Marin Pension Board Divests Tobacco Stocks, Buys Marijuana Futures

Satire alert. This ain't never going to happen, but if it does, a local brand called Marin Mellow will be sure to follow.

Read the IJ story first, in which our band of merry Pension Board members defend their steadfast refusal to divest from tobacco funds, unanimously voting to put profits ahead of people as they try to protect their investments.  Yes, they have an obligation to keep the fund solvent, but wouldn't this be more fun?

Today's Independent Journal reports the abrupt about-face by the Marin Pension Board, which only this week voted to keep all its tobacco stocks, despite passionate pleas by the public to divest in cancer causing greed stick industry.

In a late night session, called following the County auditor's back of envelope calculations, the Board determined the future would be tobaccoless, but marijuana rich.

"Eventually, we will legalize this stuff," said pension chief Jeff Wickman,"and we need to be in on the ground floor.  The public and the health lobby will not get off our back until we divest anyway, so why not be pro-active about it?  it's a long-term win-win for the county and the tax coffers."

With that, he ended the midnight press conference in front of the Civic Center, and hurried into a waiting car, from which sweet smells wafted, as it sped away.  Strains of reggae music could be heard in the vehicle's path, as it headed for the Freeway.

Democracy is Coming to the U.S.A.

At the County Fair this Sunday, I staffed the Democratic booth.  At first, the usual ho yum, yawn-worthy nothing happening day.  Then, we started noticing something. Kids were queuing up to play the "democracy game," something one of our members invented.  They would divide into teams, boys versus girls usually, or some might get a little coaching from mom or dad, but most of them (average age 12) were eager and bright, and knew most of the answers to questions like "Is the United States a constitutional Republic?" "How many stars/stripes on the US flag and what do they stand for?" and my personal favorite, "Does democracy require that voters be informed to vote?"

The creator of the game gave the answer of "SO True!"  meaning a real Democracy, a working democracy, needs informed voters.  However, most of the kids said "No," realizing as do most of you, I'm sure, that any idiot can vote.  

After I said there were no wrong answers to that question, I did my spiel on the importance of being an informed voter. But that alas, you don't need to know anything to cast your ballot.

Then, everyone got a kazoo for playing the game and joined in a rousing rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

But the high point of the day was registering a young "Dreamer," a woman whose parents had brought her at age 6, seeking asylum. It took twenty-two years for their asylum to be granted, and their daughter, a real American, to become a citizen.   We were proud to register her to vote, and as a Democrat.

Mistakes Campaign Consultants Make

Are you in the biz?  Or are you looking for a campaign consultant for that new campaign (The season is fast upon us.) Either way. here are some timely tips you should know  - as a manager/consultant or someone looking to hire one.

I’m always harping on mistakes candidates make, not raising money or hiring consultants, campaigning by committee, ignoring advice they paid for. I could go on and on.

But there are lots of mistake campaign consultants and managers make also.  Here are just a few of the top ones I’ve observed in others and, if I’m being honest, in myself from time to time:

1.      Don’t push your client to raise money.  No candidate likes to make fundraising calls. They’ll do anything to get out of it – wash the dog, babysit their neighbor’s cat, anything. You need to push them to sit down and pick up the phone. Write them a script. Make call lists or have a volunteer or staffer do it.  In a large campaign, a  professional fundraiser is a must.  And don’t forget that the candidate’s family and friends should be first on the list, right after the candidate herself.

2.      Don’t ensure they have minimal staff and/or competent passionate volunteers to do the crucial work on managing the elements of the campaign. Even the small down ticket race needs a few good people at a minimum to see that the following tasks get done:.

a.      Data base and volunteer coordination.

b.      Field management. Getting the volunteer out in the “hood” walking and on the phone talking.

c.       Holding the candidate’s hand through the fundraising process and dealing with the day to day stressers of campaign life

d.      Keeping track of the bank account and filing the appropriate campaign finance reports accurately and on time.

3.      Don’t research your own client.  If you don’t know the skeletons in the closet, you will not be prepared to deal with them when they are inevitably surfaced by the opposition or the press. This was recently graphically illustrated in a Congressional race in which a newcomer to the district, with a history of failed businesses she touted as giving her “experience creating middle class jobs,” turned out to have a suspect relationship with a “pay-to-pray Guru.” Besides that she had at best a spotty voting history. Once these facts were outed by the opposition, the campaign was doomed despite her strong lead in fundraising.

4.      Similarly, don’t research the opponents. If you don’t look, you may not find.  In the above case, some deep digging and use of the internet’s “wayback machine” brought up several “removed” blog posts which showed an individual whose new age platitudes were exposed, as well as her disdain for knowledge of the sort that is crucial to the day to day world of a Congressperson.   The failed businesses which also turned out to be outsourcing to China, belied her self-proclaimed business acumen and claims of creating hundreds if not thousands of middle class jobs.  Despite nearly a million dollars in the bank, and an assured campaign patter, these became her undoing and she finished a dismal fourth.   

5.      Don’t Plan and Get Buy in on the Plan by the Candidate. If you don’t plan how the campaign is t run, the strategy, the tactics, fundraising, messaging, when and how to release the message, and get buy-in from the candidate, you could be in for a rocky ride.  Money will run short, tempers will flare, no one will be available to approve last minute mailers or ads. 

6.      Don’t prep your candidate for debates, endorsement meetings and other face to face encounters with voters. Some candidates are naturally outgoing and personable, others not so much. Know which one you have and how to help them maximize their strong points to good advantage while minimizing some negatives.  While it’s great to be outgoing and friendly, you need to make sure the candidate isn’t hogging all the time in public meetings, or staying too long at one door while precinct walking.  He needs to know with whom he is speaking and tailor his presentation accordingly without going off message.  A shy candidate will need practice promoting herself. Makes sure someone on the campaign team helps them with their presentation and gets friendly faces in the crowd to bolster their confidence.

Of course there are many more tips, but this list should get us all thinking and working toward providing the best service we can. After all, the candidate has paid you good money and needs to rely on your good advice. Makes sure you can give it with confidence.

This article was published in Down Ticket Dems  a great site with lots of tips for the local campaign

Women Earn More Where Women Elect Women

Guest Blog from Close the Gap California     An organization committed to recruiting women to run for State office in California.  Check them out!

The State of Your State

June 26, 2013

As we ramp up to recruit talented progressive women to run for office, we wondered if there was a correlation between the wage gap and women’s representation in state legislatures.

There is.

Look at AAUW’s new data on wage gaps by state and also examine statistics tracked by Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics on the number of women serving in state legislatures. As you can see from the chart, the gap tends to be smaller in states where the most women serve in the state capitol.

Women make a difference in policy and priorities, as research shows, yet no state in U.S. history has ever had 50 percent women serving in its legislature.

The average: 24 percent, up from about 5 percent 50 years ago when the Equal Pay Act was passed.
The most representative state today: Colorado with 41 percent women.
Here in California, we have 36 percent women in our congressional delegation, including, of course, two US Senators. Yet Sacramento has only 26 percent women, down from 30 percent 10 years ago.
Time to be like NASA, which just announced that its new class of astronauts has four men — and four women.

Let’s break some barriers in the Golden State!

Stonewall and the Supreme Court on Marriage Equality

Forty-four years ago almost to the day, the first Stonewall riots happened. Stonewall was a NYC bar frequented by the most disenfranchised of the gay (although that word was not in common use yet) community - drag queens, transgendered, homeless youth. The bar was raided, the patrons rousted, then rioted.  They may not have shouted "We're not going to take it anymore," but that was the effect and things started to change. Slowly.

A few months later, in Cambridge Massachusetts where I worked for the decidedly left-wing Old Mole newspaper, I met a young man named Stan. Stan was promoting a new organization, Gay Liberation. Since this was the time of women's liberation, with its consciousness raising groups, marches and protests (our group had recently taken a stand with Gloria Steinem against the dress code in the stuff Ritz Carlton Hotel, among other more substantive measures including a march to "seize" a building from Harvard and turn it into a women's building), I was all over that.  "Gay Liberation!" I enthused to my fellow journalists. "We have to write about it."

I was surprised that my idea was pooh-poohed by all the men.  I insisted, and not wanting to be considered "chauvinistic," the men deferred and and I wrote my article on Stan and the coming gay revolution.

Today, nearly 40 years to the day after that historic Stonewall raid, our Supreme Court has given the green light to same sex marriage in California.  A narrow victory to be sure, on issues of standing, related to the Proposition 8 issue (Proposition 8 was a measure overturning gay marriage in California, that was declared unconstitutional by a Federal judge, then appealed by proponents of the measure, but not the State. The Supremes ruled the proponents lacked standing, and only the State could appeal decisions relating to State propositions), but a victory nonetheless for thousands in this state and hopefully a push in the right direction for other states to follow suit.

And oh yeah, they overturned the Defense of Marriage Act too.  After Tuesday's ruling on the Voting Rights Act, today's decisions are a welcome relief.

Where's Jerry? Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Where's Jerry? is the question on many lips around the capital and the state these days. You remember Jerry, the Jesuit educated, zen practicing, feisty, progressive, anti-death penalty, crusading young Governor of 1970's California? Governor Moonbeam - THAT guy!

According to an article in the June 22, 2013 edition of the Atlantic, he's "morphed into a 21st century version of a 1950s Southern governor." That mellow dude has been reincarnated as George Wallace!

Could that really be? His latest power move is to defy the Federal courts who have ordered, ordered, mind you, that Jerry Brown comply with an earlier order to reduce prison overcrowding to just 137.5% (!) of capacity, by taking several steps outlined by the court. Jerry dumped a bunch of prisoners back into County jails, ridding himself of part of the problem while overburdening already cash strapped counties, but that seems to be the extent of his efforts.

Now the court is really pissed off and has added additional steps to reduce that overcrowding in an order of 6/20/13 or they will haul his sorry ass into court for contempt. Yet the new Jerry Brown, the one who has stolen old Jerry's soul and replaced it with a lump of anthracite, continues his tough stance ignoring the prison crisis and the court's order. Why? Could it be that new Jerry is a politician where old Jerry was a mensch. New Jerry started to rise from the ashes of the old back when he was Mayor of Oakland, started a military academy, and later, as Attorney General, restarted capital punishment, despite supposedly still being opposed to it personally.  Politics? He was actively pursuing a bid to become governor once more at the time.

I first noticed the new Jerry when Prop. 66 was on the ballot, the first attempt to undo some of the draconian and unintended consequences of the Three Strikes law, and I got a robo call from then Mayor Jerry, warming me that killers and rapists would be set loose to murder me in my bed if I voted for this law.

I was outraged, not by the prospect of murderers and rapists but by the transformation of Jerry Brown into new Jerry, tough on crime Jerry, the political animal Jerry.  So I ask, where is Jesuit Jerry, zen Jerry? Or maybe the question should be "what is sound of one Governor calculating?"
  

Scandal no. 3 Michele Bachmann ethics' slip

Not that she's not enough of a scandal all on her own. Her speech patterns would scandalize any high school English teacher in the nation, but now she's in the thick of it with ethics allegations that have caused her to pull out of seeking re-election.

Oh, don't listen to those naysayers, she whines, or, to be precise, “I fully anticipate the mainstream liberal media to put a detrimental spin on my decision not to seek a fifth term,” she said in a gauzy network-television quality video posted on her campaign Web site. “They always seemed to attempt to find a dishonest way to disparage me. But I take being the focus of their attention and disparagement as a true compliment of my public service effectiveness.”(New York Times, May 29)

But with an alphabet soup of Federal agencies looking up her nighty, she can't get out of town fast enough. And to add insult to injury, the allegations come from the poor woman's own campaign team. What happened to old fashioned GOP loyalty? or is that not a word the Tea Party is familiar with?

Yes, it's fun to watch these clowns flounder in their own brew, as they try to swim out of the rapids created by their own backwash. But I'd rather they performed their sleazy antics on a daytime TV show instead of in the United States Congress where no matter how corrupt their morals or bad their grammar, they still have power to do serious damage to small children and other living things.