Yesterday, as many of you know, Debra Bowen participated in a candidate forum held by the Courage Campaign along with Janice Hahn, Marcy Winograd and Republican Mike Gin. The forum was streamed live on Courage Campaign's site and the archive has beenposted so you can listen to it in its entirety in case you missed it live. Courage Campaign asked questions that were submitted by members from the 36th district.
I can't comment yet because I did not have time to listen to it yet, but if you want the contemporaneous commentary from twitter, it's available here (note: the debate was 6-7:45 Thursday March 24).
Several people noted that Debra Bowen actually sent out tweets during the event itself, apparently without interfering with her participation. And from reading her tweets, you'd never know she was doing extreme multi-tasking - they don't betray any distraction and make good specific points (eg. citing preventing closure of Tenet's ER in Venice). Janice Hahn triedto juggle both things too, but didn't pull it off so well - to the schadenfraudesque delight of some. In looking at her tweets, they read like prepackaged talking points written before the debate and I can't help but noting that it's doubtful she's going to get too many readers of her bon mots at hashtag "CA#36".
More on the Democracy for America endorsement:
Bowen's 70% vote total among CA-36 DFA members is more impressive considering that it wasn't head to head, but rather between 3 candidates. The other 30% of the votes were split between Hahn and Winograd. It doesn't appear we'll see that breakdown, but I think it's fair to say that each probably got at least 7-10% of the vote. So in all likelihood, Bowen got 3x as much support than Winograd and Hahn got.
Considering that Winograd thought this poll of DFA members was so important she made a big deal about not being included by name (even though she hadn't entered the race yet), her failure to do well tells us something about the support they assumed was there with this constituency that really isn't. In fact, after the results of the subsequent DFA poll came out (the one that included all three candidates by name), one of Winograd's most prominent supporters couldn't wrap his head around the fact she did so poorly that he simply assumed that Winograd was a write-in candidate on the poll as he complainedabout it at Calitics.
The DFA Debra Bowen for Congress Campaign page
Debra has set up a campaign page on DFA, and the write up helps a lot in explaining why Debra got such strong support from DFA members. If you are a DFA member, go thereand sign up as a Supporter. I recommend reading the whole thing, but here are a couple portions I want to highlight.
I authored the first-in-the-world law that put legislative information online in 1993, giving Californians and everyone around the world immediate access to information about state lawmakers’ bills, voting records, and more. In 1995, I became the first California legislator to voluntarily put my campaign finance reports online.
I’m concerned that the environment, working families, students, those in need of help, and others without a voice in the national debate will be ignored by an unresponsive Congress. My record proves that I am a problem solver who gets things done even under difficult circumstances.
If I am elected, I will do everything I can to get our economy moving again – in particular by pushing for clean energy jobs and making education a national priority, which must be done in order for us to remain globally competitive in the years to come.
When asked what the top 3 issues are facing her constituents, she leads with the following:
Improving the job market and the economy; reinvesting in our schools and universities; restoring sensible budget policies, including shifting resources away from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to ensure we protect the integrity of Social Security, Medicare, health care – and invest in people here at home through education and job training.
Concerning grassroots support, she notes the strong response on Act Blue following her announcement of her entrance into the race ($20K+ in donations), and that she's brought in an experienced grass roots campaign manager who is a former DFA trainer. She emphasizes this is going to be a low turnout election so that field efforts by DFA members and others from the grassroots will have an outsized impact on election results.
++++++++
Donate to Debra
Volunteer for Debra
Sign up as a Supporter on Debra's DFA Campaign Page
Follow Debra's Twitter feed
Follow news about the race (#CA36)
And if you haven't checked out my Phonebanking diaries in support of Bowen's campaign, you can find them here and here. This week's goal is to get 5 Kossacks to sign up and make some calls by the end of the weekend. Can you be one of them?
UPDATE: jpmassar has posted a diary: Debra Bowen, Geek. And Future Congressperson You'll want to check it out.