What’s On Your Ballot?

President @BarackObama on how you're voting for more than just a president this election.

Everything you care about – climate change, health care, criminal justice reform – is on the ballot this November: https://t.co/w9sAtIkq4k pic.twitter.com/DpUOTvjgtV

— Vote Save America (@votesaveamerica) October 15, 2020

Go Local! Must-Win 2013 Nationwide Elections

The off-year election calendar is already hurtling full steam ahead and we better get in the trenches.Julian Castro (D) already won re-election in San Antonio last month. Great, but we have got a lot of work to do NOW. Ed Markey  needs a helping hand for June 25 senate elections in MA, as does Steve Ortega in the El Paso mayoral election on June 16, 2013.

Bedwetters are gonna wet beds, GG-Grifters gonna grift, Code Pink & the Sturtzes are gonna heckle, but their tantrums don’t translate into political power. In fact, that’s their business model to parasite off Democrats in power. They thrive in the political sewer. For us 99%ers, Voting, Organizing and Long Term strategizing are the ONLY means to power. It is in our economic interest to STOP Republicans at every level from getting power and doing very bad things to us little people. Raining hellfire on the nuisance Greenwalds and Sturtzes or whatever is the GOP/corporate media fauxrage of the week, is cathartic fly-swatting every once in a while, but it doesn’t mean a hill of beans if we liberals do NOT hold power.

President Obama was handily reelected and we have an Agenda to enact for the American people at the national level. But state and Local elections are even more important in off-years. That’s where the most damage is done. Democrats fail to take these bread and butter races seriously, then watch American Taliban elected unopposed to statewide offices.

Koch brothers & ALEC are vampires destroying democratic (with a small ‘d’) governance in devastating ways at the local level. They’ve bought state legislatures at bargain basement prices who are dismantling our commonweal brick by brick as we speak. Democrats should NEVER cede any territory uncontested to Republicans. Not on schoolboards (that’s how we got the odious Texas curriculum change nightmare & Arizona ban of Hispanic Studies), or District Judges, or City Council, or Land/Agric Commissioner, or poisonous Ballot initiatives.

The last category lies at the core of GOP base mobilization tactics. Bush used anti-gay ballot initiatives to drive religious fundamentalists to the polls and won reelection in 2004. We have to be similarly savvy to rally against odious Initiatives and also craft some ourselves to advance our interests and mobilize our base.

So let’s get to it. Bookmark this post. Find a campaign or two to volunteer on THIS year. Heck, consider running for some local races yourself. Why Not? Have you heard the caliber of wingnuts who flood City Hall or school board? If we don’t challenge them, they make decisions that destroy our kids’ education, ruin our tax revenue projections, and sell off our towns and cities to the corporate cabal, democracy be damned (See Michigan and weep!)