New members piling in to Miami-Dade Democratic Party

Here's a quick few seconds of video from the Monday night meeting of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. Late in the agenda new members came forward to be sworn in, and there were almost two dozen! Great work by our recruiters and the credentials committee that made sure the applications were in order.

Chairman BJ Chiszar said there were about 70 people still in the pipeline now to be awarded membership in the Democratic Executive Committee, as the official body is known. We're heading for a membership close to 400.

Miami-Dade Democrats favor universal health plan

Candidates for the Democratic nomination for US Congressional District 17, from the left: Yolly Roberson, Phillip J. Brutus, Shirley Gibson, Roderick Vereen.

A good Democratic Party meeting Monday night, and a fine setting at Florida Memorial University’s up-to-date auditorium.

A lot of new members of the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee were sworn in, more than I could count with confidence. Almost 20, I think, a good sign that people are coming aboard even in the summer doldrums. Chairman BJ Chiszar said DEC membership was very close to his interim goal of 300.

Main events were three:

· We passed a resolution urging Congress to go for universal care in health reform. There was spirited debate as to whether it was good to go against President Obama’s plan that would add a public option to a wide modification of the present system.

· Candidates for the state legislature had the opportunity to speak from the stage and make themselves known. Seven Democratic challengers in open seats were featured, along with two incumbent reps, Oscar Braynon of Miami Gardens (District 103) and Ron Saunders of Key West, whose District 120 includes a chunk of Miami-Dade as well as Monroe County.

· Four of the Democrats vying to succeed US Rep. Kendrick Meek in FL-17 (he’s running for US Senate) were on stage for a candidates’ forum, making statements and responding to questions. The four were former state Rep. Phillip J. Brutus, Miami Gardens Mayor Shirley Gibson, state Rep. Yolly Roberson and attorney/activist Roderick D. Vereen. Also among Democratic candidates in FL-17, according to the Florida Division of Elections, are Haitian activist Marliene M. Bastien and state Rep. Frederica S. Wilson.

All three of these agenda items were well worth the drive to Miami Gardens, and the meeting remained lively until after 10 p.m.

State Rep. Ron Saunders, who is slated to be leader of the Democratic minority in the state House in 2010, described the statewide strategy to build the number of Democratic winners in next year’s election. The Democrats are specially targeting 34 of the 76 seats the Republicans now hold in the 120-seat House. The criterion for choosing them, he said, was to identify districts in which Alex Sink got 48 percent or more of the vote in her run for Florida chief financial officer in 2006.

Sink, now running for governor, is the only Democrat in the state cabinet. She won with 53.5 percent in 2006, meaning there must have been plenty of state House districts where she captured otherwise Republican voters.

And here's a three-hour event compressed to 40 seconds:

Florida enjoying youth wave in politics

This is heartening news – more young people drawn into political activism in Florida. This particular story in the St. Pete Times is about the Tampa Bay area, but I’d guess it will apply to most of the state. Note that it’s not only Democrats who have been energized by our youngish presidential candidate. The Republicans are on to this, too.

I have a comment pending there to toot Dade’s horn, since we elected 29-year-old BJ Chiszar to be chair of the county party leadership body, the Democratic Executive Committee. We have plenty of wise old gray heads and new blood, too.

New chair of Miami-Dade Democrats is BJ Chiszar

BJ Chiszar is the new chairman of Miami-Dade Democrats. It’s an energized throng of 600,000-plus with a big presidential victory under their belts and many more goals before them.

We have a charming and powerful new director – charming enough to have his lovely mother, Dawn Goldman, be one to second his nomination with stories of how the “born politician” was an organizer as a toddler, and powerful enough to quiet a disputatious crowd starting to … well, let’s not predict how that might have developed.

Back to bare facts: This was the organizational meeting of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, in its legal body, the Democratic Executive Committee, with some 200 members present Wednesday evening and voting on officers for four-year terms, as we must right after every presidential election. Most of the voters are precinct committeemen and committeewomen elected in the August primary. Well over the quorum of 141 were present in the Firefighters Hall in Miami, and we were watched over by representatives of the Florida Democratic Party, Pasco County Chairwoman Alison Berke Morano and Hamilton County Chairman Rhett Bullard, who counted the votes along with Pinecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner, our outgoing state committeewoman.

As this blog will be neutral and positive in local party issues, here are the bare results.

--For Chair: BJ (Benjamin John) Chiszar, a professional campaigner, defeated tax attorney Eric Copeland in the second round of voting, 108-87. Miami Beach activist Dave Patlak, outgoing vice chair for outreach, was eliminated in the first round with 41 votes.

--For State Committeewoman: Verna Lewis Edington won in the second round over Millie Herrera, 92-86. Ann-Lynn Denker was eliminated in the first round with 38 votes.

--For State Committeeman: Bret Berlin won over Dr. Thomas Pinder, 134-57. Berlin has been the party chair for most of the past year and previously was state committeeman since 2004.

--For First Vice Chair: Daisy Black, a former mayor of El Portal, won over outgoing First Vice Chair Bess McElroy, 95-77.

--For Program Vice Chair: Liz Collins won in the first round with 76 votes over Edith Owens with 33, America Schroh with 23 and Walter Liebowitz with 19.

--For Outreach Vice Chair: Henry Crespo Sr. won over Alix Desulme, 84-75.

--For Secretary: Fanny Olmo won unopposed after the outgoing secretary, Charlotte Klieman, declined to run.

--For Treasurer: Paul Barthole won over Gabriel Mendoza, 101-52.

Thanks to all who ran! Thanks to those who served as officers in the previous term! Thanks to all who stayed through a long meeting and voted repeatedly!

Precinct training soon

BJ Chiszar is preparing his next phase of training based in the DEC. He has launched a lot of people into the VAN – the Voter Action Network, so that we’re already calling our neighbors and inviting them into Democratic activism.

Next is PLP – Precinct Leadership Program, to improve our skills at the precinct level. BJ introduced it with a short talk at the June 11 DEC meeting, and was besieged with questions and followups. Seems that there’s a strong grassroots interest in our paid organizer's plans.

Looking for training? Call the DEC 305 477-4994, and ask for BJ Chiszar.

Training with the VAN

Ben Wirz, BJ Chiszar, Charlotte Kliemann, Christina Albright -- a training session, and Charlotte is making her first call.





BJ Chiszar introduced 19 activists to the VAN -- Voter Action Network -- on Saturday at the DEC office in Doral. This was a fine turnout, and perhaps as many are expected Sunday as the Miami-Dade Democratic Party starts real action toward the '08 campaign.

The VAN is a tremendous campaign tool, but it needs people to pitch in and operate it, to plumb its data, to make the calls and walk the walks that its database lays out. Those people are raising their hands now -- from the DEC, from the clubs.

BJ was very pleased with the first day of VAN training. "This is the first step towards victory," he said. And many steps more will be taken before June is out. Stay tuned to this space.

Meanwhile, the group in this photo is an example of the way forward -- a mix of veteran and new activists. Charlotte Kleimann and Christina Albright are DEC members and veteran activsts, and Ben Wirz is a brand-new activist, just joined the (also brand-new) Biscayne Corridor Democratic Club last month. Welcome, Ben.

Political donations help victory -- It happened here

You probably wonder what happens to the money when you dig into your pocket and send the Democratic Party a donation. Maybe it’s only $25 on your stretchy credit card. Maybe more significant amounts. Well, here we have a report from one of our rare paid staff from the Florida Democratic Party on what the money means: Victory in a special election for the Florida House! Money puts feet on the ground to convince and activate voters. It happened in the past week in the Orlando area. A Republican seat became a Democratic seat.

So, my friends, please be generous when Karen Thurman or Joe Garcia or Howard Dean asks for financial help!

Here’s BJ Chiszar’s report on a month he spent seconded away from his Miami-Dade post to help Darren Soto’s campaign.

Hello fellow Democrats!

Every member of the statewide field team was in Orlando/Osceola for the final month of the Darren Soto campaign. Soto defeated GOP heavyweight Tony Suarez in a close race decided by about 300 votes.

Soto, a 29-year-old civil rights attorney, built a solid coalition with labor, firefighters, teachers, ACORN, and many other progressive groups. One group stood out -- the Young Democrats of Orange County were an amazing field force, knocking on almost every door in the district.

The Florida Democratic Party focused our efforts on absentee ballots and GOTV on election day. I was joined by Ted Miller and the Young Democrats of Dade and also Michael Calderin and Georgi Blumenthal of DFA came up to get in the fight. It was awesome to have Dade county people in Central Florida, demonstrating our commitment to victory in 2008!

It also must be noted that our House Victory Director Steve Schale joined us on the ground, as well as Executive Director Leonard Joseph and most of the senior staff from Tallahassee. This showed leadership by example and let Democrats all across the state know that we mean business as it relates to winning elections.

We are excited about the renewed buzz around the state about our party! I hope that you will join us in our efforts to create positive change in America.

If we all do just a little, then together we can achieve so much!

UPDATE:

Here's a fresh angle on this from Beth Reinhard's column in the Saturday Herald. Fair to say that people in politics are looking at this Orlando result with strong interest.

Lessons from Orlando column.

UPDATE 2:

Yet another angle from The Buzz, St. Pete Times political blog. Hillary Clinton is said to be the only presidential candidate to help with this race, and here's her congratulatory message to Darren Soto.

Buzz link re Hillary.

BJ Wanted

A commenter on the post about the lively DEC meeting on April 9 (scroll down to April 10 to see it) said he wanted to have contact info for BJ Chiszar, our new paid organizer, to get started early on the training drill BJ announced.

For now, contact BJ through the DEC office, 305 447-4994, dadedec@bellsouth.net. BJ has been on the road for a few days and will set up a new email address soon. Thanks for your interest.

Lively April DEC Meeting

Eufaula Frazier with Bennett H. Brummer.

Maybe it was springtime juices flowing, but there sure was a lively spirit to the April DEC meeting. Regularly scheduled – but special stuff happening from the opening bell on April 9.

Chairman Joe Garcia started with a speaker who had to leave early – Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who confessed he had been a Republican for 46 years until seeing the light last year on the road to getting elected.

Next up was Miami-Dade Public Defender Bennett H. Brummer, who brought the house down by declaring he hadn’t made such a mistake – always a D for his party affiliation.

Brummer’s first task was to introduce and extol an old friend – Eufaula Frazier, who received the DEC’s new M. Athalie Range Award, named in honor of the late civil rights pioneer in Miami. Ms. Frazier, with a half-century of civil rights work under her belt at age 82. was cheered mightily by a standing-room-only crowd. Even now she’s planning sessions to train the next generation of leaders in her community. She has been a DEC member for over 30 years.

Brummer said Democrats must campaign as “the party of well-being.” The main elements, he said, should be universal health care, education to reduce the incidence of crime, treating drug and alcohol problems in the health-care system rather than the courts and prisons, economic opportunity, and a policy of treating all with dignity and honesty.

Next to report were activists who directed recent voter-registration efforts with people who just received U.S. citizenship. Bob Goldstein of the South Dade Democrats and Rosa Kasse, president of the Hispanic Coalition, said some 65 percent had declared themselves Democrats.

Joe Garcia appealed for more volunteers to help register new citizens. “We will turn elections,” he said.

Also turning elections: Garcia introduced the first paid organizer sent by the national and state Democratic Party to work in Miami-Dade – our own BJ Chiszar. “Victory starts here in Dade County,” BJ declared, outlining two tracks of training that he will pursue. The first is training in the use of the Voter Activation Network to develop data useful for the 2008 general election campaign.

Second, he appealed for dozens of young people to be found and be trained in the summer as interns in Democratic work.

State Committeewoman Cindy Lerner talked about coming party events and urged all to sign up to receive the Florida Democratic Party’s weekly newsletter. That link is at http://www.fladems.com/.



Joe Garcia announced two appointments: Augusto Granados to be campaign chair, and Larry Thorson to be communications director.

Especially good news: the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus launched its first Florida Spanish-language radio program, Democracy al Dia (Democracy Up to Date). It airs on WRHC Cadena Azul every Thursday 9-10 p.m. Its first broadcast was on April 5. Co-hosting are Millie Herrera, past president of the Florida Hispanic Caucus, and Hector Caraballo, vice president of the Miami-Dade Caucus.

Y’all tune in!