Plus: Who Else to Vote for in AD 15, AD 18 & 25
Update: I was re-elected to the Committee. Thanks to everyone who voted for me.
Once again, I’m running for re-election to the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. I’m running for one of the ten seats in AD 18.
I am an unapologetic bleeding heart liberal, committed to pushing the Democratic party towards adopting an agenda that includes the respect and promotion of all human rights: civil, political, economic, social and cultural. I am fully committed to cleaning up the Democratic party from the corrupting influences of money and cronyism.
Currently, the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee is suffering from a numbers of ills. One of the main jobs of the Committee is to give the Democratic endorsement to candidates for non-partisan local races. Unfortunately, several Committee members are either paid campaign consultants themselves or have close relationships with such people – and they take advantage of their position in the Committee to lobby to get their clients the Democratic endorsement. This has resulted in the Democratic endorsement being given to candidates who do not have particularly progressive ideas. Indeed, the Committee has endorsed candidates that support the militarization of police, the widening of the school-to-prison pipeline, mass surveillance and impunity for police brutality. While as one of the few liberals in the Committee, my effect over the last four years has been limited, I have been able to stop the Democratic endorsement from going to at least some of the worst candidate – including one that wanted to raise the Chinese flag over San Leandro City Hall paying homage to a government that has imprisoned and disappeared countless critics, members of religious minorities and human rights defenders, while brutality occupying Tibet and other lands.
My other main reason to run for re-election is that I believe that if Bernie Sanders manages to win the nomination and then the presidency, he will need supporters working at all levels with the Democratic party in order to push his agenda forward. If he doesn’t win, and instead decides to lead a revolution from the Senate, then the support of Democratic grass root activists is even more important. But let me be clear: as a liberal Democrat I cannot support Hillary Clinton and her neo-liberal/neo-con agenda which imperils America and the world.
Over the last four years, I’ve written from time to time about my experiences as a Committee members, please read further if you want to know more about me and my candidacy. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions or comments.
In addition to me, I encourage you to vote for the following candidates:
Other candidates I support running for ACDCC in AD 18 (Oakland flats, Alameda & San Leandro – 10 seats available):
Pamela Price, a civil rights attorney
Mike Katz-Lacabe, my husband and a privacy rights advocate.
Guillermo Elenes, a housing rights organizer and staunch liberal
Marlon McWilson, an appointed incumbent and County Board of Education trustee
In AD 15 (Oakland Hills & North Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley and Albany – 9 seats available) I recommend you vote for the following candidates.
Vincent Casalaina: Vincent is very progressive grassroots activist, he is with PDA and was an early Bernie supporter. Vincent is running in a progressive slate with Brett Badelle, Kate Harrison and Floyd Huen
Andy Kelley: Andy sometimes plays politics to his own detriment, but his heart is in the right place and he is also committed to a progressive agenda.
Len Raphael: Len is intelligent, thoughtful and has an insurgent streak. I think he would bring a much needed non-establishment perspective to the Committee.
Ces Rosales: Ces is a very progressive LGBT and feminist activist in Berkeley. We don’t always back the same candidates (she’s a Hillary supporter), but I respect Ces’ independent streak.
In AD 25 (Newark & parts of Fremont – 3 seats available), I recommend you vote for
Raj Salwan: He has been an alternate for a number of years and is the most progressive candidate running in that district.
Relevant articles:
- Bernie is Running for President as a Democrat Because Democrats Asked Him To
- Want to Help Change the Democratic Party? Run for County Central Committee!
- California Democratic Party to Automatically Endorse Incumbents
- Want a Clean Democratic Party? Vote for Independent Party Members
- List of Candidates I’ve Pulled and Nominated for the Alameda Democratic party endorsement in 2014
- Alameda County Democratic Central Committee to Vote to Censure Me
- Should Demos endorse John Perez or Betty Yee?
- Central Committee Terms Are Now 4 years instead of 2.
- California Democratic Party Condemns Unlawful Use of Drones
- Democratic Delegates Pass Resolution on Domestic Use of Drones
- Conflicted About Conflict of Interest
- I (Margarita Lacabe) am running for the Democratic Central Committee. Here is why. (2012)
(Edited to add list of people I’m supporting and to add my stand on Hillary Clinton).
ACDCC incumbents are rightfully proud of the rapid decline in local seats held by Republicans. Many of the incumbents have done a great and thankless job behind the scenes without the glory and glamour that candidates can get.
But along with that success in achieving a largely one party system goes a much greater responsibility to endorse the best candidates irrespective of whether those candidates are disliked by donors to the ACDCC or powerful elected officials or influential consultants.
The endorsement of the ACDCC with the concomitant slate cards, especially in a County or city wide election dramatically lowers the cost of the endorsed candidates reaching thousands of voters.
When I campaigned for Oakland Auditor in 2014, countless people told me they were going to vote for whomever was the Democrat. Try to explain in a soundbite encounter with a voter that local elections are non-partisan, and that a candidate can be endorsed by their local section of the ACDCC but lose at the county-wide meeting.
I was speechless when someone who was an attorney for the State of California told me he was sure there was only one Democrat in most races.
To this day I still marvel at how the full ACDCC overruled the local Oakland-San Leandro subcommittee endorsement of me.
The full ACDCC endorsed someone who was a registered member of the George Wallace American Independent Party right up to the very day she filed papers to run for Oakland Auditor. The American Independent Party is so far out there they make the California Republican Party look like progressive Democrats.
Reality is that few Democrats who do donate do so to candidates, PACS, National, or State Democratic organizations. They don’t donate to the ACDCC.
That gives unbalanced influence to the people and organizations who do donate to the county Democratic organizations throughout California and probably the nation.
One leg of my platform is that at the county level we have to apply the lessons learned by the Obama and Sanders campaigns raising large amounts of money from a large number of small contributions.
Another part of my platform, only for after the November election, is to advocate for abolishing the superdelegate presidential nomination system. The superdelegate system was only implemented in 1981 because party regulars blamed party grassroots activists for the 1968 and 1972 losses to Nixon.
Margarita Lacabe doesn’t sacrifice her principles to party short-term goals.
Principles all too often get lost in the ends justifying the means way of thinking. What starts off as being pragmatic, often ends up as unprincipled expediency. Necessary to have a mix of people on the ACDCC along that spectrum.
Len Raphael, CPA
and Candidate for Oakland-Berkeley AD 15 ACDCC
(future website: LensForChange.com)
Marga is an asset for real change!