The DPVA Steering and Central Committee met this weekend in Hampton VA. Highlights included Congressman Bobby Scott’s speech, discussion of 2011 results and lessons and 2012 Obama and Kaine campaign activities, and adoption of resolutions.
Virginia Obama State Director Lise Clavel (who managed Tom Periello’s campaigns and served as his Chief of Staff) reported that field staff is growing from 15 t0 50 and will exceed 100 by next year. They will open 50 offices around the Commonwealth (Fairfax and Newport News opened today). The Obama campaign will work closely with DPVA and local party committees. An early focus will be voter registration, with a number of drives around the state scheduled for next weekend. Bookmark the OFA-VA page and participate in upcoming events. I was impressed with Lise and the campaign’s specific plans. 2012 should have 2x-3x the turnout of 2011 — if we get our people to the polls, Obama will again carry Virginia.
Tim Kaine for Senate campaign director Mike Henry discussed the campaign’s strategy and current fundraising. Right-wing, secretly-financed groups have already started spending money against Governor Kaine and will continue to do so, but both the President and Governor Kaine are excellent public servants with great records and we will get that message out.
Vice Chair for Outreach Sen. Donald McEachin indicated that because he is now the Senate Caucus Chair, he will resign his VC position, but will remain on Central Committee. He has done an excellent job in bringing in new constituency groups, with assistance from DPVA political director Tyee Davenport. Sen. Louise Lucas will seek election to the VC position at our February 2012 meeting.
Sen. McEachin also explained that “20 does not equal 21” and Senate Democrats will go to court to block Lt. Gov. Bolling’s illegal attempt to give the GOP complete control of the Senate. DPVA adopted a resolution supporting power shareing (below) which provides more detail.
Legal Counsel Jeff Bourne discussed election day activities (including day after canvassing) and stressed the need to work with CD and local committees in managing next year’s much larger protect and promote the vote effort. They are also monitoring General Assembly and State Board of Elections activites in the light of national GOP voter supression efforts. See, e.g., DNC Report.
Chair Brian Moran addressed the 2011 elections and there was an open session for discussion – we came within a few hundred votes of keeping the Senate majority and had strong showings in Fairfax, but even our good new candidates were not successful in the House. We will evalaute lessons learned from 2011 as we gear up for 2012 and plan for 2013.
In addition to the Senate power resolution, the Central Committee adopted resolutions supporting the American Jobs Act and the Respect for Marriage Act (repealing DOMA), and opposing new clinic regulations intended to make obtaining abortions more difficult. The Committee last year endorsed a resolution calling for a legislative fix to the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, but did not support a constituional amendment. The Committee again engaged in unlimited debate on the issue and again opposed Citizen’s United. (I’ll post the final versions of the resolutions.)
Local Democratic committees must reorganize and elect new members and officers by January 11, 2012. DPVA should post details on the time and place of these meetings on its website; contact DPVA if you have questions.
DPVA will issue a Call to the State Convention in February 2012, but in the meantime CDs and local committees should be guided by the Delegate Selection Plan (See summary and timeline at pp. 38-44). I recommended that the convention have 2,500 delegates and 500 alternates. DPVA should issue additional information on delegate selection in the near future – I will make presentations on the process in January.
Hampton is a very nice town – I enjoyed a walk around the absolutely beautiful grounds of Hampton University and compact but interesting Old Town Hampton and, much later, vodka shots at Marker 20.
DPVA_state_senate_res_revised.DOC (24.5 KiB, 984 hits)