Working at county level, holding forums...baby steps to rebuilding.

[madfloridian]

SCDFA's Candidate Forum

http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/007449.html
Miles Kurland is the president of Sonoma County Democracy for America.

On Thursday, January 19th, Sonoma County DFA co-sponsored a candidate forum with the Sonoma County Democratic Central Committee, Progressive Democrats of Sonoma County (a PDA group), as well as the other local co-sponsors (listed below). This forum was actually scheduled prior to DFA's announcement of its nationwide effort to organize such forums. Perhaps our experience can help others in their forthcoming events.

The race under consideration is California's 6th Assembly District, which consists of Marin and the southern portion of Sonoma County. The current assemblyperson from this district, Joe Nation (D), cannot run for re-election due to term limits (6 yrs.) and there are currently five Democrats who are running for office:

John Alden - http://www.aldenforassembly.com/
Damon Connolly - http://www.damonconnolly.com/
Jared Huffman - http://www.jaredhuffman.com/html/
Cynthia Murray - http://www.cynthiamurrayforassembly.com/
Pamela Torliatt - http://www.vote4pam.com

The interesting part of this is the learning as you go part of it. We are running into that kind of thing here as well. I notice the Tampa area DFA has been holding forums more than some others in our area. We are still struggling, but working on it.

We wanted a forum, not a debate, so candidates were not allowed to respond to comments made by other candidates—they were instructed to answer the question and address the audience. We allowed two minutes for each response—and given that there were five candidates, it insured that we had ten minutes of answers for each question.

Six of the questions were submitted by a small committee of volunteers from the sponsoring organizations. Given the number of burning issues at hand, we mixed questions about issues... with questions intended to reveal character, like: "What values attract you to the Democratic party, and how do you see them being expressed by your legislative agenda". Another was: "Legislating requires tradeoffs between imperfect options: tell us about one of the most difficult dilemmas you faced in public life, and how you resolved it." Since people vote not only on the basis of issues, but also on the basis of a candidate's judgment and experience, we thought these were relevant and appropriate to ask... and they got the candidates off of their "canned" talking points!

I am very proud of the on the ground aspect of DFA. Jim Dean and some staff are just about all over. He has been very devoted to this effort.

In fact he was in CA this week setting forth DFA plans for the year coming up.

http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/007446.html

"We're getting a reputation for getting things done," Democracy for America Chair Jim Dean told San Diego For Democracy (SD4D) members at a January 26th meeting. "The best thing this year was the level of voter contact," he added. "It's all about calling on voters and showing up. That's what we're known for."

This year, DFA will also provide job banks listing campaign positions. In addition, DFA will sponsor a different activity every month for DFA link meetings, said Dina Wolkoff, DFA finance director, who also addressed the group. Training sessions will include candidate forums, straw polls and candidate endorsements initially, followed by emphasis on early voting, get-out-the-vote, Dean Corps and community service.

On July 14-16, San Diego For Democracy will be hosting the third annual DemocracyFest at San Diego State University. "It's going to be a homerun," predicted Dean. DemocracyFest Incorporated is the Executive Producer of the event.

"We're raising the bar on Democracy Fest," said SD4D leader Charlie Imes, who encouraged DFA members nationwide to attend. In addition to hearing from DFA founder and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, participants will have the opportunity to learn from prominent national progressives as well as veteran local activists. Watch for the announcement of early registration in the next few weeks!

[mdmc]

1. kick

for the grass

r
o
o
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[LittleClarkie]

2. kicking again

for the grassroots