Christopher Arellano and Yosi Sergant both gained 61 votes in the 31st Congressional District Obama Caucus and the tie was broken by a coin toss.
Congratulations Chris Arellano the winner of the coin toss. I believe there were 167 total votes and John Gallogly showed a strong third place finish.
Well, Day 1 of the California Democratic Party convention is pretty much wrapping up at this point, well, save for the hospitality suites. The caucuses went pretty much as you would expect them. Steve Westly was at the computer caucus, Karen Bass made an appearance as the Speaker-elect in the Progressive Caucus, and Carole Migden was pretty much everywhere with two people with signs following her everywhere. It was all rather royal entrance-ish (Disclosure: I do some work for Mark Leno).
The progressive caucus recapped all of the committee work for the past few months. The election integrity is working hard to have the back of Secretary of State Debra Bowen as she fights for elections we can trust. Marci Winograd discussed the massive prison bond package, and the subject of Bob Mulholland came up again. In fact, the ProgCauc passed a resolution urging the party to distribute a list of alternate press contacts, including several members of the ProgCauc’s board.
Mulholland must be loving life. I think for Mulholland, every time somebody talks about him, he grows another fraction of a millimeter. And if nobody talks about him? He slowly shrinks in his own eyes. Yup, Bob does the job of attracting fire, and he’s pretty darn efficient at the task.
Other topics at the ProgCauc included education, the war (of course) and the normal litany of bills and legislators. Dave Jones talked about a new healthcare bill, which Shiela Kuehl called the “2nd most important healthcare bill”. Not bad praise, really.
I stopped by the Youth Panel, although, at least one of the presenters didn’t get a chance to talk. But, I learned some interesting facts, like Asian-American youth are now going, in vast numbers, to Democrats. Over 45% are registered Dems, while only 16% are Republicans. Or something like that. (Sorry, Claire, if I messed that up). At the LGBT caucus, we saw several LGBT candidates and electeds. Some are either termed out, or otherwise not returning. It should be interesting to see how many LGBT officials we have next year to continue the fight for full equality and civil rights. I’m hoping that the marriage fight will already be concluded by the time these new officials get sworn into office, though.
Enjoy the video of the rally cries. Even 2 months after the election, a few people still have lungs to scream “Yes We Can” and “Hill-a-ry.” Good times. Save some of those lungs for the general, my friends. And for yelling “NO ON 98!”
I’ve been following the wildfires here in Southern California on TV and online since early Sunday morning. Many friends and colleagues displaced, or about to be. Many fires in many different parts of the state, I can’t recall this many separate blazes all at once for a long time. Link to NASA images of the wildfires from space.
More resources: San Diego Union Tribune fire blog, LA area fires with google maps, SD fires with google maps, KPBS on twitter, Red Cross “Safe and Well” list.
Emese G. says,
The link is to an interactive map of the San Diego Fires and evacuation areas from Google. It’s surprising to see emergency web sites go down when they’re needed the most. The county’s emergency web site has been on and off for the last day now. KPBS and Channel 8 News have kept up by limiting their pages to essential information. KPBS even has a twitter, On the other hand, the Union Tribune’s site keeps going offline and is unreliable. Craig’slist has people offering to help including offering up their homes for pets and people.
(Thanks, Yannick Rendu, Jed, Michael McCarty and others) Below: Photo of LACD Fire Camp 9 taken from Kagel Mountain with the Buckweed Fire in the background, by Michael McCarty.
