifiti- Delegate Candidate on the Yee Slate and member of the Diamond Heights Democratic Club. I will be pursuing a Precinct Captain position with the SF Democratic Party.This will provide a basis for the next time I run for a Delegate position, I will see that I run on an officially endorsed slate as 99% of the voters voted before hearing any Candidate Statements. Slate endorsement is critical in this heavily Democratic district.
Like in the olden days the Female candidates went first to speak, in alpha order, although there was a 60 second limit, noone timed them or cut them off, some of these candidates went on for 15 minutes. 10-15 minutes is a rational timeframe to present one’s case for election, 60 seconds is not. The Male candidates followed, in alpha order so, I was first. The men were timed and I was cut off at 60 seconds. I did not get to say all I wanted but I received a decent round of applause and many unsolicited compliments on my presentation. Kinda hard to present your case and explain the importance of Netroots in 60 seconds. LOL.
My participation as as Netroots Progressive was well worth the effort although I did not get the "Brass Ring". I was competing against 19 candidates for 6 slots, 12 of which had either Yee or Ma slate endorsements.
It had been a while since I had spoken at a public forum, but with mic in hand it was truly like getting back on that bicycle again. I spoke of the need for the Grassroots,the Netroots and the CDP to work in cooperation for Progressive action to defeat the Gop and the Bush Adminstration’s Agenda. I also spoke of the Netroots success in fund raising last year and candidates we helped such as Jerry McNerney CA-11, Charlie Brown CA-04, Debra Bowen-D for Secretary of State, and others.
As I arrived early I had a chance to speak at length with State Senator Leland Yee and Assemblyperson Fiona Ma. Both were receptive and pleasant and sincere. Ma has been chosen as new Democratic Party Whip for the Assembly and no doubt she will be a force to be reckoned with, Yee is just a wonderful guy and I like his Progressive politics. Both Yee and Ma addressed the Meeting:
Yee on Shwarzeenegger’s Health Plan Proposal:
Shwarzenegger has been functioning on a Democratic Party Agenda, however, we will not take money away from Children to pay for his Healthcare Proposal (A.S. proposes cuts in Child Welfare programs to achieve this). You are providing nothing at all to the Children by taking from them at the same time you are attempting to give them something. We will not pay for the proposed program off of the backs of poor people.
Yee On the Iraq War:
This War was absolutely uncalled for, the basis is just wrong, it needs to end Now. I lived though the Vietnam War, this is repeating the same mistakes.
Ma hyped her new position, and insisted that she would whip the Democratic Majority in-line to vote for Democratic Agenda items. She didn’t go near either the War or Shwarzenegger’s healthcare proposal as issues to be discussed, even though Yee had spoken first, giving her the opportunity to chime in. I hope she becomes an advocate for Progressive causes as her District is deeply Liberal and gave the Green Party Candidate a whopping 12.6% of the vote in her election last year.
Thanks to Frank Noto (Meeting Convenor – Sunset Community Democratic Club Board) & LeAnn Prifiti- (Delegate Candidate for providing an update on the results which took 8 hours to complete on the 14th followed by a 5.5 hour final count by CDP main offices in Sacramento on the 22nd.
Patty Senecal- Field Organizer – San Francisco Democratic Party on the Slate Methodology:
Personally, I am not a huge fan of having a Slate for this kind of election.
It also would have been nice to hear the candidates speak before people could vote.
Next time we should organize it. (no, not really)
Frank Noto on Predictor’s "Free Agent" Candidacy:
In some ways, it is unfortunate that we choose candidates thru slates, that may exclude some good people such as yourself.
.
UPDATE #1: (1/16pm): Although it didn't help me running non-Slate, the 484 Voter turnout in AD-12 seems to be the highest I've of heard of so far amongst the CA-AD's providing reports. Granted this is a deeply blue district but it indicates that the base is galvanized. I'd say a good 95% + of the turnout was due to the organizations of State Sen. Leland Yee- D SD-08 and Minority Whip Assemplyperson Fiona Ma-D AD-12. In AD-12 there has been a continuing decisive factional issue between the Progressives and the Burton Machine regulars, there is also interest being generated by a Mayoral, Board and District Attorney races this year in SF. There is no doubt that the local Democratic Clubs pulled out their members. As far as any new Grassroots/Netroots & "Average" Democratic Voter(who normally wouldn't turn out for an event like this), there seemed to be only a sprinkling. There were 14 Male & 9 Female delegate candidates not running on a Slate.This turnout bodes well for us in 2008, and is a good indication that the Party base is ready to act to throw out the Gop.
Results are still not in in AD-12 due to Provisional Ballots.
UPDATE #2: (1/18 pm) Well People it seems that results are still unavailable and won't be available until after a Jan 22nd "Second Count" being conducted at State Party Offices in Sacramento.
I can't make the trip there. This all sounds somewhat unusual, here is the message I received:
As you may know, the AD Election Meeting for AD 12 ran very long, and the space for the meeting had to be vacated before a 2nd count of the delegate ballots could be done. We have all of the materials from the 12AD sent up to the Sacramento office of the California Democratic Party, and on Monday, Jan 22 at 5PM, we will start doing the second count of the ballots as well as evaluate the provisional ballots cast.
As a candidate for delegate in the 12th AD, you are able to attend and observe this process. Our office is not very large, so please RSVP if you do plan on attending. I do know that there were two major slates working this election, and representatives of each slate will be present to observe. State Party staff and impartial volunteers will be the only ones actually handling the ballots.
The Sacramento office of the State Party office is at:
1401 21st Street, Suite 200 (2nd floor) - SE corner of 21st and N
Sacramento, CA 95814
Robert Jordan" robert@cadem.org
received a call from LeAnn Prifti-Delegate Candidate on Yee's slate. Lee Ann had came down with laryngitis after staying for the 8 hr count in the cold building. She reported that none of the Progreesive (Yee Slate) candidates were successful. The preliminary count showed the closest Progressive candidate about 20 votes behind the Ma candidate. Evidently there could be enough "provisional" ballots to change the results, as I also received this explanation via e-mail from Robert Jordan of the CDP:
The provisional ballots occured by persons who did attend, but at sign-in, there was some dispute as to whether they qualified to vote (ie, registered as a democrat in the 12AD prior to the Nov 2006 election, or becoming 18 or a new citizen after the Nov 2006 election and registering as a Democrat onsite). Though a CD of registered Democrats was provided to the 12AD convenor - there were many problems and rather than turn people away who insisted that they were legitimate voters, those voters were given provisional ballots. One of the items we will do Monday night is review the information provided with each provisional ballot, and check to see if the person is correct and a legitimate voter (ie, in some cases, the person wasn't found in the file because of a typo in their voter registrar record of their name, but when searched by street address, the person is found and is a registered Democrat).
The preliminary results in the 12th AD were very close, and as the guidelines outline, the provisionals will be evaluated to see if they will be counted and thus impact the election.The guidelines for the Assembly District Election Meetings are available on our website at www.cadem.org/adem
FINAL UPDATE #3 (1/22/07 pm) The Final Results are in. The Yee/Progressive Slate picked up only one Male Delegate seat and the E-Board seat (by the same individual). The results were close, the range of votes for the Female Ma Slate were 197 to 188 votes for the winning 6 Candidates and on the Female Yee/Progressive slate there was a range of 174 through 157 votes. The 9 Non-Slate aligned Female Candidates received between 31 through 1 votes.
It was a little bit closer on the Male side: Ma Slate ranged from 202 to 176 votes and the Yee/Progressive slate ranged from 185 to 153 votes- 1 seat pick-up by the Yee/Progressive slate. The 14 Non-Slate aligned Male Candidates received between 30 and Zero votes. Yours truly came in tied for 17th place. (The Slate endorsed Candidates ranking in the first 12 ).
Thanks to Robert Jordan of the CDP for follow-ups and providing Final Results.
There is a You Tube Video of me giving my speech, if anyone is interested in seeing it let me know in the Comments section and we’ll discuss how to pass it on to you.
Thanks to my Significant Other for his emotional support, acting as photographer and attending even though he could not vote.
The Progressive Slate: http://www.progressiveslate.com/
Map of AD-12: http://www.calvoter.org/...
Cross-posted at DKos & Calitics