This is the second time I’ve run for elective office. I’ve counseled numerous candidates on what they need to know and do to be effective candidates. I’ve been to some of the best political trainings in the nation. So I know what it takes to be a winning candidate in [...]
You may not have heard this, but I’m running for Attorney General. I’m running because Colorado deserves an Attorney General who will wage battle against those who would harm our land, our water, and our people.
If you share my vision, here’s what you can do:
1. Help organize a county [...]
As most of you know, I went on a whirlwind tour of Colorado on Thursday and Friday, announcing my candidacy for Attorney General. A copy of the first announcement speech is up on YouTube — well, kind of, as the translation into YouTube somewhat garbled the video. It’s in two [...]
I want you on DemNotes to be among the first to hear what this campaign for Attorney General of Colorado is all about, and what I’m planning to do both as a candidate for Attorney General and as your Attorney General. Here’s the speech I’m gave across Colorado today and [...]
While I certainly hope to see as many of you as possible out on the “trail” tomorrow and Friday, I do want to make sure that all of you are aware that I will also be interviewed by David Sirota on AM 760 just after 8 am tomorrow morning (Thursday). [...]
As a follow up to last week’s post, we’ve finally nailed down all of the event sites for my campaign announcement Thursday and Friday. As most of you know, I will be announcing on Thursday and Friday, via a six-city statewide tour, that I will be running for Attorney General [...]
If you’ve been following DemNotes for the past month — or especially if you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook lately — you’ve seen all sorts of cryptic messages about my plans for the future. If you attended some of the events where I’ve spoken or been introduced in [...]
Last night, we drove up to Golden for the Jefferson County Democrats’ annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner. It was a very well-attended and well-staged event to support the JeffCo Dems.
I found myself in an unusual, but intriguing position — sitting between the two Party leaders with possibly the most thankless [...]
There has been quite a buzz in Democratic Party circles — not only here in Colorado, but nationally — about the possibility that we Colorado Democrats will have a primary in the U.S. Senate race. Yesterday, former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff made it official: he’s seeking the Democratic nomination for [...]
This afternoon has been about caucus meetings here at the DNC Fall meeting in Austin. While the leadership of the DNC generally is pretty pre-determined, the leadership of the various caucuses of the DNC is much more freely selected by their members.
Shortly after the General Session ended and everybody had [...]
Mid-day in Austin today has been dominated by the DNC’s General Meeting. We’ve heard from a number of speakers about the future of the Democratic Party, both here in Texas, and nationally.
The meeting began with a welcome by Austin’s mayor, who described himself as a “Dyed-in-the-wool, yellow-dog Democrat!” We then [...]
This morning kicked of the Democratic meetings here in Austin, Texas. This morning was all about the Association of State Democratic Chairs, which met for a few hours — some in a closed session — this morning.
The morning began with a welcome from Texas Democratic Party Chair Boyd Ritchie. He [...]
I’m in Austin, Texas tonight, for the DNC and ASDC meetings that begin here tomorrow morning. Tonight, though, the President did a pretty good job explaining why we need change in our health care system.
I normally write pretty non-controversial stuff on DemNotes. Well, non-controversial if you’re a Democrat. But I’m [...]
Every four years, the DNC elects a new Chair. In January, the day following the Inauguration in Washington, DC, we elected Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as the new DNC Chair. Each time a Chair takes office, he or she has the ability to nominate 75 people to serve “at-large” on [...]
Last night, I drove down to Las Animas for an incredibly well-attended Bent County Democratic Party picnic at City Park.
As I said there, this was the “epicenter” of my childhood. Not Las Animas — the Las Animas City Park. I grew up [...]
Yesterday, we headed up to Denver for the one-year anniversary celebration of the National Convention. It was also a celebration of one hundred years of tourism promotion in Denver, and there sure were a lot of folks key to the success of Denver 2008 there. After the reception, we stopped [...]
Whatever happened to the old addage, “You can disagree without being disagreeable.”?
I was having a debate at last week’s Drinking Liberally here in Canon City with an officer of the local Democratic Party. He argued that public discourse had fallen off in the [...]
Yesterday, I had a truly unique opportunity: I was able to tour the most secure prison in the United States. Known to outsiders as “Supermax,” the ADX at the United States Penitentiary in Florence has been dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” Indeed, right after you go through the metal [...]
I’m in Burlington, Washington tonight. We just arrived, after a very long journey back from Northern Idaho.
But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have a lot to talk about today in Idaho. We began with a welcome from the Idaho AFL-CIO. We heard about the latest efforts to pass the [...]
This afternoon, we heard from the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, who leads the progressive efforts to monitor ballot efforts nationwide and help prevent bad ballot issues and promote progressive issues. And there was a lot of talk about Colorado.
It seems that Colorado has shown to be the proving ground for [...]
I’m on a break right now, and we’ve had a full day of sessions at the DNC Western Caucus meetings in Idaho. If you’ve been following @DemNotes on Twitter, you’ve seen up-to-the-minute reports from the rooms. (And rest assured, folks, I’m planning on keeping up with DemNotes online here — [...]
I will say one thing about Idaho: their Vice Chair is given a much nicer residence than Colorado’s Vice Chair.
Tonight, we joined well over a hundred other Democrats at the home of Jeanne Buell, the Idaho Vice Chair, about four miles south of our hotel. It was a wonderful [...]
Those of you who have been following me on Twitter know that I’ve been making the trek to Northern Idaho for the past couple of days for the DNC Western Caucus meeting. We are now here, and are getting ready to go to the opening event of the meeting, a [...]
The Associated Press is reporting that Senator Jim Isgar will be appointed by the President to serve as the State Director for Rural Development in Colorado. There are four statewide positions in Colorado that are appointed by the President — this is the first of those appointments. The other three [...]
We live in a celebrity-driven society.
I recognize that I contribute to that. The “celebrity appeal” of meeting our elected leaders at the highest levels cannot be overestimated. Indeed, there is now a whole language and methodology to facilitating these meetings — meetings known as “The Clutch,” in political parlance.
Today, [...]
I’m in a rush to get out the door to head up to Denver to greet the Vice President, but I wanted to post a quick note to DemNotes to be sure everybody has heard the news: President Obama has announced his first appointment to the United States Supreme Court, [...]
Today at the ASDC meetings in Richmond was primarily about managing state parties and new media communications.
The day began with a breakfast hosted by the AFL/CIO. It was a good event, featuring folks talking about the importance of labor, and the details of the Employee Free Choice Act (which the [...]
I think I now know why it took the North so long to win the Civil War: it takes forever to get to Richmond. (For those who are history-impaired, Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy.)
We finally arrived at the Omni in downtown Richmond, where the Association of State Democratic [...]
I’m planning on writing later today about my trip to the regional training in Durango, but here’s news that more of you will find interesting: I haven’t yet seen it on news sites, but Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic is reporting rumors that Arlen Specter, the heretofore Republican Senator from [...]
Okay, I admit, DemNotes has not been the most-updated blog around for the past few months. I’ve taken some time to focus on work and family a little more between elections, and so I haven’t gotten to write to DemNotes recently.
But that doesn’t mean that nothing has been going on [...]
Yesterday (Wednesday), I woke up at 5:00 a.m. Mountain Time to ride a bicycle down a 10,000 foot mountain. Now that I write that, I realize how crazy that may sound. It gets crazier.
You see, I’m not in the Mountain time zone. We are in Maui, in a first “real” [...]
This morning, I drove up to Denver to attend the meeting of the Colorado Democratic Party’s Latino Initiative at State Party Headquarters. It was a good group — as people kept arriving, they had to keep bringing in more chairs into the room — a good problem to have.
First, let [...]
We have some exciting news that was just released this afternoon. The Colorado Democratic Party announced today that Paul Begala will be the keynote speaker for this year’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, to be held on Saturday evening, March 7. Here are the details from the Party’s press release:
Democratic state party chair [...]
I began this latest season of county party reorganization meetings by going to the far northeast corner of the state, in Sterling. Yesterday, I closed the central committee reorganization season by visiting the opposite corner, in the southwest, in Durango. (Yes, I know folks in Julesburg and Cortez may quibble [...]
Yesterday, mere hours after our return from a very long drive back from Oklahoma, we jumped back on the Reorganization Circuit, stopping in Adams and Denver counties for their reorganization meetings.
As with so many other counties, both Adams and Denver are undergoing some pretty big changes; both counties elected mostly-new [...]
Well, its that time: county party reorganizations. Traditionally held between February 1 and February 15 of every odd-numbered year, there are always a couple of counties that tend to go just before the window. The point of a “reorganization”? To elect the party officers to serve for the next two [...]
Yesterday, we held our Association of State Democratic Chairs meeting, along with our Winter DNC meeting.
The morning began with a somewhat chaotic meeting of the ASDC. There was a contested race for ASDC President (who also serves as a DNC Vice Chair). Incumbent Mark Brewer of Michigan was running against [...]
I’m in a bit of a bind here. It’s unusual when I sit down to write DemNotes: I’ve got no earthly idea how to write about this day here in Washington DC.
Our President. Such a phrase bears so much meaning today.
President Obama.
Just typing it — typing it without it [...]
Last night was an impressive display of excitement from Colorado’s Democrats. The “Colorado Ball” was held yesterday evening in the Washington Westin City Center. Hundreds of Coloradans — and folks with links to Colorado — gathered to celebrate the inauguration of our new President today.
When we first decided to [...]
I’m in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania this morning. Yep, Harrisburg. Yesterday, we spent the entire day hopping from airport to airport to end up here — just a couple of hours north of our final destination: Washington DC.
It is a little reminescent of my first trip to Washington DC, way back in [...]
This afternoon, the State Executive Committee of the Colorado Democratic Party met at the Pipefitters Hall on North Broadway. In general, it was a happy crowd — one with only one real responsibility today, to pass a budget for 2009.
Every December, the State Executive Committee — a group of [...]
Governor Ritter has just announced his choice to replace Mike Coffman Colorado’s Secretary of State: Grand Junction Rep. Bernie Buescher.
A panel had narrowed the Governor’s list to three: Speaker Andrew Romanoff, Rep. Buescher, and Sen. Ken Gordon. Any of the three would have been outstanding choices for that position. But [...]
We arrived back in Colorado from San Diego late Sunday night. Well, technically speaking, we didn’t get to our hotel in Denver until the wee hours of Monday morning. And, boy, was it cold! We stayed in a hotel in Denver because I was to be at the State Capitol [...]
One of the critical parts of being a successful party leader, I think, is the ability to recognize that there are ideas out there that you haven’t seen or thought of that just might work. (Conversely, some of the party leaders that I think have the most problems are those [...]
This afternoon was chock full of information — and was a very long and crowded meeting.
Here in San Diego, the DNC’s Executive Committee met in a joint session with the ASDC. The day begain with an address from Governor (and DNC Chair) Howard Dean. He talked about the progress [...]
I’m on a lunch break here in San Diego, where I just returned from an “informal session” with the other state party chairs and vice chairs. We had a nice discussion of both the successes in 2008 as well as a long discussion of the importance of keeping the State [...]
Change is good.
Not only is change good, it is what we spent the past year clawing and scratching our way to get. So, now we’ve got it. The problem with getting change, though, is that there is a lot of uncertainty attached to change.
This afternoon, here in San Diego, the [...]
We arrived yesterday in San Diego, where the Association of State Democratic Chairs is meeting. We begin our work this afternoon, with a meeting of the ASDC Executive Committee, on which both Pat and I sit (I represent the vice chairs in the Western Region of the United States; Pat [...]
Just when you thought it was all over….
We still have a HUGE race that Colorado’s Democrats can be a part of winning. No, it is not in Colorado, but it IS critical to making sure we have the votes we need in Washington to help President Obama get the legislation [...]
Today, the sky above the Sheraton in downtown Denver is overcast, but even so, it seems a bit more sunny today; people are walking around a bit more cheerily today. Yes, change is on the way.
Last night was surreal. I’m still not sure it has sunk in. The crowd gradually [...]
