It’s down to the wire. Since June (actually a lot longer than that for Cary), we’ve been working hard to make the case to Ward 2 Democrats that it’s time for change on the City Council. We’ve had three debates; one in Foggy Bottom, another in Dupont, and another on the Kojo Show on WAMU. We’ve had tons of candidate forums, some at 8 AM and others at 8 PM. We filled out more questionnaires than I care to remember, attended neighborhood picnics, block parties, tenants association meetings and what seems to be every ANC meeting in the ward.  Supporters hosted countless meet and greet events as well as fundraisers. We played the endorsement game – got some and lost some.  We met some fun people, some interesting people, some skeptic supporters, some enthusiastic supporters and people didn’t care much for us. We’ve walked through part of the city that I never knew existed and rediscovered parts that I had not visited in a while. And of course there was the parade. Everywhere we went and to everyone we met, we made the case for Cary. I think we’ve made a compelling case and put ourselves in a position to win on Tuesday. With a strong GOTV effort, I believe that we can seal the deal. I’m very excited about the election on Tuesday. The only thing that would have made it better is if I could vote. Oh well, can’t have everything at once. If you’re registered to vote in DC, Vote Cary Silverman on Tuesday!

Technorati Tags: Cary Silverman, DC City Council, DC politcs, Ward 2

My first video. Enjoy. Leave any feedback. Sorry for the cheap camera. If I follow through, I will upgrade.

As many of you know, I now volunteer to Cary Silverman who is running to be full-time DC council member for Ward 2.  Yesterday, we had a chance to compete for the much coveted endorsement from the Ward 2 Democrats.  Going  into the voting meeting last yet, I felt that we had a good chance to win.  We had a good turn out from our supporters and they had brought friends with them.  However, as the night continued I began to think we weren’t going to win but at least make a good showing. And that we did.   Cary lost the Ward 2 endorsement 105 – 67.  But in order to win the endorsement, our opponent “bused” people as well as provided Fried chicken for his “supporters”.   As one of my co-workers put it:

I don’t care if you give ALL your voters an incentive to come out and vote.  However, I do have a HUGE problem when you give selective incentives and it appears to cut across racial lines.  I am under the belief that voting should be its own reward.  The carrot should not be chicken dinners, but civic duty and pride.  It got fuzzy for me when the people with the dinners went in and voted for him.

Moreover, the process was completely screwed up.  People presenting themselves were not not even asked for IDs when they came in to vote.  So basically there was no way for people to check if the people voting the endorsement were indeed Ward 2 residents.   From talking to one person that was bused in by our opponent , she said she was a resident of “ward 1, Ward 2, Ward 3 and Ward 4… Whatever you want me to be.”  Something like that should have easily caught. What’s the point of calling it a ward 2 Endorsement, if people from around the bused in?

The most frustrating part of last night was the realization I can’t vote while  people who don’t care about this election and would gladly give their vote for a KFC dinner are allowed to participate in the election.

Despite all of this there is a silver lining to last night meeting.  We can win this election. Had we convinced 15 more people to show we would have blocked him from receiving this endorsement.  So despite our opponent’s questionable tactics, we can still win on Sep 9th.

You read comments from other frustrated voters in the dcwire blog post.

I saw this while reading a TechCrunch Article this morning, so I thought I’d share for with the rest of people not reading techcrunch. Also check out the Fundrace on Huffington Post.  Every time politics meets technology to make the process more transparent and easy for the people, I get giddy inside.

Over the last year and half, I’ve looked for various YouTube videos on Obama.  Of course some where in complete utter distaste and should prolly be take down, but the vast majority were inspirational and depict the American genius and  creativity.  Below are my favorite YouTube videos about Obama with a few honorable mentions.

Barack Obama/Bobby Kennedy – Hope

Work to Do Remix

Yes We Can – Barack Obama Music Video

Barack Obama: Reflections of Bobby Kennedy

Barack Obama: We Shall Overcome

The Obama Dream

The “Obama Movement”

BARACK OBAMA YES WE CAN RAP SONG

Honorable Mention

Baby Got Barack

Sing for Obama Grassroots Music Video

Barack Obama: Poetic Politics

For Obama: “Si Se Puede Cambiar” by Andres Useche

What are your favorites?

Someone once said all politics is local.  I don’t know who that person is (I suppose I could Google it) or why that they said that, but it turns out they must have been right because people have been repeating it ever since.   Since I enjoy politics and all politics are local, I figured it’s about time to get involved in local politics. I have thus decided to join the campaign of Cary Silverman running for Ward 2 DC Council seat.  We are looking a unseat current 17 yr Council member Jack Evans.. what can I say? Go  big or go home. I’m not going to seat and tell you why my candidate is better Ward 2 residents than Mr. Evans, nor am I going to tell you that He will solve every issue facing Ward  2 and the rest of the city.  What I will tell you is that he is a person dedicated to the DC neighborhoods and it is reflected in the involvement the years.  His presence on the council will be a breath of fresh air and new ideas to what has become an old boys club serving developers instead of citizens (yes I’m talking about the DC council). One thing I’ve learned so far is that local politics isn’t sexy but it matters. It matters because it affects our daily lives, from recycling to schools, from liquor licenses to gentrification and from sidewalk construction to zoning restrictions.   The campaign currently  has a small staff thus my role will vary greatly. Regardless, I look forward to meeting many of the residents of Ward 2 and making the case why it’s time for change in Ward 2 Seat.  If you’re in DC and would like to meeting Cary Silverman, please join us at a Happy Hour this Wed at Wednesday 6/4  at 1625 17th Street, NW from 5:30pm – 8 PM.  If you have any other questions about the Campaign feel free to e-mail henri at caryforcouncil dot org.

As I announced a few months back I’m now at Be the Change, Inc where I head the efforts in all things Technology (mostly web) with the support of very capable vendors and staff. As part of my role, I help identify technology and develop strategy that will help the organization spread its message and  lead to people become invested and take action in our first campaign.  To fulfill this part of my job, I’ve started attending various conferences and Panels around the City. One of the Roundtable that I attend pretty regularly is the Internet Advocacy Roundtable hosted by Center for American Progress Action Fund and lead by  Alan Rosenblatt.   The Last round table I attend was titled “The future of E-mail Congress  – New Solutions Offered and Old Myths Busted“( word doc of the preso) and there speaker was Daniel Bennett who is Co-author of “The Net Effect: How Cyber advocacy is Changing the Political Landscape” and was a columnist for The Cloakroom. 

The gist  of Mr. Benett’s presentation is that he has developed a technique that will more accurately group emails that each representative receives from various advocacy group so that s/he will not waste staff time reading all the emails and will have a better tally of where constituents stands on any particular issue by looking at the total number of emailed received.  According to him but unverified by anyone in the room, the system works with 95-99% accuracy and is easy to install and works with current e-mail systems on the Hill.  He claims to have tested in some offices with great result and received positive feedback.  In plain English, the system group letters according to a token or URL included each email.  So any given e-mailing campaign would have the same token. For the techie crowd, see some documentation at http://advocatehope.org/tech-tidbits. Mr. Bennett then called on all the orgs present at the lecture to lobby the vendors to start implementing this new system. He claims that there is no financial benefit to him and I don’t have any reason not to believe him. Lastly, Mr. Bennett claims staffer don’t read the letters already so his solution would a least make sure they have a accurate count before the vote.

I have two thoughts about this improvement by Mr. Benett.  As someone whose organization is trying to lobby congress to get legislation passed, this is fabulous. It’s a great tool and we can use to hopefully sway a representative’s mind and maybe get to move away from voting along party lines when we can get people from his district to e-mail him or her.  As person that has friends that work on the Hill, I know this will make their live easier and they will be a little more efficient while at the office and maybe get a few more things done.

As a private citizen, this “improvement” is outrageous.  Call me be crazy but I’d like to think that my representative or his staff would read the vast majority of e-mails and letters that come to them.  It’s their job! They  were elected to serve the people of their district and that includes reading constituent’s mail how ever outrageous they are.  The Reps and their staff are supposed to do what is good for the constituents and the for the country as a whole.  Just because 4999 people emailed about one side of the issue and 50001 email about the other side, doesn’t mean the rep should cast a vote in favor of  the highest bidder. While I appreciate Mr. Benett’s persistence and hard work (he’s been working on this solo for 5 years), I think his solution is the wrong way to go.   His solution is fixing the wrong problem.  I would even go as far as to say it’s making Congress worse.  We, as citizen and their employers, should not accept the fact Reps don’t read our mail or letters. We should def not make it easier for them not to read our letters.    While Mr. Benett’s claim about staffers not reading mail may be true, I refuse to give in his cynicism and make easier for them not to so.  And I sincerely hope others won’t either.

Was that too harsh?…….Naaaaaaaaaah.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that Barack Obama is my candidate for president.  I even went down to South Carolina to volunteer for him.  I also volunteered when it was time for the DC/MD/VA.  However, I have yet to take the time to  explain why I favored Obama over McCain and Clinton.  While I was searching for the right words and the right way to present them to you, I found two videos by Professor Lessig (blog) of Stanford law and founder of Creative Commons.  He was recently drafted to run for US congress in the 12th district of CA but decided against it because his opponent, Jackie Speier,  has been one of the most popular state legislator for the last 30 years.  Instead, he decided to focus on his new project, change-congress, which he will unveil this week at the Sunlight Foundation.  Needless to say, I will be in attendance.  At the time he was considering running, I would have moved to CA to help out with his race though he probably did not need it.

Regardless of what comes of his political future, Lessig’s videos basically express my thoughts about the election,more specifically about Obama’s candidacy, more eloquently than I ever could.  Take a look below.

First video – 20 minutes or so why I’m 4 Barack

Second Video – 10 minutes on whether Hillary can win

While Lessig  makes several good points as he often in his lectures, the most poignant is that it’s time to pass the torch; it’s time for a new path; it’s time for a new generation of leaders.  To borrow a much overused phrase of this electoral season, it’s time for real change. It is my hope that in January 2009, Obama will be able to borrow to words from JFK and say "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike that the torch has been passed to a new generations of Americans."