I am an alternate member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Contra Costa County.
The DPC(California Democratic Party) has approached us about putting together a Richmond area campaign office/outreach center by October 1.
They can supply a part time office manager, but no money or any other resources.
We are currently scouting out a location for this fine vote getter outer/issue transmitter, but we will need manpower and money behind it.
This is a SOLIDLY Democratic area that is largely overlooked by the politicians. We need to pull the community together and make sure that these votes get cast. There is a Republican Governor in California to unseat, and his appointed Secretary of State, who likes to certify flawed Diebold systems, to remove.
Let's talk about some of the specifics and whys on the flip...
Richmond is a heavily Democratic city in Contra Costa County (the opposite coast from SF), in the San Fracisco East Bay Area.
I did some digging on the numbers this morning from the 2004 Presidential, and 2003 Special Recall Election that stuck us with the Governator in the first place. I kind of cheated and used the 2004 registration numbers for both. I also looked at the 2002 Gubernatorial Election information:
Of the 38,804 registered Richmond voters in 2004, 27,070 of them are Registered as Democrats. That is 70% Democratic! (16% Decline to state, and 9.4% register as Republicans)
Richmond gave 26,508 votes to Kerry, and 4,012 to Bush. That is 86% to 13%. That is 79% voter turnout! If we assume the "Decline to State"s broke in a similar percentage, then that means that "only" 78% of the registered Democrats wound up voting. And that was a good year!
In 2002, only 19,434 voters turned out to vote for Governor. That is a 50% turnout!
And in 2003, it was only slightly better, with 17,957 out of 22,387 votes cast rejecting the recall of Gray Davis. That is a marginally better 58% voter turnout. And with 135 candidates to choose from, only 3,048 chose to vote for Schwarzenegger, 16% of those choosing a Governor.
OK, what does this all mean? It is a reliably Democratic City, which can deliver Democratic votes, but it is often taken for granted. While it can have turnout of 78% in a Presidential Election year, that drops to 50% in the off-year.
That is where you come in.
We have been asked by the CDP Deputy Political Outreach Director to begin making a list of volunteers and getting funding for the office. We need people to make phone calls and help organize rallies and voter registration/absentee ballot efforts.
This may not sound glamorous, but it is essential! We have another meeting scheduled for Thursday, and we would like to be able to show what resources we have available. If you can volunteer, please let me know. Email me at
gabibaty at att dot net
This is not any kind of official contact information, but we are just in the planning stages, and don't have any yet.
And remember that this will be for an ongoing effort in October and up to Election Day
If you live in the area and may know of an organization that you think may be a useful "pool" of volunteers, let me know. Or if you are a member of a church and would like to post something there or make an announcement to the congregation, that may be useful.
I don't know if it is kosher or not, but I have also set myself up a paypal account at the address above, so if you would like to make a monetary contribution, you can. This is my first account, and I don't know how much information is transmitted with that, so I ask that you also send me an email giving me any information you think I may need for political reporting purposes.
Actually, if anybody knows or has used paypal for political fundraising before, I ask that you please give me some advice, as well.
I think that we are planning to try and get most of our funding from the campaign accounts of local politicians, so I would much rather get the physical volunteers than any monetary ones, but will not scoff at any contributions. It certainly will help.
As a final (side) note, I am also the Chair of the Democratic Party of Contra Costa County's Voter Registration Committee, so if you don't want to volunteer for the Richmond effort, please consider doing so for that effort (strictly people, any paypal donations are going to the Richmond effort). In that vein, I would like to note that Pombo's CA-11 district has a part of it in Contra Costa County, and I could never sum up all of these issues any better than kid oakland's diary:
...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.
-snip-
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.