OJ case gets impeachment on the air

Diane Lawrence and friends in OJ's driveway

Quick thinking, gang, way to go! It was early Thursday morning and Diane Lawrence’s daughter called and said there were a lot of TV trucks at O.J. Simpson’s house in Miami. Diane is passionate about impeachment, and in less than two hours she was out there in OJ’s driveway waving a sign demanding impeachment of Dick Cheney (Bush, too).

And a half-dozen of her friends from Democracy for America and related Democratic clubs were with her, also waving signs such as “OJ killed two, Bush killed 1,000’s” and “Cover the real story -- Iraq.” A passing car stopped and two girls got out and joined the demo for over an hour, Lawrence said.

This inspired protest has been on local radio and television in Miami, and did anyone see it on MSNBC? Some say yes. There's a snip of it in this report on Channel 4 CBS.

Lawrence said one of the broadcast reports included her juiciest comment: “The real criminals are in the White House.”

Her view of OJ: “A trashy story.” A lot of people honked in agreement with her.

UPDATE: Cross-posted on DailyKos, where the comments so far are admiring of this action.

John Dean in Miami

John W. Dean with Shirley Alexiou, president of Democrats of South Dade Club

File this under Club News: One way to get a good turnout for a club meeting is to band together with other clubs and have John W. Dean come for a speech and book-signing. Almost 300 people will show up, and they’ll have a really good time and leave their names and addresses for followup.

So it went Tuesday night, as the crowd came close to filling the main hall at Temple Judea in Coral Gables. The sponsors were the Coral Gables Area Democratic Club, Democrats of South Dade Club, and Democracy for America Miami-Dade.

“I’m surprised that Republican clubs didn’t sponsor me,” Dean joked as he launched into an analysis of our present political pickle from his point of view as a registered independent.

“I am a partisan for one thing, and that’s good government. I know when it’s broken and I see when the processes are not functioning properly,” he said.

To him, Dick Cheney is at the center of all the problems that come with the Bush administration, and it derives partly from Cheney’s experience in the Watergate era, which Dean knows oh too well, partly from Vietnam, partly from 9/11 – all of which made Cheney think the power of the presidency needed to be strengthened.

“It’s going to get worse if this so-called ‘unitary executive theory,’ which no one had heard of until Samuel Alito was nominated for the Supreme Court, and then became known in the press, goes on,’’ Dean said. It had been “dreamed up by a bunch of lawyers in the Reagan Justice Department” to control regulatory departments.

The result is the title of his new book,” Broken Government,” with the subtitle “How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches.” Also available for signing were earlier books including “Conservatives Without Conscience” (2006), in which Dean describes the authoritarian personality behind the current type of conservative.

There are not only authoritarian leaders but also authoritarian followers who submit too easily, are intolerant, arrogant, likely to pick on the weak, “and they will follow the leader off the cliff,” Dean said.

He cited work by Theodor Adorno and Robert Altemeyer on the authoritarian personality. Altemeyer’s recent book, “The Authoritarians,” is available on the internet free at this link.

Republicans are good at winning elections because of their authoritarianism, Dean said, “and there is no such thing as a left-wing authoritarian.”

I guess the lesson is that to win elections we need to throttle down our eternal need to squabble about details – witness the current swamp about the early primary date – and concentrate like good little soldiers.

New members at packed meeting

Swearing in new members at DEC July meeting

People are NOT complaining about lack of room at party meetings nowadays -- even though the room can be over-full. Hey, new members are coming in every month, no wonder it's standing-room-only when the Democratic Executive Committee gets together. Even if it's July in Florida? Yes!

At the regular monthly meeting July 16 about a dozen new members were sworn in. I've got to say, that oath needs tuning up, but anyway. And in recent months even larger crowds have been inducted. To say there's a surge of interest in the Democratic Party is a more accurate use of the word surge than we see emanating from the White House/Military Industrial Complex. We are the rising tide here, but the idea is not just to float around but to act, do, work, demonstrate, and be smart about it.

Also present at the meeting were a dozen candidates for office, who each got a snip of time to declare the office they're contending for. Many in the larger crowd were confirmed as delegates to the state convention of the Florida Democratic Party in October. It's not too late to ask to attend: call the office in Doral 305 477-4994.

Cindy Lerner, state committeewoman and former member of the state House of Representatives, reported on another area of growth: Clubs, where four new club organizations are applying. "Our intention is to grow new clubs throughout the county," Lerner said.

This blog also aims to help promote clubs and their news. Email the blog through the link in the right-hand column, and your club news will be posted. And you can look for club info on the calendar at the party website, MiamiDadeDemocrats.com. Click on the bigger calendar there.

Bret Berlin, state committeeman, announced a cleanup work event on July 28, site to be determined. Volunteers will get gold stars for stepping forward!

One of the new clubs, the Cuban-American Democratic Club, was given the task of formulating a resolution about Cuba travel bans, so that Miami-Dade Democrats can go on the record soon on this vexing problem in our current government policy on Cuba.

Cuban-American Democratic Club formed

(Corrected email address at bottom)

We have a new Cuban-American Democratic Club. Formed recently but emerging to accept congratulations now in mid-July, the Miami-Dade club is working very closely with state Rep. Luis Garcia to attract new members in the Little Havana area and beyond.

Officers, to be formally installed in the fall, are Hector Caraballo, president; Carl Muller, vice president; Oscar Visiedo, secretary; and Arthur Costa, treasurer.

Congratulations!

Members of this club and others are welcome at all times to email news and announcements to this blog. The address is always featured in the right-hand column.

Here's the first announcement:

To join the club and get involved in reaching out to Cuban-American Democrats, please call or email Hector Caraballo at 305-322-4803 or hmanuel05@yahoo.com

Club news at its best

Kudos to the William Lehman Northeast Dade ... oh, heck, the Democratic Club with a real long name deserves praise for a fine spread in Sunday's Miami Herald reporting that it was meeting again for the first time in five months.

And thanks to the fine Democratic leaders in Miami-Dade County who graced that meeting. This blog has heard mentioned state Rep. Dan Gelber, who's running for the state senate; Richard Steinberg, the Miami Beach city commissioner who's running to replace Gelber in the state house; Joe Geller, North Bay Village mayor and also running for Gelber's seat; Gwen Margolis, who's retiring as state senator and endorsing Gelber to replace her; and Joe Garcia, chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. Not to be left out is Ginger Grossman, who has been active now in the Democratic Party for 67 years (not a typo: sixty-seven years), and is president of ... here's the full name, as reported by the Herald, the William Lehman Northeast Dade Involved Democratic Club.

Joe Garcia said over 100 people attended the meeting. Now, that's a whale of a turnout. Does the length of the club's name correspond to turnout? Something to be probed by our outreach organizers.

UPDATE: Over at the Florida Politics blog, folks are already wondering about Dan Gelber's next step: could he run against the reeling U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez in 2010? Stay tuned. And if that link doesn't work, try this one to the Orlando Sentinel.

Coral Gables Democrats choose officers, hear from Luis Garcia

The Coral Gables Area Democratic Club elected a slate of officers unopposed at their meeting last week. Returning as president is Connie Washburn. Vice president will be Shannon O’Sullivan, secretary is Roz Marks, and treasurer is Sandi Strickland.

The monthly meeting voted to make a donation to the re-election campaign of State Rep. Luis Garcia, who expressed gratitude to the club for the help given by its members in his winning campaign for the State House of Representatives last year.

There was widespread agreement that all our candidates should be like him – but it’s hard nowadays to find a fresh face who came from Cuba as a teenager in 1960, worked hard all the time, became a firefighter and then fire chief in Miami Beach, and then won two terms on the Miami Beach city commission.

Garcia said he had beaten the freshman curse by getting several bills passed in his first session in Tallahassee, and by winning appropriations for his District 107. He said he would argue strongly against any cut in public safety services if the legislature cuts property taxes.

On those lines, see Sunday’s Miami Herald’s story on some purported drastic cuts for firefighters. Here’s the link.

Getting Ready for W

Bob Goldstein wields a wicked brush.

Here is what the Democrats of South Dade Club were up to at their April 17 meeting: making signs to show the president what we think of him. Worst President Ever! Indeed. The signs are for the demo to protest Bush when he speaks at the Kendall campus of Miami-Dade College on Saturday April 28.

That meeting wasn’t all arts-and-crafts. They elected officers to back President Shirley Alexiou, who’s in the second year of her two-year term. Bob Goldstein is vice president, Errol Saunders is treasurer, and board members are Sam Dorr, Frank Morra, Barbara Schwartz and Kristin Wipior.

The South Dade Dems are one of the most powerful clubs we have, and they contributed a generous amount of work in last fall’s election campaign, helping Michael Calderin to his strong challenge in Congressional District 25 and Ron Saunders to his victory in State House District 120, taking away a Republican seat. Yes!

Learn more about the DSDC at their website, www.dsdcfl.org.

Other recent club news:

Sunny Isles Beach Democratic club had a good crowd of 50 or so for its April meeting. County Clerk Harvey Ruvin was the featured speaker, touching on his work on the green side of politics. After years of working on a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, he got the County Commission to create an advisory panel on climate change. And it’s about time to get effective: Ruvin said emissions have been going up despite the wish to cut them. In the Miami Herald he is quted saying that carbon dioxide has been rising at a rate of 36.5 percent a year in the county. Whew, time to go alternative. Ruvin said the county is buying hybrid vehicles to start the trend in the other direction.

Miami Beach Democratic Club meets with a MoveOn chapter, and is moving its meetings back to the first Monday of the month. Next is 7 p.m. May 7, at the VFW post in the Floridian, 650 West Ave. Miami Beach 33139.

In Surfside, the Adlai Stevenson Women’s Democratic Club recently had DEC Chairman Joe Garcia as the main speaker. Club President Evelyn Manset enjoyed his presentation so much that she felt like she was 16 again – she’s 88! Joe urged club members to volunteer to help register new citizens to vote. A ceremony is held every other month, usually at the Convention Center in Miami Beach, and 6,000 new citizens are all in one place at one time, thrilled at their new status and ready to sign up to vote. All it needs is more volunteers to hold the clipboards. Quite a few of the Surfside ladies said they’d be there the next time.

Feel free to send club news to the blog.