MARCY WINOGRAD: FAR AHEAD OF BOTH HAHN AND BOWEN ON U.S. NUCLEAR POWER CONCERNS:



Since at least 2006, Marcy has vocally criticized the growing lobbying & influence of the nuclear power industry. She has been a visible and consistent advocate for tighter regulations & greater safety controls for existing nuclear reactors. Marcy has consistently stated up front in her congressional platforms — unlike Hahn and Bowen — her criticisms and her oppositions to the development of new nuclear power plants and the recent growth in U.S. government subsidies for nuclear power (see, e.g., http://www.opencongress.org/wi…

Marcy has always supported America’s shift to greater use of alternative energies beyond oil and nuclear — e.g., hybrid technologies, wind energy & solar power.

MARCY WINOGRAD VS. JANICE HAHN: Janice Hahn — a longtime friend of Big Oil / Big Energy — has never made taken a bold platform position against the Nuclear Power or Oil Refinery Industry. Instead, Hahn (a former Public Affairs Regional Manager for Southern California Edison & employee) has generally been a “Friend” of Edison, General Electric and other Nuclear Power Plant operators.

MARCY WINOGRAD AND HARVEY WASSERMAN: In 2006, I attended a comprehensive discussion that Marcy Winograd hosted for Harvey Wasserman (an American journalist, author, democracy activist, and well known anti-nuclear advocate for renewable energy). At that talk, both she and Mr. Wasserman extensively discussed Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and the need to avoid in the U.S. precisely the types of scenarios now playing out in Japan. She was very clear about her calls for stronger regulations especially here in fault & quake marked Southern California.

Marcy Winograd is the sort of forward-thinking and non-Special Interest beholden politician we want and need. In contrast, Janice Hahn was a former public relations director for Southern California Edison (nuclear power contractor). She has received considerable financial support from Eidson and General Electric in the past.

The Nuclear Power Industry (Edison; General Electric, etc.) has bought politicians throughout the United States just like it did with similar politicians in Japan who are now suffering the consequences of their conflicts of interest. Marcy Winograd — far more than Janice Hahn or Debra Bowen — will stand up to those conflicts of interest and will fight for tighter regulations of nuclear power.

Please take the time to watch the following 4 minute video :

http://www.facebook.com/video/…  n

* MY ENDORSMENT OF MARCY’S CAMPAIGN (below) — PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD *

Website:  http://winogradforcongress.com…

Marcy Winograd’s Congressional recent campaign in 2010 was one about what sort of country and citizenry we want to be. I’ve known Marcy for many years. She absolutely — with no reservations — is a real leader and deserves this district’s voters’ votes and word-of-mouth support.  She is the one true progressive choice who will break with the status quo and who will immediately act to initiate positive, reform oriented change in Washington, D.C.  

Marcy Winograd has been an organized, genuine, hard working, committed and passionate activist in the Anti-War movement, the 2006-2008 Bush/Cheney impeachment movement (Kucinich’s HR 333), Health Care Reform movement and other progressive efforts to authentically restore the People’s voice to national government. Marcy received close to 38% of the vote in the 2006 primary and over 41% when she ran against Jane Harman in last summer’s June 8th primary.

She is not a machine or party sycophant who will humbly do what the party elders & attendant drones command. Marcy Winograd is a terrific individual and activist. She is a teacher & citizen who has inspired countless thousands over the last decade. She puts her time, money and — perhaps most importantly — her heart where her words are. Marcy is a thinker and a doer : an authentic voice the likes of which voters are hungry for in these cynical and hard economic times. Marcy is a real voice for for this district’s voters who is aligned with their economic & social interests and — importantly — with their deeper values and their concerns about the directions this country has taken over the last decade.

(seen these guys lately?  can you take a picture of them? – promoted by Julia Rosen)

Disclosure: I work for Courage Campaign

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has opened an investigation into the Dirty Trick to steal the White House — and now Courage Campaign needs your help to make sure the GOP-backed group behind the move to change California’s Electoral College votes is exposed as using illegal tactics to get signatures.

You may remember that Bowen opened the investigation earlier this week after Calitics and the Daily Kos community took action, catching people on video obscuring petition language and misrepresenting the intent of a petition.

After the great success that we won in convincing Bowen to open the investigation, we need to come together one more time and help close the noose around the GOP-backed groups trying to get their Dirty Trick on the ballot.  Debra Bowen needs your help right away.  Send your photos, video, or any other documentation of dirty tricks to the SoS office now.  Full details after the flip.

As you know, the latest Republican scheme to steal the White House involves a dirty trick in California that would give the GOP presidential nominee about 20 electoral votes from California even if the Democratic nominee wins the statewide vote.

The Secretary of State’s Fraud Investigations Unit is currently investigating the GOP-backed “California Counts” campaign, which is behind the effort to get enough signatures on the Dirty Tricks initiative to qualify it for the November 2008 ballot.  (They already failed to get enough signatures to qualify for the June ballot, showing just how desperate they are for each and every signature.)

“California Counts” hired Arno Political Consulting – a notorious shady signature-gathering machine – to get the signatures done.  Based on comments posted on the diaries from outraged Kossacks across California, APC apparently has instructed their “subcontractors” (read: employees) all over California to use the same tactics I saw when I made this Courage Campaign YouTube Video:

Have you seen similar tactics used by petition-gatherers?  If so, send your photos and video to [email protected] or call the Secretary of State at (916) 657-2166 right away.  Here’s how to properly document the illegal activity:

1.  If you see petitioners in your area using rubber bands to obscure petition language, take a photo of the actual, obscured petition papers.

2.  Write down the time and date, the address, and a description of the location (e.g. at the west entrance to a grocery store, etc.) where you encountered the apparently illegal activity.

3.  Email [email protected] or call the Fraud Investigations Unit at the SoS: (916) 657-2166 right away.  Include your contact information in any correspondence so that the Fraud Investigations Unit can follow up with you if necessary.

In order to establish a pattern of illegal misrepresentation and other violations of California election law, we need to show the SoS that dirty tactics have been used across the state – not just at UCSB.  If we can establish a pattern of activity, that should implicate APC and “California Counts,” and the GOP will be unable to claim that “individual subcontractors” are the only people at fault for breaking California Election Law.  “California Counts” and APC have some big GOP names associated with them — including the Rudy Giuliani campaign.  If this community can help tie them to illegal activity, there’s no telling how big this story could get.

If you have questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact the Courage Campaign directly: [email protected]

Let’s catch these dirty tricksters and make sure that there is NO chance for them to steal the White House.  Again.

This article is also on Daily Kos and Courage Campaign.

Occasionally, in the process of blogging and writing about local politics, something arrives in your email inbox that just hits you over the head and spanks your ass.

I’d like to use this essay to share just that kind of experience with you. I hope you’ll find it powerful. If you’re anything like me, it will give you a real kick in the pants. By way of providing background for this email, I’d first like to address the political situation here, on the ground, in my home state of California…

Let’s face it, the races in California are tough this year. There’s no getting around that fact. Even my own personal top three are tough:

Democrat Debra Bowen is locked in a tight race with GOP incumbent Bruce McPherson for Secretary of State.

Phil Angelides is taking it to a resurgent Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

and Democrat and environmentalist Jerry McNerney is trying to topple, against all odds, entrenched GOP incumbent Richard Pombo in CA-11.

These are difficult, difficult races. But all three of them have deep political meaning and will impact the lives of every citizen of California for years to come.  In way of background, allow me five seconds to share my thoughts with you:

Debra Bowen stands for election reform. She gets it. Further, Debra Bowen centers her campaigning squarely on that cause.  As countless activists have emphasized here in the netroots: there is nothing more sacred in American politics than one’s vote.  California deserves no less in a Secretary of State than Debra Bowen, and every Californian who cares about elections, should start caring about this race.

Phil Angelides is a veteran California Democrat with a progressive core.  As California State Treasurer, Angelides initiated two programs that have impacted California families across the state. First, Angelides launched Scholar Share, a savings program that has seen 40,000 California families sock away $170 million for their children’s education taxed at the rate of the beneficiary, not the parent. Second, Angelides spearheaded the Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase Program whereby over 1000 California teachers have purchased their first homes and put down roots in communites that might otherwise seen a revolving door of teachers move in and out. Home ownership, education, innovative programs run with sound fiscal oversight…programs that lend a helping hand to Californians willing to help themselves: these are the mark of Phil Angelides leadership and exactly the focus that California’s citizens can expect from Phil as governor.

Finally, Jerry McNerney is in the race for Congress in CA-11 for two reasons.  First, as Jerry has proven, time and again, he’s in it to win. And second, the Democrats in California’s 11th district have kept this ardent environmentalist and engineer in the race. Jerry won the June 2006 Democratic primary over the DCCC-favored candidate with 53% of the vote. That story means something: California 11’s voters want Jerry McNerney and when the going gets rough, Jerry doesn’t quit. Two years ago the Cook report and Larry Sabato wrote off Jerry in CA-11: not this time. In 2006, with strong grassroots support and, critically, the active support of labor and groups like the Defenders of Wildlife Fund, Jerry is taking the battle to Richard Pombo in CA-11 down to the wire.  This election will come down to turn-out and grassroots energy in the precincts. It’s critical that the citizens and activists in CA-11 know that they have, in Jerry McNerney, a candidate who will never quit…not this fall, and not when he arrives in Washington in 2007 to provide real leadership for CA-11.

::

Now, that’s the background for an email exchange and discussion I had with my friend, Matt Lockshin, of SayNotoPombo, expressing some of my thoughts and fears about all three of these races. When I wrote Matt I was brainstorming…I was trying to come up with a blogging strategy and rhetoric that would help all three of these candidates overcome a persistent problem I have with the California Democratic Party: timidity in going after the GOP and a failure to generate a powerful and optimistic message of hope that we can use to energize the grassroots.

Matt wrote back, like all good friends do, and what he wrote in his email put me in my place. In fact, it was so powerful I asked him if I could share it with you:

Paul,

The obvious conclusion stemming from the Lamont victory is that the people in DC don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Their “expert” pronouncements about the futility of fighting demoralizes a lot of the Democratic base. We need to convince people that every time they knock on a door or make a phone call for a candidate or issue, a little Democratic angel gets its wings.  

You see, the point about the Democratic Party is that it cannot continue to be a party of people running for office. It must be our party. We need to see Jerry McNerney and Phil Angelides as our vehicles, not us as theirs. If we’re unhappy with the campaigns they’re running, then it’s our own fault. You think the Democrats in CA don’t have the power to go and rattle political cages and make our leaders address our issues in the way we need them to address them? It’s not about making them ideologues. It’s about ensuring that whatever latitude they have to stray from the Party line is latitude that we give them.  

Of course, this isn’t how things are now. But that’s what will happen when people get invested in the Democratic Party instead of allowing themselves the luxury of simply being alienated from it all.   We can’t win by not trying.  But if everyone tries, there’s nothing that can stop us.

-Matt

That’s the kind of hopeful and fighting attitude that will help us win all three of these tough races. That’s the kind of attitude we Californians can take to every district in the State: whether it’s Charlie Brown’s battle against John Doolittle in CA-04 or Francine Busby’s effort to unseat Brian Bilbray in CA-50, or David Roth’s uphill insurgent struggle against Mary Bono in CA-45.  Hell, it’s the kind of thinking that should light a torch under every Democratic ass this fall.

As Matt says, these are our races, these races are about us. And every phone call we make, every dollar we give, every door we knock, every block we walk is one more step in reclaiming this party for our children, our parents and ourselves.

Matt’s vision of a little Democratic Angel getting its wings is funny and spot on.  I couldn’t not share it with you.  I hope it brought a smile to your face.

I’m still frustrated and angry that with GOP opponents like Richard Pombo, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce McPherson that we California Democrats are so lackluster at this point in generating public energy for our cause. But there’s one thing I’m sure of: if we do win in November, it will be because of the persistent and determined work of people like Matt Lockshin and thousands of grassroots angels across these United States.