Are you involved in local politics?

I confess to being much more interested in national politics, although it is such an armchair exercise.

I have no plans to run for office myself, but since I worked on a campaign last year, I find that I am drawn into local races and its quite a different ball of wax. So much work, but now I realize that almost everyone who has made it to national visibility has gone through this and maybe even failed a few times, but never gave up.

I lost a job once because I got on the wrong side of a local political disagreement.

In CA local politics usually involves growth advocates (developers, realtors, banks etc) vs. growth opponents (citizens who all want to be the last person to move to town).

Not near as sexy as arguments over war, hypocritical pols getting busted in public shitters, etc. but an essential part of democracy.

For my part I was the cheap hired help (an appointed department head) whose job it was to give professional advice to the elected policy makers. They didn't like what I said but they didn't want to publicily oppose it so they pressured me to change my advice. I refused and was for all practical purposes, shitcanned.

I managed to get a better job in the aftermath but it taught me that local elected officials won't stand up to the moneyed interests that put em in office.

Yes, it is very different from national politics.

But when we get good progressives elected at the local level, we can move them on to state and national office.

I went to a local event not long ago that had Dick Durbin as the keynote speaker. He spoke about his mentor, Paul Simon. Durbin told us how discouraged he was when he lost his first few elections. Simon kept encouraging him, telling him that he had lost his first elections, too.

Sometimes, a good local person has to be in the right place at the right time. We have a good guy here who has a well-known name statewide. He decided to aim a bit higher this year, because an entrenched republican is retiring. Given the sentiment nationally, and the disorganized state of Illinois' republicans, this guy could win. It could launch a national career for him.

I do not run for office beyond precinct committeeman and county Democratic party executive board. I am needed in that capacity. Working on campaigns, raising money, walking and knocking on doors, as well as letter-writing are things I do best. It is fun to know everyone and help them.

I grew up in Illinois and lived there till 2000. My mother lives in what used to be Henry Hydes district (I grew up there). Later I lived in Hyde Park and I was there long enough to see Obama run for Congress and I signed the petition when his wife was collecting signatures outside the grocery store and he was a teacher at the U of C law school. Amazing how far he has come.

Paul Simon was a wonderful distinguished Senator. But Dick Durbin is too- and I didn't know about the connection between them. I also heard on Air America that there is a connection between Tom Daschle and Obama, even though they did not overlap in Congress. I always liked Daschle too.

I am in Madison now- I was never really involved in Chicago, but I am here. Wisconsin is a bit simpler than Illinois and very evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. I have to admit I just always voted a straight party ticket in Chicago because the ballot was so long! In Madison it takes about 20 seconds to vote.

Our goal is to elect Democratic candidates on the local, state and national level.

http://avondems.com/

But I don't do much partisan stuff other than that -- my town has enough people who do...

thats a pretty important job.

We still have lever machines! And apparently we get to keep them for a while longer! Whee!

All the 80 yr old inspectors and I were bummed about having to switch to electronic voting, but our beloved dinosaur of a state can't figure out a system that will please everyone, so we're keeping the old one, for now.

thing I do as a progressive, imho.

:thumbsup:

and present local, united fronts, isn't it? :hi:

:hi:

your head against a wall proposition.

:)

Seriously,I'm not a people person at all,and would probably hurt anyone/anything I was working for more than help.