November 2020 – La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club

Here’s why you need to be at Wednesday’s meeting and party for La Mesa Dems

We’ve got a heck of a great line-up for Wednesday evening’s annual holiday party and meeting of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club, mixing business and entertainment.

On the business side: Jean Dittmyer will share information on Georgia’s Special Senate Election on January 5, and how we can help the two Democratic Senate candidates win. Jean is a tireless volunteer for local, county, congressional, state,, and national candidates. She has hosted phone banks on a weekly basis at her La Mesa home. Jean is also the point person for the Indivisible Movement for District 53.

That’s the business. On the entertainment side, we’ve got great musical guests and a spoken word artist – all local.

Lauren Hermas and Laura Payne will perform together. Lauren is a singer, previously with the local band Mixed Signals and the Resizters. And Laura is a local musician, bass player, co-founder and band member of the Resizters and the bassist for Engenue.

Separately, singer-songwriter Jeff Berkley formed Berkley Hart and made 11 records and toured the US, England and Australia extensively. He has played percussion and guitar with Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Indigo Girls, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Bob Wier, and many more musical luminaries. He won The Kerrville New Folk songwriter award in 1999,

And spoken word artist Tisha Tumangan is the director and CEO of Black Kat Theatre, a sketch comedy troupe focusing on politics and social issues.

The party and meeting is Wednesday, Dec. 2 – that’s in two days! Programming starts at 7 pm, with unstructured social discussion starting at 6:30 pm. It’s on Zoom, of course. Here’s the link:

Holiday meeting, La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club

Hopefully now that we’re on our way to having a competent adult in the White House, we can see each other in person again soon.

Come to our holiday meeting & charity drive!

Celebrate the holidays with your friends and fellow Democrats at the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club. We’re having our annual holiday meeting Wednesday, Dec. 2 in the evening, and we hope to see you there.

We’ll start with a little business: We’ll break down the numbers of this year’s local elections, and what they tell us about the state of politics in the county and state. We’ll also talk about how you can stay involved this year – including what you can do to help with the Georgia runoff elections in January. We still have an opportunity to flip the Senate!

Then, on to entertainment. We’re still pulling together details, but we have a stellar lineup of local musicians and at least one spoken-word performer for your enjoyment.

What’s missing? You! Join us Wednesday, Dec. 2 – programming starts at 7 pm, with unstructured social discussion starting at 6:30 pm. It’s on Zoom. Here’s the link:

Holiday meeting, La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club

Also, we’re doing our annual charity drive. We’re looking for financial donations to the La Mesa United Methodist Church, which sponsors Fresh Start Saturday, a monthly breakfast for the homeless. Money will be used for future food purchases and hygiene supplies. They also need donations of clothing, such as new socks and underwear, new and used coats, sweaters, and men’s belts. Pickup for donations can be arranged. For more information call board member Merrill Perry @ 619-820-2199 – Merrill’s doing the legwork on this.

Where do we go from here?

We had an all-star cast of experts for the November general meeting of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club, to talk about where we go now that the election is done. Speakers were:

Michael Smolens, longtime political columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune
Kyra Greene, executive director of the California think tank Center on Policy Initiatives
Ric Epps, political science professor at San Diego State University
Cynara Kidwell, California political consultant and data analyst.
And moderating was Evlyn Andrade, a member of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club board and veteran campaigner.

The meeting was the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 4, but it was already looking like the Presidential election was done. Still, as panelist Ric Epps noted, that outcome was “bittersweet.” He said, “It says a lot about this country that it could be this close.”

Topics include:
– The hypocrisy of democracy in the US, where so many people are deprived of the right to vote by voter suppression.
– What do we say of people of color, given the racism inherent in the US?
– Why we need to look for better candidates.
– Liberal closed-mindedness.
– The Democratic Party’s inherent weakness on messaging.
– Whatever happened to Russian meddling?
– California: A deep blue state, but voting on the propositions often didn’t feel that way.
– How Uber, Lyft and other gig economy companies’ successful lobbying on Proposition 22 is an example of the need to control money in politics.
– What do local Congressional races say about the blue wave in California and San Diego?
– What’s the future of the county, and the county Democratic Party?
– The coming Latino wave.
– Why San Diego County needs to address wage theft.
– How police oversight might still fail.
– What San Diego Democrats learned about campaigning in the time of COVID-19, and how that lesson might be applied in future, more normal elections (with comments from Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, San Diego County Democratic Party chair).

Also, Michael Smolens asked us to clarify one point: Cynara Kidwell said during the meeting that the Democrats could still take the Senate, and Michael said that was impossible. He followed up to say that he was incorrect about that and Cynara Kidwell was correct; the Senate was (and still is) within reach for the Democrats.

And mark your calendars for next month’s meeting which is Dec. 2 in the evening. We’ll have a holiday party on Zoom, with musical entertainment. And we’ll also be doing our traditional charitable drives, so if you see any sales on socks and canned goods and such, scoop ’em up!

Where do we go after Election Day? Join us for our Wednesday meeting to find out!

Our November meeting falls on the first day of a new era in American history. And that’s no hype.

Our meeting is Wednesday evening, Nov. 4. We’re hoping it’ll be a festive event, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris winning by a landslide, in a victory so decisive that even the MAGAs can’t fight it, ushering in the dawn of a new Golden Age in American history. We’re also hoping to see a Blue Wave of victories sweeping the nation, California, San Diego and local communities.

That’s what we’re hoping for. But we can all imagine darker scenarios. And any of those would be new eras for America too.

And that’s the subject of our meeting Nov. 4: A post-election analysis and breakdown, with programming starting at 7 pm and social time starting a half-hour earlier at 6:30 pm.

We’ll convene a panel of journalists and pundits to break down outcomes and attempt to peer into the future in key elections on the federal, state, county, and local level.

Here’s the Zoom link:

We’ve got a brilliant panel of political thinkers to help talk us into the future:

Michael Smolens, longtime political columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune
Kyra Greene, executive director of the California think tank Center on Policy Initiatives
Ric Epps, political science professor at San Diego State University
Cynara Kidwell, California political consultant and data analyst.

Moderating will be Evlyn Andrade, a member of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club board and veteran campaigner.

After hashing out the Presidential election, we’ll move on to Congressional races, with two key races we’re following closely: The 50th District, where Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar – an East County-born son of Latino and Palestinian immigrants, ex-church janitor and former Obama White House aide – improbably running neck-and-neck with Republican hack Darrel Issa. This is a real opportunity to turn a longtime Republican stronghold Blue.

Meanwhile, two Democrats are facing off in the 53d District for the seat vacated by Democratic stalwart Susan Davis: Georgette Gómez is a Latina and lesbian who was raised in poverty in Barrio Logan and now serves as President of the San Diego City Council. Sara Jacobs is granddaughter of Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacob, and worked in policy positions in the U.S. State Department, UNICEF, and United Nations, and was policy advisor to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. Gómez is running as the scrappy D.C. outsider, while Jacobs as a Washington veteran who can get things done from the outset.

Locally, we’ll discuss the outcome of the race between two Democrats for mayor of San Diego: Todd Gloria and Barbara Bry. It’s been an ugly election, with Democrat-on-Democrat violence; the winner will lead the city out of the pandemic era.

But there’s more ground to cover – more important elections that will be resolved.

Liz Lavertu, campaigning in the 71st Assembly District against a powerful Republican adversary.
Raul Campillo, angling to become only the second Democrat to hold the San Diego City Council District 7 seat.
On the La Mesa City Council, incumbent Colin Parent and newcomer Jack Shu have a shot at turning that body into a governing majority for Democrats, for the first time.
And plenty more.

Additionally, there are numerous important ballot initiatives, including Proposition 14, renewing funding for California’s stem cell research; Proposition 15, to partly overturn Prop 13 and make commercial property taxes more fair, to fund schools and communities; Proposition 16, ending the ban on affirmative action; Prop 25, ending cash bail; and Prop 22, a naked money grab by Uber, Lyft, and other gig economy companies to allow them to continue to exploit workers.

It’ll be quite a busy evening meeting, and hopefully a happy one, in which we celebrate a Blue Wave up and down the ballot. Join us at 6:30 pm Wednesday Nov. 4, for open, informal conversation, with the programming starting 7 pm, on Zoom of course. Here’s that meeting link again.