The other convention on March 29th

Most of us in Texas know that by state law, the 2 big political parties are holding their county/state senate district conventions. For the Democrats this will be a contentious high turnout event. The Clinton camp has made it very clear that they want to challenge every possible precinct caucus and Obama delegate that they can to reduce the strong advantage that the Obama campaign has had in grassroots organizing.

Obama's campaign is training its delegates and preparing them for the convention process. Interesting to see the striking differences between the two campaigns.

For those who are in the Dallas Diocese of the Episcopal Church there is another convention on the same day. The diocese is electing a Bishop Suffragan, who is the assistant bishop for the diocese that runs from Dallas to Tyler to Texarkana. Big area to cover, so the diocese needs a second bishop to support the declining Episcopal parishes. For those who have been tuned into the controversies in the Episcopal Church, you will recognize that the Dallas Diocese and Bishop Stanton who runs it have been in the center of the conservative movement to disrupt the Episcopal Church. Bishop Stanton was one of the founders and has been a sponsor of the American Anglican Council (AAC) which was created with money from right wing extremists such as the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).

None of the candidates appears to be a moderate; as with all "conservatives" they appear to want to return to some fantasy about how good the past was....at least what they fantasize it was. Maybe when manly men were priests and women were there to do the baking and stay out of the pulpit. Or maybe they're afraid that a real homosexual might out them, perhaps. Certainly makes you wonder if they can keep another bishop suffragan around. They're lasting 2-3 years and then gone.

Dallas Votes!

Dallas County has never really had a coordinated voter registration and education effort. Groups such as the League of Women Voters have done drives, as have the political parties, MegaVoto, etc. What we have never really done is a consistent year in year out coordinated effort to identify groups to be registered and to get organizations to consistently work with those target voters to get them involved.

I have started up a web site for the Dallas Votes! coalition. I am actively recruiting organizations to join up to work with us and the Dallas County Elections department to register 30,000 voters here in Dallas.

http://www.dallas-votes.org

District Conventions and Democratic Primary Runoffs

District conventions will be held on March 29th. Locations are yet to be determined since our normal venues aren't big enough to hold the expected number of delegates this year. In addition, we will need a large number of volunteers to help hold the conventions.

As a reminder, even though the district conventions will be over on March 29th, the primaries are not complete until the runoff election is held on April 9th. We will need poll workers for this election. It will be a low turnout election, so this will be a good chance to train new clerks for the November general election.

As always, the most current information is available at the Dallas County Democratic Party's web site.

Candidate forum--Sunset HS, 2/27/08

The debate team at Sunset HS and the North Oak Cliff Democrats are organizing a candidate forum for the following Democratic primary races:

32nd Congressional District
Dallas County Sheriff
Dallas County Tax Assessor-Collector

The forum will be held at Sunset HS on Jefferson in Oak Cliff. It's 1 block east of Hampton Rd. in Dallas. It will run from 6-9PM and be held in the auditorium.

More details to follow.

Campaign organizer training in Dallas

Good news!

Democracy for America's training team is coming to Dallas to hold a weekend long training session on political organizing. It will be held March 15-16 9AM-6pm at Townview Magnet Center. Townview is located at 8th and IH-35 just south of downtown Dallas.

Topics include:
voter identification
campaign planning
campaign finance
canvassing
phone banking
media and messaging

To register and for more information: http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=26529