The LGBT Community Of San Joaquin County & The Progressive Movement

I just posted an article this article to Calitics:

Hi there, Nicholas Hatten here. Ye of McNerney '06 and '08 campaigns and Stockton's Drinking Liberally. First time poster but long time lurker. What's got me so excited that I've decided to break my lurking streak? Well, the awesomeness that is San Joaquin County's LGBT community.
A year ago this month I moved back to the lovely city of Stockton after a decade long love affair with the Bay Area. I moved back after re-discovering the Central Valley during my time with Team McNerney. Now I was already aware of how progressive leaders like Councilmember Susan Eggman (LGBT icon), Jerry & Carol Bailey (single payer icons), Martha Gamez (uber-grassroots icon) and others had helped change the landscape of politics in the Central Valley. What I wasn't aware of was how much the LGBT had matured and evolved into a political force during my time away.

For the rest of the blog, click here: http://calitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11565

Let's Take, A Long (Precinct) Walk

When I realized I would need to collect signatures to qualify to sit on the DCC, I was really looking forward to walking my neighborhood and taking the pulse of the street. Well, what an eye opening experience that was.

Before I get into my story, let me just share how helpful the people who work at the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters office are. As a novice to the whole DCC thang, they helped me file my paperwork, let me purchase a neighborhood list to collect signatures and always greeted me with a warm smile and encouragement. I share this because a certain San Joaquin County Republican, running against McNerney, needs to have a talk with his staff. I was shocked at the level of attitude and rudeness this person was throwing at the RoV clerks because her boss had misfiled paperwork. This isn't a partisan issue either. I don't care which part of the aisle you sit on, treat public servants (and people in general) with respect if you plan on working in politics.

More on the flip...

An Uncontested Election Is A Bad Election

The Record states:
With nobody stepping forward to challenge them at the polls, San Joaquin County Supervisors Larry Ruhstaller and Ken Vogel can stay in office for another four years without a fight.

Ruhstaller and Vogel are Republicans running for re-election in non-partisan races. Well, fine...good for them! However, if we want to advance the progressive agenda we are going to have to start running progressive voices locally sooner or later. You can't get upset at Cardoza and/or McNerney for being "moderates" when we aren't capable of growing our movement locally folks. It's as simple as that.

On the plus side, a lot of this can be attributed to voter and activist apathy and Republicans aren't doing any better at fielding half decent candidates themselves. But the voter registration advantage is ours and we shouldn't be resting on our laurels.

For the rest of the article click here.

BTW: Is that a Pombo I see running for a local school board seat? Anyone know if there's any relation to Dick?

Putting It Together

This is a pic of me as I submitted my petition(s) to be a candidate for DCC. I decided to collect signatures from my neighborhood and must say that I am happy I did so. The experience was an eyeopener. Stay tuned for a more detailed blog about those experiences.

Congratulations to Steve Lopez, Barbara Grizzle, Jerry Bailey, Sylvia Low, Rose Roach and Charlotte Stafford for qualifying (along with me---there are five open slots) for Supervisorial District 3. It's an honor to have my name along yours on the upcoming June ballot. Good luck to you all!

Running for the DCC- March 12th Deadline

Pledge 4 of the San Joaquin County Democrats 2.0 Pledge states the following:

Continue striving for diversity-While inroads have been made there is still a need for diversity in regards to ethnicity, residency (in particularly rural parts of the county like Ripon, Escalon and Linden) and age among DCC members.

Do you have concerns for your community? Passion for politics? Want to see your name on a ballot? Well how bout running for to be a representative with your local democratic party? How, you ask? Fairly simple.

1) First, visit the County of San Joaquin, Registrar of Voters

212 North San Joaquin Street
Stockton, CA 95202-2409
(209) 468-2885

The process will take about thirty minutes and is fairly painless.

2) Collect 20 signatures from registered democrats from your district. Your district area is the same as your county supervisors. To encourage diverse participation, the organizers of SJ Democrats 2.0 are offering to email you a list of Dem voters from your neighborhood to make signature collecting easy. It's always safe to collect at least 30 signatures to leave room for any errors that might come up.

3) Return your collected signatures to the San Joaquin Registrar of Voters by the March 12th deadline.

See, a pretty simple process, right? New voices, diverse opinions and a range of experiences will strengthen an already strong local party. Can you commit to a better tomorrow by joining the San Joaquin County Democratic Committee?

So what does the SJCDCC do? Well, they attend a monthly meeting where they vote on the direction of the county Democratic party. They endorse non-partisan local races and they hold fundraisers to support Democrat and non-partisan endorsed candidates. They also get to do fun things like represent the county at state conventions.

Take the San Joaquin Democrats 2.0 Pledge

The goal of this blog is to grow the democratic party within the San Joaquin County. While major advances have been made with voter registration, candidate recruitment and wins (all but one of San Joaquin counties federal and state elected officials are democrats), there is still room to build on our successes. The organizers of this blog believe the following pledge will further build on the successes of the democratic party and our local progressive movement.

The San Joaquin County Democrat 2.0 Pledge

• Commit to a 50 plus 1 vote campaign strategy. The political reality within the San Joaquin County is that it's a light blue county. This reality is reflected in the moderate positions our elected federal and state officials take. Increasing the democratic voter registration advantage within San Joaquin County and helping progressive candidates win local non-partisan offices will encourage progressive candidates to seek federal and state offices. The number one priority for our party should be a comprehensive field, voter registration and outreach strategy that can successfully execute majority wins in each city and district within San Joaquin County for our Democrat and non-partisan endorsed races.
  
• Embrace modern online activism: The San Joaquin County Democratic Party and its activist will benefit from sharing their stories with the larger netroots community via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Daily Kos, Calitics and MyDD. An active party blog is also essential for online activism.
  
• Acknowledge the Decline to State threat: More and more candidates are choosing to run for local office as decline to states and some of our Democratic leadership are choosing to back these candidates. By ignoring the Decline to State threat, we hurt our local progressive voice on issues like gay civil rights and health care. As of today, throughout the entire county, only 1 registered democrat has declared their re-election intentions (Eggman) and two (Paderes and Griffen) have declared their intent to run for office.
  
• Continue striving for diversity: While inroads have been made there is still a need for diversity in regards to ethnicity, residency (in particularly rural parts of the county like Ripon, Escalon and Linden) and age among DCC members.

It is our hope that candidates running for the San Joaquin County DCC will join our pledge. Please show your support by stating your name, city and district in the comment field.

Current list of 2.0 pledgers
Angel Picon
Motecuzoma Sanchez
Nicholas Hatten