(Another one in AD-13. Thank you to everybody who is posting these diaries. I think it’s a great way to learn more about people who are running for these slots. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Hello, I am Teddy Partridge, and I’d like your vote Sunday for delegate in AD-13.  I’m an online progressive activist, inspired by the wide-ranging  national success of the BlueAmerica, firedoglake, and DailyKos communities to become involved in California Democratic Party politics.  Long ago, I managed congressional and USSenate campaigns in Virginia for Democrats, but today is my first foray into the California Democratic Party.

As your delegate, I will work to open the California Democratic Party to grassroots and netroots activists; to ensure our State Party provides online tools, forums, and accountability measurements; and to push our Democratic officeholders to promote our progressive values, ensuring that the Governor doesn’t highjack OUR issues — like universal health care and combatting global warming — and then dilute them to please his real constituencies.

I’m an AIDS/HIV educator and successful grant-writer for non-profits.  As a disabled San Franciscan, I am motivated to engage our party in people-powered politics by combining the activism of the Web with the progressive values that make our City great.

I ask for your vote on Sunday.  I am not aligned with a slate.

(Also check out Dan Ancona’s post at Speak Out California responding to Salladay’s LA Times post about us “sallow depressives.” – promoted by SFBrianCL)

A wonderful thing is happening in the California blogosphere.  We are growing up.  People are getting asked to appear as television pundits, staffers are asking us to come to the Capitol to talk on a panel, traffic is booming and now the press is paying attention.  Don’t worry, I am not talking about Salladay’s post.  That has been well covered here and here.

Shane Goldmacher’s article for the SacBee is now up and it is quite good.  Shane is a young guy, who ran a pretty successful blog himself and understands the medium.  He has seen our blogosphere grow tremendously as of late.  I really could pick any number of paragraphs, but here is a taste.  The article is titled “Blogger bloc seeks a shake-up: Liberal writers for political Web sites run for delegate seats in their bid to influence Democratic Party policies.”

Paula Villescaz, an 18-year-old student at Mira Loma High School, is one of the many posters to announce her candidacy on Leubitz’s Calitics Web page.

“The state party is largely composed of old buddies who get together to socialize every once in a while, with most meetings being poorly attended and little business getting done in them,” wrote Villescaz, who spent much of the last year working on Charlie Brown’s unsuccessful bid to unseat Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville. “This is why I hope to get a seat.”

At most, bloggers could fill 3 percent of the 960 state Democratic Party Assembly delegate seats. But win or lose, the cyber voices of liberals like Leubitz and Villescaz are starting to be heard.

The clearest measure of their success is their steadily increasing Web traffic.

“I started the site in August 2005, and back then I would get 90 hits a day,” recalls Leubitz. “In November, it peaked at 3,000.”

I haven’t peeked at the stats lately, but we are doing better than that now.  Like Brian, I started blogging heavily here in California in Aug of 05.  There was a pretty anemic blogging scene given the progressiveness of the state and the fact that a number of big national bloggers live in the state.  Since then dozens of sites have popped up, full of excellent writers and dedicated activists.  Calitics itself has expanded its stable of bloggers and is now a daily read for bloggers, staffers and reporters.  More than one post has made its way into a mainstream publication.

One of the sites that has launched since Aug 05 is Frank’s California Progress Report.  He and I spent some time hanging out at Debra Bowen’s inauguration this Monday.  He didn’t tell me he has been appearing on TV.  I had to learn about it from this article.  Great stuff Frank!

But there have been other, perhaps more tangible, signs of the rising influence of liberal blogs — or “netroots,” as they call themselves.

Frank Russo, who operates the California Progress Report, another liberal Web site, says he is now being booked as a pundit on traditional media outlets. He is a weekly guest on Bay Area talk radio and was an on-air analyst for KPIX, the Bay Area’s CBS affiliate, on election night.

“That wouldn’t have happened before I started my site,” says Russo, whose Web page has logged more than 200,000 visitors since its launch last March.

Frank has poured a ton of hours and thousands dollars into his site.  Like most, blogging is a passion project and a labor of love.  I am one of the very few to actually get paid to do some of this work, something hopefully changes with time.  As I said in the article “It is a dream position.  There are very very few people nationally who are paid to blog.”

But enough about me.  I want to talk about something that is mentioned in the article.  A few of us have been invited by Steve Maviglio to appear on a panel in the Capitol for a group of Assembly Chief of Staffs and Press Secretaries.  We have a bunch of ideas about what we want to talk about, but I would love to get your input.  What makes a good elected official blogger?  What would you like to see them doing in terms of outreach?  What will they get out of spending time and resources in the blogosphere?

Once again, best of luck to Paula (that’s her pictured in the article) and all of the rest of you running this weekend.  We have accomplished a lot in the past year and a half.  There is a lot more to do, so stay tuned.  Hang out at Calitics.  Get more involved with your local grassroots.  And let’s work together to make this state match the idealized one in our heads.

(Can we please do this right? – promoted by blogswarm)

In today’s single-payer update, writer Paul Krugman ponders single-payer, Cape Cod plans plans for it, and California nurses advocate for it.  Schwarzenegger’s proposal sets the terms for the nation’s healthcare debates, which will be conducted in a state whose voters support government healthcare-and a nation not getting enough preventative care.

Brought to you by the National Nurses Organizing Committee as we organize to make 2007 the Year of Single-Payer Healthcare.

In today’s New York Times (reg. req’d), Paul Krugman is of the same mind(s), as many other supporters of single-payer healthcare: it’s nice that Arnold is trying…but his plan is bad.  Krugman writes:

As a result, the plan requires a much more intrusive government role than a single-payer system. Instead of reducing paperwork, the plan adds three new bureaucracies: one to police individuals to make sure they buy insurance, one to determine if they’re poor enough to receive aid, and one to police insurers to make sure they don’t discriminate against the unwell.

And so…

Maybe those flaws could be fixed once the principle of universal coverage was established – but there’s also the chance that we would end up stuck with those flaws, the way we ended up stuck with a dysfunctional system of insurance tied to employment.

What’s ironic about all this: blogger nyceve points out that the insurance companies, despite making out like bandits under Schwarzencare, don’t like it because they’re greedy. 
And unnecessary.

Heading east, Cape Cod is looking to join San Francisco in offering LOCAL single-payer, and looking even farther east, the President of the California Nurses Association makes a point in the LA Daily News about what the US will gain once we have a rational, universal health care plan:

Taiwan adopted a single-payer system in 1995, boosting health coverage from 57 percent to 97 percent with little if any increase in overall health care spending. The public system sets fair reimbursements applied equally to all providers, and uses its clout to negotiate volume discounts for prescription drugs and medical equipment. The public sets the policies and administers the system, not high-priced CEOs making decisions based on what inflates their compensation packages or stock wealth.

Elsewhere, Stratfor, a business consultancy, makes the case that California’s debate is setting the terms for our national fight over healthcare, while a new San Jose State poll shows that a solid majority of California voters support a government guarantee of coverage, though far fewer favor treating undocumented immigrants equally

A new report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
should lay to rest any doubts you might have about how our current, broken health care system is a moral tragedy.  Americans are not receiving the preventative care they need to live long, healthy lives-especially poor and ethnic minority Americans. 

Americans as a whole largely are not getting the tests, exams and advice from doctors that can lessen the burden from asthma, cancer, diabetes and obesity, according to the fourth annual national health care quality and disparities reports.
“It’s encouraging to learn that overall quality continues to improve,” said Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which issued the two reports. “At the same time, the message is clear: Much more can be done to prevent illness from occurring or progressing.”
There also continues to be a wide split in access to health care, with poor and minority patients generally receiving poorer care, according to the reports.

(grrr arrrgh – promoted by juls)

There has been plenty of good news coming out of both houses of Congress recently, so this might surprise you and if you care about consumer’s fair use rights then you’ll want to take action and call your senators on this one.

Ars Technica has a good piece on it, and an bipartisan coalition of Senators is introducing a bill called the Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act (PERFORM).

A new bill introduced in the US Senate this week would force satellite, digital, and Internet radio providers (but not over-the-air radio) to implement measures designed to restrict the ability of listeners to record audio from the services. Called the “Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act” (PERFORM), the bill is sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Joseph Biden (D-DE), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Yes thats right, two Democratic Senators are behind this as well Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) (links go to their contact pages).

Who is behind this?  The RIAA of course.  It was originally introduced in April of 2006 but it died in committee.

Here’s what it does according to the Ars Technica article:

Like its predecessor, the new legislation would require content protection on all satellite radio broadcasts along with cable and Internet broadcasts. Broadcasters would be required to “use reasonably available and economically reasonable technology to prevent music theft.” But that’s not bad for consumers, says Sen. Feinstein, who tells us that “consumers’ current recording habits” will not be inhibited as they will still be allowed to record by time period or station. However, they would be prevented from automatically cherry-picking all the Shakira songs from the services.

The bill would also get the government into the business of price controls, with content providers required to pay a predetermined “fair market value” for the use of the music libraries. If another company decides to enter the unprofitable satellite radio market in the future, it too, would be forced to pay the same rates as XM Radio and Sirius.

Ironically this comes at the same time that an endangered GOP Senator, John Sununu, is proposing something to permanently remove the “broadcast flag” from play which is the right side of the issue in my opinion.  Here’s an article on his legislation.

So please do contact Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and let them know this isn’t the kind of legislation you support and that a Democratic majority should not be caving in to the desires of the RIAA.