Walking Dubuque for Obama

Written by: Frank Palmer on Jul 23, 2008 12:10 PM EDT

Northside (Chicago) DFA sent a contingent to Iowa Saturday to canvass for Obama. This was my report on Daily Kos:

The Obama campaign isn't worrying about Illinois. You only think Obama is popular in your state; he's really popular in IL.

They're sending people from different congressional districts to different states. The 9th CD, on the eastern edge of IL, is assigned to Iowa, over the western edge. On Saturday,  Northside DFA drove from Chicago to Dubuque to canvass.

As of Friday morning, we expected three canvassers and no cars. In the event we had six canvassers and a potential of three cars. We left one of the cars in Chicago and drove off a little after 7:00 a.m. We expected to arrive before 11:00, but one car headed wrong and the other got a flat tire. We didn't head out of the Dubuque Obama office until after noon.

We left Chicago in a soft rain and had worried about the weather for canvassing. We needn't have. Iowa had bright sun by the time we got there.

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Kirk's voting record

Written by: Frank Palmer on Jan 12, 2007 11:23 AM EST

Linked to groups: DFA Blog Network

The Washington Post publishes a report of recorded votes in Congress.

Kirk's is at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/k000360

Watch out! There are several versions of each title -- find which is which.

(I'm a Chicago DFAer who participated in theSeals campaign; I only "joined" this meetup to post this information.)

Bylaws problem 2 -- campaign activities require campaigns

Written by: Frank Palmer on Jan 11, 2007 10:45 AM EST

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

The bylaws propose that being a voting member requires having participated in 3 campaign-related activities in the previous year.

That's fine for 2007, when there will be loads of campaign-related activities before the election of officers. By the 2009 endorsement period for 2010, though,  Noone will satisfy that criterion. There will be no camp[aigns between November 2008 and petition-passing time.

I suggest something like:

"Must have attended three out of the monthly meetings in the previous year, inclusive of the meeting at which the vote is taken; must have participated in three campaign-related activities out of the last ten or three in the previous year, whichever is less restrictive.

(The italicized wording is what the chair has ruled at least twice. I'd just like to make it explicit.)

Bylaw problem 1-- getting secretaries

Written by: Frank Palmer on Dec 27, 2006 12:11 PM EST

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

The bylaws deal with the offices of treasurer, recording secretary, and membership secretary in a way reminescent of Genesis. "The bylaws said that there would be a treasurer, and there was a treasurer, and the bylaws saw that it was good." There is no specification as to how three offices will be filled. If the idea is for the Steering Committee to fill those offices from among themselves, the bylaws should say so.

Otherwise, something like: "The officers of the linkup shall be two cohosts, a treasurer, a recording secretay, and a membership secretary." And the directions for election should be for the election of officers.

A long season

Written by: Frank Palmer on Nov 15, 2006 1:45 PM EST

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

For the Edgewater-Rogers Park meetup, it was a long season. (These are two adjoining neighborhoods on yhr north side of Chicago.) Since there were no interesting races in our area, we commuted to three races in the suburbs. (Currently, the only elected Republicans we can vote on are the President/VP and the state treasurer; the latter lost.)  We started sometime like June.

We adopted Dan Seals for Congress in the district north of ours,  John Pavich for Congress in teh district which stretches south from Chicago, and Dan Kotowski for state senate from a district north-west of Chicago. Kotowski won as one of the five state-senate changeovers this year. (Only 18 Republican-held seats were up for election; they lost a quarter of them.)

Seals lost, but he got 49.2% of the vote,  in contrast with his predecessor who got 35.9% in '04. This was the largest increase (11.3 points) of  Democratic strength among all the Congressional races in Illinois. Pavich lost with 45.3%; a gain of 4.0 points.

Voting early at Edgewater Library

Written by: Frank Palmer on Oct 17, 2006 11:19 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

The Edgewater branch of the Chicago Public Library is a site for early voting, starting yesterday. (1210 W. Elmdale, across Broadway from the Armory.) If you don't go to the loop, this may be your best place to vote early, and you need to if you are going to participate in ur election-day drive.

Before you go to vote, read teh evaluations of the judicial-retention candidates at:
www.voteforjudges.org...

Bylaws -- linguistic

Written by: Frank Palmer on Oct 9, 2006 11:04 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

Before commenting substantively on the bylaws, I'd like to make some linguistic suggestions. This is not complete; somewhere in the draft there is a "will" where obviously a "willing" belongs.

I. e. strike "both"
replace "host/cohosts" with "officers"
f. "
f. i. "
II. g. replace "their" with "his or her"
strike "other"
replace "members will have discretion in" with
"may choose among"

Letters to editors on latest NIE

Written by: Frank Palmer on Sep 25, 2006 12:42 PM EDT

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

The media have got hold of a National Intelligence Estimate saying that the war in Iraq has made the terrorism threat to the USA worse. This is probably news to few of us, but that the MSM are talking about it is NEWS.
We should all write letters to the editor. To the Trib, to the Sun Times, to the newsmagazines as they carry the story.
I've written some suggestions as to what we could say at www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/25...

Political Group -- ERP or DFI

Written by: Frank Palmer on Aug 7, 2006 12:08 PM EDT

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

At the meeting, Sandra mentioned the possibility of our becoming a political group
OR
DFI becoming a political group.

Actually, these are not mutually exclusive. I'm sure that the State and County committees of the Democratic party are registered political groups. So are most ward organizations.

What would be a nightmare for the poor treasurer would be to have DFI register as a political group as an UMBRELLA for our meetup and the others in IL.

The major responsibility WRT being a registered political group is to file financial reports, semi-annually. That's fine if each committee takes care of its own finances. If DFI tried to operate as an umbrella, however, it would be responsible for filing a report of all the income and expenditures of all the groups.

So what happens if one group doesn't tell the main treasurer? It doesn't have to be much.

The Real Growth Agenda

Written by: Frank Palmer on Jul 31, 2006 11:11 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

The massager-in-chief keeps boasting that the performance of the economy shows that his economic policies are working. Actually, he has the second-worst economic record of any president since 1960. (And since 1948, although I don't show that.)
Republican Presidents, in general, have a significantly worse growth record than Democrats. I've posted:
franklpalmer.tripod.com/eg_1.htm...
Democrats vs Republicans
And:
www.geocities.com/f_l_palmer/REG...
Bush vs. Clinton