( Here is a youtube video of Bill Fulton talking about the Ventura County library system.)
Ventura City Council Member Bill Fulton has updated his blog. I guess that proves it isn't just an election tool for him. Bill, what has the response been like so far from Ventura citizens? Do many of them talk to you about it? I liked your entry about the length of meetings.
What local elected officials would you like to see a personal blog from? If there is an overwhelming response I will propose it to The Star and the elected official that it be done.
Start nominating elected officials you would like to read more from!
I nominate:
Moorpark City Council Member Keith Millhouse
County Supervisor Peter Foy
Simi Valley City Council Member Glen Becerra
I would also like to see some park board, water board, and school board officials bring more light into what they do.
I went to the Grand Opening of Hannah-Beth Jackson's campaign office Wednesday night in Ventura. After the excitement outside and inside the Tony Strickland w/ Mitt Romney event I was let down. It was the standard office opening party.
When I was walking up I ran into Republican activist Steve Frank who was a lone protester outside the event. Steve was holding a Taxin' Jackson sign and keeping tabs on the amount of people or who was attending the event. I asked if he wanted to talk on a short video but he declined and had no comment as he was there for business.
Inside the event there was about 25 people total. I looked around for signs of liberalism and found this:
There were local Democratic Activists ( Steve Cummings from the Ventura Democratic Club), labor union supporters, people from the education community, business people, and a few young people, and as far as I could tell no other media. But ask Steve Frank. He was keeping track of that stuff too from the outside.
For about 15 minutes Hannah-Beth Jackson spoke about the campaign thus far, her issues, and then she took questions.
She started off by expressing her shock at the shoving that happened outside the Tony Strickland fundraiser. She said she would not tolerate that from her campaign and went on about freedom of expression and the constitutional right to free speech. She even mentioned Steve Frank and his right to stand outside the meeting and talked about how that is a great part of our nation's freedoms.
At a past event I asked her if she would pledge to not take contributions from gambling interests and the prison guards' union being that she had talked about her budget priorities including funding education at a high level. She said it was wrong how much we spend on prisoners while we cut education. Hannah-Beth Jackson said she wasn't going t pledge to not take any money from them but she said her record shows that she isn't beholden to them. ( Rough paraphrase, I don't know if she used the word beholden or not).
Last night she said there was two industries that she wouldn't take direct contributions from: oil and tobacco. That reminds me of the movie Zoolander. Tobacco and Oil do not go together:
How many of you got the reference without watching the video?
On the issue of tobacco funding she said the major difference was not the money but the voting patterns. She discussed key votes where she and her opponent voted differently when they served in the state assembly together. If you want to read more about the tobacco issue click on continue reading to see her latest press releases.
She discussed the need for some regulations and the role of government in a free market economy to provide for infrastructure and an educated workforce.
The long drive back to Simi Valley gave me a chance to reflect how large this state senate district really is and how hard it is to organize events when the drive time along back and forth would be a few hours. It would be awesome if both campaigns opened offices in Simi Valley soon. Maybe they could team up with local Democratic or Republican clubs?
Trivia question: Being that Tony and Hannah-Beth served in the assembly at the same time and both represented parts of Ventura County can you name any legislation they worked on together?
If they are promising to work with members of the other party did they ever work together?
I will be very impressed with your research skills if you name the legislation or action.
( Rep. Gallegly arguing on behalf of the troop surge.)
There is a new Ventura County based blog devoted to ending the war in Iraq. The war is not very popular in public opinion polls but yet the level of activism against the war has been pretty subdued.
Has your position on the war shifted since the start or run up to the war in 2003?
Click here to see their blog.
Click on continue reading to see details about their next event.
If you plan on going please send in a brief write up and a few photos afterwards.
On a related note watch this John McCain campaign ad:
Did you catch what shirt the woman at the end was wearing? Watch it again before you click here.
Did you see it the first time? Do you think it is really what it looks like?
( News from the largest Barack Obama campaign rally yet. About 75,000 people gathered to hear him speak.)
The Barack Obama Campaign has become a movement. Between the massive online fund raising and record setting crowds it is a juggernaut.
Locally it is the only campaign organizing in Ventura County. Unless the other campaigns are not visible. But running a campaign in secret isn't a great plan.
Here is the link for the Barack Obama for Ventura County Myspace group.
Click on continue reading to see the latest events that Delegate Sandy Emberland is putting together.
I haven't seen any local Hillary Clinton news. Most Democrats realize the campaign is over and Barack Obama has won. Will John McCain make the same mistake and try to run an "experience" campaign?
On the Republican side John McCain is meeting with three potential VP candidates this weekend.
The three include:
1. Mitt Romney
2. Bobby Jindal
3. Charlie Christ
I wonder why, even after stopping Mitt Romney, this man wasn't included:
Do you think Mike Huckabee is being considered by John McCain's team?
Who do you think each candidate should choose as their VP candidate?
I think McCain will pick Mitt Romney if he really wants to win. That choice will help him to end questions about his economic policies.
For Barack Obama I think Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel , Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. Bill Richardson, or Sen. Jim Webb could be good Vice Presidents. They would all also show that how devoted Barack Obama is about a new type of politics.
( Thanks to a reader for creating this image for me. You never answered my email about how we knew each other, if we did.)
( If Democrats really want to win they are going to need some very creative minds. Check out this ad from Oregon that is a huge hit. In the comments section try to write a script for an anti Gallegly ad)
Republicans, who do you think would be the strongest challenger to Rep. Gallegly?
Mary Pallant has shown to be more effective at organizing the party base ( which she would need to do to build a team to take on Gallegly) but Jill Martinez's background might be able to reach out to DTS voters more.
Either way, this campaign is Gallegly's to lose.
Oh yes, Michael Tenenbaum is also running. He has the most friends on myspace.
Gallegly has made his myspace website so that only his friends can see his stands on the issues and his record of conservative leadership. You can click here to see what it looked like before he blocked the general public from viewing it. Last check he had 3 real friends besides the 1 you start with.
The Hannah Beth Jackson campaign has announced several East Ventura County events in the next few weeks. Please click on continue reading for a full listing.
Do you plan to attend the Simi Valley organizing meeting this Tuesday night?
What events in the next few months around East County should the candidates be campaigning at?
The campaign for the nomination to take on Rep. Gallegly ( The fighting 24th) is building up in these last few weeks before the election.
Democratic candidate Mary Pallant has announced an endorsement by The California Nurses Association as she tries to build a coalition to win the nomination and to take the battle to Rep. Gallegly. Click on continue reading to see the press release.
There is a candidates' forum coming up put together by a local "Drinking Liberally" group. Democrats will be debating in a bar! Leave some questions as comments here that the moderators can use in the debate.
On a side note this blog has some new features that I need to explain. When i first started I didn't know that categories would ever be visible by the public. So, I didn't make very descriptive titles and I didn't assign every entry a category or categories. But lately I have been making new categories and adding more to the titles. I plan to update the titles as I go along by adding party affiliation and more. But for now don't read too much into it if there is information for one office holder and not another.
The recent comments feature can make it easier to follow a conversation. On the right hand side of the front page it gives a list of the recent comments, who made them, and on what entry they were made on. If you click on the short description it will take you right to the entry. Try it.
Thanks for reading and leaving comments. Traffic continues to grow at a fast rate.
Ventura City Council Member Bill Fulton writes a blog explaining the tough choices he makes at http://fulton4ventura.blogspot.com/ .
Check it out sometime. Bill, I am very impressed with your efforts to make local government more accessible to the public.
What local politician or group would you be most interested in reading a regularly updated blog from?
I think Rep. Gallegly's blog would prove insightful. I would like his views on many of the Republican Caucus members he has worked with.
I would also like to see a blog from a member of the Simi Valley Police Department about the regular day to day stuff that they have to deal with as they keep us safe.
A local Democratic activist and college student Heather Schmidt is doing a research project for a class. Please help her out by leaving comments and answering her questions. Here is her guest entry:
Dear Bloggers of Brian Dennert Here,
The 2008 elections have drastically shown our community that the Internet is having unprecedented effects on both political knowledge and political activism. This is definitely nothing new to the regular, and even part-time, bloggers on this and other blogs.
In researching the socio-cultural and ethical aspects to this new and fast-growing trend (Internet-politicking) for a paper I am writing on Internet and politics, I would like to include some stuff on blogging. Blogging has become one of the hugest forms of online political activism, and is a phenomena in and of itself.
I am interested to hear more about how and why the bloggers on Brian Dennert Here got interested in blogging, blogging on politics and where you see blogs making the greatest impact in political campaigns (e.g. news, fundraising, gossip, etc). I appreciate your comments to these particular topics, and any other that you may feel relevant to the topic.
( This picture of Jim Dantona ( apparent candidate for State Senate CA-19 with Democratic candidate for President Bill Richardson was sent in by Laura Winchester. Laura, is that a Jim Dantona for state senate button?)
More signs are pointing to Jim Dantona ( D ) running in the CA-19 State Senate Race. On the Republican side we have Tony Strickland and maybe others. Anyone hear updates on that?
( Thanks to loyal contributer Brian Mack for another amazing photoshop. For the record Britney Spears is not currently trashing Simi Valley. Yet. Seriously, why don't those cities get their own dump? Are they too good for it? )
UPDATE FOR THE BRITNEY SPEARS FANS. THE TRASH FROM MALIBU REFERS TO THE TRASHBAG, NOT BRITNEY SPEARS. PLEASE STOP E_MAILING COMPLAINTS!
The Star has an article today about the proposed expansion of the Simi Valley landfill. The proposed expansion will continue to take trash from the surrounding region. This story will be dominating local politics and elections for a long time. Personally, I want to open a massive dump in Thousand Oaks and put all of our trash there. Maybe even a used tire lot. Who's with me? UPDATE: It is a joke. I am not in favor of turning Thousand Oaks into a dump. Here is the article from The Star. Kind of surprising that other council members ( besides Barbra Williamson) or Peter Foy weren't quoted. Maybe in the future? I don't want my city leaders to comment at the very end. I want them to be there the entire time working in public view. This a tough issue and I expect ALL city leaders to comment.
The article does mention former ( or current if he runs for State Senate) candidate Jim Dantona though.
Also, click on continue reading for more information.
This blog is devoted to the nuts and bolts of local politics.
Have some political Info you want released? Let me know! I want to publicize fundraisers, parties, Web sites, meetup.com events and anything else happening in Ventura County. So, send them to briandennert@yahoo.com.
