06.09.06
Democracy for Texas Caucus
The self-described grass roots “disorganization” met in a packed meeting room at the state convention and listened to speechs from local chapter leaders describing the effectiveness of their activities. Chris Bell then took the stage and delivered a motivating speech that is likely to set the tone for his floor speech tonight.
The DFT leaders’ stories were similar. They were all energized by their dislike for the policies of George W. Bush, and were passionate supporters of Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich during the 2003 Democratic presidential primary season. DFT El Paso chapter member Tisha Dominguez said that individuals who are newly inspired to rise up and work for progressive politics often mistakenly depend on joining organizations rather than fully exploiting the potential of individual coordinated action.
The idea is to establish a dialog between disaffected voters and candidates that may actually attract them back to the democratic party.
DFT Bastrop chapter member Kasey West explained the difficulty their group of about 20 activists has encountered in trying to coordinate with the Bastrop County Democratic Party. When DFT Bastrop began attending BCDP meetings, membership plunged to 4. “I’m sure many of you have been through this,” West said. “They are quite conservative. We get along, but we have different ways of doing things.”
West said that the DFT Bastrop chapter contacted Ted Ankrum’s CD10 campaign, whose district carves five precincts out of Bastrop County. Ankrum sent West’s group a list of 500 homes to reach. They worked each one, and helped Ankrum win in the primary. Ankrum’s campaign snubbed the Bastrop County Democrats and asked DFT Bastrop to run his campaign in Bastrop County.
…to be continued… it is very difficult to keep up!