Washblog

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In December, I posted a diary about Lewis County.  The King County Democrats are planning a work party on April 26th to help some of the farms and community members recover from this disaster.  But Suzie let me know about something that I had missed.  Did you hear about the fire?

Letting my fingers do the walking on the Internet, I've gotten in touch with a lot of different people from all over the country.  This hit my inbox today, and I wanted to share.

Chad,

Pass this along to all candidates in your area, please!!!

Hello to all Democrats in 2008,

I am Jamie Sanderson, chairman of the Georgetown, S.C., Democratic Party. You have probably received e-mails from me before. I am sending you another one for a fresh start in 2008.

I am building a nationwide Democratic billboard, with wood and nails, to showcase on election night 2008 at the United Steelworkers union hall in Georgetown, the place of our victory party. My plans are to make this an annual event.

However, I need your help.

More after the jump

Did anyone else see the US Supreme Court ruling that came out this morning?  I heard about it on the Radio this morning, and paid very close attention to the subject all day, actually reading the 33 page decision.  The article in the Seattle Times stated Secretary of State Sam Reed's reaction.  He was surprised and delighted that "the people of the state of Washington are going to be able to control who gets elected through this process."

Mr. Reed has evidently never attended a meeting of his local Republican Party.  If he ever had, he would have seen that there actual humans at those meetings, not automatons.  The people have always had control of the process of who gets elected.  The General Election in November is where our elected officials actually get elected.  The primary is a different purpose entirely.

Freedom of association means something, Sam.  I really wonder why you are trying to destroy your own party by making sure that Republicans are never challenged in the high population density areas, and you are giving Democrats the opportunity to take even the suburbs and rural areas because of the national failure of the Republican brand to actually solve problems.

Thanks, but I thought you were a Republican.  Maybe I'm wrong.

I'm collecting information on when and where the rest of the caucus cycle events are going to be held.

Please see the list here.

If you see a blank next to your LD, County or CD, please contact me with what is missing.

I'm also building a map to show all of these events.

Frustrations after the jump.

Dear DNC members,

I am involved in a lot of discussions, and one that is making the rounds right now is a desire to see the DNC open the rules a little and allow a split Primary/Caucus decision for Presidential Primaries similar to the system that Texas uses.  Everyone recognizes the need for the caucus to provide certain aspects of neighborhood organization and activation, but at the same time people are recognizing the limitations that the Party has in trying to enable people to vote.  Too many people have the impression right now that a Primary would solve the problem, and the lack of party registration in this state doesn't seem to diminish their support.

What a day.  At Barbara's at 10:30 to get things set up, at the caucus site at 11:45, and the staff person at Northgate Community Center showed me the two extra rooms that would be available if we needed them.  We already had a few people sitting in the comfy chairs waiting for the room to be available.  I think they all helped set up the chairs, asking for direction, and generally super-helpful.

We got the sign-in tables set up, and the sign-in sheets out.  By 12:10, people were starting to arrive, and by 1:00 we had a full house.  And I mean full.  429 people showed up for 6 precincts.  I have no idea what the fire code said.  (At Olympic View Church up the street, the fire code on the lower room said the limit was around 200 people, and Larry Smith had 510.  They sent the largest precinct (123 people) up to the chapel.  And that wasn't the largest in the district.)

Back to the story.  What does this have to do with John McCain?  Read on!

[Front paged: NM. These resolutions can be presented at the upcoming presidential caucuses -- or adapted for your local legislative district or other community organizations.]

Hi everyone,

Judith has done a great job collecting proposed resolutions from the progressive grassroots for the precinct caucuses, and I have posted them on the PDCW.org website for your consideration.  To save time, I posted them all as PDF files, although the text of any of them is available if you want to make edits.

http://pdcw.org/resolutions/

I also want to encourage you to visit a website that was mentioned on Air America Radio out of Colorado that gives us some really good platform planks to consider.

http://caucuskit.com

The fact that the members of the DNC that take office after the national convention in Denver will be elected at the January WSDCC meeting has finally started getting attention.  About time.

Build a list here.  Who are the current members, who is running again, who is not, and who is running to fill empty slots?  How do we contact them?  And do they pay attention to Washblog?

Let's bring this into the light.

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I'm working on the John Edwards campaign, and someone came up with the idea of doing a fundraiser and visibility event for John in Lewis County because of the mine closure last year and the flooding.  I contacted the admin for the Lewis County Onecorp group, and then contacted the county Chair.  I got the following answer:

(Warning, if you haven't heard how bad it is, like myself, this may be a bit of a shock.)

Chad,

Sorry, this is so long - I am exhausted and wordy.  The combination is not always a good thing.  Maybe I am hoping that someone in the campaign will take this to heart... maybe I am just hoping for one more volunteer or one more new pillow to be donated (take that as a heavy handed hint ~smile~)

As a long-time Edwards supporter (in addition to being the chair of the party down here) I had been in contact with the Edwards campaign about getting the Senator to the county.  Lewis County would be a perfect place for a West coast poverty tour to start (please see the attachment: J. Edwards follow-up.doc).  One of his schedulers and one of his volunteer coordinators agreed that Lewis County would be a great place for the Senator to come.  I was told in October that I needed to contact the campaign after Iowa.

Then we were flooded.

More after the fold...

Hi everyone,

I'm on a hunt.  I'm sitting in a meeting of Kenmore Neighbors for Responsible Growth, and the topic came up about Trees, and how they are being handled by the law in North King County.  One of the things that caught my attention was the need to see how the tree cover has changed over the years.  Kenmore (the city government) does not have a collection of satellite images from previous years that they can use to create these kinds of images and turn it into a slideshow or Google Earth network link.

Here is what I need.  I need to know which government or private companies have collections of satellite images or flyover images.  I need to know which of these images are in the public domain and thus can be used to show how the tree cover has evolved over time.

Anyone have ideas?

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Warning, this is a rant after reading one article.

I can't frickin' believe this.  Ron Sims, King County Executive, is telling the Port of Seattle that if they don't tear up the rails on the Eastside line that they are buying from BNSF, he will pull out of the three way bargain.

Ron, point blank here.  You're wrong. I don't give a rip what the deal said in February, it was wrong then and you are wrong now. Even being a cyclist myself I don't want a recreational trail before we have more transit options in this area. You came out strongly against the Roads and Transit package in November because it wasn't good enough. Now you're throwing in the towel on an existing rail line that could be used within one year, while talking about some other rail line that given the ability of political compromises in this state would take another 25 years to build, if ever.

Representative Paul has put out a press release that proclaims him the champion of the working class, with plans to reduce the tax burden that we carry on our shoulders.  What he does not describe is the effect that lifting that burden will do to the road at our feet.  It's time to take an honest look at where his ideology is coming from and where legislative proposals based on that ideology will lead us.  It's not a pretty picture.

Argo Strategies just sent me a list of their candidate parties.

Here is what I did with it

If anyone knows of more events, please let me know so I can add them to the map.

Worried that the truly progressive values and issues will not be well-represented in the Democratic nominee for President in 2008?

So are we, so we decided to organize. Will you join us?

2007 Progressive Presidential Preference and Promotion Caucus

Dean just sent out the results from the 8/21 primary election for the candidates endorsed by Progressive Majority.

I put this list up on DFW, and I just did the research to find out exactly how they did.  The results are below.

We rocked!