Thurston County Democrats

Both Fredd Finn and Daryl Daugs were featured in the YDWA candidate interviews.

From Melon Online blog:

Without a doubt the primary in the 35th is going to be the most exciting Washington State will witness this year. Whoever wins will almost certainly go on to secure this overwhelmingly Blue district.

... 

Having just listened to Daugs stories of raising abused foster children and wading through the destruction of New Orleans, Finn's noble contribution to his community somehow seemed superficial – an unfair judgment the endorsement committee could not avoid making under the circumstances. After all, not everyone has to be a martyr to be a credit to their community.

The following debate on who to endorse was vigorous. Many felt Finn was the more “practical candidate” whilst Daugs would be better suited heading up an NGO. Others reported feeling a unique “glow” from Daugs who made them feel like he was more of a person than a politician. Everyone agreed that both were ultimately outstanding candidates and bemoaned the fact that they had to compete in the same district.

Read the entire post, its an interesting look into the race. 

The 35th LD Democratic blog also features some upcoming events for Daugs in early June. 

 

Well, we know Mike is running, so...:

DeBolt will see a rematch from Democrat Mike Rechner, whom he defeated handily in 2006. Despite that, former Chehalis Mayor Fred Ryder said Rechner presents legitimate competition and implored the crowd to put big checks in the envelopes placed at each table.

“The gentleman that’s running -- and I use that term loosely -- he’s going to come on hard, and Richard needs your help,” Ryder said, adding that the clout built by District 20 legislators is important for the area. “We have a good team, so work hard to keep these guys there.”

Damn right he's coming out hard. 

 

Sometimes it's good to look around and see what other democrats are putting in their platforms. This is the link to the CDP platform.

 

From HQ:

Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers who have been helping this week with data entry of 11,000 caucus attendees!

We’re about half way to completion and we need to keep pushing to get done early next week. If you can spare the time this weekend or next week, please come to the office at 2120 Pacific Ave. (between KRXY Radio and Capital City Stove and Fan) and help us make a dent in the data!

It’s easy work, not a lot of typing, and most importantly, highly paid...free coffee, tea, pop, etc.

We have 5-6 computers but if you have a notebook computer with wireless access, you can work from that computer, too.
It’s a big job and every hour you can give to the effort is helpful.

For more information, you can call the office at 956-0235.

How exactly local parties should live with the Top Two is the topic. In Thurston County we have the very real possibility that we could end up with two Dems or two Republicans in a county commission election in November.

So, how should the Thurston County Dems live with this? The Olympian:

Thurston County Democratic chairman John Cusick said he hopes there is some way the party's precinct committee officers could be allowed to nominate more than one candidate in situations such as the race between Romero and Halvorson.

"I want to hold out that possibility," Cusick said.

Failing that, he said the party's precinct committee officers might nominate one candidate, and the party might endorse two. Or, the party could bypass all of the nomination problems by just letting the top two play out the way its sponsors intended, letting candidates run regardless of party support.

But Zack Smith, an Olympia resident who serves on the Democrats' executive board from the 9th Congressional District, predicted his party will do nominating conventions separate from the ongoing presidential caucus process.

"As far as I can see it's open and shut," Smith said of the nominating conventions. "What we need to be able to do is let people know which candidate is the choice of the party."

The Pierce County Democrats have already sort of dealt with this by deciding how they're going to live in a post-IRV world. They're going to allow up to three candidates for county offices to advance with the bold "Dem" lable attached to their candidacies. This move allows choice, but also avoids the "nomination" fight.

Rather, it simply says that "these people are Democrats." The local Democratic organization decides who carries the lable, but it doesn't limit the label to just one candidate either.

Stewart Henderson, one of the co-chairs of the platform committee, just sent an email to encourage platform committee members to get in last minute comments on the draft platform:

If you have comments, WE NEED YOUR COMMENTS BY END-OF-DAY THIS
THURSDAY (TOMORROW)!  We promised to get this to John Cusick Friday,
so he could send it out to all the delegates.  We will give the
delegates a week to respond with comments, and then we will have a
work session the weekend after next to review their input and finalize
ideas for resolutions.

Thanks for all your hard work and input!  I think we're on track to
have a great product here!

You can view the draft agenda here.

View responses from platform committee members here.

Delegates elected during the precinct caucuses will approve a final county platform at the April 19 county convention. 

The Thurston County Democrats is opening up their (our, I guess) platform writing process this year. Anyone can watch as our hard working platform committee puts pen to paper (or finger to key board).

The platform committees emails to eachother are public, and available here. While they are meeting in person, they're doing much of their document sharing and discussion via email.

I've been trying to keep track of their emails to each other, and this is the most recent version of the platform.

You can also let the committee know what's on your mind. Use these forums to discuss issues you think should be in the platform or what resolutions (if you want to go that far) the Thurston Democrats should consider this year.

I'll keep track of what's going on in their email group and on the forums and write updates on the blog as things change. 

Via email:

This is a reminder our next monthly meeting is Monday, February 25, at 7:00 PM in room 152, building 1 at the Thurston County Courthouse.

Following a brief update on the tremendously successful caucus and convention cycle we've now entered, we will consider the proposed revisions to our Campaign Services Policy and Procedure, as well as the three resolutions introduced last fall and the "Priorities for a Healthy Washington" resolution introduced last month . New business includes adoption of our 2008 budget and recommendations from the Campaign Services Committee.

The full draft agenda for the meeting is available here. The draft minutes of last month's meeting are available here.

As always, please remember the less fortunate in our community and bring one or more non-perishable items for donation to the Thurston County Food Bank.

I look forward to seeing you next week!

The 35th LD blog asks:

Are you voting in the primary? Why or why not? Leave your comments below.

Go on over there and let them know. 

The turnout for the precinct caucuses on Saturday throughout Thurston County was 10,956.

To compare that, the turnout in 2004, a year that everyone back then called "historic" was just under 5,000 throughout the county. Yeah, we had some loud and crowded rooms.

UPDATE: Then again, if you look at the turnout in the 2006 and 2004 primaries, turnout on Saturday was about a third of what we would have expected.

So, if you assume there are about 135,000+ registered voters in Thurston County, our turnout for the Democratic caucuses was under ten percent. If you assume equal turnout for the Republicans (and you can't) turnout was still under 20 percent.

More than 80 percent of the voters in Thurston County did not voice their preference on Saturday.

At Slog and the Capitol Hill Blog, they write about the caucuses, and why things go the way they go (crowded). I responded in the comments at CH blog, but I thought it would be worth reposting here at home:

We had a similar problem in Thurston County. At least down here, this is why we stuff a number of precincts into large rooms, rather than splitting them up into classrooms or private homes:

1. Student privacy. School districts are wary about letting a bunch of people they don't know into class rooms because students leave materials behind. So, for outside groups reserving school facilities, they prefer they use the common areas, such as gyms or cafeterias.

2. Americans with Disabilities Act. With public buildings you can be pretty sure that they're ADA compliant. Private homes, not so much.

3. Magnitude of the job to organize caucuses and the lack of people involved in local parties. Did you know that parties were organizing caucuses six months ago? Not many people did, and the volunteers that were, were likely too busy to call you to see if your home was available.

Just getting one gym nailed down for 20 precincts is hard enough. Getting 20 private homes would be insane. Unfortunately, the on the ground work needed to organize caucuses is being left to fewer and fewer dedicated people.

I'm sorry if this next sentence sounds blunt (I don't intend it to be blunt or rude). If you had a problem with how the caucuses were organized, either make sure we use the primary to allocate delegates in four years or help out with your local Democratic organization.

We talked about caucuses (seriously, we did), putting some resolutions on the February meeting agenda and other stuff. You can read our draft minutes from our awesome secretary here.

From K-Lynn on flickr:

More caucus flickr shots here and here.

What happens when your (you being the Thurston County Republicans) website crashes the day of the caucus? You lose caucus goers to the other party.

I kid you not. This person apparently couldn't find her caucus location on the Republican website (did I say it crashed? It crashed), so she just went to a Democratic one. Gives us in the hyperpartisan area a different view of partisanship.

Karan has a great report from her caucus here.

Speaking of great reports, there are some other ones over at Olyblog in their caucus open thread.

Olympia 18

Olympia 49

Tumwater 1

Woodard Creek 047

Olympia #2, #19, #43

Chime on in over there.

Here's a thought or two on why the county Republicans website crashed this morning and our's didn't.

1. We have an awesome webmistress. I don't know about the Republicans, but our's is awesome.

2. The state Republicans website points to the county party's website as the resource for caucus locations.

Instead of hanging our website out to dry, the state Democratic party took it upon themselves to develop a database on which anyone in the state can look up their location.

I wonder how many other Republican county websites were sold down the crash and burn river today by the state Republicans?

Democracy crashed the county Republicans website. Cross our fingers for our website.

Stopped by county headquarters to pick up some filled out proxy forms for my site, and a fellow came in to ask some questions about caucuses. Mostly had to do with how long it would take (you can sign in and leave, takes about 20 minutes at least)and how late he can show up (don't show up later than 1:30 or you're toast).

This is all information that was available online in a dozen or so locations, but he decided to stop by the county party headquarters to find out. Just reminds me that people like to get information in a myriad of ways.

I've been home for two hours sweeping and mopping, and I've gotten two robo calls. This is added to the three I got earlier this week.

I was talking to one of my work mates all week about the caucus. We talked about where he should go, what he should expect and how to get the most out of the process. Late yesterday as I was leaving he tells me that it turns out he can't go, his roof is leaking and he needs to take care of it. Leaks happen.

Also, if you're asked to be a caucus secretary or if you're going to ask someone to be a caucus secretary, here are some good thoughts.

For the folks that are interested in the three resolutions (here, here and here) that were introduced and were scheduled to be voted on last week, they've been held over until the February meeting.

We voted to hold them over because we expected the training for the upcoming caucuses to take up most of the meeting. Which it did, so see you at the end of the month!

Four years ago, George Lakoff was the academic savant who would save the Democratic Party. His message? It can be summed up with this excerpt from his Moral Politics book: Political conservatives have spent substantial time in recent decades “carefully working out their values and designing a language to fit those values so that they can evoke them with powerful slogans, repeated over and over again, that reinforce the family-morality-policy links [that conservatives believe in], until the connections have come to seem natural to many Americans, including many in the media.”

For Lakoff, the political key is identifying values and developing a language to present those values.

These days, the academic savant who is going to save the Democratic Party is Drew Westen, whose book The Political Brain is a must-read. He's advising all of the major Democratic presidential candidates. In September he wrote this for the Seattle Times opinion page:

"Two visions of mind and brain have dominated contemporary American politics. One is a dispassionate vision, which suggests that voters choose candidates by examining their positions on the issues and coolly calculating their relative costs and benefits. The other, a passionate vision, suggests that voters are moved by the feelings that candidates and parties elicit in them and are guided by their shared values and goals.

This resolution was presented at the November 26th TCD meeting,  This resolution will be voted on at the January 28th TCD meeting where PCOs, Proxies and paid members of 30 days or more are welcome to vote.  We are posting it to TCD Blue to encourage discussion about the resolution in preparation for the vote in January.

In order to comment or post to the TCD blog, you must have a user id and password.  You can create one by following the "Create new account" link at the bottom left-hand side of any page on this website.

Resolution in Support of the Congressional Accompaniment Program

Whereas the 2008 Congressional Accompaniment Program is a non-partisan fact-finding tour to Israel/Palestine funded by donations from constituents and other citizens, and;

Whereas the tour is tentatively scheduled for the spring recess of Congress in 2008, and;
 
Whereas, this educational tour will help elected officials make informed decisions regarding  the Israel/Palestine region, and;
 
Whereas the tour is for the elected officials and/or their staff members, along with interested constituents funding their own trips, and;
 
Whereas the founding organizations have researched the Congressional rules governing travel reimbursements and are confident that the CAP trip is in full compliance (CAP is not a registered lobby and has no paid staff);
 

This resolution was presented at the November 26th TCD meeting,  This resolution will be voted on at the January 28th TCD meeting where PCOs, Proxies and paid members of 30 days or more are welcome to vote.  We are posting it to TCD Blue to encourage discussion about the resolution in preparation for the vote in January. 

In order to comment or post to the TCD blog, you must have a user id and password.  You can create one by following the "Create new account" link at the bottom left-hand side of any page on this website.

Resolution of the Thurston County Democratic Central Committee
Calling for the Impeachment of Richard Cheney

Whereas House Resolution 799 (HRes799) has been introduced on the floor of the US House with 23 sponsors and has advanced to the Judiciary Committee, and;
 
Whereas HRes799 lays out some but not all of the offenses of the Vice President, namely:

• purposely manipulating intelligence to fabricate a threat of Iraqi weapons of  mass destruction in order to justify an attack on Iraq
• deceiving Congress about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida
• threatening aggression against the Republic of Iran, absent any real threat to the United States, 
  

and;
 
Whereas the US Constitution provides an orderly way to stop abuse of power by executive officers in Article II, Section 4;
 
Therefore, be it resolved that the Thurston County Democratic Central Committee hereby instructs our elected officials Brian Baird and Adam Smith to join immediately in the effort to advance HRes799 calling for the impeachment of Richard Cheney, and;
 
A copy of this resolution shall be delivered to the following elected representatives:
 
United States Congressman Brian Baird
United States Congressman Adam Smith
United States Senators Murray and Cantwell
State Senator Fraser
State Representatives Hunt and  Williams
Thurston County Commissioners
The City Councils of Olympia, Lacey, and  Tumwater
Howard Dean, Democratic National  Committee
Dwight Pelz, Chair, Washington State Democratic  Central Committee

This resolution was presented at the November 26th TCD meeting,  This resolution will be voted on at the January 28th TCD meeting where PCOs, Proxies and paid members of 30 days or more are welcome to vote.  We are posting it to TCD Blue to encourage discussion about the resolution in preparation for the vote in January.

In order to comment or post to the TCD blog, you must have a user id and password.  You can create one by following the "Create new account" link at the bottom left-hand side of any page on this website.

Resolution to Investigate the Abuse of Authority by Law Enforcement Officials During the November 2007 Olympia Port Protests                                           

WHEREAS, the Citizens of the United States have a constitutional right to publically voice their dissent to the actions and policies of their elected representatives and all public officials are constitutionally mandated to respect this right  

WHEREAS, the actions and policies of the current federal administration with regard to the instigation and pursuance of the War in Iraq are arguably illegal and opposed by a large majority of the American people

WHEREAS, public demonstrations and civil disobedience have been traditional avenue of action by our citizens to challenge unethical and extra-constitutional abuses by the institutions of our society.

WHEREAS, public law enforcement officials are required by law and precedence to remain neutral, respecting the individual rights and persons of those citizens exercising this right to dissent and most especially avoiding excesses in the use of force and coercion that might create a climate of fear and intimidation against all citizens’ right to dissent.  

WHEREAS, the Olympia Police Department clearly used excessive and unreasonable force beyond their legal authority during the November 2007 Olympia Port Protests Against the Iraq War, as witnessed by both participants in that protest and by other casual observers.

WHEREAS, it is in the interests of every citizen into ensure that law enforcement officials, who are acting under the authority granted to them by the people, must use restraint in the exercise of that authority, respecting the principles of free speech and the right to assemble as enumerated in our constitution and thus guarding rights of all the people.
 
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Thurston County Democrats (TCD) call for an investigation by an independent authority into the actions of all law enforcement officials, up the entire command chain, to determine if officers committed illegal or reprehensible actions against the protesters during the November 2007 Olympia Port Protests  

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that TCD will ask that if unacceptable actions are found to have occurred, either by direct testimony or by the preponderance of evidence, that those responsible be held accountable and that a review of police policies and procedures be undertaken by legally accountable authorities with the goal of eliminating policies and practices within enforcement organizations that encourage or condone these unacceptable actions.