betty's los angeles

smog report

I think those are genuine clouds. They've been gathering all week though, and not a drop of rain. I feel very brave - okay, a little scared sometimes - zooming around with the top off. You never know when you'll climb a hill into a rainstorm - except I'm pretty sure it won't happen this week. The carwash guys are downstairs shining up my long black train of a car, and they wouldn't be here if it were gonna rain.

Check this out:
http://smoggyblog.com/.

How much fun is that?!

Yeah, I know.

I wish it would rain!

Dean vows support to Kerry

Oh, what the heck! I'd really rather talk about local stuff here, but one more Dean thing can't hurt:

Dean's in the Washington Times today.

Interesting excerpt - now we're rejecting the Christian Coalition parallel? I wonder what the question was that prompted this statement:

Mr. Dean rejected the notion that his DFA effort is similar to what Ralph Reed did through the Christian Coalition to invigorate the right wing of the Republican Party in the 1990s. He said his effort is different because it is more inclusive, noting that many supporters are independents. He also said his goal is to "bring America back to the center."

Note the Washington Times is unabashedly conservative, so don't take the editorializing bits too seriously.

Kerry Tomorrow Update

Okay, new info is totally different. Have they moved the event, or are there two separate events? I'd bet on the former:

UPDATE: NEW DETAILS FOR KERRY VISIT TO LA (5/5)

So here are the details re: John Kerry's visit to LA!!

What:	John Kerry visits LA to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. (Joining him will be Teresa Heinz Kerry, Antonio Villaraigosa, and other national figures).
Where:	Woodrow Wilson High School 4500 Multnomah St. East Los Angeles, CA
When:	Cinco de Mayo (May 5) 8AM-10AM Get there early!!

• THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT!!!!
• Tickets are free.
• Available for pick-up Tues. 5/4 at the JK office (from 9am-5pm).

  To reserve tickets: call (310) 556-9172.

  For Pick-up - Office is located at:
  10350 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite #330
  Los Angeles, CA 90025
  (Note: they are on Little Santa Monica Blvd. 2nd Building East of Beverly Glen)
  

This is an event to reach out and bolster the enthusiam for Kerry in the
Latino community. Please especially encourage all the supporters you
know from the latino community along with any student groups, and / or
associations, etc. to come on out!

I still can't go. oh well!

Day of Action, May 8th

MoveOn.org is calling May 8th a day of action.

People everywhere are holding volunteer events to help elect Kerry, defeat Bush, register voters, etc.

Find an event in your area

Update: I kinda suspected I was wrong on this, but I was in a hurry. MoveOn is promoting actions as found at the above URL, but so is ACT (America Coming Together). I think it may have been they who originally called for a National Day of Action, and they're holding events too.

Kerry in East LA Wednesday

They've announced the time of Kerry's speech at East LA College.

Senator John Kerry will be at ELACC with his wife on Wednesday:

John Kerry will be at East Los Angeles College at
9:30 on Wed., Cinco de Mayo. Hope you can attend. There are
several other speakers scheduled including the cast of
American Family, and local electeds.

East Los Angeles College
1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez
Monterey Park, CA

Having seen Dean in person, I want to see the man voters chose above him. But I've got a meeting. Oh well.

Dean on Voting and Volunteering

Okay, this post is too long. Executive Summary:

• Democracies can fail
• Voting is not enough. Voting is the bare minimum.
• Volunteer. If you don't have lots of time, try to give just three hours a week to a political campaign.
• Make politics a part of your daily life and conversation.
• Run for office.

How's that? The long version follows below the fold.

If there's a crux of Howard Dean's message, I think this is it.

Dean said he came to realize this over the course of his campaign, and I'd agree that I did too, but at some other level - didn't we realize this in high school civics class? Didn't we know this when we first figured out the implications of the electoral college? This is a fundamental of Democracy. This should be in the users' manual.

I'm just glad Dean is out there spreading the message.
What's the message? The message is Voting is not enough.

In this country only 25-50% of registered voters turn out in any given election, and we like to bemoan that fact. We get out the vote, and we register new voters. And we tell those people, "If you don't vote, who's going to represent you? If you don't vote, all those people you disagree with - they'll represent you."

Truth is, the problem is deeper.

Voting is not enough.

• Voting should be the bare minimum.

• Dean said he always thought democracy was the highest evolutionary form of government. That nations developed until they got to a democracy, and there they stayed. Stable. Now, he says, he realizes this scary fact: Democracies can die.

• Democracies can die if people stop caring, if people stop voting, if people become uninformed, if people become detached and uninvolved.

• As people who care, we have to do more than vote. We need to make politics part of our daily lives.
  
  
  
  • Volunteer on a campaign. Even if you think you don't have a lot of time, work just three hours a week on somebody's campaign.

  • The work you do for one progressive candidate will benefit progressive candidates up and down the ticket because when your voters come out to vote for your candidate for dogcatcher or whatever, they will vote the rest of the ticket.

  • Talk to everyone you know, wherever it's appropriate to talk about politics.

  • Your being involved and concerned makes an impression on the people around you. (There is a ripple effect from just your being you! - my interpolation)

  • (Someone asked about trying to convert Republicans, one of whom was pretty nasty in response.) Don't waste time engaging the real conservatives, especially the virulent ones. There are certainly lots of moderate Republicans and independents we can sway to our cause, but if people are nasty, we can't reason with them, we can't play nice with them, and we don't want them. It is more profitable to get the progressive base to actually be concerned and involved and to vote.
    

• Run for office. Don't expect to win the first time or the second time, but run for office, get experience, spread your message.
  
  
  
  • Even if the electorate is very conservative, it's important to get our message out there.
    
  • Every office is important. Run for school board, run for city council, for neighborhood council, for dog catcher, for Congress. We need good people at every level of government.
    
  • In Vermont, some positions are part time. You can hold elected office and keep your regular job. (Dean continued to practice medicine while serving in the Vermont legislature!) Look for positions like this if you can't afford to put the rest of your life on hold.
    
  • Everybody has some of the same basic needs: jobs, health care, education. The progressive platform will appeal to people when they realize that the people they've been voting for aren't fulfilling these basic needs.
    
  
  

[I'm sure I could go on, but I want to get this out. Maybe I'll add more later. As always, comments appreciated.]

Dean on Affordable Housing

More Dean comments from his speeches in LA last Friday.
One of the topics he spoke about at East LA College more than at UCLA was affordable housing. I forget if he brought it up, or Rep. Solis, or an audience member. The percentage of workers who can afford a home in Los Angeles is pretty grim, so the issue really hits home here.

• We have to keep the current federal programs; they're absolutely vital.
• New programs are better handled at the state level.
• Vermont handled this by a program of incentives to developers to build affordable housing. The condition on the developer was that the units always remain affordable.
  • This prevents owners from deciding to upgrade and make units more expensive.
  • One downside is that residents don't build as much equity (huh? I guess some of these would be for sale, not just for rent.); when they sell, they can't sell at the market rate because the unit has to remain affordable.
  • The upside is that your number of affordable units is stable, and the residents have security that their unit will remain affordable.
• Vermont did all of this in developments with multiple levels of affordability - so you don't get ghettoization, NIMBYism, ...

[As always, I'm sure I missed stuff. Comments and corrections are invited!]

Dean on John Kerry

What Dean said about John Kerry (and a bit about Ralph Nader):

• Please vote for John Kerry.

• This may be the most important election in our lifetimes, and we must win.

  • Even if he's not the President Dean would have been, John Kerry will be a hundred times better than George W. Bush.

  • John Kerry has personally promised Dean that the first bill he submits to Congress will be a health care bill. Kerry's health care plan is "nearly identical" to Dean's. (*cough!*)

  • John Kerry is a true and dedicated environmentalist. Meanwhile, George Bush is promoting a "Clear Skies Act" that substantially weakens air pollution regulations. Kerry ran in Michigan on an unpopular platform of increasing CAFE standards.
    (more on this, can't remember it all...)

  • We must return to a sane foreign policy. Kerry's is much better than Bush's.
    

• Please support the Kerry campaign as much as you can. Voting is not enough. Volunteer, talk to everyone you know. It would be great if Southern Californians would go to Arizona and New Mexico to support Kerry like we supported Dean in the primary. (After all, if Kerry's losing in SoCal, we're in big trouble!)

• If you're not comfortable working for John Kerry, work for another campaign. Those voters you get out - for Barbara Boxer, for Jim Brandt, for Hilda Solis, for any other liberal on the ballot - will vote for liberals up and down the ballot. The benefit will redound to John Kerry and to every other Democrat on the ticket.

• Dean respects Ralph Nader and likes his record and his platform very much. But (repeated this several times): We cannot allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. Make no mistake, the choice this year is between John Kerry and George W. Bush.

• Dean is talking to Kerry a lot and giving him advice on various matters. He doesn't feel it's fair to air the content of that advice or comment on Kerry's responses in public, though.

[It's hard to read the two words "President Dean" separately, isn't it? Sigh!]

Dean on Helping the Republicans

More points from Howard Dean's speech last Friday at UCLA:

Some Democrats in Congress are actually helping the opposition, and we need to hold them accountable.

He's talking about Democrats voting for the Republican agenda. His example: The Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003. This is the problematic Medicare prescription drug benefit plan passed last year which funnels money to insurance providers and drug companies instead of to our needy seniors.

• The GOP has enough votes to pass these bills on its own. But when Democrats cross lines, the Republican leadership doesn't have to call in these votes from some of its members.
• There are Republicans with moderate districts who haven't had to make these unpopular votes, who can go back to their constituents and claim innocence of forwarding their party's agenda. Assuredly, they would have had to vote for the Medicare act if Democrats had not helped out. Crossover Democrats are helping these Republicans keep their jobs!
• Dean says House Democratic Leader Pelosi is aware of this and will crack down on it more strongly than her predecessor.
• But.. we should be willing to do our part - we should throw these rogue Democrats out. We want more than just any Democrat, we want representatives who will forward our agenda, not the GOP's.

I think Dean referenced a particular Republican and/or a particular Democrat, but I can't remember the names. Anyone?

Anyway, have a look at the House roll-call vote for the Medicare act. Nine Democrats crossed over, and the bill only passed by one vote. Twenty-two Republicans got a free pass to not vote for this bill.

Dean on DFA 2.0*

Here are some of my notes from the two Dean speeches I attended yesterday, one at UCLA with grassroots leaders, one at East L.A. College with Latinos for America, Congresswoman Hilda Solis, and California State Senator and Majority Whip Richard Alarcón (who is running for Mayor of Los Angeles next year).

I'm doing this all from memory, so please correct me if I got something wrong of left out any juicy bits. This first portion is just the bits about Democracy for America, because I came to the program with a lot of uncertainty and questions about the new organization, and I think he addressed them all.

• DFA 2.0 will not have formal relationships with state or local chapters for legal reasons, and because they really want locals to have local control over decision making and resource allocation. The Burlington office will run a lean ship anyway.
• Their business (my interpolation) is to get Dean out to campaign and fundraise for local candidates, and to serve as a clearinghouse for information. Their list of Dean-inspired and Deanlike candidates is now up to 600!
• State and local groups must stay active and stay together. Let's not make endorsements in races (e.g. the Colorado Senate race) where we're divided, just let individuals get out and do their own thing. As a group, focus our resources on campaigns where there's a clear progressive choice.
• We are in a long term battle. Our goal is to stage a Christian Coalition-style revolution over the years (it took them 10 or 20?)
  • Have a progressive candidate in every election, from the lowest levels up, and even where we don't think we can win.
  • Get out and make the case for progressive values and our ability to deliver jobs, health care, education, a cleaner environment.
  • Don't be afraid to take controversial positions, like supporting gay marriage. Some people will make an issue of it at first, but over time they will realize that the vast rest of their interests align more closely with us, and they will not care.
  • Over time, people will realize the Republicans aren't giving them jobs, health care, and education. They'll get frustrated at the party in power, and 1994-style, they'll throw them out. We will win over time if we consistently get out there and make our case.
• We want to train candidates and volunteer leaders, but we don't need to reinvent the wheel. There is a great organization called 21st Century Democrats that is already doing this, and we are partnering with them for training.
  (Note: 21st Century Dems and DFA are holding Democratic Activist Training at USC on May 15-16. Sign up through http://21stdems.org)

I guess that's kind of the organizational and motivational framework of DFA 2.0. What do we actually do?? He said so much that I think it requires a whole separate post. But the short answer is we volunteer on campaigns, we gather like-minded people, we run for office, and we make politics a daily part of our lives. It's really hard to whittle it down to a sentence.

Updated: I added the 21st Century Dems bit. Wonder what else I'm forgetting!