As Jon Stewart explains to my GOP friends: " Losing is supposed to taste like a sh*t taco".
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Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Has tyranny come to our shores?
Monday, April 6, 2009
I need your vote and support.
After long consideration, I have decided to run for Chairman of the Cabarrus County Democratic Party for 2009-2010.
Why?
Because I'm crazy enough?
Seriously though, we've come a long way from the summer of 2004, when I first got involved with the Democratic Party. Thanks to past leadership and a "hardcore" group of active Democratic volunteers in Cabarrus County we helped realize huge victories in 2008. We now have a Democratic President and a Democratic Congressman and Democratic Senator representing us in DC.
Well, I believe that, since we just took our country back, it's high time we take our county back.
More than 38,000 Cabarrus County voters right now are not represented in our County government. There is absolutely no Democratic voice on our all Republican Board of County Commissioners. A government without an opposition is not a democracy. It's time we bring democracy back to Cabarrus County.
How?
By expanding and improving on proven successful tactics from the recent past, while at the same time trying new things.
The best place to find new Democrats is in your own backyard.
Back in 2004 I could count the number of local Democratic precinct organizations on one hand. Since then we've grown by leaps and bounds, but we still need to expand our local precinct organization.
We need to keep the newly discovered Obama volunteers engaged. This past year a lot of people came out of the wood works to help with the Obama campaign. Many of those volunteers had never been politically active before. We need to keep these volunteers engaged and in tune with our local Democratic Party organization.
We need to continue our effort to register new Democratic voters.
Thanks to a very dedicated effort to register new voters last year we closed the gap in voter registration between Democrats and Republicans by 4,000.
If we register another 4,000 new Democrats, we will turn Cabarrus County blue.
There are already more Democratic women than Republican women in Cabarrus County.
We need to engage folks who recently moved to Cabarrus County.
Our County is growing rapidly and a lot of traditionally Democratic people are moving in. We need to make sure to register these Democrats a.s.a.p. and get them involved in our organization.
Connecting with other local Democratic parties in "blue" counties and learn from their efforts while at the same time passing on our knowledge to other Democratic county organizations in our 8th Congressional District.
I will start a Committee that actively searches for excellent local candidates.
You can have the best county organization, if you don't have any candidates you won't win elections. In 2010 there will be 3 seats on the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners up for grabs. With some excellent candidates, who have the backing of a good Democratic county organization, the voice of almost 40,000 Democrats will be heard.
Of course, I am not going to do this all by myself.
It will take a big effort from all the active Democratic volunteers in our County, who I've gotten to know over the years, and many more who we still need to get to know.
I'm energized and hopeful for our future. Let's get to work.
How can you help me?
If you've attended your local Democratic precinct meeting this past March and got elected to be a delegate at our County Convention, i need your vote.
If you're not an official delegate you won't have voting rights, but I would love to see you come show your support at our convention as well.
The Cabarrus County Democratic Party holds its Convention on Saturday, April 25th from 10.30 am to 1.30 pm at Troutman's BBQ restaurant, 1388 Warren Coleman Blvd in Concord. You can click here for directions.
If you use facebook, you can join my support group on there.
I am, naturally, open to any questions and suggestions you might have.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Where in the world is that Left on 49 dude?
Yeah yeah yeah. I know. I know, I know, I know. I KNOW. So get off my back already, will ya? I've been busy! Actually, maybe i haven't.
Call it recuperating, call it a burn out or maybe it was just time to get away from politics for a little while. In any case, i'm back baby!
The extremely busy year of 2008 started for me on October 6th 2007 in a high school in Rock Hill, SC, where i watched this Senator from Illinois give a speech and ended in Raleigh, NC on December 15th 2008 when i witnessed 15 Presidential Electors, including one from my own Cabarrus County, cast their vote for that same Barack Obama.
In that same 2008 i also saw the election of a new Democratic Governor, Senator and Congressman i really liked and i became a citizen of my new country and cast my very first vote.
I saw our President in Columbia SC, Durham NC, Charlotte NC and finally managed to shake his hand in Raleigh NC at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.
I volunteered for him in Rock Hill SC for the South Carolina Primary and traveled to the freezing Cleveland OH to do the same for the Ohio Primary. Upon my return from OH i organized the "Cabarrus for Obama" group and all the volunteers i found with that i put to work in the NC Primary. Against all demographic odds and predictions by the Obama Campaign themselves, we managed to win the May 6th primary in Cabarrus County with a 4% lead.
When it came time for the General Election, i was employed by the Obama Campaign as Deputy Field Organizer for my County and together with the only other staff member and hundreds of volunteers we registered 6,000 new Democrats and won 12,000 more votes for Obama than we received for Kerry in 2004.
So now, after a break from politics, i'm back and everyone who knows me a little knows that i'll stop caring about politics on the day i die.
So where do i go from here? You'll find out soon enough...
P.S.: All Obama pictures you see in this story have been taken by me.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
What a day!
Thursday, August 28 2008 was a historic day not only for this country, but also for me.
After a process that lasted about 15 months, i was sworn in as a new US citizen at the USCIS offices in Charlotte. With me, 102 other citizens from 45 different countries were sworn in as new Americans.
And if that wasn't enough, that same night i was treated to one of the most amazing speeches i heard in my lifetime, live from Denver, delivered by the first African-American Presidential candidate for a major political party, exactly 45 years after M. L. King gave his "I have a dream" speech.
Today i handed in my voter registration form at the Cabarrus County Board of Elections and i'm very much looking forward to casting my first vote in the USA for an historic presidential candidate. No, it won't be for the oldest candidate in history.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Want to get involved in the election campaign?
This Saturday is the day to get active!
The Cabarrus County Democratic Party is kicking off the election season with a big organizational meeting for all experienced and new volunteers. If you want to be involved with the election campaign in any way, I highly recommend showing up.
I will see you there.
Cabarrus County Democratic Party (CCDP)Read More......
Election 08 Countdown Meeting
For everyone that wants to get involved in our 2008 election campaign. We need your help!
Please join us for a working lunch at Troutman's BBQ. Lunch will be $6.00/person.
Saturday, July 19th
Troutman's BBQ, Hwy 601, Concord (directions)
11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Now's the time folks. We need all of us working together!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
And then there will be 7... in 2012
During the Cabarrus County Commissioners meeting this past Monday, the commissioners made a decision on their board expansion plans. Remarkably enough it's not one of the options they had considered before.
After a lot of folks showed up and spoke up against the idea of quickly expanding the board haphazardly before the November election this year, Commissioners decided to expand the board in 2012 not in 2008.
There also seemed to be a majority on the current all republican board in favor of going to district representation and not keep the current at-large system. The consensus seems to be to have 5 members represent districts and have 2 at-large members next to that.
It will be interesting to see how those districts will be drawn. The final districting plan will more than likely be voted upon in a referendum on the ballot in 2010. We should all keep a close eye on this one.
For now I want to thank all the folks who showed up at the Board meeting or who made their voices heard in another way. Thanks to all of you sanity prevailed on this issue.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
And then there were 7?
The Cabarrus County Commissioners have to work too hard. That's why they say they need to expand the Commissioner Board from the current 5 members to 7 members. While hardly anyone disputes that expanding the board is a good idea, I'm all for it myself, there are a lot of questions about the timing of this move and about the way they want to do this.
Commissioners have been talking for years about expanding the board, yet they waited until the Primary of May 6th was over to bring this issue up again. Furthermore, they seem hell-bent on already having 2 more members after the November 4th election this year.
Proof that there has been talk for years about expanding our Board of Commissioners can be found in a Senate bill introduced in 1989 to expand the Cabarrus Board by 7 members and realize district representation.
Jim Johnson, former NC Senator and current Democratic candidate for NC Senate, introduced that one.
Our current, all republican, Board of Commissioners came up with 3 options on how to expand the Board.
I see big problems, and probably legal issues, with all 3 of these options.
First of all, we don't appoint people to new political positions in this Country. Last time I checked this was still a democracy and in a democracy we have something called an election to elect politicians. While the current Board of Commissioners seems to recently have abandoned this option they should be chastised for even bringing it up.
The problem with the second option (both parties nominating 2 extra candidates) is that these new candidates wouldn't have to go through a primary to get on the ticket. In the past May primary there was a big list of candidates on the Republican side duking it out for their 2 nominations. Some of those spent a lot of money to be elected. They would now be joined on the same ticket by candidates who didn't have to spend a dime to get on the ballot. If I was one of those candidates that won in the primary I would be very pissed and would probably weigh my legal options.
Also, in that second scenario the Executive Committees of the political parties would nominate candidates, leaving out the voice of the Cabarrus County voters.
Let the people speak, it's what a democracy is all about.
The third option, which they seemed to favor at the last Commissioner work meeting that I attended, has the problem that you would have 2 totally different races for the same political position. Is that even legal?
You would also have the same problem that the candidates running in the non-partisan race would not have had to go through a Primary race like the candidates we already have on the partisan tickets did.
My conclusion: The Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners should delay board expansion until 2010, so that a comprehensive plan can be developed with plenty of input from voters. There will be plenty of time then to introduce a State bill to expand the board and have the new candidates go through the regular political process of Party Primaries.
All this still doesn't explain why the current board wants to expand the board in an extremely fast and haphazard way. Please allow me to come up with a conspiracy theory.
Since it seems clear that in the current political climate a lot of voters in November will not want to vote for anyone with an R next to their name, maybe some smart republican had the brilliant idea of organizing a non-partisan race where the candidates won't have an R or D next to their name?
The Board of Commissioners is organizing a public hearing during their regular meeting about this issue, tomorrow, June 16th. I urge anyone who is opposed to the current plans to attend and speak up. The meeting is held at 6.30 pm at the Cabarrus County Governmental Center. I'll see you there.
The current Commissioners also seemed to be in favor of introducing district representation, something I strongly favor, but that's food for another blog post and that's also something impossible to realize in the few months between now and November.
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