This diary is in regards to this diary on Jim Pederson:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I live in Phoenix, and 'not generated exitement' is an understatement. Pedersons campaign has been badly run and it's confusing voters. Two main points:
About 6 months ago (roughly) I went to his website and signed up as interested in volunteering. Didn't get anything from them for months,SNIP
The second data point is from last weekend. I was eating breakfast with my family... A group of people were eating and talking about politics. Specifically about Pederson. The gist of the conversation was most people at the table were under the impression he was an independent. SNIP
I havn't seen a single sign, bumper sticker, ad, or story in the papers about him, he's been almost invisible and it's a little frustrating that he's so invisible.
Look people, I agree, I do at the frustration. I am not apart of any campaign nor any Democratic Organization but I do know a heck of a lot about Arizona's Organizing attempts and its past elections as I too was heavily involved.
I also realize that you do not care about excuses or semantics, you want to see RESULTS and NOW!
But, I ask you to consider this and then think about how you can get involved...
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Arizona Democrats were out of power for 12 years. We were the fertile breeding ground of the 1994 House Takeover with J.D Hayworth, Jeff Flake, Matt Salmon et al coming to power. In 1998, Janet Napolitano actually managed to win an election state-wide as a Democrat, as Attorney General.
She then manuevered through the Alt-Fuels scandal and other Republican mishaps and that allowed her to roar into the Governor's Office by playing a delicate "moderate" balance with the voters. That said, there was a good strong fieldgrassroots effort in 2002 but it was piddling in its broad affect. The Proverbial "WE" managed to do really good in certain areas(south Phoenix and south Tucson) but when you are taking about a state with 1.5 million voters.
That said as well, we also only won by 11,000 votes. So while it may have been a limited grassroots effort, it also probably got her elected with such a razor thin margin
2004 came around and the Dean movementreligion came around and Democrats found a new love of grassroots and field work. The Arizona Democratic Party hired 50+ young staffers and opened up more than 47 Satellite Offices around the state from Payson to Sedona to Kingman to Yuma. There were a lot of mistakes, but again, this is the first time they had ever done ANYTHING like this in 12+ years.
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Now, we are in 2006. We are angry at how Pederson is doing and we want things to change. But lets not forget:
http://kvoa.com/...
"Pederson replaces East Coast staffers with more local ones"
Pederson finally ditched his D.C Consultants and hired Joe Yuhas and Mario Diaz. Yuhas has headed up more Democratic Campaigns in Arizona than just about anyone in the last 30 years and most of them succesful. Mario led then Attorney General Janet Napolitano to one of the FEW upset victories in 2002 when Democrats got CREAMED all over the country.
This all happened during the Christmas holiday season. They are now getting their swimming legs and starting to move.
So, I would say to you this: do youwe sit around and wait for someone else to tell us what to do? How to knock on our neighbor's door?
One of the biggest challenges in Arizona Politics is the fluid nature of Arizona's voters. We move around a lot, we change parties a lot. Its not hard at all to go to www.azdem.org and look up your district chair, get them to give you a walking list and start "Cleaning" up the lists now. Go out on the DNC's Neigbor to Neighbor Canvass on April 29th, 2006 , again to start cleaning up your lists so we are not calling bad numbers, walking to bad addresses. We have the tools, we have the technology, we just need everyone to pitch in now.
There is no point in doing a major push to find out how independents are thinking about the Pederson race. Facts are that it was literally the LAST thing on their minds. What we need to do NOW is start cleaning up our lists of voters so that when it is time, we are ready to the most effective, most daring and most in your face Democratic machine this state has ever seen.
So to each and every Arizonan... a challenge. April 29th. Lets do this.