Good day and welcome to DKos Asheville. This is the weekly DKos Asheville open thread for Saturday, February 21st. We try to get together every weekend to share with everyone what we're all up to in Western North Carolina and beyond. We hope this group serves to invigorate us locally and regionally here on Daily Kos, building on the sense of community that's grown through our online engagement. DKos Asheville can give us all a better sense of connection, a better understanding of who we stand with, work with, and share with. We hope this community can help leverage our orange passion for progressive politics to elect more and better Democrats.
For our next meet up on April 25-26 we will be returning to the theme of our first meet up on 4/20/2013: Meeting, spending time focusing on community and networking and less time with an agenda driven schedule. And this time we will be taking the meet up on the road to Roanoke Virginia in April! Please sign up by dropping me a kosmail. For more information, please drop over to this DKos Asheville diary.
Please join us below where we look at precinct opportunities for making an impact on the county level.
The Power of The Precinct
Last week I focused my attention on honoring and remembering the power of long time civil rights activist Miinnie Jones who recently passed, leaving a vacant place in our our community. This week I would like to celebrate how that place can be filled by anyone who wants the opportunity.
Our friend, Kossack and City Councilman, Gordon Smith penned a great piece this week as a guest on the blog he founded over ten years ago, Scrutiny Hooligans. He wraps up the post with this.
We lost Ms. Minnie Jones’ bright light recently. Minnie was always there at our annual precinct meetings, advocating for the less fortunate, wondering out loud why more people didn’t get involved. “Don’t they know how important this is?”, I remember her asking me.
First Gordon lays out the reason for new optimism.
Brian Turner defeated Tim Moffitt. John Ager defeated Nathan Ramsey. Todd Williams is our new District Attorney. Buncombe Democrats won every local race we ran, and now it’s time to gear up for next year’s big elections for President, County Commission, and more.
Then he reminds us of why it is so important and how you can start to get involved on the precinct level.
The battle for North Carolina will be front and center next year, and Democrats will have to organize like never before in order to combat conservative efforts to buy our democracy. The county is made up of voting precincts. You know which one you’re in? If not, check here: Precinct.
And finally an invitation to mark your calendar and jump onboard.
On the morning of February 28th, Democrats from across the county will come together to lay the foundation for victory in 2016. You’re invited. We need your energy, ideas, and effort. Glenda Overbeck is a volunteer who’s marshaling Buncombe Dems’ precinct organizing this year, and I asked her “what’s this all about?” Glenda told me, “Organizing at the precinct level is the best way to counter the money in politics. It also gives people a chance to get acquainted with their neighbors who share the same concerns. You can not have a voice if you don’t participate.”
Every precinct elects a chair and vice chair at the meeting on the 28th. If you want to lead your precinct, you can! If you’d rather not be an officer, but you want to contribute your time and brains, then come and meet your neighbors. Want to learn where/when your precinct meeting will be held? Check here
Buncombe County’s own Patsy Keever was just elected Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, and she reminded us that “it matters what happens in North Carolina, so it matters what each of us does.” We lost Ms. Minnie Jones’ bright light recently. Minnie was always there at our annual precinct meetings, advocating for the less fortunate, wondering out loud why more people didn’t get involved. “Don’t they know how important this is?”, I remember her asking me. Whether you show up to celebrate Patsy Keever, to honor Minnie Jones, to fight the Koch Brothers, to support the candidate of your choice, or just to meet like-minded Democrats – Show Up. This is important work, and it’s going to take all of us coming together to accomplish it.
These are exciting times to be a Democrat.
I had never considered the powerful influence of on the ground, precinct level politics before being introduced to Kossack cultjake's passion at one of our meet ups last year.
In this diary, Confessions of a Precinct Chair, he lets us in on his discovery on getting involved.
Well worth the read and you can see him talking about the experience at our meet up by the river here.
Have a great day, it's finally almost not freezing!