Author: Andrew J. Lazarus

Next meeting is May 8

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We did not intend to change the off-week parity when we cancelled last week. However, we have some appropriate May Day activities!

The Focus for Democracy people are doing another fundraiser for their downballot election work.

To attend our next event for the States Project Sunday, May 1st, at 5pm PT/8pm ET, click here or below to register and a Zoom link will be emailed to you.
Invitation

Bruce brings us some reading material for next week. (This may or may not preview on the web page, depending if WordPress notices which price plan we are on. If not, it should have a download option.)

haidt-babel-and-klein-twitter-excerptsDownload

And perhaps with the distance of time, the experience of these Assembly candidates may seem droll.

‘Zoom-bombers’ drop lewd video, racist comments at Sacramento candidate forum.

A great speech from Mallory McMorrow

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McMorrow is a member of the Michigan State Assembly whom we helped get into office. Her race was adopted by Bay Area Sister District in 2018. One of the Republicans in the MI Assembly wrote a campaign fundraising letter featuring the new blood libel that Democrats—in particular, McMorrow—are grooming children for sexual molestation.

This was her response.

I can’t help thinking that if Terry McAuliffe had confronted Republican slander with this outrage, he’d be Governor of Virginia today.

[UPDATE] James Carville seems to agree with me. Two months ago he said the Dems needed to abandon “faculty lounge” wokeness. But it turns out he didn’t mean abandoning the marginalized. He meant abandoning mealy-mouthed evasive defense. He’s a huge fan of this clip.

All enemies of freedom foreign and domestic

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We have an event at our house this Sunday, 4:00–5:00 pm. But not Indivisible Elmwood. I will be talking about J Street’s congressional delegation to Israel and Palestine, which included, inter alia, Rep. Jared Huffman of Marin, Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois, whom we supported for her first race in 2018, and Yours Truly.

The delegation met with

  • Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh
  • Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid
  • Mansour Abbas, leader of the first Arab Party to join an Israeli governing coalition
  • Numerous non-government officials.

I will talk for about half the time and will take questions. Rabbi Andrew Strauss, the Regional Director for J Street, will also be attending.

Meeting Sunday, March 13, 4:00 pm

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Usual place! That is, the usual in-person place. (I suppose we need to qualify that now.)

I suggest we think about how the invasion of Ukraine can affect our elections, and in particular how to exploit the Republicans’ difficulty, given their pro-Putin wing, in formulating a response.

Setting your money on fire warning

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The loathsome Marjorie Taylor Greene has not one but two Democratic opponents, raking in massive donations from small donors.

Trump won this district by 39 points. There is no missing decimal point there. Thirty-nine.

Marcus Flowers seems like a great candidate. Maybe he can trim the margin to 20. Maybe he can bring in some voters to help the up-ballot races. But he won’t need a massive advertising campaign to do that.

Reminder: Don’t give out of spite.

Feinstein fax number

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I promised to supply this, then forgot. Her SF office fax is (415) 393-0710.

As an addendum to the CA discussion, I have heard a rumor that Jerry McNerney will retire, and Harder will run for that seat instead, with an incumbent D member of the Assembly trying to move up.

Minutes from the 1/16 meeting

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Well, it was back to the good old days of a Zoom meeting…

I started with a discussion of redistricting. The national picture is not as dire as we feared. Yes, from gerrymandering we are losing some seats in AZ, GA, TN—but it could have been worse. And we have pickup opportunities in NY, IL, WA, and very much so in CA. Our districts are not gerrymandered, but several of the Republicans who won seats in 2020 that we had taken only in 2018 face more difficult races. They are David Valadao (CA-22 in the new numbering, formerly 21), Mike García (CA-27, ex 25), and Michelle Steele (45, ex 48). These are now all 2020–Biden districts. We might be able to swing 40 and 41 (Young Kim and Ken Calvert), except so far we don’t have serious opponents to them. Bruce Jackson said that the Wednesday state Indivisible call included discussion of finding some serious candidates to run here. We also have Dr. Kermit Jones in CA-03 (mostly the old 04), who will not be facing an incumbent although the district is difficult.

A full spreadsheet is here. (Our WordPress is too cheap to embed PDF, you will have to download.)

ca-redistrictingDownload

Naomi discussed how to start donating. The thermometer is now up for Airlift, volunteers from Marin who will split the money to about a dozen state voter registration groups. We don’t need to give to candidates yet. We need to drive voter engagement. Another, similar group, as Bruce reminded us, is the Movement Voter Project, which is similar but has an even longer menu of groups to choose from. I would be remiss not to mention the Wisconsin Democrats, who, under Ben Wikler, appear to be one of the few state parties to understand a last-minute ad blitz doesn’t cut it any more.

We are starting with action items. You can always check Activate America (née Flip the West) for postcarding or text/phone campaign. We will bring postcards back to our porch. Any ideas for a good half-card design with this slogan?

Your Vote is Your Voice
Defend Democracy