Tell me something good about Boyd Richie

I have my favorite, primarily because I've seen him around and I'm sold on his message, whereas Richie has been all but invisible. I've heard Glen Maxey speak twice just in the last month, at my usual Democratic gatherings, not going out of my way to see him. From Richie I get nothing but emails and letters with warm, generic platitudes without specifics.

Can anyone convince me that if Richie wins a full term, that we have a good, competent man at the helm? Though I hate these insider, back-room deals, I won't grumble quite so much if those insiders have the wisdom to select a strongly qualified leader. I will be ready to move on and accept the outcome if someone can fill in the blanks of this mystery man.

some very important reforms. More information is available here: http://www.texaspopulists.com/node/1157

My initial reaction to him is that anyone endorsed by the party establishment must have his head up his ass, but his commitment to VVPAT and SDEC accountability, etc. is making me take another look.

That said, he's still not my personal first choice. As a member of the PPC Steering Committee, I came to the conclusion that it was in the best interests of the PPC to recommend endorsement in order to push the reforms forward. I have not made my final decision who I'll vote for in my role as delegate.

These seem to be pretty common sense proposals. If the other candidates supportted them, what would the PPC do?

advocate debate within the Convention Rules Committee of the PPC's two resolutions, Public Support for VVPAT and Personal Privacy Protection (TEAM). This is very important as party governance resolutions usually just die in the resolutions committee instead of being considered by the rules committee.

As far as I know, the other two candidates DO support the other initiatives. However, they aren't the sitting chair, therefore can do nothing to ensure that the rules committee hears the resolutions.

It's politics, cutting a deal, whatever you want to call it.

HOWEVER, the recommendation can be overturned very easily. Show up at the Progressive Populist Caucus meeting at 1:00 p.m on Friday, June 9 and vote against it or vote to revise it for your favorite candidate.

I have a 1pm-3pm caucus in room 122. If it's a nearby room, I can pop in and out of each of them, especially if you call me on my cell before they get around to voting.

Will post it on our website and you'll definitely be seeing different PPC members as you're waiting in the credentials line.

The PPC endorsement will come at the caucus in Ft. Worth and will be voted on by general membership, the steering committee just sets the agenda. Other candidates will all have the opportunity to respond at that time. There will I'm sure, be intense discussion from the floor and we welcome that. An amendment from the floor, if passed by the membership could change the endorsement to another candidate. If the motion is voted down, there will be no endorsement.

Regardless of the outcome, the current chair is working with us. That's a good thing.

but that's not a good enough reason to vote for him.

Most of my drinking liberally buds endorse maxey...saying he is the new regime and a great fundraiser/policy pusher.They say Richie is old school-no new ideas...just what i hear.

Caucus which has endorsed Boyd:

1. Aggressive public endorsement and media initiative by the TDP supporting the Party’s position requiring a voter verifiable paper ballot trail in conjunction with any electronic voting system used by election authorities in Texas.
2. TDP Chair obtain read and write access to the Secretary of State’s to the Texas Secretary of State Texas Election Administration Management System (TEAM) and appoint an SDEC member to actively participate in its activities.
3. Advocate debate within the Convention Rules Committee on two PPC resolutions addressing these two issues above which include: * PPC Resolution: Public Support for VVPAT * PPC Resolution: Personal Privacy Protection (TEAM)
4. Strong and forceful admonishment to SDEC members from the SD’s situated in the Houston, DFW and Bexar County areas that a core duty of their tenure of service is leadership with the SD Chair and related County Chairs in Party Building and Voter Mobilization Organizing in their Senate Districts; provision of training by proven SDEC organizers for those directed to receive such training by the Chair. This is inclusive of specific accountability reports to the TDP Chair, in writing, submitted at each SDEC meeting on Party Building work accomplished between SDEC meetings.
5. Appointment by the TDP Chair of PPC member Tom Blackwell, SD 16 to the Convention Platform Committee.
6. Creating and implementation of a training program and collaboration with the County Chairs Association to teach County Chairs and SDEC members the rudiments of counter-voter suppression activity engaged in by County election officials across the State, irrespective of party affiliation, fostered by the Republican Secretary of State and both the national and local Republican parties.

I thought we were against back room deals?

5. Appointment by the TDP Chair of PPC member Tom Blackwell, SD 16 to the Convention Platform Committee.

But what a plum deal.

It is good to be the king.

the Progressive Populist Caucus' Steering Committee Correspondence is posted as soon as the moderator can approve it on their website. I will say this - the moderator has been pretty busy working on pre convention stuff lately though. You can even pick it up by RSS. Moreover, the posting of the initiatives on the front page of the website is hardly what one would call a back room deal. Bet you a nickel you won't find any other organizations to be so open about the reason behind their committee appointments.

THEM. This is the opposite of a back room deal -- it's an open door deal made known to the public.

It has been a theme of Boyd's campaign to better involve and serve core constituencies within the Party. This open door deal recognizes that the Progressive Populists are a core constituency within the Party and that we deserve a place at the table.

This isn't different from a presidential candidate announcing that if elected he will offer cabinet appointments to members of different coalitions within the Party to help unify the Party. This has the laudable dual effect of (1) giving the voters an advance insight into how the candidate will run the Party and (2) unifying the Party.

Frankly, I'd be more comfortable with the other candidates if I had a better idea of who they would appoint to work with them, wouldn't you? The truth is, the other candidates have had talks along these lines, but they haven't disclosed them.

For someone who six weeks ago knew nothing of modern technology, he certainly has learned the art of spamming!

It was only open after it was announced, no?

It wasn't as if the PPC SC invited all of the candidates to have a discussion with them individually. I also *understand* why the PPC would want to have a good relationship/agreement/etc. with the "current chair"....but in the event BR loses in Ft. Worth, it's for what, a week?

I'm sorry, it just seems a little like the PPC SC got played. Although there are some mebers with an axe to grind against Maxey for one reason or another (he still has a lot of supporters of the rank-and-file), he was a CO-FOUNDER OF THE PPC.

Does the PPC SC think that Maxey wouldn't represent their interests, one of the frickin co-founders of the group, perhaps before some of the SC today was even around?

It's just interesting.

And johncoby, it does smell a little of a back room, no? ;)
just teasing

One of the things Glen taught me to ask myself with everything: Is the juice worth the squeeze?

I have to imagine that internally, there are some PPC members not real happy with this. So the PPC overall gets some discussions together with the current chair, and gets a list of items that are agreed upon, which, coincidentally, more than likely every other candidate would have supported as well. Recently, the PPC sent out a survey--I wonder if those results will be released?

Overall, this makes it look -- or gives the impression I guess -- that the PPC SC got a little strung along. Ultimately, it potentially curries favor with the "current" Chair for about a week.

I can see what they were trying to do for the PPC, it just seems like it would have made more sense for it to be open, especially when members were told on April 22 that the endorsement would be happening at the state convention.

(And oh yeah, announcing a back room deal after the back room deal doesnt make it an open door deal. Feel free to disagree.)

was misstated in his announcement. All we can do is recommend endorsement to the general membership. It's up to the general caucus to vote on and/or amend the recommendation of the steering committee.

It is my understanding the results of the poll will be released this soon. I will check on that when I return to Houston next week, although SPL may also know.

As a PPC S/C member Nick, I too was surprised by the call for a recommendation vote after we had agreed at our annual meeting not to endorse a candidate until our convention. I was out of town for a week and missed the whole hot potato. I would have either voted for Glen or voted not to recommend at this time. It really is up to the PPC membership as a whole to endorse. The Steering Committee is just a small subset of that membership and essentially it means nothing more than 16 other people with a vote.

Here are the results of the survey - Maxey is the clear favorite.
http://www.texaspopulists.com/node/1162

Sonia

Glen is not and has never been a "co-founder of the PPC." He's a member ...

... a not particularly active one, based on my own observation over the past few years.

Hey PDittie--you're right. With all the endorsements and history flying around I made a mistake. For some reason I was looking at his co-founding of the Coalition of Black Democrats and screwed it up, my mistake.

I'm 90% certain my vote will go to Maxey. But too many elected officials, candidates, organizations and grassroots Dems whom I respect support Richie, that I refuse to waste any negative energy or drama if the vote doesn't turn out my way. This should be like a primary battle where we close ranks afterward in order to slay the larger dragon in November.
Q.E.D.

whoever sends me the LEAST amount of email!

Now that he's the new TDP chair, I was revisiting this thread in hope of some actual content. It ain't got much.

So, once again, someone, tell me something good about Boyd Richie?

Well if he fights as hard for the Nov. ticket as he did in that convention hall, that will be good thing. You can't accuse the Richie team of not having strategy and organization. Some of the fighting may not have been clean, but they can get as dirty as they want when they fight the real enemy - the republican candidates.

Richie is our dog in the fight now - let loose the dogs of war.

Sonia

1. Under BR's watch, the TDP called me for the first time and specifically asked me for $100. Email and snail mail solicitations aren't enough, and because I was talking to a live person it was hard to say no, and now the TDP is $100 richer.

2. The new voter database, VAN, looks quite impressive and is a vast improvement over Demzilla. I attended a workshop on it and can't wait to try it out.

3. The restraining order brought against the Tx GOP re: District 22. Honestly, can you imagine Soechting doing this?

4. Richie block walked neighborhoods in Dallas himself on the DNC national day of canvassing.

5. The new website is much more modern looking, though the content, up to this point, is just the same. (I hate to say, but the older site looked like a high school project.)

That said, those are no laurels to rest upon. If he keeps it up, he may turn out to be almost as good as Glen. :evilgrin:

I hope we all get some training on that soon. Not all of us had time to block off those training slots. If you're happy with it, it must be a good improvement.

I agree that the move to Civic Space for the party web site is a good move forward. They just need to build content and tweak it a bit, but they have the thing running and that's a good thing.

Oh I think Soechting would have done the same thing on the Dist22 filing. That was probably in the works as soon as DeLay announced his resignation. It takes a while for lawyers to prepare a filing. Charles did a couple of things "out of character" for a party chair and got into a bit of hot water for them both. The one most recently was endorsing BAR in the runoff against the un-dead Gene Kelly. And he did it in 2004 when he endorsed Alma Allen over that DINO Ron Wilson in the district 131 house seat race. That's a no-no in party rules. But in my opinion they were both the right thing to do.

Sonia