1. Check out the good news from Jesse Craven https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.co

2. Attend Aaron Frank’s presentation http://tinyurl.com/F4D25Feb

3. Listen to Simon’s talk here.

At the top of this page, you will find two new menu items: “Political Calendar” and “Links”. They go to new pages. The Links page lists sites we are excited about. If I knew WordPress better, I’d like to get them running down the right hand side of this main page, which was the traditional place for your “link roll”. The Political Calendar includes events like our own meetings.

But, let’s be honest, who wants to add one Indivisible page to your daily browsing to see if some postcard party showed up. Instead, you should be able to add this calendar to your usual electronic calendar and new events will show up in the normal synchronization process.

Those who use Google Calendar can give me their email and I can share the calendar with you, or you can use the link below.

For others (e.g., Apple-based calendars) I believe this is the link that you copy/paste to subscribe to Indivisible Elmwood from your favorite calendar app. There will be a place under “Subscribe to new calendar”, or similar, to enter it, and it should be readable (but not editable) to all.

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/be84ab1b9ed2e4cc0b822ec667d6f882bd680c38821dca9fd0e796b8c6e62f99%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Technical support for this operation will be available.

Happy New Year, everyone.

We began with Naomi reviewing websites we rely on. There is a new permanent page with links (it will grow) which you can access from the menu at the top of this page. They are also mentioned below.

Aaron Frank’s Focus for Democracy has an event Sunday, February 25. Register here. We’ll get this up on our new calendar, also permanently linked above. He is currently touting Working America and Accelerate Change.

For a regular dose of optimism, Hopium Chronicles.

Sister District for downballot races.

Vote Forward for addresses to send letters; Postcards to Voters if you prefer those.

Bill gave us a summary of his work for Rudy Salas (that’s CA-22), with the reassuring news that he is a stronger candidate this time. Dan and Karen have also been canvassing in the Central Valley. There was some spirited discussion on whether Josh Harder needs our support. Cook rates his seat in CA-09 as “Likely Democratic”. My feeling is that the Salas race (rated Tossup) is more critical.

We continued with a discussion of the general issue of getting Democrats to turn out. Randy Starn (long time no see!) gave a phrase I had never heard before to describe voters who say they won’t vote for Biden over Gaza (used to be student loans): aggressive apathy. We need at least some of those voters to come to their senses by November. Sally brought up Relational Organizing in this sense. Link. Trainings are Mondays at 5:30.

Future meetings will be the fourth Sunday of every month. Socializing and morale maintenance. Be active in between. Here’s Chop Wood Carry Water, from Jess Craven, with a daily suggestion of what to do and a weekly summary of what went right for us and bad for MAGA.

Next meeting Sunday Feb 18th, usual time (4:00 pm) and place

Update on where things stand and what to do next. All are welcome.

Heather Booth, a long-time activist for progressive causes, will be in conversation with California Indivisible’s Aram Fischer this Tuesday January 30 from 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. PST.  This Heather Booth event on Zoom is the second event in the California Indivisible’s Speakers Series, and all are invited. The sign up link is here. You  can also watch this documentary about Heather’s impact on the American political landscape, as well as the 2022 documentary The Janes (the HBO trailer is here.)

Heather began organizing in the civil rights and women’s movements.  She started the Jane Collective, an underground abortion service before Roe, and she founded the Midwest Academy to teach people how to organize. She worked on Obamacare, helped Elizabeth Warren establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and directed Seniors Outreach for the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign. Heather was just appointed Progressive Outreach Director for the Biden-Harris campaign. 

I don’t have to tell you that Michael Feggans won by 8, that the State Senator (Rouse) whose district is included in Feggans’ won by 12, and the Dems flipped the House of Delegates. We found the margins surprising, because when we went to bed, Feggans was 4 behind and Rouse up by less than one. Even when Gideon texted us an hour later that Feggans was now expected to win, he was only up 4. Unfortunately for the numbers-inclined, the Virginia counties were not consistent in whether they counted mail or Election Day ballots first, not to mention geographic implications in partial reports that we can not even guess at. In our district, however, we can be sure that the mail vote was counted last, as it accounted for the entire ~2200 vote margin and then some. Feggans fought the Republican to a near-draw between the early in-person vote (pro-Dem) and the day-of vote (pro-Rep), but last I saw was up 2:1 in the mailed ballots.

This means I can’t say much about the remaining uncalled races. First, there’s three days’ grace for receipt of mail ballots. In one race, they have not yet finished with the initial count, and no one seems to know what type of ballots remain uncounted, or why. Then there will be the curing attempts on the mail ballots that have some sort of error. So, I wouldn’t give up on those yet.

There were nine canvassers from the East Bay, and we knocked, by my count, on about 2000 doors. The campaign had all the volunteers needed. We heard every target door was knocked on at least twice. We funded a well-organized machine that was ready for everyone who came through the door. (This does not apply to their poor taste in donuts.) Student delegations came down from DC to help. We were a little skeptical of the young campaign managers’ confidence based on turnout, but they were correct.

This post would be seriously incomplete without mentioning our wonderful hosts, David and Carol Pariser. Not only did they open their spare bedrooms, they cooked us dinner and uncorked a really first-rate wine every night.

Details tomorrow. Only regret: count was slow and race tight. We left the watch party before he could claim victory.

If anyone wants to join a phone bank, we need every vote we can find. Here is info about Sister District’s phone banks tomorrow. Sign up!

Word on the street is this is going to be close in both Houses of the General Assembly (what VA calls its legislature). HD–97 (Feggans) is one of three key House of Delegates districts to flip.

Reminder: this is the last meeting of the cycle at our house.

Naomi gave a book report on The Tyranny of the Minority. The American system has always been skewed, but the situation is unusually difficult with the Senate and Electoral College. As an action item, there’s support for the Popular Vote Compact, which would break the EC stranglehold as states pass laws to award their electors to the popular vote winner. Unlike abolishing the EC, this is does require a Constitutional amendment to the founding document most difficult to amend in the developed world.

Bill: Organizing in the Central Valley is moving along. Central Valley Matters is hard at work. Rudy Salas seems to have the primary edge in CA–22 over the other Democrat. In CA–13, Adam Grey retains a name-recognition advantage. Phil Arballo is the more energetic Democrat.

I talked about the preliminary returns in Virginia. The local expert appears to be Tom Bonier. The Democratic early-vote advantage is much less than in 2021, but this is in part that the Republicans have changed their minds about encouraging voting by mail. He predicts a close election. Virginia still has a large number of voters who go to the polls on Election Day. Michael Feggans took a break from door-knocking to give us a special shout-out.

Aaron Frank of Focus for Democracy announced their latest fundraising is on behalf of Courier Newsroom. F4D’s analysis shows an 8-point swing towards Democrats when people are connected to local news, the function Courier is trying to perform with the disappearance of newspapers. F4D has both a tax-deductible 501(c)3 arm and a 501(c)4. They earlier pitched for a number of grassroots organizations they feel gave bang-for-buck.

Starting this Thursday, Oct. 12, you can MEET THE CANDIDATES running for Congress in 6 key California districts!

The MEET THE CANDIDATE interviews are the first events co-hosted by the brand new California Grassroots Alliance, formed to offer Indivisible and other grassroots volunteers a focused six-district strategy, effective tools, and fresh intel. It’ a virtual event—Join from anywhere.

Mondays and Thursdays  7 – 8:30pm PDT

The road to the House majority runs through California. We have the power, right here in California, to take the Speaker’s gavel out of GOP hands by mobilizing grassroots volunteers statewide. We can do the work to sweep six key seats—five flips and one hold—and stop destructive MAGA stunts. Our state can put Congress back on the path to governing.

Following each lively 45-minute candidate interview, Indivisible Sonoma County’s Tom Benthin will facilitate a wide-ranging participant discussion about the target district, the candidates, and the election outlook for re-taking the House via California victories.

Bring a friend, list your questions, and get ready to activate!

Use this link to sign up: https://mobilize.us/s/2ojfWE (You may need to put in your own name etc to receive a unique link for attending.)

DATES: NorCal/Central Valley Series
Oct 12:     Phil Arballo, CA-13
Nov 6:      Rudy Salas, CA-22
Nov 27:    Adam Gray, CA-13
TBD:        Melissa Hurtado, CA-22