The University Democrats (UDems) and the Central Austin Democrats (CAD) got together today for their endorsement meeting. Most of the candidates in contested Democratic races showed up, along with some other Democrats without contested primaries. Together, they form the Austin Progressive Coalition (APC), which endorses candidates when the two groups concur on a particular race.
Disclosure: I am an officer with the University Democrats.
The following are the endorsements, with a few comments below.
Justice of the Peace, Pct. 5 UDems: Herb Evans (no website found)
CAD: Herb Evans
**Herb Evans wins the APC endorsement.**
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The Austin Progressive Coalition will combine efforts to make door hangers for the candidates the two groups endorsed. Block walks are scheduled for each of the three Saturdays after today. So, the APC endorsements could make a significant difference in the close races, such as the County Commissioner's race.
In that race, actually, Raul Alvarez continues to pull out close victories in club endorsements. I can count today's combined margin of victories for him on one hand. But now he has many clubs putting out his name, and that will make it one of the races to watch on primary night.
Beyond that, there really were no surprises. Last week, KT noted that the Austin Democratic Machine is still figuring out where it stands in the 299th District Court race. She's become a pretty good friend of the University Democrats, though, and I imagine my group will be out block walking for her in the likely event of a runoff.
KT mentioned that the Machine doesn't seem to care about the Lieutenant Governor's race but in reality there just seemed to be a lot of strong support for both Ronnie Earle and Linda Chavez-Thompson in both groups, resulting in this split endorsement. (It makes sense, too, that the college club is the one to break away from Earle, as many of us weren't in Travis County to watch Earle's District Attorney leadership.)
For Justice of the Peace, Pct. 1, Yvonne Williams is still winning a majority of endorsements, but Daniel Bradford is picking up the young crowd.
And Farouk Shami had virtually no support. Bill White received every single vote with the University Democrats, and Shami may be able to say he had one with the Central Austin Democrats. Paraphrasing what someone said after the endorsements, even with some folks that may have felt sympathetic to Shami, "We can be realists from time to time."
The first group of college Democrats in Texas to endorse a candidate in the upcoming United States Senate special election announced today that they are backing John Sharp. The club is the Stephen F. Austin Young Democrats in Nacogdoches.
"John Sharp's campaign is all about us," said Laura Barry, president of the Stephen F. Austin Young Democrats in Nacogdoches.
"John has our pledge to work just as hard as he is to give Texas a fresh voice in Washington," added Ms. Barry, who also serves as the political director of the Texas College Democrats, which has 34 chapters across the state. "He has the vision to lead us into the future - and we will be there with him every step of the way."
It is reasonable to note the timing of the endorsement as the University Democrats in Austin are set to vote on endorsing in the U.S. Senate primary as it stands this Thursday, a day after their major BLUEPrint for Texas fundraiser. The UT-Austin University Democrats were the 2008 College Democrats of American "Chapter of the Year" and are the largest College Democrats chapter in the nation with the activism to match.
+ DISTRIBUTING 42,000+ voter registration cards in key neighborhoods!
+ REGISTERING 11,565 students to vote TOTAL (Including 5,700+ in one day)!
+ KNOCKING on 40,000+ doors statewide for key candidates!
+ CALLING 12,233 voters on behalf of Texas Democrats!
+ MOBILIZING 18,000 students to early vote (a UT-Austin record)!
We'll be reporting Thursday night whether John Sharp will pick up a second College Democrats chapter's endorsement, or if Bill White will overpower Sharp's endorsement and earn the support of the arguably the biggest youth endorsement possible in Texas.
Update: It appears from a comment by one of the University Democrats that the club has cancelled the U.S. Senate endorsement meeting. No work yet on the reason, though it's reasonable to assume the recent pronouncements by Sen. Hutchison on her new belayed resignation timeline have cancelled the urgency to hold an endorsement meeting before the students are gone on break until late January. I expect it will be moved to the regular joint pre-primary endorsement meeting with the Central Austin Democrats held annually after the filing period.
I don't often like to post about organizational events or fundraisers, especially if they are specific to just one city in the state, but we wouldn't be the Burnt Orange Report without the University Democrats at UT-Austin.
The University Democrats, established in 1953, is the largest and oldest political organization at The University of Texas at Austin and the leading force of progressive student activism in the state of Texas. Today, they are the largest College Democrats chapter in the country - working to bring democratic ideals to UT, the state of Texas, and the entire nation.
Last year they broke records by registering 12,000+ young voters across the state and mobilizing an entire generation of young Texas activists to blockwalk, phonebank, and elect strong Democrats to the County Court House, the State House, and the White House. After the elections, they continued to be at the forefront of the youth movement in Texas by organizing students to be the voice on important legislative issues like tuition relief, gun-free schools, tax-free textbooks, and the disenfranchising voter ID bill.
This year they have pledged to be at the forefront of the movement to turn Texas blue. University Democrats has built a large and committed team of extraordinary student activists who are ready to organize young people to bring change to our state. With a plan, BLUEPrint for Texas, the mission is to turn Texas blue from the ground up by mobilizing student activists to:
• TRAVEL to swing districts across Texas to work for candidates.
• DISTRIBUTE voter registration cards in key neighborhoods.
• REGISTER new voters.
• KNOCK on doors for key candidates.
• CALL households on behalf of Texas Democrats.
• MOBILIZE young people to vote early.
In order to be effective in mobilizing students for change in Texas, Unversity Democrats needs the resources and support from community leaders like you! Please support them by making a donation at their fundraiser this Wednesday. I know I'll be writing them a check.
University Democrats: BLUEPrint for Texas
8:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
UT-Austin Business School Special Events Room (CBA 3.304)
Wednesday evening, Bill White showed up to the first University Democrats meeting of the year ready to speak to hundreds of potential block-walkers. He rocked the club and the crowd ate it up. According to University Democrats President Melessa Rodriguez, the club invited White to speak "because of the importance behind the US Senate race for both our state, and our democratic party."
It certainly sounds like the club wants to spend the Fall Semester helping a Democrat win an election. Unfortunately, that election likely won't occur in the Fall Semester...
I recall conversations with club leaders several months ago about a problem that probably plagued most local political clubs preparing for the Fall. Besides some state Constitutional Amendments, there are no elections until 2010 and there is no legislative session at the Capitol. The mundane droll of city policy can only excite so many activists. And local organizations can only have so much influence with the national politicians.
Yet clubs need to gain new members and retain old ones, so a plan of action with inspiration must be arranged. It seems that some of you clubs have determined the 2010 elections might provide the most excitement. Tom Schieffer, Bill White, and John Sharp have already highlighted meetings, and they will likely continue to do so along with Hank Gilbert and whoever else decides to join the statewide fray. We will have months in the Spring, though, to sort through these candidates fully. We should focus on more pertinent matters now.
A strong handful of activists have correctly identified that more pertinent matter: health insurance reform. And you have showed their support passionately. Unfortunately, the media will only display the opposition to health insurance reform, not that support that many of you are giving.
On September 9, President Obama will address a joint session of Congress regarding healthcare reform. With this, the endgame on the 2009 healthcare reform efforts will begin. Instead of simply showing support, we should work to increase support as much as possible in the final days.
Support can be increased more easily than it might seem. The difficulty in the health reform debate this year has probably been due to a lack of clear information. Both Democrats and Republicans are still utterly confused. Only 37% of Americans can correctly identify what the "public option" is. This has been the largest public policy issue in this country for months, and voters still don't have a clue.
For progressives, the public option or some other ambitious alternative is an obvious policy solution to the health care crisis. If it is so blatantly obvious to us, though, then surely other fellow Americans will fall in line if they simply understood what health insurance reform really did.
Ideally, the Democratic politicians would have successfully explained this policy initiative to Americans, but they have failed unconditionally. As activists, maybe you can do better. Make flyers. Invite health policy speakers. Or just hand out cards that say something along the lines of, "The Public Option = Giving people the option of being covered by a government health insurance plan that would compete with private plans." Or even just point people in the rightdirection.
A group of good minds like yours can make a real difference in educating the public on the most important issue of the year. Hey, as yall showed in 2009: it can definitely be done (Particular Kudos to the Texas Freedom Network and Students for Gun Free Schools). Let's get to work.
This evening, the University Democrats will be holding their annual fundraiser. The event will review what the club has accomplished over the past year, and there is also a VIP reception honoring Ian Davis for the work he has done for Democrats in Austin.
Although there is a fundraiser every year, I think this one might be especially important for the club. The club is going into a Fall semester with no elections and no legislative session. For every UT club, though, fall semesters are crucially important to recruit new members, as the old class of seniors must be replaced. Unlike most of the other Democratic clubs in Austin, membership is a revolving door here.
But recruitment is going to need some extra resources and some extra ingenuity on the part of the officers (most likely led by Melessa Rodriguez and Andy Jones, who are currently running unopposed for President and Vice President, respectively).
As a member, I can say that the leaders of the club would greatly appreciate if you would stop by, chip in a tad to the club's funds, and voice your ideas on how to run a successful Fall semester. I've posted the event info below the fold.
Today the University Democrats and the Central Austin Democrats, together the Austin Progressive Coalition, held their joint endorsement meeting. The results go as followed.
Central Austin Democrats Mayor: Lee Leffingwell
Place 1: Chris Riley
Place 2: Mike Martinez
Place 5: Bill Spelman
Place 6: Sheryl Cole
University Democrats Mayor: Lee Leffingwell
Place 1: Chris Riley
Place 2: Mike Martinez
Place 5: Bill Spelman
Place 6: No Endorsement
A few comments.
For every position except Place 6, the endorsements will be placed on thousands of yellow flyers that will be distributed door-to-door. Beyond claiming CAD and UDems endorsements, the candidates will be able to claim the endorsements of the Austin Progressive Coalition.
Second, Strayhorn was a no-show as was Mike Martinez's opponent.
Next, although Chris and Perla have been splitting the two endorsements, Chris managed to pull the entire coalition to his side. As Riley's extensive Austin experience is heavily concentrated in Central Austin, it comes as no surprise he won the CAD endorsement, but the UDems endorsement was no certainty; Perla still has a lot of strong support in the club.
Finally, the UDems' No Endorsement for Place 6 might come as a surprise to outside observers, mainly because the most active Democratic clubs haven given her an endorsement. She lost an endorsement from the activist students because, in my mind, she 1. had a mediocre performance today and 2. Even the most veteran University Democrats claimed that this was the first time they had ever seen her (anywhere, not just at club meetings). She'll still most likely win reelection, but that's simply due to the dearth of the competition. But hopefully she'll take the various No-Endorsements to heart and amp up her work on the council.
Update by KT: Indeed this is a big win for Riley in Place 1. Most observers rated it as a toss up (more so in UDems than CAD) but it could have gone either way for either candidate and most of us expected a split endorsement (which would have resulted in being knocked off the thousands of yellow doorhangers). On top of that, the UDems endorsements match those of the Capital City Young Democrats which opens up the door to a second year of a joint youth mail piece which makes today's results even more meaningful for co-endorsed campaigns.
While Leffingwell was like 10-1 over McCracken in CAD, it was closer in UDems. Closer in fact than Place 1 ended up being! I've posted the UDems numbers in the extended entry, which are publicly requestable via a transparency clause we added into the constitution back when I was a member (mainly because everyone always asked anyways or tried to leak it and this way it just makes it fairer).
The Place 6 No Endorsement was a solid margin. I owe Mr. Suits an apology for cautioning his hope that UDems would wind up doing this. Color me surprised and maybe even a bit impressed.
Many of you should know about the now infamous steak dinner with John Sharp that was attended by a handful of progressive Texas bloggers. The dinner, more than anything else, was an effort by John Sharp to represent an important grassroots constituency: a group of bloggers that, when motivated enough, can force an opinion to trickle down to other Texas Democratic activists. It was these Texas bloggers, more than most others, who enticed a well credentialed Rick Noriega to run for the United States Senate, and helped push him to winning the nomination without a runoff -- an occurrence that had not been seen for decades.
That said, we aren't always the top grassroots force on the ground. While the writers you read here at the Burnt Orange Report are young and energetic, the block walkers you see during election cycles are not mostly bloggers. Instead, these campaign troops were often assembled initially in different Democratic clubs.
So it makes sense for Bill White, who has already begun securing resource #1 (money), to reach out to resource #2: the young kids of one of those Democratic clubs.
White hasn't yet asked a group of bloggers to sit down for a conference call or coffee or dinner, and I wish he would. But earlier last week, when someone on his campaign saw that he would be in Austin this Wednesday, he made the prudent decision to call up the University Democrats. According to Jimmy Talarico, the group's president, he just called wanting to know if he could stop by and say a few words. Talarico, jumping on the opportunity to have a money hauling big-city mayor and US Senate candidate at his meeting, arranged for him to be the night's main speaker.
Here's to hoping he makes a good impression. As we have seen with Tony Sanchez, you can't win Texas on dollars alone. Especially with the great possibility of an open election, one of our Democrats will need a burst of door-to-door energy if they have their eyes set on victory.
Disclaimer: I am an active member of the University Democrats, but I do not currently hold any office or official responsibilities within the organization.
The University Democrats' PR Man, Andy Jones, can be attributed to a fine list of achievements when it comes to media publications that have mentioned UDems under his guidance. But I'm not sure of Harvey Kronberg has mentioned the activist club in his "Daily Buzz," which provides headlines and articles that Texas political observers could use as a barometer on some of the movements within the higher circles of this state's government.
So when a group spearheaded by University Democrat and College Republican members got the notice of Harvery Kronberg, I certainly noticed, too.
YOUNG DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS UNITE IN OPPOSITION TO TUITION INCREASES
UT's University Democrats and Campus Republicans take part in rare coordinated effort to scale back tuition deregulation.
You can expect a bit of glasnost in the air Wednesday night at the University of Texas, where young Democrats and Republicans will join hands over tuition deregulation, which has doubled the cost of classes at UT in the last four years.
UT's University Democrats and Campus Republicans have joined together to launch a campaign to rein in tuition costs. Tuition Relief Now! has a logo, a Facebook page and an auditorium on the UT campus on Wednesday night to address the issue.
Spokesman Andy Jones of the University Democrats, toiling well into the early hours of Monday morning to promote the event, was willing to answer the phone at midnight last night, around the time a promotional e-mail hit hundreds of in-boxes around Austin. Jones said the effort is both widespread and universal.
The auditorium he speaks of is GAR 0.102, the regular meeting place for the University Democrats, which will be meeting at the club's regular time, Wednesday night at 8 pm. Senator Hinojosa and Senator Dan Patrick will be available as guest speakers. Hinojosa is the principal author for SB 105, one of the multiple tuition relief bills, and Patrick is a co-author.
I was confused to why Patrick, arguably the most radically conservative member in the legislature, was chosen as a guest speaker. I spoke extensively with both Andy Jones and UDems President Jimmy Talarico on the subject, and I could not get an answer beyond the fact that Patrick co-authors one of the acceptable tuition relief bills. Jones mentioned that despite his own concern about Patrick's staunch conservatism, "I'm hopeful that partisan politics can be put aside." All-in-all, I would have hoped that the University Democrats and their temporary-partners with the College Republicans could have picked a more tenured and respected Republican, such as Senator Harris, a Senate member since 1991 and also an SB 105 sponsor.
At any rate, the meeting tomorrow should be interesting. If you cannot make it, I will be twittering the meeting @MJJHurta, and I will hopefully get a write-up posted after the meeting.
Thankfully, it seems that most students at UT do have their wits together. The student body realizes that it is better for the legislature, accountable to them and their parents, to control tuition than the Board of Directors. Unfortunately, some in Student Government do not feel that way. Tuition Regulation legislation was proposed at the SG meeting earlier Tuesday, and the reaction among the members were mixed. In general, many of those in what one member called the "SG Establishment" were for a continuation of DEREGULATION. Student body president Keshav Rajagopalan even used executive privilege to give a long speech against regulation. I hope none of these people are running for another SG election, because Student Government, as oddly corrupt as it may be, is still a Democratic body. I predict that no SG member will win reelection if he or she votes, officially representing UT students, against tuition regulation.
The UDems held their elections for spring officers last night. Being that the organization was recognized as being the best in the country last year, it's only fitting that we follow their success. The new leadership wasn't contested but downballot races saw some challenges.
The new president comes out of the Mark Strama world, going through his Campaign Academy in 2006 and interning this year. Those folks go places. :)
President:
Jimmy Talarico- No opposition, Voted in by voice acclamation
Vice President:
Melessa Rodriguez- No opposition, Voted in by voice acclamation
UPDATE: Andy Jones, for personal reasons, has chosen to no longer pursue the UDems' Presidency.
I say pseudo because the news happened this weekend, and I somehow missed it. But Andy Jones, finishing up his second semester term as the University Democrats' PR Director, has decided to run for President. This definitely changes the dynamics of the race a little bit, not just for president but possibly for PR director. Mr. Jones should have a website for his new race before Thanksgiving.
For those of you who care, here's the announcement video:
