I wasn’t going to write about this.

For the last few months, I’ve dealt with a series of family health crisis that culminated first in the death of my elderly mother, then my father exactly four weeks later.

The outcome of a contested primary in a safe Blue district hasn’t even been on my radar. But in the last couple of weeks I’ve had too many neighbors, too many friends ask about the race.

For better or worse, they want an opinion from me. So here it is.

On June 8th, I’ll be voting for Jane Harman. And I’ll be doing it as a Progressive.

Join me below the fold and I’ll tell you why.

If you’re an avid Winograd supporter – if you’ve volunteered in her office, canvassed for her, donated to her campaign – chances are what I’m about to write will piss you off. But I’m going to ask you to read on anyway. Because I understand why you’re volunteering and I deeply respect your need to make our country a better place. I’m the child of public school teachers who felt that need too and fought every day to lift their students up while everyone else worked to keep them down. I gave up 6a months of my life and worked unpaid as a regional field organizer on the Obama campaign precisely because I feel that need myself.

If I thought for a second Marcy Winograd was the best candidate to bring us one step closer to making that dream a reality, I’d be right there with you. But she’s not and she won’t.

Being a progressive is about moving forward – sometimes dramatically, sometimes incrementally – but always, and relentlessly, forward. And because politics in this country is a messy and inefficient process stuck in institutional inertia, being an effective progressive means the willingness to coalition-build with people you may not agree with on every issue.

Winograd, who’s never held even local elective office, has not yet demonstrated the ability or desire to be a coalition-builder, nor has she demonstrated the ability or desire to build consensus beyond her core group of supporters.

ALL POLITICS ARE LOCAL (AND OFTEN MIND-NUMBING)

When Winograd ran against Harman in 2006, capitalizing on constituent frustration with the Iraq War, she managed to take 37.5% of the vote after a brief 3-month campaign. But instead of building on what was a very respectable showing, she gave up the Marina del Rey condo she’d rented for the duration of the campaign and moved out of the district and back to Pacific Palisades.

Winograd could have sold her Pacific Palisades home and actually put down stakes in CA-36. But she didn’t – buying a new home in Santa Monica (Henry Waxman’s district) in 2009 for $1.8 million. While our state faced the worst political and economic struggles in its history, Winograd could have dug in and run for State Assembly, State Senate, or even as a city council member for San Pedro, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Torrance or El Segundo. But again, she chose not to.

Voters in our district wouldn’t hear from Winograd again until a byzantine scandal surfaced last April involving Harman, AIPAC, the House Intelligence Committee and a prominent Democratic Party donor named Haim Saban. As scandals go, this one had all the staying power of cotton candy on hot asphalt (for a very comprehensive – and hilarious – review of the saga, check out this segment from the John Stewart Show ), but it was enough to give Winograd the opening she needed. Within a month she announced she would run against the suddenly vulnerable Harman.

Winograd moved into another rented condo in Marina del Rey and the race was on.

Now, Winograd isn’t doing anything “wrong” (there’s no legal requirement that a candidate has to live in the same district they are running for, only the same state), but when a candidate puts more effort in creating the illusion of representing her potential constituents than actually participating in the daily, mind-numbing grind local politicians have to go through to make their constituent’s lives better, that ought to raise some red flags.

Even as she seeks to ride the coat-tails of progressive candidates Bill Halter (elected Arkansas Lt. Governor in 2006) and Joe Sestak (who spent 31 years in the Navy and served in the Clinton White House as Director for Defense Policy, and is now serving his second term as Congressman for PA-07), she chooses not to pay her dues as they did.

It’s one thing to say you want to change the political landscape, it’s quite another to grab a shovel and start digging.

PREACHING BEYOND THE CHOIR AND THE FIGHT FOR THE COVETED CDP DOOR THINGEE

If you’re a registered Democrat in California, right around election time, some helpful soul will hang a brochure on your front door knob that lists all the official California Democratic Party (CDP) endorsements for the election in your district.

So here’s how a Congressional candidate in California gets that endorsement: Local CDP delegates, county committee members and representatives of local Democratic clubs get to vote in something called a pre-endorsement conference for the Congressional candidate they would like to see endorsed. If 70% of the voters at that conference endorse a candidate, then that recommendation is sent to the full CDP Convention a month or so later where, usually, the recommendation is accepted by unanimous consent and placed on the coveted CDP Door Thingee.

If you’re a candidate with relatively low name recognition and even less money (Winograd), and you’re in a contested primary with an opponent who has high name recognition and a lot of money (Harman), you can see why getting your name on the coveted CDP Door Thingee would be very helpful indeed. In fact, candidates in this state would kill for a place on the damn thing, and the ensuing drama surrounding the acquisition of said Door Thingee is entertaining indeed.

Jane Harman received 72% of the local delegate vote, enough to send the recommendation to the full CDP Convention. But it wasn’t that simple. Before the Convention, opposing candidates can collect 300 signatures from delegates across the State to force another endorsement vote among local delegates at the Convention, which is exactly what Winograd did. This time, the only participants were CDP delegates in the 36th Congressional District. At that endorsement caucus, Harman got a whopping 82% of the vote – far more than the simple majority she needed to put her name back on the consent calendar for ratification. But at the Convention, Winograd was able to gather the 300 signatures from delegates outside the district needed to pull the recommendation off the consent calendar yet again and send it to the Convention floor for a vote. Winograd lost that floor vote 599 to 417, and Harman ultimately received the endorsement.

There’s a reason why you, as a non inside-baseball-California-Democratic-Party-delegate-nerd-geek-policy-wonk, should care about this.

Winograd’s campaign didn’t do substantial outreach to the local CDP delegates – her potential constituents – to make the case for Winograd. I know, because I’m one of those delegates who voted in the pre-endorsement meeting. I received not one phone call from Winograd’s campaign. No emails. Nothing.

Contrast this with Harman’s campaign – who reached out to all the delegates regardless if they were known Winograd supporters or not – to secure their vote for that meeting. They worked the phones, they held meetings, they asked questions and heard concerns. They organized and made the case for Harman to her own constituents and, in the end, the work paid off.

Winograd chose to reach out to supporters outside the district to get the recommendation of Harman’s constituents overturned. And when the final vote didn’t go her way, instead of thanking her supporters and moving on, she questioned the validity of the vote.

Again, Winograd didn’t do anything “wrong” – she followed CDP rules. But every action she took, every statement she made during the Convention process and afterwards was only meant to play to her base. She had the chance to organize support and build a winning coalition within CA-36 and beyond her choir of hard-core supporters and usual suspects. But she made a conscious choice not to, spending more time creating the illusion of constituent support than building it.

CANDIDATES WITH GLASS INVESTMENTS SHOULD NOT THROW STONES

Winograd, describing herself as the only “real” Democratic candidate in the race, has consistently gone after Harman as being “someone beholden to big banks, Wall Street, or the weapons industry.”

Winograd has made Harman’s wealth a prominent issue in the campaign, and has called on Harman to divest from Dow Chemical after the EPA identified Dow as a potentially responsible party for toxic pollution in the Harbor-Gateway area, suggested Harman’s vote on extending biologic drug patent protections was tied to her investments in Pfizer, Abbot Labs and Johnson & Johnson, and most recently “rebuked” Harman for a wave of spring-time foreclosures that hit CA-36 during the first three months of 2010.

Winograd hopes to paint Harman as someone irredeemably corrupt and out of touch, an insular multi-millionaire profiting from Big Pharma, Big Banks, and Big Polluters.

Frankly, this argument would be more effective if Winograd herself wasn’t a multi-millionaire heavily invested in Big Pharma, Big Banks and Big Polluters too.

Winograd’s own financial disclosure statement, reveals substantial investments in Baxter International (biologic drugs) , Merck (which spent $3.2 million lobbying against health care reform in the first quarter of 2009 alone), and UnitedHealth Group (which made headlines last August, when it sent a letter to it’s employees directing them to anti-health care reform events hosted by the right wing America’s Independent Party)

Winograd, who owns two properties in Santa Monica and a Four Seasons Resort time share in Carlsbad, CA (combined worth over $2 million), also has a substantial investment in Wells Fargo, one of the banks at the forefront of a $1.4 million-a-day lobbying assault to stop reform efforts in Washington and which is currently embroiled in numerous consumer lawsuits, including one involving the city of Baltimore, which charges the financial giant with targeting African-Americans for questionable sub-prime loans that resulted in hundreds of foreclosures.

Lastly, Winograd has smaller investments with the timber and paper industries. One of those companies, Clearwater Paper Corporation, was charged with violating federal and state air-emission standards more than 50 times in 2009.

It’s important to note that Winograd’s investments aren’t part of a mutual fund package – these are direct, chosen, targeted investments and annuities, that as a trustee, Winograd herself would have been responsible for executing. She knows exactly what companies she’s invested in.

Are any of these investments illegal? Nope. But, again, Winograd is talking the talk, not walking the walk. If you’re going to portray yourself as the moral authority in this primary race, railing against the financial sector, health insurance, pharmaceuticals, and polluters, you’d better be as pure as the Dalai Lama in a snowdrift or else you’re traveling in the same circles of hypocrisy as George “lift my luggage” Rekers or Mark “Appalachian Trail” Sanford.

A PROGRESSIVE CASE FOR JANE HARMAN

In 1998, during a failed bid to win the Democratic nomination for California governor against Gray Davis and Al Checchi, Harman infamously said she was proud to be called the “best Republican in the Democratic Party.”

It was a statement her opponents would use against for the next 12 years.

By the time Marcy Winograd ran against Harman in 2006, she’d become a target of national Progressive frustration, thanks mostly to her support of Bush’s NSA warrentless eavesdropping program and her vote to authorize the Iraq War in 2003.

The irony of that ill-fated statement? She was attempting to describe herself as a coalition builder, who could reach across party lines. Harman actually ran to the left of Gray Davis, vowing to repeal 1996’s Proposition 209, the ballot measure that outlawed racial and gender preferences in state hiring and school admissions, and to sign gay marriage into law if elected.

And therein lies one of the great weirdnesses of modern Progressive politics in this country – that Jane Harman, a lawmaker who scores better for her voting record on War and Peace legislation than Dennis Kucinich, should become so synonymous with the disastrous foreign policy of George W. Bush, that Harman’s detractors have literally said support for her equaled killing babies.

For the past 4 years, Winogorad has made a cottage industry out of promoting Harman as the House version of Joe Lieberman, but it took me all of 15 minutes of web surfing to find that even as Harman took positions on national security issues and the military that drove Progressives (and me) nuts, she amassed one of the most liberal voting records in Congress on almost everything else.

The liberal website Progressive Punch.org gives Harman’s voting record an lifetime progressive score of 81.43. NARAL has given her a 100% pro-choice rating.

I also found:

In 2006, the ACLU praised her efforts to improve FISA, and that 18 months before Barack Obama became president, she introduced legislation to close Guantanamo.

She strongly opposed DADT when it was first implemented in 1993 and was one of 77 lawmakers who signed a letter to Barack Obama demanding it’s repeal. She voted against the Defense of Marriage Act (one of only 67 lawmakers, Republican or Democratic to do so), and for modifying bankruptcy rules to help consumers avoid foreclosures.

Last year, Harman broke with the Blue Dog caucus to support health care reform, becoming an outspoken proponent of the public option and at one point even threatened to vote against any bill that didn’t include it.

In December, she objected to Obama’s Afghanistan “surge”, saying that expanding our military footprint would be a mistake.

Earlier this month, she co-sponsored the West Coast Protection Act, legislation that would end new oil and natural gas leases on the West Coast.

(For an exhaustive list of her voting record, go to this link.)

Folks, a legitimate conversation can be had about Harman’s stands on national security, defense issues and Israel (As a J-Street Jew, I actually have issues with both Harman and Winograd when it comes to Israel), but baby killing? Really?

Look, I don’t doubt for a second Winograd’s passion and the passion of her supporters. The goals she promotes – withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, single-payer health care reform and a new economy built on green technology – are good, solid, progressive goals I agree we should all be working towards.

Yet I have no confidence she’ll move us one step forward in that direction if elected. Marcy Winograd is a protestor, not a legislator, and for all the reasons I’ve listed above I have serious concerns about her judgment, values, and ability to provide effective representation for me and my neighbors.

Contested primaries are healthy – I do believe Winograd’s challenges may have had a hand in moving Harman to the left on national security issues (although I doubt they’ve had any effect on her when it comes to social issues, since Harman was already pretty far to the left). But I can think of any number of progressive politicians in our congressional district who’ve put in years of public service (Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Secretary of State Debra Bowen immediately leap to mind) who’d I’d love to see make a run for Congress instead.

Until that happens, for me at least, the choice is simple.

Jane Harman remains the progressive choice for my district and I’ll be voting for her June 8th.

I hope you will too.

I’ll try and explain this difficult decision as best I can with as little hyperbole as possible….. (to read this post with supporting links, please go to:  http: //www.veniceforchange.com/2009/02/why-im-voting-no-on-measure-b.html )

Los Angeles relies on coal-fired power plants more than almost any other large city in the country. More than 75% of the electricity DWP generates comes fossil fuels, most of that from coal.

Measure B, the “Green Energy/Good Jobs” ballot initiative promises to generate 400 megawatts of solar power by 2014, save lives by improving air quality (or at least keeping it from getting worse), create thousands of good-paying union jobs and make Los Angeles the solar capital of the United States, all while only costing rate payers an additional $1 a month.

The measure is just one component of a massive three-part plan called Solar LA.  The program’s goal is to create a 1.3 gigawatt solar network of residential, commercial and municipally-owned solar energy systems.  

According to the literature, Solar LA:

….is simply the largest solar plan undertaken by any single city in the world – with the municpally-owned portion of the plan alone representing more solar capacity than in all of California today. By 2020, the plan will lower carbon emissions in Los Angeles and increase the City’s solar portfolio by nearly 100- fold.”

Measure B is the third part of this program – the municipally-owned part. What it proposes to do is to build and install thousands of solar panels on city-owned buildings and municipal properties such parking lots, parks, schools, etc. all over Los Angeles.

Sounds pretty good, right? As someone who believes in solar power and who’s pro-union (in fact, both my husband and I are union members), I know it sounded great to me. We desperately need a comprehensive solar program. The sooner the better.

But the more research I did, the more I began to question if Measure B will be able to deliver on it’s promises. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that if passed, Measure B will likely do the opposite, and will instead actually undermine the city’s solar energy efforts.

Here’s why:

Measure B is actually a Charter Amendment. It will transfer oversight of the solar power program from an independent five-member commission with technical expertise to the City Council, which is neither independent in this case, nor technically proficient.



And because the measure would allow the council to change or suspend everything that’s in it, without the normal public hearing process generated by a DWP Commission/City Council partnership, the council’s new authority would not be accompanied by new accountability.

DWP has no experience creating or managing such an ambitious program, and they’re shutting out third-party contractors that do.

DWP has a pretty good record managing it’s distribution networks ( DWP’s customers remained relatively unaffected during the rolling blackouts of 2001). This is because DWP owns and controls both the power generated from coal-fired power plants in Utah and Arizona and the distribution network –  in the form of transmission lines – that bring power to us in Los Angeles.

What they haven’t done, though, is actually build the coal plants or the generators.  In essence, that’s what DWP is proposing to do for solar – build an equivalent of it’s own power plant – something it’s never tried before. And since Measure B stipulates that all work must be done exclusively by DWP employees (outside the actual manufacture of the solar panels), it’s shutting out outside contractors who have that experience.

Add to this DWP’s spotty management record for other Green Power projects and a history of illegally overbilling clients, and in my mind there’s some cause for concern.

Most DWP workers don’t have the expertise or experience to execute the plan, and the plan won’t allow other trade unions an oportunity to participate.



IBEW, the union representing DWP workers and – not so coincidentally – the authors of Measure B, will solely be responsible for implementing every aspect of the program. The problem, simply, is that most of the work is construction, not electrical. Work DWP has had  significant problems with in the past.

Thousands of other trade unionists, like the membership AFL-CIO Laborers Local 300 – who have tons of experience installing solar panels – will be left out in the cold.*

Nobody knows how much this program will cost.

Competing reports put the cost for Measure B (not the entire “Solar LA” program) anywhere from $1.5 billion to over $3 billion depending on which report you believe. The DWP is also apparently counting on a number of tax credits, subsidies, technological breakthroughs, economies of scale, volume discounts, and optimal sightings to drive down costs, none of which has been really vetted or talked through.

Frankly, I think higher rates in exchange for clean, renewable energy can be a fair deal, so that’s not the issue for me. The fact that nobody knows one way or another, however, gives me pause, because this is yet another indicator this measure isn’t fully cooked yet.

We don’t need Measure B to create a municipally-owned solar power program in Los Angeles.

The proponents of Measure B state that a “no” vote is a vote against all solar in LA. Well, this really isn’t accurate. As stated above, Measure B is only one part of a three-part program. The other two parts are completely unaffected by the outcome of Tuesday’s election.

We have alternatives that should be explored.

DWP should be putting more emphasis on creating ways for customers to purchase solar power or solar technology from a variety of vendors to ensure flexibility and encourage healthy competition. Instead, DWP seems determined to concentrate all their eggs in one basket. Their basket.

For instance, DWP does not allow its customers to purchase solar electricity from third-party solar developers, a very popular model in the rest of the state that allows schools and businesses to harness tax credits and hedge against future utility rate increases.

In an LA Times Op Ed, Adam Browning, co-founder and executive director of the Vote Solar Initiative, wrote:

Even worse, during the last legislative session, the DWP supported a bill that would have allowed the utility to raid the state’s SB 1 fund — which was developed under the California Solar Initiative, a program that provides rebates for customers who install solar systems on their roofs and reduce their electricity bills — and use the money for utility-owned wholesale power generation. It was an appalling move, and when my organization asked the governor to veto the bill, he did.

Though the DWP has committed to generating 280 megawatts of solar energy via customer incentives under SB 1, the utility’s plan lists only 130 megawatts that would come from qualifying customer programs. Department officials say they will follow the letter of the law, but it’s pretty clear that they mean to follow the letter of the law until they can get the law changed. That’s unacceptable, and the mayor and the leadership of the DWP should disavow these market-restricting tactics.

I think all this begs the question why, exactly, is Measure B on the ballot in the first place, and how did it get there?

There’s been a lot of speculation that this might be a political move by Mayor Villaraigosa who, at the time Measure B was put on the ballot,  feared he’d be facing developer Rick Caruso in a serious primary challenge:

Like most things involving the council and City Hall, this all comes down to money and ambition. At the time Villaraigosa signed on to the extraordinary sleight-of-hand, he was in search of an insurance policy in case billionaire developer Rick Caruso jumped into the mayoral race against him. With its ability to spend unlimited amounts in independent expenditure campaigns waged on a candidate’s behalf, IBEW Local 18 — and Local 11….is pretty good insurance. The council members can hope that the unions and the consultants will remember them and their causes fondly too.

Or maybe Villaraigosa is hoping Measure B will burnish his resume just in time to run for governor in 2010?)

(S)upport for Proposition B helps further align Villaraigosa’s gubernatorial ambitions with two realities of statewide Democratic politics: the growing importance of Latino voters and the concomitant growth of organized labor’s influence.

According to people close to the mayor’s political operation, his hopes of capturing the nomination in the Democratic gubernatorial primary turn on the fact that Democratic races are decided in two places — the Bay Area and Southern California, mainly Los Angeles. Their calculation is that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown will split the vote of the Anglo-liberals who predominate in the Bay Area, while Lt. Gov. John Garamendi will shave off non-Latino voters in his Central Valley base.

Whatever the reason it ended up on the ballot, I’ll be voting “no” on Measure B.  Because with Measure B off the table, we’d have a real opportunity for proponents and critics, the DWP, all trade unions, solar experts, environmentalists, stakeholders, and the City Council to work together to come up with a comprehensive plan to create a workable solution from the bottom up, not the top down.

Vote “no” on Measure B.

*For the record, my husband and I are members of .I.A.T.S.E. Local 700, so we don’t have a dog in this fight.

We’re only two days away from a gaining a 60-seat filibuster-proof US Senate majority.

On Tuesday, December 2nd, the good citizens of Georgia will go to the polls for the second time in less than a month to chose their next Senator in an unexpected run-off election. Currently Democractic challenger Jim Martin trails Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss by only a few percentage points. But the polls mean nothing. Turnout means everything.

We need your help to get out the vote. Will you commit to taking 60 minutes out of your busy schedule between now and 3pm on Tuesday, Dec. 2nd?

Just go to this website to get started making calls:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/votercontact/landing

Why do I say we’re only two days away from a gaining a 60-seat filibuster-proof Senate majority? Because with Al Franken projected to eek it out in a drama-filled Minnesota recount (by only 27 votes, according to fivethirtyeight.com!),  the only thing standing between advancing Barack Obama’s ambitious agenda to reform our health care system, create 2.5 million new jobs with much need infrastructure and green technology programs, get our economy back on it’s feet with responsible fiscal policy, and develope alternative energy programs that will wean us off foreign oil is Saxby Chambliss, a one-term Georgia disgrace, who only got his Senate seat by smearing a triple-amputee war hero as a friend to terrorists.

Just go to this website to get started making calls:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/votercontact/landing

If you’re not already a member on mybarackobama.com, just create a new account. It will take you all of five minutes. Then log on and follow the directions to make calls from your home or office.

Can you commit 60 minutes? Especially on Election Day? Remember, Georgia is 3 hours ahead of us and their polls are open from 7am to 7pm local time. Can you committ to waking up an hour earlier than normal Tuesday so you can make phone calls?  How about shifting your morning workout to the evening?

Isn’t healthcare reform, a clean environment, 2.5 million new jobs and sustainable, renewable energy worth an hour of your time?

Just go to this website to get started making calls:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/votercontact/landing

Your energy, enthusiasm and willingness to continue on with the work past November 4th has both humbled and inspired us.

This past weekend, less than three weeks after Election Day, volunteers all over California made 15,000 phone calls on behalf of Democrat Jim Martin, who’s running against Saxby Chambliss in the Georgia Senate race, which has a runoff election on December 2nd. .

In Venice, nearly a 100 of you gathered together to make 6,500 phone calls for the Georgia Senate race,

A lot of you asked if we were going to do it again. YES! WE! ARE!

PHONE BANK THIS WEEKEND

Saturday, November 29

11am to 3pm

Pot Luck Phone Bank With A View!

Ingrid van Eckert and John Blumenthal’s place

401 california Ave # 8

Santa Monica, 90403

(park in the public garage on 4th

street between California and Wilshire)

Bring your cell phones, your chargers, and your leftover Thanksgiving feast!  We’ll provide the drinks!

PLEASE RSVP HERE: http://my.barackobama.com/page…

Sunday, November 30

12pm-3pm

Pot Luck Phone Bank and Hot Tub Extravaganza at Marta and Warren’s

758 Palms Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Bring your cell phones, your chargers, your bathing suit and your leftover turkey trimmings. We’ll supply the drinks and hot water!

PLEASE RSVP HERE: http://my.barackobama.com/page…

PHONE BANK FROM HOME

Going of town this weekend and can’t come to a phone bank? If you have an internet connection and a phone, no problem!  Just go to this link to get started making calls from home or on the road.  http://my.barackobama.com/page…

WHY WE NEED TO DO THIS

Why are we phone banking for Georgia? Another Senate seat doesn’t matter much with a Democratic majority in Congress, does it?

Think again.

Just last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sent a letter to Harry Reid, signed by all 40 Senate Republicans – including Georgia incumbent, Saxby Chambliss – threatening that they were “not prepared to bend to a stronger majority.”

Saxby Chambliss, is an ultra right-wing conservative who has voted with the Republicans 94.4% of the time. He is a sure vote in a filibuster situation. But a win in Georgia would make the Senate nearly filibuster-proof.

With Alaska going blue, the Democratic majority in the Senate up to 58, and Democratic candidate Al Franken is only a few dozen votes away from winning in Minnesota pending a recount.

A win in Georgia would bring us up to the magic number 60, and that would  mean Obama will have a much better chance of being able to enact real change!

Jim Martin’s Georgia Senate campaign has reached out to former Obama phone bank groups all over the country, but has made a special effort to reach out to California.

I’m happy to report we’re answering the call here in Southern California. Read on if you want to learn how you can help.

As you might have heard in the news, neither Democratic challenger Jim Martin nor Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss received 50% of the vote November 4th, so Georgia will be holding a runoff election December 2nd, with early voting starting tomorrow, November 17th.

As it stands now, the Democrats are within spitting distance of reaching a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. As of today, it looks like Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska will lose his seat as the last absentee ballots are counted in that state, and Al Franken is within a couple of hundred votes in Minnesota, pending a mandatory recount. If both those seats stay in the Democratic column, it will bring our majority to 59; a successful Georgia runoff bringing us up to the magic number 60.

Republicans are pouring resources into the state, John McCain is campaigning for Chambliss, and the RNC is plastering the airwaves with negative ads.

But Jim Martin has a secret weapon. Us.

Martin’s campaign has reached out to the “Fightin’ 36th” (CD 36)  and other California Obama phone bank groups, knowing we were the engine that drove the GOTV effort for states all over the country.

Missing the old gang? Pining away for call lists and vote builder log-ins?

Have we got the phone banks for you!

Saturday, November 22

Pot Luck Phone Bank

1pm-4pm

913 Marco Place, Venice, CA 90291

Bring your cell phones, your chargers, and a dish!

We’ll provide the drinks!

Sunday, November 23

BBQ Phone Bank and Hot Tub Extravaganza

1pm-4pm

758 Palms Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Bring your cell phones, chargers, bathing suit and a side dish. We’ll supply the drinks, burgers and hot water!

Please RSVP to [email protected] so we’ll know how much food to prepare. D-day claims he’ll bring Snickerdoodles!