Why I am leaning away from Richie.

[johncoby2]

I was critical of Maxey when he shot out that first email criticizing the SDEC for their election of Boyd, but lately I have had one single event that has pushed me towards Maxey.

My SD leadership and those surrounding him have endorsed Richie. These are the same people who have been in power within the district for over 10 years, while losing every single elected office in the district. We see them every two years at the ceremonial meetings of the SD conventions and State Conventions, and then they disappear while we work our butts off block walking, fundraising, finding candidates, opening a headquarters and taking time away from our families to work to elect Democrats.

There are many who are endorsing Richie who I HIGHLY respect, but then there are those who have been in power, including Richie, that I have to question. For instance, Richie has been involved for many years with the Texas party, yet have they energized the base? Raised funds to find qualified candidates? Recruited candidates? Organized the party? Won any statewide offices over the last 4 years? And now they are promising to energize the base, raise funds, recruite candidates, organize, and win statewide offices if they win? Where have they been?



I think the bottom line is that if my leadership is endorsing Rithie, I will lean towards Maxey.

With all that said, I will probably be on the fence up until the vote on Saturday hoping to make the right.....uh.....left decision.

[muse]

1. I'm leaning Richie

I thought I might have been swayed the other way, but lately, I've been reading more, listening more and I'm still swayed by the very thing you mention right off the bat - people I really respect are endorsing him. Plus, he has already put some changes in place in his short time in office. I don't for a minute think he will stand still. No one will let him. I can't get anything out of any Maxey interview - in print or in person or by podcast or whatever - that isn't much more than about technology.

Greg Whythe has something pretty provacative up on his blog:
http://www.gregsopinion.com/

permalink to the post I'm referring to (Conventioneering '06: Maxey vs. Fero): http://www.gregsopinion.com/archives/007094.html#007094

[johncoby2]

2. Damn you for mocking my imperialist imperiialism.

OK. Now I am confused.

[Smarty Pants Liberal]

3. I like Urbina Jones

Charlie is so modest though that no one will really know what a tremendous grassroots organizer he is from his campaign. And HOO BOY does he have cajones.

An excellent op/ed in the New York Times was published this weekend that makes me think of him.

It starts off....


RECENTLY, an internal disagreement in the Democratic Party made headlines. That probably sounds familiar, since disagreements over party strategy are nothing new in the Democratic Party.

But the recent conflict between Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic campaign committee in the House, and Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is more than just another family squabble — it shows just how difficult changing the course of party history can be.

You can read the rest at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/opinion/03galvin.html

Now I'm not saying that Maxey doesn't do this already with his devoted team of technology experts producing the material needed for the field. Urbina Jones just does it with shoe leather and his tremendous network.

Might be nice to see Urbina Jones elected as a vice chair that actually does something rather than the patronage positions in place now.

[VelmaD]

4. two things...

First, if you don't like your SDEC members and think they're useless...vote them out at the convention and get new ones.

Second, Richie isn't the only one running who has been "involved for many years with the Texas party".

Currently I'm not supporting ANY of them. I'm unimpressed in the extreme.

[johncoby2]

5. It isnt the SDEC members

It is our county leadership and their buddies.

While we are working to get people elected, they have worked to fill precinct vacancies with useless people who will never walk a block, but will vote to keep the leadership.

So what do we do? Stop working to elect Democrats to to overthrow the leadership? No. That is too petty.

We will live with it.

[Smarty Pants Liberal]

7. JohnCoby, your SD is just funky

You'll be able to overcome the problem eventually, just not overnight.

I loathe the gentleman's agreements now and will begin drafting a Party Governance resolution for 2008 to eliminate them but enforce a limitation of two terms on Tuesday, June 13. OR, would anyone like to take a crack at getting it introduced from the floor?

[johncoby2]

8. Changing the party rules to abolish gentlemen agreements.

Boy do I like that idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can this be presented at the rules committee for consideration?

I doubt it will pass, but it would raise a few eyebrows.

[Smarty Pants Liberal]

10. I feel certain that it would be tabled

but it doesn't hurt to get the ball rolling.

One of the strengths of our caucus is that we work together in spite of supporting different candidates. I'd like to change the PPC committee resolution altogether to blow off the stinky endorsement and instead propose the annulment of all gentlemans agreements and two term limitations of SD officers.

[Smarty Pants Liberal]

6. Right on regarding the SDEC members

For instance, SD7. Dan Patrick, the extremist talk radio host is the GOP nominee for Senator. The incumbent SDEC members have already washed their hands of the race and do not believe a Democrat could win. There is a candidate, Michael Kubosh, but the male SDEC member has voiced strong opinions that he's not a Democrat. I'm never present when the female SDEC pops off but I've been told she publicly states which races are useless in her opinion and that we shouldn't waste our time. Maybe Kubosh doesn't fit their litmus test but Jesus H. Christ - I'd rather blockwalk every day for my goofy dog to run against Dan Patrick than let him go without a challenge. This would also give great exposure to the other Democratic Party candidates on the ticket. As evidenced in the HD133 runoff for the GOP nomination, Republicans came out of the woodwork to vote against one of Dan Patrick's protoges.

So do we let Dan Patrick slide in to the election without spending a dime of his war chest or do we work our hearts out to get someone, ANYONE besides Dan Patrick elected to the Senate? Letting Patrick stay on the air might not be bad strategy at all because it would be easier for us to tell people to tune in to his show and find out for themselves about his extremism.

[Morter Forker]

9. Before you jump on the Glen Bandwagon, maybe you ought to read this...

Mark Littlefield is a political consultant based in Austin, Texas. He was the campaign manager for State Representative Patrick Rose but was recently “let go”. Mark Littlefield was mentored by Glen Maxey. He learned almost everything he knew from Glen Maxey. People consider Mark Littlefield to be Glen Maxey’s protégé. They are known to regularly collaborate together on campaigns.

What makes this important for the Texas Democratic Party race?

Mark Littlefield submitted, by one count, over 990 forged signatures to the Hays County Elections Office during a drive to get an Austin Community College campus built in San Marcos. The forged signatures and petition can be viewed at www.sanmarcosfirst.org . Mark Littlefield was paid more than $4,000 dollars to complete the petition legally. Unfortunately he is now under investigation by both the Attorney General’s office and the Hays County District Attorney’s office.

This should matter to you because the Texas State University College Democrats were given $400 to the organization to collect legitimate signatures, collecting over 800 signatures of students on the Texas State campus. They are not under investigation for the forgeries according to the District Attorney’s office. However Glen Maxey spins the petition controversy to blame these hard working and unpaid students in this Austin American Statesman Article: http://statesman.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?acti...

His exact quote for those who don’t want to read the article:

Glen Maxey, a former state representative and the political consultant who ran the petition-gathering effort that got two citizen-initiated charter amendments on the May 13 city ballot, said verifying signatures is very difficult.

While original signatures are required, they cannot be matched up with the voter registration database in the same way as name, address and birth date information.

"If someone is out there and decides they are going to do this, it's really hard for anybody supervising to find out," Maxey said. "One of the biggest things that I've ever told a client: You're always going to have some sloppiness in this. You try to fix it as much as possible, but you've got to make sure you have such a large surplus of signatures because anything could go wrong."

This quote is an attack and betrayal of the very Grassroots activist base that Glen Maxey claims he supports and backs. Why would Glen Maxey make an out of the blue comment to the Austin American Statesman, about an issue he is not connected with? That is a question the investigators apparently want answered now. I think I may have a guess at the answer though, it is the fact that Glen Maxey helped mentor Mark Littlefield and taught him how to run campaigns.

Maxey’s quote, the fact that Mark Littlefield contacted the former Texas State University College Democrats president to take part in the No Nonsense in November campaign last year… also run by Glen Maxey, and the fact that Littlefield gave the largest single donation to the No Nonsense in November campaign in this post November election financial report, in the amount of $2000 on page 12, all paint a disturbing picture of Glen Maxey’s links to Mark Littlefield. Potentially links which show what we may get if Glen Maxey is chair of the Party, a party run by possibly corrupt individuals who like to blame others when they themselves make massive, and potentially criminal, mistakes.

We can not let a culture of corruption infect the Texas Democratic Party like it has our Republican counterparts. Electing people like Glen Maxey to the state party chair position would make this a potential reality.

Included below are links to all the relevant sources about the fraudulent petition, and Glen Maxey’s links to Mark Littlefield. One of these links goes to pictures of a DFA grassroots training and rally event in 2004, at which Littlefield is shown and the next picture shows Glen Maxey’s voter database on the same projector screen Mark Littlefield is standing in front of. Also included are links to the Texas Ethics Commission filing for the No Nonsense in November Pac, which Glen Maxey was the treasurer of, as well as the ACC YES! Pac, which paid Mark Littlefield for the petition.

If you still do not believe how close Littlefield and Maxey are you just have to listen to Glen Maxey’s own mouth as he has referenced his work on the Patrick Rose campaign as proof he can win a race outside of Travis County. The same campaign Mark Littlefield was most recently the Campaign Manager for. It is also my belief that Patrick Rose had no knowledge of this petition fraud and acted correctly and promptly in his handling of his former campaign manager after this information came out.

http://txprod.ethics.state.tx.us/public/297233.pdf
http://txprod.ethics.state.tx.us/public/298389.pdf
http://www.redpeg.com/blogimages/dfagrassrootstraininga...
http://www.sanmarcosrecord.com/articles/2006/05/01/news...
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/loca...
http://star.txstate.edu/index.php?option=com_content&ta...
http://www.sanmarcosfirst.org/pages/news.htm