Marjorie Gerseten, my wife, Joy Romanski, and I are co-hosting an event on May 3rd for our friend Josh Skaller, candidate for the 39th New York City Council seat in Brooklyn (portions of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Windsor Terrace, Kensington and Borough Park). Josh is a long-time organizer for Democracy for New York City, was president of the Central Independent Democrats political club in Brooklyn for two years, and was an early organizer with Brooklyn for Barak.

"Josh has always fought for fiscal responsibility and the progressive solutions needed to reform city government"

--Jim Dean
Chair of Democracy For America (DFA)

Without taking money from developers, PACs or lobbyists, and while a
first-time candidate, he’s the leader in number of donors and second in total dollars in a large field of good candidates. I want to emphasize that this is an amazing accomplishment and shows his organizational skills and potential. I also want to emphasize that it is so rare that the best, most honest and most progressive candidate running is also able to raise the most money.  read more »

Back in January 2006 I had as my goals:

1.) defeating the Bush/Gingrich/McCain agenda nationally

2.) defeating the Pataki, Bruno and Silver Albany constipation

3.) defeating the local Brooklyn Vito Lopez machine.

Still working on #3 through several channels. And it remains to be seen whether indictments or ill health or Brooklyn fatigue with corruption bring down Vito Lopez. For my part I prefer indictments to ill health. But Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn DA, has pushed that aside and has focused on other, also worthy efforts. So we wait to see who will replace Lopez in time.

Goal #1 began to happen in 2006 with a massive take over of the House and an evening up of the Senate. And we have a damned good shot at continuing this in 2008 with MORE House seats, a REAL takeover of the Senate and a White House win by Obama.  read more »

So today I get several emails and instant messages having to do with the number one State Senate race we can win...the one Jimmy Dahroug almost won in 2006. This is our top priority race and we shouldn't fuck it up. So this diary is hopefully going to get everyone back on the right track.

First off, let me indicate that Jimmy Dahroug has a new website. Here it is:

http://www.jimmyforsenate.com/

Second, it seems that someone over at the NY Times has done a really sucky job of doing his research because he discusses this race without even mentioning Jimmy Dahroug. Well, if the NY Times can't figure out who's actually running in the top State Senate race in NY State it shows a sharp decline in the quality of their reporting. To the NY Times: Get your damned act together. Seriously. Don't be so sloppy. It just makes you look bad.  read more »

Howard Dean put it this way: "You have the power!"

His brother, Jim Dean, now head of Democracy for America, put it this way: "We have to take ownership of the process."

Since the highly flawed 2000 election, progressives have slowly, ever so slowly been waking up to the need for taking ownership of the political process. At first, in all honesty, we were pretty lame at it at first. As recently as 2005 I saw the progressive grassroots, at least in NYC, largely unable to get its act together in any effective way. But by 2006 we started to see real results from what began in 2000.

The extreme right wing of the Republican Party took some 30 years to take nearly complete control of our political system. They did it by patiently and doggedly focusing on every elected position, no matter how low, in every state. They did it by repeating their agenda, their talking points over and over until people started absorbing it without even realizing it. They did it by taking over the media, station by station, newspaper by newspaper. They did it by focusing on LOCAL politics.  read more »

It is rare that I make it to political events in Manhattan, but so many people were urging me to meet Jimmy Dahroug, candidate for State Senate in Suffolk County, last night at a Manhattan fundraiser with Jim Dean of Democracy for America as a special guest. I am glad I went even though it meant being late for my son's bedtime, an event I don't like missing. In the end I barely met Jim Dean and only briefly got to talk with Jimmy Dahroug, but did get to hear both speak and got to meet several other candidates running for City Council in 2009: Josh Skaller (DFNYC organizer and president of Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, running for Bill DeBlasio's seat...what, Josh, no website yet?), Costa Constantinides (on the steering committee of the Democratic Lawyers Council working on voting rights and running in Astoria...and with the name to match the district) and Steve Behar (running in district 19 in Queens). By the way...rumor has it some of you out there think Josh Skaller is mole333.  read more »