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Table of Contents * featured articles Opportunities,
Petitions and Feedback Commentaries from Our Members Marcee
Stone on Current Campaign Abuses* Washingtonians
Deserve Dignified Death Liberals and Democrats Links to the
Beef Martin
Luther King or Lyndon Johnson?* Presidential
Races Narrow: Giuliani and Edwards Quit* After 50
years of Southern Racism, Populism Returns? State and Local Links to the
Beef Local Option
Public Campaign Financing Passed House* Adding
More Rights To Domestic Partnerships Nation and World
Links to the Beef State of
the Union. Bush’s Mess. Our Nightmare. Our Liberal Spirit Our Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and Competent Spending ·
Investment for Productivity ·
Quality Health, Education, Jobs, Income and Retirement ·
Environmental Protection and Energy ·
Personal Security and Equal Rights ·
Justice and Peace Everywhere ·
International Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives
oppose all of these Let’s End Our National Nightmare Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More
on Conservative opposition to our American Dream See
Nancy Pelosi’s political priorities Quote of the Week If you
can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me. Alice
Roosevelt Longworth Her
other quotes.
Calendar of Events
Friday, February 1 at
Wednesday, February 6 at
Saturday, February 9 at 10
AM at
Sunday, February 10 at
Saturday, February 16 at
Saturday, February 16 at
Monday, February 19 at
Saturday, February 23 at
Saturday, February 23 at
Saturday, February 23-24
at IBEW Hall (
Saturday, March 22 at 10
AM at
Opportunities, Petitions and Feedback
Opportunities
Join
Working America in alliance with labor union members
See MoveOn’s new online tools.
Order Democracy
in America ‘Precinct Organizing’ and other Night School Training videos
Still
time to register for February 1-3, 2008 Camp Wellstone Portland
Order Sightline’s
2007 Cascadia Scorecard. See other
research that they share with our politicians.
Order Lester Brown’s Plan
B, #3.0, Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
For more.
See the 20 minute video documentary: The Story of Stuff.
Learn about micro-targeting for
political campaigns.
Learn about Working Assets, a
phone company that donates to liberal advocacy groups.
Join GoPetition to easily create your own
petitions. Great tool for advocacy groups.
Petitions and
Donations
Ask
your state legislators to support SB 6728 and HB 2770 to end abusive lending
practices.
Ask our BLM to stop
permitting drilling and ORVs to harm Utah wildlife.
Ask your
senators to take action on global warming.
Support Senator
Feingold’s effort to stop warrantless wiretapping
Ask your senators
to support helicopters for Darfur peacekeepers.
Feedback Needed
Concerning Our Website
Commentaries
From Our Members
Marcee Stone letter submitted to
Only a
short bus ride into work and I read 3 separate reports of abuse of our current
campaign system: The Port Commission
forgoes its responsibility to oversee Port management for 14 years; the
legislature votes to trust insurance carriers and the free market to regulate
health insurance for the most vulnerable; and past illegal campaign
contributions to Seattle City Council.
Now that Port oversight is being renewed, the legislature is restoring
the Insurance Commissioner's authority to review rates, and Strippergate ends
in convictions and career-ending scandals, should we be mollified that the
status quo has been rectified?
Hardly. The fox has long since
vacated our hen house with one hundred million dollars worth of eggs!
What can a citizen do? Support publicly financed
campaigns! Otherwise we stagnate in our
disillusionment. The state house has
passed a bill to allow local jurisdictions to once again have publicly financed
campaigns. Contact your representatives and
senators and urge them to concur on the details and pass this vitally important
change. Insist they not digress into
unneeded amendments and allow it all to unravel in this short session. We are depending on them to pass SSB 5278 and
EHB 1551. More? Visit www.washclean.org. Marcee Stone, President of the Board,
Guest
Commentary by Bob Free and Kay Frank published in
Washingtonians deserve dignified death.
Liberals and Democrats
Martin Luther King or Lyndon Johnson
Who was responsible for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of
1965? Martin Luther King or Lynden
Johnson? This question has recently been
discussed due to remarks during our Democratic presidential campaign. More generally, the question is, “What part
do the two roles of (1) stimulating opinion change and (2) passing legislation
play in reform?”
Lyndon Johnson asked Martin Luther King to slow his
campaign of marches and speeches to allow time for opinion to change. Martin Luther King refused to slow his
campaign. Due not only to Martin Luther
King’s campaign, but also to many acts of civil disobedience by Southern
blacks, support by northern Whites and the violent reactions of southern law
enforcement officials and murders by southern hate groups, public opinion
changed. Lyndon Johnson then obtained
the support of Republicans to override Southern Democrats and pass the voting
rights act. He predicted correctly that
this would cost the Democrats the support of White Southerners for 50 years.
How have our various presidents played the roles of
Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson?
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt played both roles well, using his
first inaugural address (The
only we have to fear is fear itself) and fireside chats to express, ‘Yes we
can.” And then passing much legislation
during his first 100 days as president.
In the 1934, a huge Democratic majority in congress was elected, in what
I refer to as the first Liberal revival of the last 75 years.
In his first
inaugural speech, President John F. Kennedy stated, “And so, my
fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can
do for your country.” President Kennedy
aroused liberals But failed to pass much legislation. After President Kennedy’s murder and a huge
win over Barry Goldwater, President Lynden Johnson passed legislation to
establish the ‘Great Society’ programs.
President Richard Nixon played little
role in stimulating public opinion to support protecting our environment. This was done by a variety of writers and
organizers, such that no one leader is noted.
But the legislation to protect our air, water, land and wildlife was
passed by our congress and signed by President Nixon.
In the aftermath of the 1979 shock of
higher oil prices, President Carter tried to stimulate public opinion to
conserve energy. But the effort largely
failed and was reversed by President Ronald Reagan. We still have not adequately accepted the
need for and implemented measures to conserve energy and substitute energy from
sustainable sources for petroleum.
With others, President Ronald Reagan
aroused public opinion to cut taxes and
continue the deregulation began by President Carter. He also passed legislation. President Reagan also stimulated opinion and
passed legislation to increase our military.
He tried to, but failed to stimulate opinion and pass legislation to cut
social spending.
Neither our first President George
Bush or President Bill Clinton stimulated much opinion change or passed far
reaching legislation based upon popular support. With little public support, President
Clinton’s passage of NAFTA and welfare reform required the support of Republicans. Concerned primarily with his own political
successes, President Clinton failed to produce a climate of liberal change or
to strengthen our Democratic Party. He
scarcely tried.
Our current President Bush attempted
to mold public opinion in support of many of his measures. He was able to obtain support for his tax
cuts. And in the aftermath of 9/11, he
produced support for our occupation of
Reviewing this history, we can
conclude that comprehensive changes require both changing public opinion and
the ability to pass legislation. More
than other presidents, Presidents Roosevelt, Reagan and our current Bush have
played both roles. Presidents Nixon and
Johnson played the second role, with the first role being played by
others. The most effective presidents
are ones who play both roles.
Unfortunately, these presidents have
been Conservatives as well as Liberals.
In Barack Obama, we have a Liberal
presidential candidate who can certainly change opinion. With his experience in congress and solid
majority, he could as president pass legislation to implement the changes that
he supports.
Barack Obama’s Huge Victory
Barack Obama’s victory
in the South Carolina Primary was huge.
He received twice as many votes as his major competitor Hillary
Clinton. He received large majorities of
votes from most groups of voters, many of whom were voting for the first
time.
Barack Obama’s South
Carolina Victory speech (video) expressed clearly his vision of one
Barack Obama recognized that the struggle to win
the presidency and to make change will not be easy. But his speech may be a major factor in
stimulating voters across our county to vote for him on February 5th
and beyond. Barack Obama’s speech was a
major contrast with Hillary Clinton’s ‘business as usual’ presentation in
See
Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement. And
endorsements of other Kennedy family members. See video. See Barack Obama accepting
Kennedy endorsements (video). Will
Al Gore endorse Barack Obama? Could Al
Gore become Vice President again, serving with President Barack Obama? Paul
Krugman warns that Barack Obama’s specific policies are important.
Presidential Races
Narrow: Giuliani and Edwards Quit
I have been hoping and
predicting that our Democrats would choose our presidential nominee by the end
of March. And that Republicans would be
unable to choose their nominee until much later. If so, Republican candidates would be
spending time and effort trying to appeal to their Conservative base while the
Democrats are readying for the general election. The Republicans would arrive at their convention
with little money and little time to reorient their message toward our broader
more liberal American opinion.
With Giuliani out, three
viable Republican candidates remain: Senator John McCain, Mitt Romney and
At present, Hillary
Clinton appears to have more support.
But Barack Obama appears to be catching up. Will he catch up enough by Super Tuesday on
Bishop Spong on Huckabee’s Return to Southern
Populism
A 40 year history of Southern Republican Politics
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson managed to get through the
Congress of the
Bill Moyers, who was at that time serving as Johnson's Chief of
Staff, entered the Oval Office to bring his congratulations to the President on
this victory, expecting to find him in a celebratory frame of mind. Instead, as
Moyers relates in his memoirs, he found the President in a mood of abject
depression. "Bill," he said, "I have just handed the South to
the Republican Party for the next fifty years." He was remarkably correct.
Racism had been chiseled deeply into the Southern character and
was fixed indelibly in the Southern soul by the ravages of the Civil War. When
racism was socially acceptable, it was quite overt. One has only to read the
speeches of southern politicians prior to the Civil War or even prior to the
Civil Rights revolution. When racism loses its aura of respectability, however,
it doesn't disappear, it simply becomes covert. Code words are developed.
"States' Rights," for example," really means: "We believe
the state has the right to discriminate without the interference of the Federal
Government,." and "Strict Constructionist Judges" really means
judges who confuse constitutional democracy with monocracy and who will not
extend constitutional rights to unpopular minorities.
Johnson understood that newly enfranchised black voters would
identify themselves primarily with the Democratic Party, which would in turn
mean that the old white southern establishment would inevitably preserve its
covert racism by becoming Republican. In Virginia, Mills Godwin, who was the Conservative
Democratic governor of
In the pre-Voting Rights Act era that solid Democratic South had
rested on three political foundations: protecting white supremacy, keeping a
strong military, (which was well rewarded by the location of numerous military
bases in the South), and supporting liberal economic measures that would
benefit the poor and middle class white southern voters. These three positions
reflected the values of the South that elected them. First, by restricting
black voters, segregation kept political power in the hands of the white
establishment. ; Second, during the period of slavery, which was based on
subjugating significant numbers of people, Southerners cultivated the military
virtues, identifying them with chivalry and good manners (note the number of
military schools in the South including The Citadel in South Carolina and VMI
in Virginia), ). and Third, the poverty of the white South made economic
populism a political necessity. While the value of Southern land was
considerable, this wealth was in the hands of a relatively few people. As long
as Southern politicians could keep segregation intact, they tended to support
the working class values of such liberal Democratic presidents as Woodrow
Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and even John F. Kennedy.
When segregation fell, however, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
probably more than anything else brought it down, Southern old line white
Democratic voters found themselves willing to abandon populism as the price of
their Republican identification. Racism always trumps bread and butter issues.
Former Democrats began to portray themselves as "Values Voters," to
which whom the National Republican leadership threw the emotional bones of
making abortion a major political issue, attaching it to the liberal breakdown
in sexual morality,; and by campaigning against homosexual people, who were,
they said, "threatening marriage and the family." In this manner the
conservative establishment wedded the heretofore populist southern white voters
with their right wing, wealth-oriented economic policies. This new political
coalition became so powerful that only two Democrats could break the Republican
control of the White House from 1968 to 2008. One of these two was a "born
again" Georgia Governor whose rise to power was helped by Watergate, and
the second was a Bible toting Arkansas Governor whose path to the White House
was made easier by an economic downturn.
The last Republican president in this era, George W. Bush, rode
into power in 2000 by cultivating evangelical voters quite overtly with his own
"born again" story. He governed, however, as an economic
conservative. The Bush tax cuts did not benefit the poor or the middle class.
His lessening of restrictions on big business gave us the huge and expensive
scandals in Enron, World Com and Tyco of the early 2000's and the housing sub
prime market of today. His military adventures in
A former Baptist preacher, Huckabee became governor of
Suddenly the face of
All that had really
happened, however, was that Governor Huckabee had reclaimed the liberal
southern economic policies that Southerners had tried to reject when they
allowed racism to make them allies with the party of big business and Wall
Street wealth. He was a second generation Evangelical who had combined
"family values," military might and long repressed southern bread and
butter politics. In the process he began to threaten the powerful ruling
political coalition. Can Huckabee or his position win? I do not think so. Can
the Republican Party win without this Southern evangelical part of their voting
constituency? I do not think so. It has
been 43 years since the Voting Rights Act became law. The 50-year gift of the
South to the Republican Party, about which Lyndon Johnson spoke, is nearing its
end. Bishop John Shelby Spong
And the Democratic South Carolina primary White
vote may indicate that increasing numbers of younger Whites are becoming
Liberal Democrats.
Here’s the Beef
Will
John Edwards electoral votes eventually be transferred to Barack Obama?
Ralph Nader slams
Bill Clinton’s record.
Does the Clinton
campaign cross ethical lines?
Dennis
Kucinich quits his presidential candidacy.
Spiritual
Progressives compare their political proposals with Liberal and Conservative
ones.
Democratic
Leadership Council (DLC) responds to President Bush’s state of the union
speech.
Conservatives
use every crisis to justify their corrupt agenda.
How can any Republican
Iraq war hawk (McCain, Romney, Huckabee or Guiliani) be elected president?
State and
Local
Our House
Has Passed the Local Option
Public Campaign Financing Bill
Our
Washington State House of Representatives recently passed EHB 1551, which
allows local governments the option of providing public campaign financing for
candidates for their offices. The bill
passed by 56 yes votes to 38 no votes, and 4 members excused from voting.
All
of the yes votes were cast by Democrats.
Six of the no votes were cast by Democrats, with the other 32 no votes
all cast by Republicans. Alternatively
expressed, Republicans voted %100 percent Our Public Disclosure Commission reports 2006 political
campaign contributions for 94 of against the bill. Democrats voted 89% in favor of the bill and
11% against the bill. Five of the six Democrats who voted against
the bill represent rural districts in western
our
state representatives, with no data available for three who voted for EHB 1551
and one who voted against it. Of the 53
State Representatives who voted for the bill (for which 2006 data is
available), the median total campaign contributions which they received was
$46,000. Of the 31 State Representatives
who voted against the bill (for which 2006 data is available), the median total
campaign contributions which they received was $72,000.
Of
the 6 Democrats who voted against the bill, 3 were among the 18 State
Representatives who received the highest total campaign finance contributions:
$117,000, $119,000 and $236,000. The
other 3 Democrats received $367, $29,000 and $72,000.
An
examination of both party affiliation and amount of campaign donations
indicates that party affiliation is the strongest predictor of whether a State
Representative voted for or against the bill. I will share the MS Access database table
which forms the basis for this commentary with those who request it. Dave Thomas
Voting Yea: Representatives Appleton, Barlow, Chase,
Chopp, Clibborn, Cody, Conway,
Darneille, Dickerson, Dunshee, Eddy, Ericks, Flannigan, Fromhold, Goodman,
Grant, Green, Haigh, Hasegawa, Hunt, Hunter, Jarrett, Kagi, Kelley, Kenney,
Kirby, Lantz, Liias, Linville, Loomis, McCoy, McIntire, Miloscia, Moeller,
Morrell, Morris, Nelson, O'Brien, Ormsby, Pedersen, Pettigrew, Quall, Roberts,
Rolfes, Santos, Schual-Berke, Seaquist, Sells, Simpson, Sommers, Springer,
Sullivan, Upthegrove, Wallace, Williams, and Wood.
Voting Nay: Representatives Ahern, Alexander,
Anderson, Armstrong, Bailey, Blake, Campbell, Chandler, Condotta, Crouse, Dunn,
Ericksen, Haler, Hankins, Herrera, Hinkle, Hudgins, Hurst, Kessler, Kretz,
Kristiansen, McCune, McDonald, Newhouse, Orcutt, Pearson, Priest, Roach, Rodne,
Ross, Schindler, Schmick, Smith, Sump, Takko, Van De Wege, Walsh, and Warnick
Absent: None
Excused: Representatives DeBolt, Eickmeyer, Hailey, and
Skinner
Adding More Rights to Domestic Partnerships
Since our
See more on domestic
partnerships. See comparison of civil unions and
marriages. For model
laws for governments and corporations.
For
information about Washington State registered domestic partnerships. For
legal advice about gay and lesbian concerns.
Our House Judiciary
Committee is now considering bills which would add 170 more rights and
responsibilities. For more. For more about bills HB
1351 and HB
3104.
Here’s the Beef
Washington State Labor Council
legislative update.
Washington’s union
membership rate is 4th after New York, Alaska and Hawaii.
Governor
Gregoire announces support for $3 million apprenticeship technology worker
programs.
Washington
State will fix ferries. But why so
late getting started?
Flawed State
Patrol toxicology lab tests may free drunken drivers and cause more fatal
accidents.
Without
cause, Seattle officers can violently attack people without being punished.
Senator Patti
Murray supports Indian Health Bill (video).
Nation
and World
Predicting Stagflation
Eighteen months ago on
“I believe that conditions
will change markedly by 2008, especially our economy. Our weak recovery is reaching its
maximum. Oil prices are driving
inflation, forcing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, which deflate
our housing bubble, reduce home equity refinancing and loans and thus reduce
demand. The result is stagflation in the
direction of the economy under President Carter in the late 1970s, which ended
30 years of enormous well distributed economic growth.
Our enormous federal and
trade deficits are weakening our dollar which makes foreign imports more
expensive and allows our businesses to also increase their prices, adding to
the inflation. We are also vulnerable to
foreigners who may tire of holding our debts, such that the government must
raise interest rates to attract borrowers, causing more depression. Ain’t economics fun? It sure gets complicated in a hurry.
More than disgust with
deception, incompetence and corruption, anxiety
about a poor economy will motivate voters to vote for a change. The former are corrosive, but the latter have
immediate direct impacts. An added
factor is two more years of the
If Democrats take control
of our government in 2008 without the Trojan horse of southern conservatives in
their midst, we may see sweeping initiation of liberal measures. Improving our environment, energy sourcing,
consumer protection, health care, education, jobs, support for labor unions,
minimum wage, retirement and much else may occur. This will occur much easier if our Democrats
are truly liberal without being in thrall to petroleum, pharmaceutical, health
insurers, agro-business, media and other powerful industries. Key reforms will be procedural: elections,
lobbying, legislative rules and others to which voters give little attention.”
I didn’t predict the
Democratic victories in the 2006 elections.
But my prediction of stagflation in 2008 has become true. I have since predicted that Democrats will
win the presidency and many more congressional seats in our 2008
elections. If this occurs, let’s hope my
earlier suggestion will be true, that without the Trojan horse of southern
conservatives, we may see sweeping initiation of liberal measures.
More on Economic Stimulus
House Democrats and Republicans and President Bush
have agreed to support an economic stimulus package which delivers money to
families with incomes up to $160,000 and tax deductions for businesses buying
new equipment. No surprise, since
legislators love to give money to constituents.
This package doesn’t deliver much money to people
with low incomes, those who suffer long term unemployment, and those who face
increased heating and other prices and would spend it most quickly and
completely for consumer goods. It
doesn’t encourage investment in sustainable energy production and other needed
new technologies which will provide quick and long term employment. It doesn’t provide money for maintaining and
enhancing our social and physical infrastructure, with resulting payoffs in our
human resources and more efficient transportation and communication.
It is quite possible that the stimulus package will
have little effect. It is small compared
to the size of our economy. Much of the
money may not be spent on American produced consumer goods and services. It’s effects won’t occur for perhaps six
months.
I would prefer many alternative stimulation
measures, although they would be difficult and time consuming to pass our
congress and receive the president’s approval.
Suppose that the $150 million was spent to hire more teachers at higher
salaries to work in schools with difficult to teach students. Or to fix our dams, bridges, tunnels, and
roadways. Or to expand high speed
broadband access. Or investments in new
environmental and other technologies.
Some of these investments could be done quickly and would have lasting
effects. See a DLC opinion.
Suppose that we repealed the income tax cuts for
the rich which are one of the causes of our stagflation, since much of the
increased after-tax income was not spent on either investment or American
produced consumer goods. Some of it was
simply loaned back to the government, with the result that the tax cuts simply
produced an additional interest income stream for people who were already
wealthy. The money could be used for the
investments described above and for assisting our people with low incomes faced
with high prices.
Suppose we regulated markets that have run amok,
such as our housing market and hedge funds.
And regulated markets and investments which may produce future
bubbles. Why haven’t we heard more suggestions
that we develop an early warning system for preventing bubbles (such as the
savings and loan, dot.com and housing bubbles)?
Once the bubble canaries die, we could then quickly take preventive
regulatory or other action. Why do we
just keep going from one bubble to another?
Maybe we need academic departments of bubbleology.
State of Our
To listen to President
Bush’s last State of the Union speech, you would never know what a mess we’re in, caused by him. Most of us have less secure jobs, lower
incomes and more debt. We face higher
prices and loss of health care coverage.
More of us are threatened with foreclosure and bankruptcy. Our national government has grown, but the
quality of its services have decline.
More money is spent on defense and interest on our huge government debt
and a smaller proportion on social services.
Bogged down in
See Bush’s Fairy Tale (Video). Senator
Patti Murray’s reaction. Another
reaction. Another reaction. Bush’s ‘more of the same’
proposals would not clean up the mess, they would make it worse. It’s a huge mess. Cleaning it up won’t be easy. But working together as Liberals who care
about our American Dream, we can quickly begin the clean-up. Yes, we can.
Here’s the Beef
Hello Alaskan oil
drilling. Bye bye polar bears.
Learn
about key house members on global warning, including our Jay Inslee.
139 thousand people were
arrested in 2006 for possessing marijuana, costing us $1 billion.
We need
universal dental care as well as health care.
Ready-to-use
food can ease malnutrition.
Hello ethanol. Bye bye affordable food. For more.
Long-term
joblessness is increasing among our middle class.
The
case for including extended unemployment insurance in the economic stimulus
package.
The
stimulus package may help the national economy, but not the people’s finances.
Will
our economy be trashed unless we give up our privacy?
Hello military Keynesianism. Bye bye tax money. Hello huge government debt.
Some South American
countries support a trade alliance independent of our United States.
India’s
development slowed without including uneducated rural and lower caste poor
people.
Kenya’s violence is
based on economic class, not tribal membership?
See how Israeli
occupation of Palestine has hurt Israel.
Our Liberal Spirit
Swift Boating
We have all attempted to ruin someone’s reputation. Maybe we were retaliating because we thought
the person had treated us badly. Or not
treated us as well as we deserved. Or
simply was in our way, holding a position or access to resources that we
wanted. Or we were just envious of his
reputation.
Whatever the reason, we have all done it. As young children, we learn ways to do
it. We may make fun of one of their
prominent characteristics. Their name
(as MoveOn did with General Petraeas).
Their dress, whether they are well dressed, or poorly dressed. Their mannerisms.
Without describing the context or by distorting it, we may
criticize take one of their behaviors or statements. We may suggest one instance is a pattern when
it is actually an exception to person’s pattern. We may speculate that a bad motive stimulated
the behavior or statement. We unfairly
characterize another person as worse than they are. If our audience isn’t acquainted with our
target, our innuendo may harm his reputation.
Otherwise, we may be the one who is hurt. We may also be hurt if we are obviously
motivated to hurt our target. . We have experienced discomfort when a person
attacked his spouse. If we do this
frequently, we may destroy our own reputation.
We can avoid these unfair attacks on others. First we can recognize our own motives. If we feel we have been unfairly treated, we
can approach to other person to clarify her motives, seek an apology or at
least that it won’t happen again.
Failing that, we can threaten the other person with a cost if they
continue. If it continues, we then have
to decide whether retaliation or retreat is the best policy. But it seldom hurts the other person if our
actions harm our own reputation.
If another person has not harmed us, but is simply in our
way, we can best seek another way to achieve our goal. Perhaps by persuading the other person to
help us, or by finding another patron.
If we find ourselves frequently envious, we should examine and attempt
to change our own outlook.
Political rivalries have long engendered character
assassination. This was a favored
strategy of journalists early in our national history. It has occurred in virtually every
presidential contest and many others. Candidates
with a political past are easy to target.
Legislators vote on many bills, most of which contain features they
favor and other’s they oppose. An
attacker can accuse an legislator of favoring some part of a bill that he has
voted for, even though the legislator opposes that part and has voted for other
bills that reject that part. An attacker
can similarly accuse an legislator of opposing something he likes, because the
legislator has opposed voted against a bill that contains it.
Governors and presidents make thousands of decisions, some
of which turn out badly. Opponents can
seize on these. Lee Atwater of the first President Bush’s
presidential campaign ran the well-known ‘Willi Horton’ advertisement to attack
Democratic candidate Dukakis. Both Bill
and Hillary Clinton suffered innumerable personal attacks concerning their
actions in
Karl Rove is thought
to have arranged personal attacks on John McCain during the 2000 South Carolina
primary race. In 2004, John Kerry’s heroism in Vietnam was
attacked by a group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Notice that John Kerry was attacked for the
heroism which he stressed in his convention speech. John Edwards has emphasized his rags to
riches background, and been attacked for his expensive haircut and house. By emphasizing one’s own character, a
candidate may be setting a target for Swift Boaters.
Barack Obama has
suffered from similar personal attacks by Hillary Clinton supporters, Bill
Clinton and Hillary Clinton, which
may have hurt the Hillary Clinton more than Barack Obama. Hopefully our Democrats will forsake such
attacks. But we can expect many
Conservative attacks upon the eventual Democratic presidential nominee.
Recommended Books –
See our list of books for
liberals
Jules Witcover, 2003, Party of the People, A History of the
Democrats
This long book provides a
detailed history, to make it a good reference book. One noticeable pattern is importance of state
politics in the selection of presidential candidates and especially
vice-presidential candidates. Another
book, They
Also Ran by Irving Stone argues that the best candidate was defeated
about half the time.
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old that you no longer intend to use, call Valery Stoury at 456-5326 The low income families in the Lake Hills
Head Start program also need furniture, food, clothing, bus passes or gas
vouchers, etc. Safeway and Fred Meyer gift certificates to be used for
family emergencies would be greatly appreciated
·
Lake Hills Elementary
School
is looking for volunteers to spend one hour a week with individual students in
the classroom or as a lunch buddy. To volunteer, call our VIBES on-site
coordinator, Mary Giesen (425-456-5300) to arrange required VIBES
training. For additional information, contact Principal
·
Phantom Lake Elementary
School
needs volunteers who are willing to be trained as Reading Mentors or who are
able to spend one hour, one day a week in the school either in classrooms,
helping in the office, or being “Lunch Buddies” during our school’s lunch
time. To volunteer, call our VIBES on-site coordinator, Beth Drobny
(425-456-5600) to arrange required VIBES training. For additional
information, contact Principal
About
We began Lake
Hills Liberals in October, 2005 as an experimental demonstration of
creating neighborhoods where liberals thrive and multiply and maximizing our
vote for Democratic candidates. Many of
our community development initiatives failed.
But we have encouraged block parties and house parties to allow
neighbors to meet each other to be able to prevent crime, to assist each other
in a disaster, and to protect and assist our children. We also canvassed our 12 precincts to
increase the number of identified likely Democratic voters from 33% to 90% and
stimulated them to vote, which assisted election of our 2006 Democratic
candidates. We hope that replication
will occur in other neighborhoods.
Through our newsletter, we have now become
To get our free services, including our newsletter,
our ‘Proud Liberal, Time for a Change’ yard signs or ‘Proud Liberal’ bumper
stickers, volunteer or make a donation, contact
Submit your news to Editor Dave Thomas.
We are
seeking reporter-reviewer-editors with knowledge of particular political groups
and issues. We have asked
the following experts to help us.
Blogs –
African
Americans –
Blogs
–
Campaign
Finance – Sarajane Siegfriedt
Democratic
Party –
Drug
Policy –
Education
– Dennis Gerlitz, John Stokes
Environment
–
Gays
and Lesbians –
Health
Care –
Hispanics – needed
Immigration
- Grosvenor Anschell
Housing
and Poverty –
Labor Unions –
Law
and Justice –
State
Legislation –
Veterans
– Steve Johnston
Women’s
Issues –
Additional Resources
See our
website at www.PugetSoundLiberals.org,
with our basic training about being Liberal, our archive of all past
newsletters, resources for liberals, tools for Democratic legislative district
organizations and more. Join
Fuse to connect with to other Liberals and more.
We
recommend the Pacific NW Portal
for displaying many blogs through which Northwest Liberals exchange their
knowledge and opinions. See also Lefty Blogs. We recommend you go to Washblog to find blogs containing
information and opinions about
Learn about our State
Democratic Party. About 2008 Caucuses and Elections. Quickly and easily contact your national and
state officials. For
many Congressional Report Cards. Report Card on your congress member.
To
learn about particular issues, visit websites of advocacy and caring organizations.
Also see our list of helpful
websites. Craig’s List Seattle