In the end i chose to rephrase my Goddard question from earlier articles: "The GOP works closely with the Tea Party. The move showed to be a success. How does the Democratic Party intend to try to rebuild their connections with the liberals and progressives who typically energize a party and whom the Dem party turned their backs on this election?"
But dear reader you're going to have to satisfy yourself with your own answers to those queries because in the end my question wasn't taken and we were all sent scurrying for a quick lunch.
Returning, i noticed the sounds of a street musician across the hotel's main entrance. I dug out some change and said, "So, there's a political convention going on over there," and i pointed to the hotel. "Yeah?" he seems unimpressed. "Getting much?" my pocket change clanked in his hands. "Not much." "No surprise?" i said. "No surprise," he echoed behind me.
When i got inside the first person i spoke to was this wise Indian woman, a Hindi Indian, woman, at the LGBT Rainbow Caucus, in a discussion of the party's problem of failing to recruiting candidates for all races, surrendering the agenda. She was inspired and explained, "If you don't have to worry about winning, then you can be more fearless with your message." I hoped to let that be a guide for me for the afternoon sessions.
Torn between my wife's favorite, the Federated Democratic Women, and the LGBT Rainbow Caucus, i decided to split my time with both, but first chatted up Phil Hettmansperger and District 4's Ken LaKind about the need of Democrats challengers in all races in all districts. Hettmansperger had been a recurring state candidate.
In the course of conversation, LaKind hoped i would delineate for him and his neighbor an explanation of the banking scandal and why both GOP and not just Dems, like Dodd, were culpable. The neighbor, on a rightwing news diet, believed that the Democratic Party was consistently at fault for Wall Street deregulation because of Clinton era deregulations, in particular the partial repeal of Glass-Steagall. But as the powerful, but under-heard viral video "I'm not Voting Republican Because I Have a Memory," dutifully documents, it's actually the GOP who have been in power through every major banking scandal in the last century.
The 1999 reversal of Glass Steagall was orchestrated by three Republicans, Gramm, Leach and Bliley, not Clinton, not in a time when the Republican Whitewater lynch mob ran the Congressional show. Next, just as his brother before him, Neil, had dabbled in the Silverado Saving & Loan Scandal decades earlier on daddy's watch, George W Bush backed banks bilking the public again and again, until they had leveraged the whole apparatus to fall over on itself; and then, instead of taking the lumps, they pushed to have the public bail them out, to keep them in business so those very same banks could then throw us all out in the street. And then post it as their record profits and use them to pay GOP record corporate donations.
The impact of those donation dollars was plain to see on the faces in any of the caucus breakout sessions i attended that day. Finally i ducked into the Women's caucus. The sweet gray haired ladies who had spotted the promise of my dear sweet wife, Beth Weisser, and who had then paid the expenses to send her to the wonderful women's candidate training program, Emerge Arizona, were still there and still as earnest as ever. It made one feel proud to see such a collection of the heritage of Democratic women had in Arizona, including friends and acquaintances of former Dem governors Rose Mofford, '88- 91, and Janet Napolitano, '03-09. I mean the original little old ladies were still there, still running the meetings, now a little older than ever.
The ladies talked about a cookbook they had going as a fundraiser. They talked about some resort time they could sort-of raffle off. And then there was a fine-looking paperback edition of the collection of quotations by extraordinary women edited longtime AZ Dem powerhouse Ms. Carolyn Warner. She spoke of coming back from DC after the election and riding with both McCain and Harry Mitchell.
About that point i asked AZ Dem Party State Secretary, Brittni Storrs, her take on the average age of the people in the fairly filled room. She speculated, "mid-50s, somewhere in the 50s." I asked for her age: 23.
When the talk again returned to dealing with fundraising i raised my hand. Unlike my chances on the main floor that morning, in the women's caucus i got my question asked. I said, "I don't mean to be impertinent, but i have to wonder. Thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court case, the GOP has received hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions. How are you going to battle that kind of fundraising with cook books?"
Not missing a beat, Warner challenged that rather than figure a way to work within the framework of Citizens United, which was clearly a path to ruin, the Dems had to lead the way in creating the legislation prohibiting corporate funding of elections. Furthermore, Warner warned, it needs to be pressed for now, during the lame duck Congress before Republicans take power in January. Warner called for all Arizonans, and all Americans in general, to call dramatically on Congress to pass such an amendment while we the people still have a chance to own what remains of our country. I was so struck by her speech i promised her to write of it and have.
And just then, fear not campaign lovers, as it happened in every session i attended, Rodney Glassman somehow seemed to appear, fresh from baby and ripe with one liners, already in campaign mode with a nuanced road-ready "thank you everybody" speech about how he goes from room to room with no planned speech, but he hears the same issues being discussed in each of the breakout rooms. [Insert preferred caucus-centric issue here.] Then, playing the outsider, in 3 different breakout sessions i attended, Glassman roused himself and others to the call they needed to tear down the walls between the caucuses, if only the leadership would let everybody speak.
Meanwhile over at the Rainbow Caucus, i missed most all of it. BUT, at least in the few moments i saw, i was just wishing everybody would shut up as recurring infighting diluted the fun of being gay about politics. Surviving a gay bashing in my early 20s i learned firsthand gay rights are the essence of human rights and the battle of a person to be allowed to be themselves is a universal eternal glorious struggle. But instead of addressing issues like strategies for refuting impending GOP anti-homosexual agenda and the slo-mo erosion of DADT, they were battling over web pages and availability of minutes. For those jostling for position, the battle must have been breathtaking. For the rest of us, there because GSA issues are the essence of human rights issues, the tug-of-war turned tedious quickly. Just sayin'.
Luckily, i just barely slipped into that meeting in time to help it degenerate into the after-talk indicative of such gatherings as political caucuses; and then slipped out and onto the only place that day with the rush and tingle of the excitement and possibility ... come on, you know i'm talking progressives. The Progressive Democratic Caucus of Arizona, our state's branch of the PDA (Progressive Democrats of America), that is, a congregation of every liberal cause imaginable. The progressive caucus was far and away the largest caucus there that day, the loudest as well. Never mind there were plenty of proxies, on a day when only 240 or so even attended the statewide committee meeting, over one hundred people signed in at the Progressive Caucus. The Progressive Caucus in fact, proved the only caucus on campus where the hotel staff had to bring in additional seating and the bustle of people gathered and chairs being passed down, added a thrill to the build up for the meeting.
It was also the only place where people openly looked like hippies, traded wit in addition to whining and where i felt like my "ImpeachBush.Org" ball-cap and peace signs weren't a deficit to my message. Oh the excitement of seeing so many witty and erudite, and like me a slightly older overweight people who knew exactly how to say i told you so in the most entertaining of ways to the party leaders and were ready to make a boarding house reach for the old donkey's reins.
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