Steal This

Voter Registration Bomb At The Abbot Kinney Festival!

You've heard of campaign donation money-bombs, right? Well, Venice For Change will be hosting a one-day voter registration bomb at the Abbot Kinney Street Festival.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
9AM-7PM
Sign up for a 2-hour shift here

Venice For Change will be hosting a voter registration booth at the Abbot Kinney Street Festival in Venice! The festival attracts over 150K visitors from all over Southern California and is truly a target-rich environment for registering new voters!

Our goal is ambitious - we want to register ONE THOUSAND new and lapsed voters! Can we do it? YES WE CAN! But we need your help - we need volunteers to help set up and break down the booth, to work the crowd during the festival, and to help us with data entry afterward.

PRIZES WILL BE GIVEN OUT TO VOLUNTEERS WHO REGISTER THE MOST VOTERS!

When you RSVP, please INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS and what you want to volunteer for: voter registration, booth setup or break down, data management. If you are volunteering to manage data, you must have your own laptop.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
9AM-7PM
Sign up for a 2-hour shift here

Stuff You Can't Make Up

Yes, it's real.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen Needs Our Help!

Here's a great opportunity to help a real Progressive champion right here in California - Debra Bowen.

As California's 30th Secretary of State, Debra Bowen works every day to build up election integrity and break down government barriers.

On her watch as the chief elections officer for the largest state in the nation, Debra's goals are to ensure that voting systems are secure, accurate, and accessible, and that voters have confidence in the final election results because every ballot is counted exactly as it was cast.

But Debra is being challenge by a well-funded conservative Republican, a millionaire developer who has voted only once in his life.

She needs our help. That's why I've signed on with others in our community to hold a fundraiser for Debra, because we can't afford not to support this progressive champion.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2010

4PM-6PM

C&O Cucina

3016 Washington Blvd.

Marina Del Rey, CA

CLICK HERE to RSVP and make a donation

For more information, please contact Lisa Cassinis at lisa@debrabowen.com or (310) 203-1015

ACTION ALERT! NV Teabagger Candidate Sharron Angle in San Diego Tomorrow!

I smell a protest coming on, don't you?

Teabagger candidate Sharron Angle, who's running against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the "let them eat cake" platform, will be the featured speaker for a San Diego fundraiser tomorrow.

The "National Doctors Tea Party" (Who knew?) is hosting the event.

As GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle attempts to parry charges from Harry Reid's campaign that she is "just too extreme," she is the headliner at an event Saturday promoted by a physician's group that is far out of the mainstream. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which is a major promoter of the Doctors Tea Party in San Diego on Saturday, has given voice to some bizarre theories, believes the advent of Medicare in 1965 was "evil" and "immoral" and once published a piece arguing HIV may not cause AIDS. There's more, too, with the group promoting one of Angle's previously expressed theories that abortion may cause breast cancer and it also once argued the FDA is unconstitutional.

Just too extreme? You be the judge:

The group has a piece arguing Barack Obama may have used "covert hypnosis" to sway crowds and below that is a link to a Q and A with a prominent birther: POTUSthehypnotist

And its journal once argued "there are real grounds for positively denying that HIV causes AIDS."

So kids, if you're interested letting Angle know that you think what happens in Vegas should go the hell back there - or if you just want to learn how you can opt out of Medicare (and who doesn't) - here's the 411 on the rally.

Saturday, August 7th. Noon-3pm

Harbor Island-Spanish Landing East Park

3900 North Harbor Dr.

San Diego CA 92101

Parking & Other Important Information-CLICK HERE

It's Official! Judge Rules Proposition 8 Unconstitutional!

A federal judge in California has ruled that Prop 8 -- the voter initiative that banned gay marriage -- is unconstitutional, CNN and NYT are reporting. In a separate, unconfirmed report, CNN is reporting that Judge Walker issued a separate ruling granting a 2-day stay on the decision.

Prop 8 supporters have already promised to file an appeal.

From Judge Vaughn Walker's decision:

Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 8. California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result,see FF 64-66; moreover, California officials have chosen not to defend Proposition 8 in these proceedings.

Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement; prohibiting the official defendants from applying or enforcing Proposition 8 and directing the official defendants that all persons under their control or supervision shall not apply or enforce Proposition 8. The clerk is DIRECTED to enter judgment without bond in favor of plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors and against defendants and defendant-intervenors pursuant to FRCP 58.

IT IS SO ORDERED."

The entire ruling can be seen here.

BP's Tony Hayward to unemployed in Gulf, "Let them eat yachts."

Poor misunderstood Tony "I want my life back" Hayward just can't catch a break. Less than 24 hours after the British Petroleum's CEO allegedly "stepped down" from overseeing day-to-day operations in the Gulf, he was caught with his PR pants down again.

Once again, the oil company was forced to clarify the statements of its top executives to try to smooth its image — on the same day Mr. Hayward watched his yacht compete in a major race off the southern coast of England.

“He is having some rare private time with his son,” a BP spokeswoman, Sheila Williams, said in a telephone interview on Saturday.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who taped an interview for ABC’s “This Week,” called Mr. Hayward’s attendance “part of a long line of PR gaffes and mistakes” that he has made.

“To quote Tony Hayward, he’s got his life back,” Mr. Emanuel said. “And I think we can all conclude that Tony Hayward is not going to have a second career in PR consulting.” He was referring to a statement Mr. Hayward made on May 31, six weeks after the spill began, when he said: “I’d like my life back.”

Poor boy. I'm sure his fellow boat enthusiasts in Louisiana grounded by the BP spill can relate.

In areas hit hard by the Gulf oil spill, some families are already in desperate financial straits. Even before the spill, many were living near the edge, their savings depleted by Hurricane Katrina.

For those who fish for a living, the spill has cut off both their source of income and a major source of food.

At St. Anthony's Church in Lafitte, La., people started lining up at 4 a.m., even though the doors weren't set to open until 9 a.m. They were there for free $100 grocery gift cards.

"You think we'd be sitting in these lines for five hours for $100 in food if we didn't need it? None of us would be here," Diane Poche says.

Until a month ago, Poche, 61, worked with her husband, who has been a commercial fisherman all his life. But now they can't fish, and Poche says they're forced to rely on the BP claims process for their entire income.

"I don't have any money coming in my house, period," she says. "My June bills have been due and past due. It don't look like BP cares about our June bills."

I'm sure Tony has their ear. After all, he was such an "active listener" when it came to safety concerns at BP.

On Thursday, during his day before an angry House energy subcommittee, Mr. Hayward was confronted with the fact that BP had been cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for 760 “egregious willful” safety violations in its refineries. Mr. Hayward tried to slough this off by claiming that the violations had taken place in 2005 and 2006 — before, that is, he became chief executive and brought his “laser focus” on safety.

But Mr. Hayward was not telling the truth. According to the Center for Public Integrity, which obtained the data under the Freedom of Information Act, the violations all took place between 2007 and 2010, very much on Mr. Hayward’s watch. What’s more, the company violated something called O.S.H.A.’s “process safety management standard” — which is precisely what that BP advisory panel had been charged with examining after the Texas City explosion. In October 2009, O.S.H.A. fined BP an additional $87 million for refinery deficiencies. It doesn’t sound like the company took its advisory panel’s recommendations very seriously, does it?

Tony Hayward, enjoying private time on his yacht "Bob", was unavailable for comment.

Waiting For Obama

Gulf Coast Beach, Alabama - the first thing that hits you is the indescribable beauty of the beach, impossibly white sand meeting neon-turquoise water. The second thing is the overwhelming smell of gasoline.

Driving from Tallahassee, Florida, on our way to New Orleans, LA, my husband and I decided to take a southern swing through Pensacola, Florida and the Gulf seashores of Mobile, Alabama to see with our own eyes what we'd only seen on the news.

As it happened, President Obama was taking a tour through the area at the same time. And in a weird way, this coincidence proved to be a metaphor of sorts - us searching for an elusive President and seeing instead heartbreaking evidence of a tragedy yet to happen, of an entire region holding it's collective breath, knowing whatever they imagine will happen will likely be unimaginably worse.

We came to bear witness. This is what we saw.

A message for President Obama from Sam's Seafood - Pensacola, Florida

Yellow flag warning, Perdido Key State Beach, Florida

Yellow flag warning, Perdido Key State Beach, Florida

Sunbathers ignore oil containment booms at Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Sunbathers ignore oil containment booms at Gulf State Beach, Alabama

News crew hangs out at Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Tourists takes photos of oil containment booms at Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Tourists takes photos of oil containment booms at Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Oil globs, Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Oil globs, Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Once you get this stuff on your hands, you can't get it off.

A family watches oil containment work, Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Boy plays in surf with oil globs, Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Father and daughter watches oil containment work, Gulf State Beach, Alabama

Police roadblock - Daulphin Island, Alabama, where

President Obama was touring.

This was as close as we got to him.

Oil containment booms being transported to Daulphin Island, Alabama

Oil containment booms protect an estuary just north of Daulphin Island, Alabama

Oil containment booms protect an estuary just north of Daulphin Island, Alabama

Oil containment booms protect an estuary just north of Daulphin Island, Alabama

Oil containment booms protect an estuary just north of Daulphin Island, Alabama

Dueling signs, Bayou La Batre, Alabama

June 8 Election Results!

We here at Venice For Change made a bunch of endorsements for ballot initiatives, state-wide primary races and local races in AD-53. So, how'd we do? Check below for the results!

PROPOSITIONS



PROP 13: WINS!
Seismic retrofits - Provides a tax break to property owners for
making seismic retrofits to their buildings.

SUPPORTING: AFSCME, CA Democratic Party, Calitics
OPPOSING: CA Nurses Association

PROP 14: WINS!
Top-two primary - Changes the way primary elections work, sending
top two votegetters at the primary onto the general election regardless of party. Intended to undermine progressive candidates and limits voter choices at the general election.

SUPPORTING: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
OPPOSING: AFSCME, CA Democratic Party, Calitics,
CA Federation of Teachers, CA League of Conservation Voters,
CA Nurses Association

PROP 15: LOSES
Fair elections - Repeals ban on public financing, allowing expansion
of clean money to limit influence of corporate donations. Raises fees on lobbyists to fund a public financing system for Secretary of State election beginning in 2014.

SUPPORTING: AFSCME, CA Democratic Party, Calitics, CA League
of Conservation Voters, CA Nurses Association, CREDO Action,
League of Women Voters
OPPOSING: California Chamber of Commerce


PROP 16: LOSES
PG&E power grab - Placed on the ballot by the efforts of PG&E, Northern California's privately owned electric utility, this proposition requires a 2/3rds vote to create public power districts or allow local governments to purchase their own renewable power. Protects PG&E's existing monopoly.

SUPPORTING: PG&E, California Chamber of Commerce

OPPOSING: CA Democratic Party, Calitics, CA League of
Conservation Voters, CA Nurses Association, CREDO Action,
League of Women Voters


PROP 17: LOSES!
Auto insurance surcharge - Placed on the ballot by the efforts of Mercury
Insurance, this proposition would weaken existing consumer protections and allow auto insurance companies to charge drivers as much as double
premiums if they are late with their payments.

SUPPORTING: Mercury Insurance, California Chamber of Commerce
OPPOSING: AFSCME, CA Democratic Party, Calitics, CA Nurses
Association, CREDO Action


STATE AND COUNTY RACES

US Senate: Barbara Boxer WINS!
Congress (CA36) Jane Harman WINS!
Governor: Jerry Brown WINS!
Lt. Governor: Gavin Newsom WINS!
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen WINS!
Controller: John Chiang WINS!
Treasurer: Bill Lockyer WINS!
Attorney General: Kamala D. Harris WINS!
Insurance Commissioner: No Endorsement DAVE JONES WINS!
State Super. of Public Inst.: No Endorsement LARRY ACEVES WINS!
State Senator (District 28) Jenny Oropeza WINS!
State Assembly (District 53) Kate Anderson LOSES
LA County Sheriff: No Endorsement LEE BACA WINS!

LA County Supervisor: Zev Yaroslavsky WINS!

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge
(endorsed by the LA County Democratic Party)

STILL WAITING ON RESULTS TO BE PUBLISHED
Office 28 - Mark K. Ameli
Office 35 - Soussan (Suzanne) Bruguera
Office 107 - Valerie Salkin
Office 117 - Alan Schneider
Office 131 - Maren E. Nelson

Winograd Responds

On Wednesday, Marcy Winograd responded to my post regarding the June 8th primary election in CA-36. You can read her response here and at the bottom of this post.

A few points.

1) I never argued that Jane Harman was a progressive. I argued a case could be made for a progressive to vote for her in this election.

2) I do not dismiss Harman's record at the expense of examining Winograd's. Both are worthy of serious debate. For instance, even as Winograd points out Harman's vote on biologic drugs, she omits Harman's vote for the original House health care reform bill - one with a strong public option.

3) As for the stocks in question, if Winograd has indeed sold them off, she should be applauded for that. However, when her husband, Buddy Gottlieb, confronted me on Facebook about my post (sorry, the link won't work if you're not signed on to Facebook), he refused to answer when the stocks had been sold, or if the campaign would produce proof of the sale when asked directly to do so.

According to the the financial disclosure form she filed in June, 2009, those stocks were listed in her portfolio as of Dec. 2008. And these weren't small investments - the Winograd Trust had in the neighborhood of $75K investing in pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, Wells Fargo and polluting timber industries.

Even if Winograd sold off the stocks, I think it's a legitimate question to ask why she even had them in the first place. If it's not OK for a Blue Dog to have these kinds of investments, it doesn't make them OK just because you sprinkle magic Progressive pixie dust over them.

4) Winograd's residency issue has turned out to quite the thorny issue for her. As far as I've been able to determine, she apparently started renting a condo in Marina del Rey in 2009 - the same year they bought two properties in Santa Monica worth over $2 million. She registered to vote in Marina del Rey in April of 2009 - shortly before she announced she'd run against Harman. But, as recently as October, 2009 she made campaign contributions to Progressive Vote using her old Pacific Palisades address. So who the hell knows.

Frankly, this is less an issue about where she sleeps at night than her apparent need to obfuscate about it. I'm unclear why she feels it's so important to create this illusion. Constitutionally she's not required to live in the district, only in the state of California. In fact, John Garamendi won a congressional seat in CA-10 when he lived in CA-03. Charges of "carpetbagging" were leveled at him as well, but the accusations had no traction. Why? Because he never tried to rent an apartment in the district to create the illusion of residency. So the issue died on its own.

5) The talent pool in CA-36 is a deep one, with many, many potential progressive candidates who've worked for years in our district. But for Tuesday's election, we're offered only two choices. A candidate who is conservative on fiscal issues, national security, and defense, but very liberal on social issues, health care reform and the environment, and a candidate who is very liberal on all of the above issues but who has shown a pattern of questionable choices, hypocrisy, and an unwillingness to reach beyond her core constituents.

Dealer's choice.

Marcy Winograd's statement in full:

Dear Friends and Volunteers,

Thank you for your enduring support and activism on behalf of a myriad of issues, many of which are at the core of my congressional campaign. I'm talking about our work to transition from a permanent war economy to a new green economy, to protect the accuracy of our vote, to stop new offshore oil leases, and to advance prison reform.

Marta Evry is a blogger who, despite her good work on the California budget crisis, wants to re-elect my opponent, arguing that Jane Harman is a progressive. With a flick of her wrist, Marta dismisses Harman's repeated votes for war and occupation, for an onerous bankruptcy bill, for a free trade agreement that lowers labor and environmental standards, for her reported collusion with AIPAC to advance her own career in exchange for a promise to subvert due process, for her vote against affordable breast cancer medication, and for her cover-up of the Bush administration's massive illegal wiretapping program.

The last time I checked the above credentials were not ones a progressive would trumpet. For the record, Harman is a member of the corporate Democrats' Blue Dog coalition.

In terms of the attacks Marta has leveled against me, please know that 98% of the stocks in question were sold years ago, and today I do not own any of the stocks to which Marta raised objections. My opponent, however, invests up to eight million dollars in weapons manufacturers, and has never once recused herself from war supplemental votes. Nor did Harman recuse herself from the overnight bank bailout vote, despite the fact that her most recent disclosure statement indicates she had up to 5-million invested in Goldman Sachs at the time of the bail-out.

My husband and I do have family investments in property in Santa Monica, approximately six blocks outside the district. For the record, however, I do not live in Santa Monica. My husband and I have lived in the 36th congressional district in Marina del Rey for nearly two years. Prior to that, we lived in Pacific Palisades, in Congressman Waxman's district.

Unfortunately, a year ago Marta published on her blog misinformation, accusing me of not living in the district -- and refusing to correct her mistake when asked to clarify for the sake of her readers.

I'm sure Harman, with her net worth of 300-million plus, has plenty invested in real estate outside of the 36th congressional district.

Additionally, I am sorry Marta fails to value my work on behalf of our community, our state, our nation, and our world. For the last 15 years I have worked either as a classroom teacher, school facilitator, or literacy coach, with four of those years working at a variety of schools, from West LA to Wilmington, in our district to improve education. I feel fortunate to have worked with many dedicated educators collaborating to embed research-based literacy strategies in every subject. Most recently, I taught and coached at Crenshaw HS in South Los Angeles, where I worked to establish a Social Justice and the Law Academy. South LA is a few miles from our district, but what happens there impacts us all. In short, education matters. Youth matters.

Many of you know of my leadership in the anti-war movement, from the days when I marched in Los Angeles and San Francisco to end the Vietnam War to the present tense when, in the last few years, I co-wrote resolutions putting the California Democratic Party on record calling for an end to US military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am honored to have organized with Congresswoman Maxine Waters a 1,000 strong Out of Iraq town hall, and to have led a peace delegation from Los Angeles to Capitol Hill.

On the state level, you may also know that I worked hard to protect our vote, testifying in Sacramento against empowering the electronic voting industry, promoting Debra Bowen as Secretary of State - and beyond that working to make sure Bowen stayed in office. My campaign manager Michael Jay and I, hearing that our own local Registrar was organizing to drive Bowen from office, circulated petitions and visited every county supervisors' office to support Bowen and her courageous stance to rid our polls of hackable touchscreen machines.

On another occasion, I testified in Sacramento against prison expansion -- this on the heels of the state assembly's passage of a bill to expand our prisons, despite the cost to our youth in California - where one out of every four African American men in their 20s is behind bars.

For those committed to single-payer health care, know that I have spent the last several years mobilizing support for single-payer, via letter-writing campaigns, party resolutions, and town hall forums. At the start of my current congressional campaign, I ran a commercial challenging Jane Harman to sign on to Congressman Conyers' bill HR676 for single-payer health care. Harman never did.

Finally, on the timely subject of the middle east, I distinguish myself from my opponent who chooses to appear at AIPAC conferences calling for the Balkanization of Iran and on Fox News announcing a military attack on Iran is still on the table. In contrast, I am committed to a just and lasting peace that recognizes the equality and dignity of all in the middle east. In that regard, I co-founded LA Jews for Peace and have worked to raise money to rebuild homes Israel has demolished in the West Bank. There is no safety, nor security, nor dignity in perpetrating human rights violations. I have repeatedly invited my opponent to join me in supporting universal human rights -- but she has not been forthcoming.

Clearly, the voters in the 36th congressional district have a choice on Tues., June 8th. They can cast their vote for an incumbent who stands for war and Wall Street or a grassroots leader committed to peace and social justice. While Harman is awash in corporate contributions, I am not taking a dime of corporate money because this is a people-powered campaign. If you have not already gotten involved, there's still time, albeit only a few days left. Email Bill@WinogradforCongress.com to phone bank or precinct walk and donate at WinogradforCongress.com Again, I want to thank you for your support and grassroots leadership. I am proud to work with you for progressive change in America.

Sincerely,

Marcy Winograd

Endorsements for June 8th Primary Race

You do know there's a primary this Tuesday, don't you? Here's your one-stop shopping list for all the ballot initiatives, state-wide primary races and local races in AD-53 (Los Angeles County).

PROPOSITIONS
(a big thank you to the Courage Campaign for the following proposition endorsement list)


PROP 13: VOTE YES
Seismic retrofits - Provides a tax break to property owners for
making seismic retrofits to their buildings.

SUPPORTING: AFSCME, CA Democratic Party, Calitics
OPPOSING: CA Nurses Association

PROP 14: VOTE NO
Top-two primary - Changes the way primary elections work, sending
top two votegetters at the primary onto the general election regardless of party. Intended to undermine progressive candidates and limits voter choices at the general election.

SUPPORTING: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
OPPOSING: AFSCME, CA Democratic Party, Calitics,
CA Federation of Teachers, CA League of Conservation Voters,
CA Nurses Association

PROP 15: VOTE YES
Fair elections - Repeals ban on public financing, allowing expansion
of clean money to limit influence of corporate donations. Raises fees on lobbyists to fund a public financing system for Secretary of State election beginning in 2014.

SUPPORTING: AFSCME, CA Democratic Party, Calitics, CA League
of Conservation Voters, CA Nurses Association, CREDO Action,
League of Women Voters
OPPOSING: California Chamber of Commerce


PROP 16: VOTE NO
PG&E power grab - Placed on the ballot by the efforts of PG&E, Northern California's privately owned electric utility, this proposition requires a 2/3rds vote to create public power districts or allow local governments to purchase their own renewable power. Protects PG&E's existing monopoly.

SUPPORTING: PG&E, California Chamber of Commerce

OPPOSING: CA Democratic Party, Calitics, CA League of
Conservation Voters, CA Nurses Association, CREDO Action,
League of Women Voters


PROP 17: VOTE NO
Auto insurance surcharge - Placed on the ballot by the efforts of Mercury
Insurance, this proposition would weaken existing consumer protections and allow auto insurance companies to charge drivers as much as double
premiums if they are late with their payments.

SUPPORTING: Mercury Insurance, California Chamber of Commerce
OPPOSING: AFSCME, CA Democratic Party, Calitics, CA Nurses
Association, CREDO Action


STATE AND COUNTY RACES

US Senate: Barbara Boxer
Congress (CA36) Jane Harman
Governor: Jerry BrownG
Lt. Governor: Gavin Newsom
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen
Controller: John Chiang
Treasurer: Bill Lockyer
Attorney General: Kamala D. Harris
Insurance Commissioner: No Endorsement
State Superintendent of Public Instruction: No Endorsement
State Senator (District 28) Jenny Oropeza
State Assembly (District 53) Kate Anderson
LA County Assessor: No Endorsement
LA County Sheriff: No Endorsement
LA County Supervisor: Zev Yaroslavsky

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge
(endorsed by the LA County Democratic Party)
Office 28 - Mark K. Ameli
Office 35 - Soussan (Suzanne) Bruguera
Office 107 - Valerie Salkin
Office 117 - Alan Schneider
Office 131 - Maren E. Nelson

Making The Progressive Case For Jane Harman

I wasn't going to write about this.

For the last few months, I've dealt with a series of family health crisis that culminated first in the death of my elderly mother, then my father exactly four weeks later.

The outcome of a contested primary in a safe Blue district hasn't even been on my radar. But in the last couple of weeks I've had too many neighbors, too many friends ask about the race.

For better or worse, they want an opinion from me. So here it is.

On June 8th, I'll be voting for Jane Harman. And I'll be doing it as a Progressive.

If you're an avid Winograd supporter - if you've volunteered in her office, canvassed for her, donated to her campaign - chances are what I'm about to write will piss you off. But I'm going to ask you to read on anyway. Because I understand why you're volunteering and I deeply respect your need to make our country a better place. I'm the child of public school teachers who felt that need too and fought every day to lift their students up while everyone else worked to keep them down. I gave up 6 months of my life and worked unpaid as a regional field organizer on the Obama campaign precisely because I feel that need myself.

If I thought for a second Marcy Winograd was the best candidate to bring us one step closer to making that dream a reality, I'd be right there with you. But she's not and she won't.

Being a progressive is about moving forward - sometimes dramatically, sometimes incrementally - but always, and relentlessly, forward. And because politics in this country is a messy and inefficient process stuck in institutional inertia, being an effective progressive means the willingness to coalition-build with people you may not agree with on every issue.

Winograd, who's never held even local elective office, has not yet demonstrated the ability or desire to be a coalition-builder, nor has she demonstrated the ability or desire to build consensus beyond her core group of supporters.

ALL POLITICS ARE LOCAL (AND OFTEN MIND-NUMBING)

When Winograd ran against Harman in 2006, capitalizing on constituent frustration with the Iraq War, she managed to take 37.5% of the vote after a brief 3-month campaign. But instead of building on what was a very respectable showing, she gave up the Marina del Rey condo she'd rented for the duration of the campaign and moved out of the district and back to Pacific Palisades.

Winograd could have sold her Pacific Palisades home and actually put down stakes in CA-36. But she didn't - buying a new home in Santa Monica (Henry Waxman's district) in 2009 for $1.8 million. While our state faced the worst political and economic struggles in its history, Winograd could have dug in and run for State Assembly, State Senate, or even as a city council member for San Pedro, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Torrance or El Segundo. But again, she chose not to.

Voters in our district wouldn't hear from Winograd again until a byzantine scandal surfaced last April involving Harman, AIPAC, the House Intelligence Committee and a prominent Democratic Party donor named Haim Saban. As scandals go, this one had all the staying power of cotton candy on hot asphalt (for a very comprehensive - and hilarious - review of the saga, check out this segment from the John Stewart Show ), but it was enough to give Winograd the opening she needed. Within a month she announced she would run against the suddenly vulnerable Harman.

Winograd moved into another rented condo in Marina del Rey and the race was on.

Now, Winograd isn't doing anything "wrong" (there's no legal requirement that a candidate has to live in the same district they are running for, only the same state), but when a candidate puts more effort in creating the illusion of representing her potential constituents than actually participating in the daily, mind-numbing grind local politicians have to go through to make their constituent's lives better, that ought to raise some red flags.

Even as she seeks to ride the coat-tails of progressive candidates Bill Halter (elected Arkansas Lt. Governor in 2006) and Joe Sestak (who spent 31 years in the Navy and served in the Clinton White House as Director for Defense Policy, and is now serving his second term as Congressman for PA-07), she chooses not to pay her dues as they did.

It's one thing to say you want to change the political landscape, it's quite another to grab a shovel and start digging.

PREACHING BEYOND THE CHOIR AND THE FIGHT FOR THE COVETED CDP DOOR THINGEE

If you're a registered Democrat in California, right around election time, some helpful soul will hang a brochure on your front door knob that lists all the official California Democratic Party (CDP) endorsements for the election in your district.

So here's how a Congressional candidate in California gets that endorsement: Local CDP delegates, county committee members and representatives of local Democratic clubs get to vote in something called a pre-endorsement conference for the Congressional candidate they would like to see endorsed. If 70% of the voters at that conference endorse a candidate, then that recommendation is sent to the full CDP Convention a month or so later where, usually, the recommendation is accepted by unanimous consent and placed on the coveted CDP Door Thingee.

If you're a candidate with relatively low name recognition and even less money (Winograd), and you're in a contested primary with an opponent who has high name recognition and a lot of money (Harman), you can see why getting your name on the coveted CDP Door Thingee would be very helpful indeed. In fact, candidates in this state would kill for a place on the damn thing, and the ensuing drama surrounding the acquisition of said Door Thingee is entertaining indeed.

Jane Harman received 72% of the local delegate vote, enough to send the recommendation to the full CDP Convention. But it wasn't that simple. Before the Convention, opposing candidates can collect 300 signatures from delegates across the State to force another endorsement vote among local delegates at the Convention, which is exactly what Winograd did. This time, the only participants were CDP delegates in the 36th Congressional District. At that endorsement caucus, Harman got a whopping 82% of the vote - far more than the simple majority she needed to put her name back on the consent calendar for ratification. But at the Convention, Winograd was able to gather the 300 signatures from delegates outside the district needed to pull the recommendation off the consent calendar yet again and send it to the Convention floor for a vote. Winograd lost that floor vote 599 to 417, and Harman ultimately received the endorsement.

There's a reason why you, as a non inside-baseball-California-Democratic-Party-delegate-nerd-geek-policy-wonk, should care about this.

Winograd's campaign didn't do substantial outreach to the local CDP delegates - her potential constituents - to make the case for Winograd. I know, because I'm one of those delegates who voted in the pre-endorsement meeting. I received not one phone call from Winograd's campaign. No emails. Nothing.

Contrast this with Harman's campaign - who reached out to all the delegates regardless if they were known Winograd supporters or not - to secure their vote for that meeting. They worked the phones, they held meetings, they asked questions and heard concerns. They organized and made the case for Harman to her own constituents and, in the end, the work paid off.

Winograd chose to reach out to supporters outside the district to get the recommendation of Harman's constituents overturned. And when the final vote didn't go her way, instead of thanking her supporters and moving on, she questioned the validity of the vote.

Again, Winograd didn't do anything "wrong" - she followed CDP rules. But every action she took, every statement she made during the Convention process and afterwards was only meant to play to her base. She had the chance to organize support and build a winning coalition within CA-36 and beyond her choir of hard-core supporters and usual suspects. But she made a conscious choice not to, spending more time creating the illusion of constituent support than building it.

CANDIDATES WITH GLASS INVESTMENTS SHOULD NOT THROW STONES

Winograd, describing herself as the only "real" Democratic candidate in the race, has consistently gone after Harman as being "someone beholden to big banks, Wall Street, or the weapons industry."

Winograd has made Harman's wealth a prominent issue in the campaign, and has called on Harman to divest from Dow Chemical after the EPA identified Dow as a potentially responsible party for toxic pollution in the Harbor-Gateway area, suggested Harman's vote on extending biologic drug patent protections was tied to her investments in Pfizer, Abbot Labs and Johnson & Johnson, and most recently "rebuked" Harman for a wave of spring-time foreclosures that hit CA-36 during the first three months of 2010.

“If Harman were to suddenly lose her 300-million dollar portfolio and find herself unable to pay a mortgage on her three-lot home in Venice, she might feel some compassion for the hundreds of homeowners in West Los Angeles, Redondo Beach, Torrance, Harbor City, San Pedro, and Wilmington facing foreclosure because of her support for draconian bank legislation.”

Winograd hopes to paint Harman as someone irredeemably corrupt and out of touch, an insular multi-millionaire profiting from Big Pharma, Big Banks and Big Polluters.

Frankly, this argument would be more effective if Winograd herself wasn't a multi-millionaire heavily invested in Big Pharma, Big Banks, and Big Polluters too.

Winograd's own financial disclosure statement, reveals substantial investments in Baxter International (biologic drugs) , Merck (which spent $3.2 million lobbying against health care reform in the first quarter of 2009 alone), and UnitedHealth Group (which made headlines last August, when it sent a letter to it's employees directing them to anti-health care reform events hosted by the right wing America's Independent Party)

Winograd, who owns two properties in Santa Monica and a Four Seasons Resort time share in Carlsbad, CA (combined worth over $2 million), also has a substantial investment in Wells Fargo, one of the banks at the forefront of a $1.4 million-a-day lobbying assault to stop reform efforts in Washington and which is currently embroiled in numerous consumer lawsuits, including one involving the city of Baltimore, which charges the financial giant with targeting African-Americans for questionable sub-prime loans that resulted in hundreds of foreclosures.

Lastly, Winograd has smaller investments with the timber and paper industries. One of those companies, Clearwater Paper Corporation, was charged with violating federal and state air-emission standards more than 50 times in 2009.

It's important to note that Winograd's investments aren't part of a mutual fund package - these are direct, chosen, targeted investments and annuities, that as a trustee, Winograd herself would have been responsible for executing. She knows exactly what companies she's invested in.

Are any of these investments illegal? Nope. But, again, Winograd is talking the talk, not walking the walk. If you're going to portray yourself as the moral authority in this primary race, railing against the financial sector, health insurance, pharmaceuticals, and polluters, you'd better be as pure as the Dalai Lama in a snowdrift or else you're traveling in the same circles of hypocrisy as George "lift my luggage" Rekers or Mark "Appalachian Trail" Sanford.

A PROGRESSIVE CASE FOR JANE HARMAN

In 1998, during a failed bid to win the Democratic nomination for California governor against Gray Davis and Al Checchi, Harman infamously said she was proud to be called the "best Republican in the Democratic Party."

It was a statement her opponents would use against for the next 12 years.

By the time Marcy Winograd ran against Harman in 2006, she'd become a target of national Progressive frustration, thanks mostly to her support of Bush's NSA warrentless eavesdropping program and her vote to authorize the Iraq War in 2003.

The irony of that ill-fated statement? She was attempting to describe herself as a coalition builder, who could reach across party lines. Harman actually ran to the left of Gray Davis, vowing to repeal 1996's Proposition 209, the ballot measure that outlawed racial and gender preferences in state hiring and school admissions, and to sign gay marriage into law if elected.

And therein lies one of the great weirdnesses of modern Progressive politics in this country - that Jane Harman, a lawmaker who scores better for her voting record on War and Peace legislation than Dennis Kucinich, should become so synonymous with the disastrous foreign policy of George W. Bush, that Harman's detractors have literally said support for her equaled killing babies.

For the past 4 years, Winogorad has made a cottage industry out of promoting Harman as the House version of Joe Lieberman, but it took me all of 15 minutes of web surfing to find that even as Harman took positions on national security issues and the military that drove Progressives (and me) nuts, she amassed one of the most liberal voting records in Congress on almost everything else.

The liberal website Progressive Punch.org gives Harman's voting record an lifetime progressive score of 81.43. NARAL has given her a 100% pro-choice rating.

I also found:

In 2006, the ACLU praised her efforts to improve FISA, and that 18 months before Barack Obama became president, she introduced legislation to close Guantanamo.

She strongly opposed DADT when it was first implemented in 1993 and was one of 77 lawmakers who signed a letter to Barack Obama demanding it's repeal. She voted against the Defense of Marriage Act (one of only 67 lawmakers, Republican or Democratic to do so), and for modifying bankruptcy rules to help consumers avoid foreclosures.

Last year, Harman broke with the Blue Dog caucus to support health care reform, becoming an outspoken proponent of the public option and at one point even threatened to vote against any bill that didn't include it.

In December, she objected to Obama's Afghanistan "surge", saying that expanding our military footprint would be a mistake.

Earlier this month, she co-sponsored the West Coast Protection Act, legislation that would end new oil and natural gas leases on the West Coast.

(For an exhaustive list of her voting record, go to this link.)

Folks, a legitimate conversation can be had about Harman's stands on national security, defense issues and Israel (As a J-Street Jew, I actually have issues with both Harman and Winograd when it comes to Israel), but baby killing? Really?

Look, I don't doubt for a second Winograd's passion and the passion of her supporters. The goals she promotes - withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, single-payer health care reform and a new economy built on green technology - are good, solid, progressive goals I agree we should all be working towards.

Yet I have no confidence she'll move us one step forward in that direction if elected. Marcy Winograd is a protester, not a legislator, and for all the reasons I've listed above I have serious concerns about her judgment, values, and ability to provide effective representation for me and my neighbors.

Contested primaries are healthy - I do believe Winograd's challenges may have had a hand in moving Harman to the left on national security issues (although I doubt they've had any effect on her when it comes to social issues, since Harman was already pretty far to the left). But I can think of any number of progressive politicians in our congressional district who've put in years of public service (Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Secretary of State Debra Bowen immediately leap to mind) who'd I'd love to see make a run for Congress instead.

Until that happens, for me at least, the choice is simple.

Jane Harman remains the progressive choice for my district and I'll be voting for her June 8th.

I hope you will too.