Democracy for New Mexico

Howard Dean on DFA, the DNC and Tomorrow's Meetup

Democracy for America (DFA) has released a video of Howard Dean in conjunction with our DFA-DFNM Meetups tomorrow. Dr. Dean speaks to us about the status of the Democratic Party and where it needs to move to win, his views on the possibility of running for DNC Chair and how we can help DFA grow and be successful in future. Click here to view a Windows or Quicktime video clip.

DFA has also annouced it's working with Toys for Tots to collect toys and distribute them to needy children in the community this holiday season. For more information about this program in New Mexico, click here.

In December, DFA is also encouraging Meetup groups to plan DFACorps activities for the holiday season. On December 11th and 12th, they are planning a National Weekend of Action where DFA groups around the country will participate in a variety of community service activities. We'll be discussing ideas for this soon. Any suggestions?

Bring Your Phone Cards to December Meetup

The next DFA - Democracy for New Mexico Meetup is Wednesday, December 1st from 7-9 PM. In Albuquerque we'll be at Page One bookstore and in Santa Fe at the Church of Religious Science at 505 Camino de los Marquez. 

All across the country people are discussing what to do next. One suggestion received by DFA's national office was to reactivate DFACorps (nee DeanCorps), which performs community service on behalf of Democracy for America. The first effort will be to donate long-distance phone cards to wounded and disabled veterans in VA hospitals for the holiday season. You can read about the details in a post last week on this website.

Note that each phone card donation sent into the DFA offices will be matched by Democracy for America. Your $10 card will immediately become $20 worth of phone time!

We think Democracy for New Mexico should rise to this occasion. We all talk about making the holidays less about consumerism and more about real generosity. This is a tangible way to help wounded soldiers while bringing attention to the fact that the Bush regime, which gets such undeserved credit for being pro-military, is leaving them high and dry during the holidays.

So when you come to the Meetup on December 1st, please bring an unused phone card of any denomination. (DFA is non-denominational.)

Collect cards from friends and family, too. Meetup Coordinators will send them with your best wishes to DFA headquarters in Burlington. If you can't make it to the Meetup and still want to donate cards, you can send them to us in Albuquerque or Santa Fe. We'll send the address to you on request.

We have a friendly bet going as to which group will donate the most phone cards, so give generously and often!

John McAndrew, Santa Fe
Barbara Wold, Albuquerque

P.S. Please don't forget to RSVP at Meetup.com if you plan to attend!

How the Democratic Party Works

Smart Campaigns, created by folks who are active in the Progressive Democrats of America, as well as Dean supporters, is compiling information on DNC members in all states, along with contact information. Click here.

The Democratic National Committee Membership Roster for 2004-2008 compiled by the Office of the Secretary as of November 8, 2004, lists these names for New Mexico:

John Wertheim, Albuquerque, Chair
Annadelle Sanchez, Espanola
Mary Gail Gwaltney, Las Cruces, Executive Committee Member
Hon. Raymond Sanchez, Albuquerque

The website includes their mailing addresses and phone numbers. The Daily Kos list on the Smart Campaigns page has a somewhat different list of DNC members from our state, but it's based on delegates to the 2004 DNC Convention.

A number of us are working on assembling information on the national and local infrastructures of the Democratic Party, as well as on local meeting dates and how to become a precinct or ward chair or a member of various committees that vote. If you have any information you'd like to be included, please note it in the comments section of this post.

You'll see a link category for the Democratic Party in the upper left-hand sidebar of this website where I've included links to information we've managed to obtain so far. Our next DFA/DFNM Meetup in Albuquerque, which is set for Wednesday, December 1st at 7:00 PM at Page One Bookstore, will feature a presentation by a former Democratic Party ward chair, explaining how the Party works in Bernalillo County at the ward and precinct levels.

People interested in participating in the Party in order to improve how it serves the progressive grassroots are urged to attend this Meetup and link up with other like-minded folks. We'll be building our information base about how the Party operates and facilitating people's participation in significant numbers at the local level. Our next Meetup will also feature a presentation by Dr. Miles Nelson on his SeedPAC, which will raise money for local progressive candidates.

To join our Meetup group or RSVP for our next meeting, click here and enter your zip code.

The next general meeting of the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County is set for Thursday, December 2nd, at 6:00 PM at UNM Law School. County Clerk Mary Herrera or a member of her staff will discuss the election and its immediate aftermath. It should be noted that these meetings are usually on the third Thursday of every month at UNM Law School. This one was postponed because of vote counting and canvassing. Open to all registered Democrats.

To receive the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County's weekly email newsletter, send your name and email address to dpbc@att.net. You must be a registered Democrat to be on this list.

Sound Off! On the Brink of Turning the Tide

We had our regular DFA - Democracy for New Mexico Meetup in Albuquerque the day after the selection. We had wavered on whether to hold it or not, given the horrors of the manufactured mandate Bush claims. But some people had signed up for it, so we went ahead.

To my surprise, the Page One coffee shop was absolutely PACKED with people. Faces old and new. Long-time DFA folks and new people finding their way from MoveOn and ACT and the Kerry campaign, looking for a way to the future, to remain connected and active despite the Pyrrhic victory of the dark forces of fear and repression and war for its own sake.

We just went around the room and let everyone ramble. People expressed all the emotions I know I have no need to list. But there was an incredibly creative energy also present in the room, an energy ripe with ideas for action by little circles of citizens, small but potent cells of citizens, loosely networking across the city and the state and the nation. Planning actions that may well be effectively politically, but that are also intrinisically valuable because they are right actions, expressive of caring and humanity and soul and democracy with a small "d."

It is only since the early actions of MoveOn and then the wildly inclusive and original tactics of the Dean campaign that we have actually had any real and widespread grassroots citizen action plan for taking out Bush and his minions and evolving the agenda to serve the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party. We almost won, despite how difficult it is to take out a "commander-in-chief" in "wartime" with the corporate media working against us. In spite of the religious poobahs going so far as to claim it would be sinful to vote for Kerry, while posters of Bush morphing into Jesus were making their way into many a small-town and rural byway.

Of course they stole votes. Of course they used all kinds of filthy tactics to prevent our people from voting. But still, they almost lost. We are literally on the brink of turning the tide. A tipping point is coming and Bush's no-doubt disastrous second term may well provide it.

He, and those who voted for him, have made their bed and they will have to lie in it. They have the presidency AND the Congress. There is no-one to blame. There is inevitable disaster coming as an inevitable result of their misguided and dishonest and incompetent plans for our nation and the world. This may well provide the perfect opportunity for completely discrediting their positions and approach. They will look like asses and have no-one else to point to, to blame.

Sure, wide swaths of humanity will suffer and even die. More and more of the planet's natural places will be sacrificed to greed and drilling. Our social safety net, health care system and the remnants of a sense of the common good will continue to deteriorate.  So of course I feel angry and miserable and depressed. But I'm trying to keep my eye on the silver lining.

Lyndon Johnson won a landslide and yet had to withdraw from the next election. Richard Nixon won a landslide and quickly found himself in Watergate and ruin. Sometimes when the asses of hubris get their own way, what they really get is enough rope to hang themselves.

All I know is that I've met so many incredibly talented and passionate and zanily funny people in this new political landscape. And I know most of them are in no way ready to give up now. If you feel the same way, go ahead and click on the Meetup button on the left-hand side of this page and join us. And share your hopes and plans and strategies and opinions here. There's a movement a'brewing.

Barbara Wold

DFA/DFNM Meetups Today

The last Meetups before the election are scheduled for tonight at 7PM. Click here to get more information or to RSVP. Only 26 days until the election!

At Albuquerque's Page One Bookstore, we'll be hearing a report on how Democrats can be effective against the right-wing Republicans and discussing opportunities for volunteering at local groups and campaigns. We'll also hear about an event hosted by the NM Alliance for the International Criminal Court on October 18th at UNM where DFNM will be tabling. We believe the Meetup will be relatively short and we plan to gather afterwards at the nearby Flying Star to share some desserts and generally chew the fat, political or not.

Mona Blaber reports that the Democracy for Santa Fe Meetup will be short, sweet and action-oriented:

• Write letters to New Mexicans who are undecided about their choice in the presidential election
  
• Distribute some key facts about voter identification and other voting issues
  
• Plan for Election Day and Election Weekend
  
• Offer a variety of opportunities to put our noses to the grindstone over the next month to elect a new president!
  

There's been a venue change from the St. Francis Hotel to the back room of the Kerry-Edwards/County Dems headquarters, 947 W. Alameda in the Solana Center.

I see at the Meetup page for NM that there are also DFA groups in Farmington, Roswell, Las Cruces and Carlsbad, but I don't know how active they are. If anyone out there is a member of these groups or any other DFA Meetup in New Mexico, please let us know you're out there by posting a comment here!

Richard Romero Joins Albuquerque Meetups

We've learned that the Democratic candidate for Congressional District 1, Richard Romero, will be stopping by at both our NE Heights and West Side Meetups today. Also, Dory Shonagon, who was in Boston for the convention as a volunteer, will report on her experiences at various "shadow convention" events featuring Howard Dean and other progressives, as well as her reflections on the convention.

Barb

Democracy for Santa Fe Meetup

The activists at Democracy for Santa Fe's meetup today will be joined by Dr. Miles Nelson, who ran against Richard Romero in the Democratic Primary for New Mexico Congressional District 1. Dr. Nelson is an emergency physician who works at St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe. He has since founded a Political Action Committee (PAC) to support progressive candidates. Miles will share with us his thoughts on and plans for the future of progressive politics in our state.

There will also be a teleconference with Mike Miles, who is running for U.S. Senate in Colorado. Mike will be speaking about his insurgent candidacy in that race, as well as his larger view of the progressive agenda. We are especially eager to give Mike and Miles Nelson an opportunity to talk with each other.

Also joining DFSF will be Mona Blaber, a local activist and campaign worker recently returned from her trip to Boston as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. We have sought one other guest, but have not as yet heard whether or not he will be available. We'll just leave you hanging, since we've been left hanging as well.

After this Meetup, we will only have two more before the November election. The time to get reinserted into political activism is NOW. We can wish for a regime change in America or we can work to make it happen. We can greet the headlines of November 3rd as spectators or as participants in the making of those headlines.

Many of you have continued to be active in registering voters, writing letters, going to rallies and protests and so on. Others have gone quiet. We need for those of you who have been discouraged by what happened in Governor Dean's campaign to re-emerge in time to take America back from the Bush regime.

There are a lot of races that need your help: Tom Udall for 3rd Congressional District, Ed Chavez for NM Supreme Court, Richard Romero in the 1st Congressional District down south, as well as the Presidential campaign of John Kerry and John Edwards.

We need to take a small step in the right direction by giving the White House and the Congress to the Democratic Party. That is our immediate goal. Our long-term goal is to build a farm team of progressive candidates and activists who can be insurgents in the future. This can only be done when every American decides to stop abdicating his or her responsibility to vote and be active.

We at Democracy for Santa Fe can help you find an organization that can use your time and talents to best effect come November. Come to Meetup this Wednesday. Bring friends. Get inspired. Get connected. Get busy.
--
John McAndrew
Democracy for Santa Fe
Progressive. Inclusive. Active.

West Side Meetup Revived!

This was posted as a thread comment but I thought it merited its own topic:

We are reviving our Westside Meetup tomorrow at 7 pm, meeting at Satellite Coffee, northeast of PepBoys at Alameda and Coors, 1628 Alameda. Stop by, Westsiders, to kvetch, chit chat, plan for democracy, etc. --foodies for dean

Good to see the West Siders with their own Meetup again. And I bet delicious food will always be part of the experience!

Come to Meetup Wednesday Night, 7 PM at Page One!

We Democracy for New Mexico folks are volunteering our services to the Kerry campaign and they are delighted to have our help!

DFNM Action plan: to go into Kerry HQ and volunteer as a group on the same weeknight each week to phonebank for the Kerry/Edwards campaign (or whatever else they might need us to do in the office) from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Wear your Dean t-shirts or buttons and let's get busy to remove W! The night will be either Monday or Thursday... those of us participating will vote on that at Page One at Meetup.

Nancy Galloway