Jon Stewart on How Effed Up Democrats Are

From the Monday, January 18, 2010 episode:

Current Delegate Count (Democrats) After South Carolina

[Update 2/20/08 1:52 PM: For Up-to-the-minute delegate counts, click here]

2,025 needed to win

Barack Obama 63 (3.11%)
Hillary Rodham Clinton 48 (2.37%)
John Edwards 26 (1.28%)

11 Articles of Faith for the Democratic Party

Howard Dean spoke at the National Baptist Convention over the weekend. From Democracy for Utah:

As Democrats, we believe:
*That no child should go to bed hungry.
*As Democrats we believe that it is a moral issue that we no longer be the last industrialized country on the face of the Earth that doesn't have health care for every single person. And we have acted on that in Congress by giving every child under 18 health insurance.
*That war should be a last resort only after diplomacy has been exhausted.
*That we should properly equip our troops before we send them to war.
*That we should properly take care of our veterans when they come home.
*That everyone deserves equal rights under the law.
*That we should be good stewards of the Earth.
*That hardworking people should earn a living wage and be able to take care of their families.
*That we shouldn't pass debt onto our children and our grandchildren.
*That faith should not be used to divide people.
*That you and I have more in common than we have differences.

Voting in the Feb 5 Presidential Primary

There has been some confusion in the comments of an earlier post about the procedures for who can vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary on February 5.

I did some searching, and I came accross the following. It is in the Utah Delegate Selection Plan for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Section I, Paragraph B(7)(a), found on page 1 (emphasis mine):

Participation in Utah’s delegate selection process is open to all voters who wish to participate as Democrats. All registered voters in Utah who registered as Democrats or unaffiliated on their voter registration form shall be allowed to participate in the state-run Presidential Primary. Their choice of ballot shall be recorded by election officials and they shall not be allowed to participate in the primary election voting for another Party’s presidential candidates. The deadline for persons who wish to change their official party designation or register to vote in the Presidential Primary election is Monday, January 7, 2008 by mail or after that date by the close of business on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at the local office of the County Clerk. All citizens of the United States who will be 18 years of age by the 2008 general election and reside in the voting precinct for which the caucus is held and publicly declare themselves to be participating as Democrats may vote at the precinct caucuses and be elected as delegates to the County, State and National Conventions. (Rules 2.A. & 2.C. & Reg. 4.3.)

False Values

Hat Tip: Utah Amicus.

Friday's Daily Herald (emphasis mine):

Bryan Horn, the former president of the UVSC College Republicans, was working for a Democratic congressional candidate in the last election cycle. One night while putting out campaign signs, he saw other placards that read, "Vote your values. Vote Republican."

Those signs were ubiquitous by election day. And as Horn talked to people on behalf of his candidate, someone asked him, "Aren't you very offended by those signs?"

And he was, Horn responded: "I said, 'Actually, yes.' "

That began a process that culminates Saturday with an announcement that Horn, 25, will seek a seat in the Utah House of Representatives next year -- running as a Democrat.

"My mind had been made up during the '06 general (election)," he said. The Republican Party "is not the party that I love, that I'm used to."

Until the Repoublican Party goes back to the values that really matter to Utah's families, they will continue to lose good people like Bryan Horn. That's part of the reason they lost me. And until that time, their loss is the Democrats' gain.

-Bob

What I learned from the DCCC this morning

I got a call from the DCCC asking for money. After going back and forth about why I won't donate to them for 17 minutes, I thought I'd share the following two tidbits of information with you that I learned:

#1) The Democrats only have control of the House. They do not control the Senate nor the White House. (To be fair, the gentleman could not name the Senate Majority Leader nor his party.)

#2) It was his understanding that DCCC maney was spead to all 52 states in the country. My sister informed me that the reason that his number of states differed from mine was because Northen California and Southern California are their own states, and the Eastern Part of Louisiana has been broken off and bacame Mistersippi so that Mississippi has someone to talk to. She saw it on an ad.

-Bob

Salt Lake County Democratic Convention -- Education Ignored

Last Saturday was the annual Salt Lake County Democratic Convention held at Highland High School.

Most of the convention was the typical, mundane, run-of-the-mill boring convention that usually occurs. I won't get into that, other than to say that the new Executive Committee show a lot of promise.

However, I'll talk about the 8-9 AM time slot.

8-9 is reserved for caucus meetings. The Educators' Caucus met, excited to hear from many people. Usually, we have so many people want to come and speak to us, we have trouble finding time to conduct endorsement votes or other caucus business.

Now, granted, the educators' caucus was much smaller than ususal. We have been standing-room only in the past, and last week saw only 12 of us. That was partly due to a large UEA meeting happening at the same time.

However, the number of people who came to speak to us was disappointingly low. Rep. Carol Spackman-Moss (D-Holladay) came and addressed us on behalf of Salt Lake Mayoral candidate Rep Ralph Becker (who got stranded in Seattle). Outgoing County Chairwoman Megan Risbon, now running for State Party Treasurer, came in. State Chairman Wayne Holland stopped by for a moment, but didn't get the chance to speak (he came at the moment we had a line). 2nd Vice Chair candidate Lisa Johnson came and addressed us (and unanimously recieved our only endorsement of the morning). And, we had some represntatives from Democracy for Utah come and talk about a training that Democracy for America is doing here in Salt Lake in June.

Other than that, nobody came.

Given the momentum that the referendum has given our party recently, you'd think that education would again be on the top of every list.

But, sadly, it wasn't. Instead, the educators sat alone in their classroom in an empty corner of Highland High School.

-Bob

ENDORSEMENT: Daily Democrats for Utah County Democratic Executive Committee

I hereby declare my endorsement for the Executive Committee of the Utah County Democrats. I usually don't do any endorsements on a group level. However, The group calling itself the Daily Democrats is presenting a united front to bulid the Democratic Party in Utah County.

What they are promising:

1. a clear message
2. a permanent infrastructure
3. grassroots involvement
4. steady sources of funds
5. candidate recruitment and support.

These are great plans from great people.

Who are the Daily Democrats?

Mary Lou Huffmon is running for Chair. She is a retired reading specialist who has been involved with the League of Women Voters, as well as the County and State Democratic Parties.

Kena Mathews is running for Vice Chair. She is the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Utah County. She is currently chair of the Democratic Women of Utah County, former Deputy Finance Director for Wayne Owens, and former inter for Bill Orton.

Chris Stowe is running for Treasurer. He is a BYU student majoring in American Studies. He did work for the Christian Burridge and Jim Matheson campaigns. He runs the blog YDems.

Millicent Lewis is running for secretary. She is a stay at home mom and local artist who has been active in the Democratic Party for four years.

I hereby encourage all Delegates in Utah County to vote for the 4 Daily Democrat candidates as your next Executive Committee.

BYU Democrats: Not an Oxymoron (OxyMormon?)

Diane Bailey, President BYU College Democrats sent an email to their listserv about a planning meeting for their big rally the day Dick Cheney comes to town. She then talked about last week's protest:

We have really done something special at BYU. Aerial photographs show that we had at least 400 protesters and onlookers during class, and even more between classes. According to BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins, this was the first student political protest on campus in over 15 years! (And it looks like that last protest had all of about five people). We were personally interviewed about our protest by Newsweek, the New York Times, National Public Radio, the Associated Press and many other news sources. The AP story ran all over the nation, and even reached newspapers in France, Iran, and Great Britian. Liberal and conservative blogs such as the Huffington Post, GOP Nation, the Daily Kos, By Common Consent and Think Progress posted our story. The protest at BYU made the front page of the Daily Herald, KSL, the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune, and, you guessed it, al-Jazeera's website.

At BYU, suddenly hundreds of once apathetic students were talking about the issues and voicing their own opinions. Our demonstrators answered questions and engaged in peaceful political dialogue with students of all backgrounds. I think that before our protest, most members of our local community had only been exposed to anti-Mormon protests, which are typically offensive, loud, and hate-filled. We showed our community that protests can be positive catalysts for discussion and compromise. On the national scale, many people were surprised to learn that not everyone at BYU supports Dick Cheney's actions. We corrected misconceptions that BYU students are all conservative robots (in fact, maybe we did Mitt Romney a favor). Finally, we let thousands of people know that the people of America will not blindly endorse the immoral acts of Vice President Dick Cheney; we love this country too much to do so.

Free speech rocks.

About four years ago, I was invited to speak on behalf of the Howard Dean Campaign to the BYU Democrats. People laughed at me when I told them I was going down there. "It's a waste of gas money to speak to two people." Seriously, that's what someone said.

36 people crammed into a room that had a capacity of 28. Like last week's protest, many who were there were Democrats, but several Republicans and non-political types showed up out of morbid curiosity. Things were very positive, and I wished I had brought more flyers.

Anyway, it's good to see BYU students getting engaged in the political process. (no pun intended, I promise...)

-Bob

(P.S. All photos from BYU Democrats)

Kudos to BYU Democrats

I know I said it yesterday, but from all accounts, the Dick Cheney protest at BYU was a success.

Not only that, but they did what most protests don't seem to do. Instead of preaching to the choir, the educated the public. From YDEMS:

Several people came up to us and asked questions, like "What's Waterboarding?" or "What does Dick Cheney have to do with Habeas Corpus?" Other's sat down next to us and tried to understand why we are protesting. Overall, I think the protest was a great success and the one on Apr. 26 should be even better.

It's not often that I have praise for BYU. But I'll do it this time...

-Bob

BYU Democratic Rally A success, Republicans Fail To Draw A Crowd

Mike Jones at Utahania took a peek at the dueling protests at BYU today:

Conservatively, (I am a conservative after all) the anti-Cheney protest by the BYU Democrats drew 2 times as many people as the pro-Cheney protest staged by the BYU Republicans. The Republican protest drew about 3 uniformed ROTC students while the Democrat one appeared to draw none. It was hard to spot military uniforms through all the people at the Democrats' protest. Graduation should be interesting. I'll bring a camera to this one.

The Tribune backs up that comment, putting numbers at about 200 for the Democrats and about 75 for the Republicans.

This despite the fact that the Republicans had free food and football.

Good Job BYU Democrats!

Pork by any other name is still a pig

Justin saw fit to respond to my post on pork. It's too easy to pick apart, so let's do it.

Everybody knows that bill will be vetoed.

Yes, we all knew that. So, why add the pork if it ain't going to do a bit of good for the people who wanted it in there. And, it gives Bush a reason to veto it besides the withdrawl date.

Everybody knew that the Democrats didn't have the votes from the start. The "pork" was added to get the votes it took to pass.

Wait. So this bill was so bad that we had to bribe people just to get 51 votes??? And that's the best excuse we can give?! Bribery! Let's face it. We're just as bad as Republicans. We don't deserve a majority is we're going to act the same as Republicans.

It worked. The president will veto it. The Democrats will send back another bill without the withdrawal date and without the pork. It will pass. The president will sign it. The show will be over and the war will go on.

It worked?! Selling out for a bill the president can sign? With the Republicans being able to use the pork as an example of the Democrats using the troops to play politics? And the Republicans being right?

The show will not be over. The Republicans are going to use this until November 2008 and beyond.

The Senate Democrats are a disgrace.

-Bob

Shame on Senate Democrats

One of my favorite families that I met on my LDS mission was the Barg Family. The Bargs were truly good people. They lived on a pig farm that Brother Barg's family had been on for three generations.

That's right, a pig farm.

In that ward, there were two sets of missionaries. The "south" Elders were Elder Zook and Elder Inskeep. Elder Inskeep grew up around potato farms in Blackfoot Idaho, and was a county boy to the core. My companion, Elder Wangsgard, was the son of dairy farmers in Cache Vally, Utah. I was a suburban boy who thought he had a little county in him before meeting Inskeep and Wansgard. Elder Zook was far from a country boy, having been raised in Los Angeles County.

We had many opportunities to offer service to the Barg family on our Preparation Day. We built a pig pen one day. When the snow was about to fly, we helped them prepare.

I learned one good lesson that applies to politics on that farm:

Pork stinks.

It doesn't just stink when you arrive. It gets imbedded into your clothes and everything else. You can't eat finger foods for three days after working on the farm because no amount of lemon fresh Joy can get rid of the smell.

Unfortunately, the Senate Democrats decided that they would be like the Republicans and add pork to any bill they feel like.

The pork that was added to the Iraq Appropriations bill is shameful and downright disgusting.

-Bob

Partisanship

The Third Avenue:

For some reason, I was a moderate Democrat when I lived amongst and worked for liberal Democrats in Massachusetts. I was also fairly moderate when worked for the DLC, although I strongly disagreed with their advocacy for the Iraq war. But living in Utah again has made me much more partisan, although I was pretty partisan from birth.

I think it is because the Republicans in power in this state--with a few exceptions--are really radically reactionary. All of the Congressional Republicans from Utah carry water for the radical presidency of Bush-Cheney, who has claimed an unprecidented [and unconstitutional] amount of executive privilege and power. Some--like Rep. Bishop and Sens. Hatch and Bennett--have placed this duty above those of their constituents. I dislike bootlickers of all stripes, and Clinton appologists are just as annoying to me [and dishonest] as folks like Hatch and Rep. Patrick McHenry.

For its part, the state legislature seeks to outdo their congressional counterparts in unconstitutionality, partisanship, and ideology over constituents.

I, too, have found myself getting more and more partisan over the years, but my views on most issues haven't changed significantly.

The first election I voted in (2000), my ticket was split 50%Republican/50%Democratic, including a vote for George W Bush. 2002 Saw me lean a little more Republican. 2004 saw me lean a little more Democratic (I wrote in Mickey Mouse for President). In 2006, I voted for exactly one Republican, and she lost.

I once considered myself a moderate Republican. Since early 2004, I've been a moderate Democrat.

-Bob