Candidate for
Member, Democratic Party County Central Committee; County of Los Angeles; Assembly District 59

The primary responsibility of the County Central Committee is to organize rather than to set public policy. As a candidate for Central Committee, therefore, I will focus on how I believe we should organize at the local level.

The familiar campaign model of recruiting volunteers before the election and of asking them to contact strangers, either by walking or phoning, can be improved. A better model is to recruit volunteers in every neighborhood, who will contact their own neighbors. This will reach people of all ages.

Between elections, neighborhood Democrats should be invited to come together socially, talk politics, watch politically relevant TV shows and movies together, write or phone their elected representatives, sign petitions, and become friends.

At election time, then, they will know why they are voting and what they should vote for, and their solidarity with one another will motivate them to get out and vote.

Neighbors can also facilitate one another's voting by reminding one another, providing a ride, baby-sitting the children or doing whatever else is needed.

As they become involved in easy and pleasant neighborhood politically-oriented activities, they will become committed to politics. Some will become volunteers, club and party officers, and candidates for public office.

This model will not only turn out more voters and create more activists, it will return politics to the people by making heavy political advertising irrelevant, and it will meet the human need for a community of friends.

If we do this in L.A. County, it will spread across the state and the nation. It will be revolutionary.

Let the Republicans imitate this model if they want. It will revolutionize their party, too, by taking it out of the hands of the wealthy manipulators. Polls have shown that most people, even Republicans, agree with Democratic positions on most issues. If the Republican grassroots start thinking for themselves by meeting and exchanging ideas in small groups, they will become more like us in their views. After all, our ideas are in the public interest.