Democracy for New Mexico

Keep On Talking

The national political blog TPM Cafe has picked up on Joe Monahan's item and our discussion about a candidate to run against Heather Wilson.

Cafe's jgmallory mulls the possible reasons why one hasn't yet emerged and laments what appears to be shaping up as a free ride for Rep. Wilson. Read down a bit and you'll see the link to our original post on this, which generated a good discussion on candidates the progressive community might support.

Excerpt from TPM Cafe:

[The lack of a Dem to run against Heather] . . . shows that the national party's stagnation can reach the state level even in a state with a strong Democratic governor and a fully-Dem legislature, and in a city that is itself pretty solidly Dem . . . The failure here has to be on the political level, because there is no reason for this district to be safe R . . .

. . . So without the national party's backing, it looks like there might be nobody to stand up to Heather. The national party's stagnation has reached inward to the state level, and looks like it will result in Heather getting a free ride. I think that is a crucial strategic error and a terribly sad mistake.

One of the commenters at TPM Cafe also goes into the adventures of Miles Nelson in the 2004 Congressional primary and compares him to Paul Hackett.

While we got a good start on discussing possible candidates in our first DFNM thread, there's still alot to hash out. Come on, it's the weekend, you've got a little time to comment! Do it here and/or at the Cafe! --BW

Sound Off From "progressive dem": Who Will Take On Heather?

Editor's Note: I'm bumping this up from the comments section of several posts. I don't know who "progressive dem" is, but I think he or she is asking the right questions at the right time about who we can get to run against Rep. Heather Wilson (R-CD1) in 2006.

As Monahan reports, NO-ONE is stepping up to run against Scary Heather, despite the fact that the DNC is strongly pushing its 50 State Strategy in challenging Republicans. How can we allow this to happen? I know that finding, developing and supporting candidates is one of the most vital functions of the State Dem Party. However, years of neglect in Party building and member recruitment, coupled with establishment efforts to keep out "new blood" that doesn't toe the line of the bigwigs, has resulted in a very small and weak pool of potential candidates. Yes men and yes women usually don't make passionate and inspiring candidates.

It seems cruelly ironic that Miles Nelson, one of the most popular and passionate outsider candidates to date , was eternally stymied by the Governor and the powers that be when he ran for the chance to go up against Wilson last time. You know what happened. Now Miles lives out of the district and NOT ONE DEM is stepping up to the plate.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT? Let's hear your thoughts after you read what "progressive dem" has to say. Can we come up with a candidate? -BW

DPNM Seeking Volunteers for Booth at NM State Fair

From the DPNM:
The Democratic Party of New Mexico will be hosting a booth at the NM State Fair in Albuquerque.  We are recruiting volunteers for a Committee to help with the planning and managing of the booth, plus volunteers to staff the booth.

Last year over 645,000 people visited the State Fair.  We will have more contact with voters during this two week period than at any other time.  Volunteers manning the booth will be provided a free parking and admission pass for their shift.

The State Fair runs from September 9th– 25th, for a total of 16 days.  We are recruiting for three hours shifts.  Please pick a day(s) and time(s) that will work for your schedule. 

• 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
• 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM
• 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM
• 6:00 PM to Close (8 – 9 PM)

We will be having a training here at DPNM Headquarters, 1301 San Pedro NE, on September 6th at 6:00 PM.  If you want to volunteer, please let me know and try to attend this meeting/training.  We are requesting that the County Clerk’s office attend our training to certify our volunteers as 3rd Party Agents to enable them to register voters.

If you are interested in helping out please contact Marci at 505-830-3650 or marci@nmdemocrats.org.

DPNM Hiring Field Organizers

From: Vanessa Alarid, Executive Director, Democratic Party of New Mexico:
The DNC’s Assessment Team recently visited our Land of Enchantment.  They were in NM to represent Governor Dean and make recommendations to the DNC about New Mexico-specific party building. With the DNC’s assistance, the Democratic Party of New Mexico will be hiring several field organizers.   

We hope that competition will be fierce for these positions, and if you wish to suggest someone for an organizer position, please feel free to forward resumes to my attention. We have specific needs for applicants with advanced proficiency in computers and technology, and communications, and/or who are fluent in Spanish, and of course, they must be New Mexicans.   

THE DPNM SEEKS POLITICAL ORGANIZERS
Apply before August 31!

Democratic Party of New Mexico is looking for organizers to work across the state.  Candidates must be interested in building the overall infrastructure of the Democratic Party of New Mexico to ensure that newly implemented programs continue for years to come.  Candidates need to be affable and hard-working, with a genuine interest in people and a demonstrable dedication to Democratic politics and to winning elections.  Travel around the state – the fifth largest in the country -- will be the norm.  Strong organizational and communications abilities are a must, with a basic level of proficiency in computers and an eagerness to learn.  Organizers must be both patient and gregarious, with a let’s-roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-things-done attitude. 

The available field organizer positions are supervised by the DPNM Executive Director and the Chief Operations Officer, and will be responsible for building the strength and success of the DPNM at the state and county level.  They will work with the DPNM staff to facilitate communications and advance the DPNM within the existing Party organizational structure. 

Specifically, organizers’ responsibilities include, but are not limited to: organizing workshops and trainings on precinct organizing; recruiting volunteers; encouraging fundraising activities and soliciting contributions and involvement in DPNM fundraising efforts;  making public statements on behalf of the Democratic Party and arranging other opportunities to deliver our message; planning and staffing phone banks, precinct walks, and data entry projects, primarily for the purposes of identifying voters and improving the DPNM voter file; drafting plans for get‑out‑the‑vote efforts; and assisting in the implementation of events required by the DPNM rules and bylaws.  Send resumes to Vanessa@nmdemocrats.org or mattf@nmdemocrats.org

Qualifications:

• Native New Mexican
• Bilingual/ strong proficiency in Spanish
• Strong writing and speaking skills. 
• Facility with computers and basic computer programs such as Microsoft Outlook, Word, Internet Explorer, and Excel.
• A willingness to travel extensively and work long hours.
• Ability to work well with groups and individuals with a wide variety of personalities, needs, and abilities. Experience recruiting, training and managing volunteers are important.
• Previous political organizing and Democratic campaign experience.
• An understanding of, and commitment to, the DPNM’s mission and goals.
• Experience with fund raising and working with the media are pluses.

Salary and Benefits:
Starting annual salary is $28,000, depending on experience. Health insurance. An opportunity to work with and on behalf of Democrats at the local, state, and national level.

Vanessa Alarid
Executive Director
Democratic Party of New Mexico
505-550-1387 cell
505-830-3650 work
505-830-3645 fax

Volunteer at Sandoval County Democratic Party HQs

Are you interested in helping your local county Democratic Party? 

Sandoval County Democratic Party is looking for volunteers to help with visibility and party building activities on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10 AM to 1 PM. Projects include phoning, data entry, and letter-writing.

Please call Sue Buckner at 505-994-0587 or email suebuckner@hotmail.com or call Meredith Dixon at 505-830-3650 or email meredith@nmdemocrats.org.

Dean Rocks on Face the Nation

By all accounts (except the RNC's), DNC Chair Howard Dean did a terrific job on Face the Nation yesterday. See for yourself:

Transcript       Video excerpt

Some quotes:

About Iraq--

First thing we need to do have a plan for leaving. And the second thing we need to do is to make sure that to the best of our ability we can influence the writing of the constitution. It looks like today, and this could change--as of today, it looks like women will be worse off in Iraq than they were when Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq. That's a pretty sad commentary on this administration's ability to do anything right.

Asked if the President should meet with Cindy Sheehan--

Sure, he should. I mean, he's--he asked her to give up her son. She did give up her son. There's been many American women and men who've lost their lives and we're trying to understand for what. Today--today, also in your paper, there was an article that said that this--the troops still don't have the proper equipment. What are these people doing that are running the armed forces? I'll tell you what they're doing. People like the president, and people like Secretary Rumsfeld, are ignoring the career experts like General Shinseki who told them before we went in that we needed adequate equipment and adequate troops. They thrust that aside. These people do not know what they're doing that are running this country. They have no conception of what it's like to fight a war because none of them ever have. And that's the great--that would have been the great positive that John Kerry would have brought to the presidency.

On what the Democrats' plan is for getting out of Iraq--

Well, Bob, the president of the United States is commander in chief. It is up to him to come up for a plan. You can't expect a congressman and senators who don't have the same access to intelligence as the president does to come up with a plan to withdraw our troops from Iraq. We look--the president got us into Iraq 'cause people were willing to trust the president, even some Democrats were willing to trust the president in assuming he knew what he was doing.

On Intelligent Design--

The president has been anti-science for a long time.  This is the most anti-scientific regime I've seen in my lifetime.

Protesting Bush's War

I see that Joe Monahan is bagging New Mexico's Democratic Party and elected officials for not criticizing Bush's Iraq War. He also wonders where the anti-war movement is in New Mexico and claims there's isn't much of one because "What's left of the "Left" is apparently confined to wheelchairs, too old to get out and protest."

I guess ole Joe doesn't get out much.

There have been numerous anti-war events in many parts of the state since before the Iraq war began, and these have been publicized via emails, flyers, websites and at meetings. We can't help it that the mainsteam media doesn't cover this story.

(Photo from Saturday's peace and anti-nuclear proliferation rally in Los Alamos on the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. No prominent Dem was in attendance. Click photo for larger image.)

Monahan also infers that because of a lack of interest or energy, few will protest the war during Bush's visit to Sandia Labs today to sign the energy company giveaway known as the energy bill. This just MIGHT be because the Bush minions have kept the exact time and place of his visit secret, like they attempt to do with most information that should rightfully be publicly available.

From piecing together snippets of info, we know Bush will sign the bill sometime today somewhere within Sandia Labs with Senators Domenici and Bingaman present. No doubt he'll fly in at a Kirtland AFB runway. Neither  location is open to the public at large and surely they won't allow any gathering of citizens to protest or otherwise see or be seen by our timid President.

However, Monahan does have a point about the reluctance of Democratic Party officials and officeholders to criticize Bush on the Iraq war. If you click through to the continuation of this post you'll see the Bring Home the Troops Resolution passed by County Dem Parties including Bernalillo, Santa Fe, Los Alamos and San Juan. It also passed unanimously at the Party's State Central Committee meeting this past April. Yet a link to it and other Resolutions passed by the DPNM is buried on the State Party's website, in the Press Release archive for April 23rd. I wonder why that is.

I do know many Party members have requested the addition of a more prominent link to the Resolutions, to no avail. It's also very frustrating that the official minutes of the SCC meeting, including an official transcript of the approved Resolutions, have yet to be issued by the Party's Secretary, Elena Moreno-Sparks. This despite numerous phone calls and emails from SCC members and others.

It's hard to be a member of an opposition Party that seems afraid to oppose Bush's actions, lies and mistaken policies loudly, passionately and publicly, isn't it? Pussyfooting around in criticizing Bush, coupled with what seem to be a serious lack of transparency and organization, is a hard pill to swallow for those of us who feel the urgency of the moment.

The recent special congressional election in Ohio, where anti-war Iraq war vet Paul Hackett almost beat the Republican candidate in a massively Republican district, clearly shows Dems should be out there loud and clear on the folly and negative consequences of this war. And yet, even there, the Dem Party's DCCC gave Hackett support only very late in the race, after Democracy for America and bloggers at My DD and Daily Kos raised more than $400,000 and helped build a large volunteer force for Hackett.

I guess it's just more evidence of how disconnected Party leaders are from rank and file Democrats , as well as a growing segment of Americans in general. You'd think Bush's plummeting poll numbers on the war and just about everything else would put some "starch," as Wesley Clark calls it, in the Democratic response. There are Democratic officeholders out there speaking truth to power, like Rep. Conyers, Senators Dick Durbin and Barbara Boxer and others, but they are still too few and far between. If we want to win in 2006, we need to wake up the Party NOW, don't we?

From RESOLUTIONS PASSED AT STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING, Saturday, April 23, 2005, Unofficial listing from website of Democratic Party of New Mexico

29.  RESOLUTION TO BRING HOME THE TROOPS

WHEREAS, the actions of the United States of America in Iraq show that the United States wishes to establish a permanent presence in Iraq, including the establishment of a number of military bases, and

WHEREAS, our military is being drained of its capability to respond to crises in other parts of the world, and

WHEREAS, more than 150 billion dollars have been spent for the Iraq occupation and, over the next year, the continuing occupation will take an additional 81 billion dollars away from the priorities at home, and

WHEREAS, there have been more than 1,500 U.S. soldiers killed, thousands of U.S. soldiers wounded, and untold thousands of Iraqi citizens killed in the continuing conflict in Iraq, and

WHEREAS, our military presence in Iraq continues to result in the death and wounding of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens, and

WHEREAS, our occupation in Iraq has worsened an insurgency that has as a principal goal the expulsion of outside influences, and

WHEREAS, our occupation and the associated violence in Iraq has increased recruitment by terrorist organizations intent on attacking the U.S., and

WHEREAS, elections have been held in Iraq, and the Iraqi people want to resolve their own problems and establish their own government free of outside influences,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF NEW MEXICO that the DPNM supports our troops, opposes the continued military occupation of Iraq, and urges the Government of the United States of America to immediately plan for the withdrawal of its military forces from Iraq. This plan should specify a target date for the completion of the withdrawal, which is no later than June 2006. Withdrawal should begin soon to signal our good intentions. The United States should announce that it has no plans for a long-term military presence in Iraq, except for that associated with normal diplomatic relations.

DPBC Coming Events

From the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County:

THIRD THURSDAY MEETING, AUGUST 18, 6:00 PM, LAW SCHOOL, ROOM 2401

CAMPAIGN REFORM, PUBLIC FINANCING AND THE OPEN AND ETHICAL ELECTIONS CODE REFERENDUM

On the 35th anniversary of the founding of Common Cause, New Mexico Executive Director, Matt Brix, will present a brief history of Common Cause including a synopsis of the issues most often addressed. The principal topic will be campaign reform, specifically public financing for PRC elections and a judicial public financing bill from the 2005 legislative session. The talk will highlight Common Cause's work to pass the Open and Ethical Elections Code referendum scheduled for a vote in October's Albuquerque election.  If approved, voluntary limits on campaign spending coupled with voluntary public financing would go into effect.

Voter Registration Workshop

We will have another voter registration training on Monday, August 15th at the Law School Room 2401 at 6:30 PM.  It is crucial that as many of you attend as possible, things have changed and you must register in Santa Fe at the Secretary of State's Office as a registration agent to be eligible to assist people in filling out their form.  Please call the HQ if you have any questions.

For more information or to RSVP for these events call the Bernalillo County Democratic Party Office at 505.256.1855 or email Terri Holland, Executive Director, terri@bernalillodems.org.  Visit https://www.bernalillodems.org

Sirota Nails It (Again)

David Sirota has been hitting the nail on the head for awhile now, with his many blog posts and articles dissecting how the DLC is running on empty. Of course it's a very well-funded empty due to all the multinational-corporate ring kissing they've been doing. With so many so-called Democrats voting for things like the misguided Iraq War, CAFTA, the bankruptcy bill, an onerous energy bill and more, Sirota is calling on labor unions, working people, liberals and other mainstream Dems to demand a return to core Democratic principles, particularly economic ones.

In the face of continuing failures caused by the DLC branch of the Party, isn't it time to stop rewarding Republican-lite and all its sickly denominations? The grassroots movement is growing in numbers and strength and we're terribly tired of being stuck with corporate-apologists for candidates. In my mind, now's the time to stop supporting those who run as Democrats despite their backing so much of the Republican anti-middle class, anti-labor, anti-economic justice agenda.

If you only read a handful of articles this month, be sure to include this one by Sirota, "The Democrats 2008 Choice: Sell out & Lose, Or Stand UP & Win," and take the time to click through to the additional material linked within it.

Particularly educational for those unfamiliar with the roots of the DLC and who funds it, the link to Robert Dreyfuss's article from 2001, "How the DLC Does It," is particularly enlightening. Excerpt:

For $5,000, 180 companies, lobbying firms, and individuals found themselves on the DLC's board of advisers, including British Petroleum, Boeing, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Coca-Cola, Dell, Eli Lilly, Federal Express, Glaxo Wellcome, Intel, Motorola, U.S. Tobacco, Union Carbide, and Xerox, along with trade associations ranging from the American Association of Health Plans to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. For $10,000, another 85 corporations signed on as the DLC's policy roundtable, including AOL, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Citigroup, Dow, GE, IBM, Oracle, UBS PacifiCare, PaineWebber, Pfizer, Pharmacia and Upjohn, and TRW.

Ah yes, the people's party -- once upon a time. Can we move it in that direction yet again?

Pelosi: Formal Sanctions Against CAFTA Gang of 15?

Now this I'd like to see:

From Roll Call:

Pelosi Calls Steering Meeting to Review Defectors' Votes for CAFTA
July 28, 2005, By Erin P. Billings, Roll Call Staff

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), angry that some of her own betrayed the party on a key trade vote, called a last-minute, Members-only meeting tonight to review the early-morning balloting and the reasoning behind defectors' votes.

Pelosi called for the special session of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee at a private whip meeting this morning, during which she said she "had a sleepless night" over the Central American Free Trade Agreement vote that narrowly passed early in the morning. Sources in the room said Pelosi was furious at the outcome and the votes of some of the 15 Democrats -- notably some in safe districts -- who joined the Republicans to pass the bill.

"I've never seen her like that," described one Democratic aide ...

More at Daily Kos.