Are there any folks out there who would like to get together and discuss what issues matter to us individually and which issues would appeal to other Dems in our U.S. District--PA 18?

Republicans are making inroads in our traditionally Democratic area. They meet at a restaurant in my little town. I don't attend church in this area because I worship in Pittsburgh, but I believe local clergy are pro-Republican--even if they don't say that point blank from the pulpit. So the Cons have cultural opportunities--while eating and worshiping--to gather and discuss politics. That's much more effective than committee meetings.

I haven't on in a while, and I have no excuse because our freedom and and collaboration should be a paramount activity.

One of the issues that I feel Harold Ford, Jr had with winning a Senate seat is that he has no personality, he doesn't smile and he shows no emotion. I saw him on Bill Maher and he bored me, and he was on the Situation room today and he did the same thing. He would be a great Senator, but, I don't think he grabbed the interest of the Tennessee voters being so monotone with his voice.

The goals listed in Nancy Pelosi's 100 hour plan should warm the heart of any reasonable American.  But lists are not strategies, and the 100 hour plan merely covers putting these goals before the president.  As best I can tell, the strategy behind the 100 hour plan boils down to this:

Appeasement is hardly a new thing.  The British well remember Neville Chamberlain's strategy of appeasement in World War II. And now they consider our President Bush a greater threat than Korea's Kim Il-sung. We need to pay attention. Or we could repeat Chamberlain's error of appeasement.

There are 725 days until Election Day 2008. Right now in Altoona, and Duncansville and Claysburg and bunch of other small Pennsylvania townships that most of you never heard of, a very weary group of stalwart volunteers is organizing a letter writing campaign. We will be writing to Rahm Emanuel, we will be writing to Howard Dean and you will see diary after diary on this page and more than a few others asking for your support of Democratic Congressional Candidate in the PA-09th Tony Barr.

For those you who missed it or ignored it. Tony Barr is the Special Education Teacher from Claysburg PA, who started a write-in campaign for the PA09th. We needed 1000 write ins, we got 1,900. From May to November, we raised only $45,000. Not much by political standards but for PA-09 Democrats it was unprecedented. At a cost of $.57 a vote, we got nearly 79,000 votes in November. While that is a paltry 40% of the total PA-9th vote it is a huge number by PA Dem Standards. We won 3 counties; winning one would have busted a 100 year old record. We won the City of Altoona; unprecedented. We nearly doubled Democratic turnout, also unprecedented, in Cambria county Dem turnout was 82%, yes that’s eighty-two percent. It’s a big first step, but only a first step.

Part II of the American dissenter's voice: Losing our fear, regaining our country. How and why Americans took back their country from a proto-fascist dictator, a smarmy Congress and gained a new sense of courageous optimism.

Ronald Reagan once declared, in his 1984 re-election campaign that, "Its morning again in America." During the past six years of the Bush presidency, it has been a cold, dark, and utterly protracted night in America. We were attacked not only by a rogue enemy; but attacked by our own frightened, fellow citizens and our own overly zealous government. We were labeled as un-American, un-Patriotic, and even "coddlers of terrorists" for speaking the truth and demanding answers along with accountability. Now, two days after the historic mid-term elections, which thrust Democrats into power in both chambers of Congress, America should find comfort that it is once again a new dawning of America.

Democrats did not get their way today; the America people got their way. They got the government they wanted, not the one George Bush wanted to give us. This is a historic victory not for democrats but for people-powered politics and democracy. People showed their sharp rebuke of the Bush administrations radical policies and failures in the Iraq war. Today, the people won and so did our nation. Today, we voted adversary back into the system.

The one-party rule was a dismal failure. Neoconservative politics was a disaster. Pre-approving every whim of the President was dangerous and a malignant growth of false inerrancy. Fear-mongering as a methodology to govern a free nation proved to be a monumental mistake. Fear, after the shock wears off, turned to anger, resentment and then action to rebuff those that would attempt to subjugate and rule us through bully tactics and cheap demagoguery.

Gridlock may now be inevitable and will no doubt be a major "blame" issue in 2008. Dems need to come together now and show where the log jam to progress truly lies.

How do we do it?

1) A Democratic Policy Convention. It's time to build a unified agenda and roll with it. Forget reaching across the aisle, because it's not going to happen. Make Bush use that veto of his until he's blue in the face.

2) Although it will be tempting to drag the Bush administration through the mud with a lot of commissions and investigations, the Dems need to resist the urge to go overboard. Americans want to move forward, not see their government mired in the past.

Neal Kelley, Orange County Registrar of Voters
1300 Building C South Grand Avenue
Santa Ana CA 92705
(between Edinger and McFadden, west of the 55)
Keep the count honest! Keep the heat on!

Address:
201 West Colfax
Denver, CO 80204-2621
Phone 720-913-8683
Fax: 720-913-8600
Other Information: Submitted by victoria2dc on November 5, 2006 - 1:46pm.

Here's a map.

A Republican No More

I was eleven years old when I asked my Mother to take me to Richard Nixon’s headquarters in 1972. I didn’t understand all the issues, but I knew that he was “my President” and I proudly affixed his bumper sticker on her car.

I voted for Reagan. I voted for Bush. And I voted for W. In every election, I voted Republican unless there wasn’t a Republican in the race. I believed all the rhetoric that if we controlled all three branches we could fix government spending, stop gridlock and “Build a Better America.”

So how have we done?

Government spending went through the roof with Reagan. Worse with Bush. Better with Clinton. Have we fixed the deficit under W? No.