we can win control back!

[sabbat hunter]

we can do it!! just like kerry said, hope is on the way. it will just not come in january

even though the kerry lost the election we can win the future. it starts now! we can recover from this and bring the democratic party back to power on the federal level. we must start small.
let me give you an example.

for decades the republicans ruled nassau county unchallenged. on the town and county level. they contiually won by saying they were for smaller government and less taxes. they kept property taxes on the county level steady or they cut them. but of course the government still had to be paid and bills ran up. sales taxes went up, but the republicans ran that they lowered property taxes so they were reelected. they raised fees for county parks and services, but they said property taxes were kept steady, so they got reelected. they used on shot revenues to keep the property taxes down and got reelected. they overprojected revenues coming in, so at the end of the year they had to borrow money, but they got reelected. (the county 'sold off' in advance the money they would get from the tobacco lawsuit settlement)

for years the democrats warned of problems looming, but except for my towns supervisor (who won more on name recognition than anything else) democrats on the town and county level lost year after year
but then it all fell apart. there was no more fees to raise, no more one shot revenue to raise and the county due to all the last minute borrowing found itself deep in debt and a large defict looming and no way other than to raise propety taxes to eliminate it. but the republicans refused. the state stepped in and put a financial oversight board in place. finally the public woke up. for the first time EVER the democrats took control of the county legislature (FYI in nassau county registered republicans out number democrats 3-2). before the republicans had a 14-5 lead. but then the democratic party shocked the republicans and took control of the county legislature.

they made a hard decision. the passed to raise property taxes, the county exec tom Gullotta tried to fight it but eventually gave in because he had no other choice. At one time gullotta had state wide ambitions, but due to his financial mismanagement of the county that was lost. in fact when he came up for re-election he chose not to run.
the democrats put up Tom Suozzi, mayor of glen cove, as their candidate for county exec.
Guess what happened? for the first time in nearly 40 years there was a democratic county exec. not only that but the county comptroller is a democrat too.

democrats are now strong in nassau county. the republican machine is broken. sure a republican might still win in nassau but now it will be afight.

to top it offof the 5 congressmen/women on long island 4 are democrats. including 2 who are in districts where republicans far out number the democrats (of the other 2 one has more democrats in it due to the fact it runs into queens and the last one has an edge to republicans but not an overwhelming one)

this is what we have to do. start on the local town and county level. get democrats elected there. move on up to representatives to congress. build the base of the party.

we can take control back. it wont happen over night. but we can do it, one town and county at a time!


peace

david

:hippie:

[sabbat hunter]

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