November Preview

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Interview with Jerry Brown

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Prop 14 establishes an open primary in California. Essentially, it will be like having two general elections. The first general election is a “qualifying round” where only the top 2 candidates with the most votes in each race will face off in the November general election, regardless of party affiliation. So potentially two Democrats or two Republicans could battle it out in a November election for the their respective seats.

Check out this MSNBC video on the passage of Prop 14.

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Interestingly enough, both the Democratic and Republican Parties both staunchly opposed this proposition and for good reason. Sure, it weakens the major parties and they have self-preservation to think about (especially the Republicans), but also because its really just a bad idea.

You all of a sudden have two general elections to run. Running campaigns in California is expensive and when you have to talk to everyone in the state, the numbers add up really fast. Primary elections are usually cheaper because they only target their party affiliates. But now they will have to do the entire state twice.

Now, some people think this may be a good thing because it will force candidates to moderate themselves to appeal to all of California, thus, becoming more democratic. But people are really only thinking of the big ticket races and don’t see how this is actually wholly undemocratic because it actually encourages deal making and a smaller candidate field.

Votes are a finite resource. There are only so-many votes in California to fight over and when you have everyone and their mother fighting for votes in an open primary, you essentially shrink everyone’s piece of the pie. You then end up with situations where there top 2 vote getters in a race only represent a small percentage of the entirety of the region or district. Now that youre thinking about that, think about this…

Picture a place like Orange County. We all know the OC is filled with Republican voters. Many more Republicans than Democrats. But in a place like this under this system, an election involving the OC in its district could easily end up going Democrat. Sure, as Democrats we would love to see this, but think about how un-democratic this is. If there were five candidates in a race, 2 Dems and 3 GOPs and votes were distributed roughly evenly among their party affiliates, you would end up with a situation where the top 2 vote getters in orange county are actually the 2 Democrats. Then in the November general election, the people of Orange County, a very heavily GOP county, would have no choice but to vote for either one of the 2 Democrats or not vote at all.

Do you see where i’m going with this? Better order another drink because the bar is closing.

In the past, the East Bay Young Democrats have put in substantial work for our endorsed candidates. We’ve spent countless hours phoning and walking, educating voters, and getting out the vote.

This year, for the first time in our club’s history, EBYD will be educating voters in another way – we are mailing our voter guide to more than 3,000 young Democrats in the East Bay.

Please donate today to help us send out this important voter guide.

The EBYD voter guide is particularly important for the June 8th election, as many voters know little about the candidates and issues that are on the ballot. With instant runoff voting being implemented in November, some people don’t even know there is an election in June!

Local races could be decided by just a few hundred or a few thousand votes so this mailer could push our endorsed candidates to victory.

We plan to expand our mailing universe for the November election, but we need your financial support to do so. Please donate to help us educate young Democrats!

Please share our voter guide with your East Bay friends, and remember to vote on June 8th!

The deadline to vote in the June 8th election is this Monday, May 24th

The deadline to vote in the November 2nd election is October 18th

If you haven’t registered, please check out the options below.  Remember, our future is worth the fight and our future is worth your vote!

• Register to Vote ONLINE!
• Print and Mail-In Registration Form
• Check Your Registration Status! (Alameda County Residents Only)

Don’t forget to visit our Election 2010 page and consider voting for our endorsed candidates this June!

$64 MILLION!! That’s a lot of cash.  As California suffers from the worst economic environment since the Great Depression, can you think of a few things CA could use that money towards?  Well, the California Democratic Party can:

Help EBYD stop Queen Meg from buying California and support Jerry Brown for Governor!

And just for fun… a little nostalgia…

There is a candidate for statewide office here in California who has exaggerated their credentials, taken credit where credit is not due and poured millions of their own money into their campaign coffers.  If you guessed Meg Whitman you would be wrong.  It’s Democrat Chris Kelly who is running for attorney general.

I hate to break it to California voters, but this is Chris Kelly’s kingdom and we’re just visiting.  Mini Meg, as some have come to call him, is content as he pours his own fortune into his campaign.  Kelly has already dumped around $10 million of his money in his campaign.  Sure, hes not even close to the kinds of money that his GOP counterparts, Queen Meg and Steve Poisner have poured into their own camps, but considering other AG candidates like Ted Lieu, Alberto Torrico and Kamala Harris have been running solely on donation from supporters, he clearly has the similar conviction that he can buy the Democratic nomination.

Then there is his recent TV ad in all its glory.  Most of us tend to embellish a little bit when we tell a story.  Like that little fish you caught was actually a 10lb-er, or you totally kicked that one guy’s ass when in reality he just happened to trip on the sidewalk.  But when you spend $10 million of your own money and a new SurveyUSA Poll shows you third in line behind behind Kamala Harris and Rocky Delgadillo, then you definitely try turning water into wine when it comes to padding up your resume.

But only in a Chris Kelly kingdom he claim credit for President Bill Clinton’s 1994 passage of the Crimes Bill.  In his TV ad, Kelly claims that he helped put 100,000 new cops on the streets as a policy advisor for Bill Clinton.  But this isn’t true.  Chris Kelly, 23 years old at the time, was a junior level staffer… in the Department of Education.  Not even some mail-room intern in the Justice Department.  Wow.  Even Karl Rove would say that’s a stretch.

Chris Kelly also claims as Facebook’s privacy czar, he has worked with all 50 states’ attorney generals.  Well, yea… i can tell you that you will work and develop a relationship with all 50 state attorney generals real fast when you’re hit with a subpoena because of Facebook’s egregious privacy policies, as the SF Chronicle reported last month.   That’s like saying im experienced in working with the police departments of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno and Santa Monica because i got a parking ticket in all those cities.

How about protecting consumers?  Ask the millions of people who use Facebook if they feel protected by Chris Kelly.   Kelly was the man behind Facebook’s privacy policies that received a lot of negative attention and in December of 2009, the uproar over privacy (or lack thereof) at Facebook was the result of privacy guidelines HE designed.  Maybe that’s why Kamala Harris has twice as many Facebook fans as him?  I know, Chris-  when the online community of the company you used to work for and now tout as your biggest asset prefers Kamala over you 2-to1, it’s like being rejected by an old girlfriend.  That’s gotta hurt.

This misleading ad has not gone unnoticed.  The blog California Majority Report and the Fresno Bee newspaper, two sides of the political spectrum, have brought attention to the inaccuracies of Kelly’s claims.  Kamala’s camp has also released a video ripping apart this ad (see below).

Chris Kelly lives in his own world and we’re just visiting.  It’s time to wake up and realize that we need a attorney general who has experience in the real world.  A candidate who has created real policies to address all levels of crime and looks not just to put criminals in jail but to keep them from having to be put in their to begin with.  This is why Kamala Harris is the right vote for the Democratic nomination for attorney general.

Join EBYD and support Kamala Harris as the next California Attorney General!

Check out Kamala’s video in response to Kelly’s TV ad:

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Kamala Harris is endorsed by EBYD as our choice for Attorney General of CA.  To see a list of other EBYD endorsed candidates, please visit our Endorsements page.

Be sure to check out Kamala’s website at www.kamalaharris.org!

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Kamala Harris is endorsed by EBYD as our choice for Attorney General of CA.  To see a list of other EBYD endorsed candidates, please visit our Endorsements page.

Here in California, we can’t let someone like Meg Whitman try to buy us off. And thankfully, as mentioned in the clip below, we have a tradition of not being fooled by all that money. If Meg Whitman really cared, she could have run her campaign on donations and wrote a $59 million check to CalTrain, who is facing real problems and risking to close service entirely.  I’m just saying…

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If you want to help stop Meg Whitman in her campaign to buy California, join EBYD and support Jerry Brown for Governor!

]]> http://www.ebyd.org/site/2010/04/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous/feed/ 1 http://www.ebyd.org/site/2010/04/rallying-the-ca-dems/ http://www.ebyd.org/site/2010/04/rallying-the-ca-dems/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:36:47 +0000 Roobs http://www.ebyd.org/site/?p=985 The California Democratic Convention over the weekend got some national coverage today on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown”; talking about the races with Sen. Barbara Boxer and gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Brown. Check it out:

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EBYD endorses the following candidates and issues for the June 2010 ballot:

Propositions

Prop 14 - OPPOSE

Prop 15 - SUPPORT

Prop 16 - OPPOSE

Prop 17 - OPPOSE

Local Candidates

(Read Completed Candidate Questionnaires Submitted Before Meeting)

Alameda County Supervisor, District 3 - No Position

Alameda County Superior Court Judge - Victoria Kolakowski

Alameda County Democratic Central Committee -

Andrew Kelley, Edie Irons, Elizabeth Echols, Carl Jamaillo, Beverly Greene

Alameda County Board of Education - Joaquin Rivera

Congressional Representative, 9th CD - Barbara Lee

CA State Senate, SD 10 - Ellen Corbett

CA State Assembly, AD 16 –  Sandre Swanson

CA State Assembly, AD 14 - Nancy Skinner

Statewide Candidates

U.S. Senate – Barbara Boxer

Governor - Jerry Brown

Lt. Governor - No Position

Attorney General - Kamala Harris

Insurance Commissioner - Dave Jones

Secretary of State - Debra Bowen

Treasurer - Bill Lockyer

Superintendent of Public Instruction - No Position

Board of Equalization - Betty Yee

State Controller – John Chiang

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EBYD Endorses the following candidates for office in California Young Democrats to be voted upon a the 2010 CYD Convention in Los Angeles

President – Alissa Ko

VP of Membership – Jennifer Longley

VP of Finance – Eddie Kirby

Secretary – Jonathan Goetz

Political Director – Julie Lind

Parliamentarian - Gabe Kearney

National Committeeman – Christopher Guererro

National Committeewoman – Erin Carlstrom

CBAY Regional Director – Jason Overman

*EBYD By-Laws state that a candidate must recieve 60% of votes cast to recieve endorsement. If this threshold is not met, EBYD takes “No Position” on that race*