Uniting The Fight For Accountability

The quotes from Bob Mulholland and John Heaner are very interesting in this story:

John Heaner, one of the author's of the resolution, said that its passage is significant because it means investigations have support not just at the grassroots level but among elected California leaders.

"The state party doesn't act unilaterally on these sorts of things. There are consultations behind the scenes," said Heaner. "At some level there was a go-ahead given."

Heaner noted that the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is a California Democrat and that her daughter Christine Pelosi is an active member of the state party and head of the platform committee. "Yes, it was a grassroots effort but we are united in a way that hasn't come to the surface yet," he said. "When a resolution comes in that may be controversial, we work carefully within the party mechanism." [...]

Impeachment hearings would begin in the House Judiciary Committee, where chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) has vowed to look into the role that Bush administration attorneys such as Bybee played in illegally authorizing torture. The state party's action is meant to encourage those hearings and demonstrate that support for investigations is a mainstream Democratic Party position.

"This is a message to them: 'Hey, we're backing you up, Congress, so continue the investigations and the hearings,'" said Mulholland. "I would think an overwhelming number of Democratic voters in California would agree with this."

Be sure to make the calls and emails to push the House Judiciary Committee to open hearings.

San Jose - Superdelegate Ground Zero?

Everybody should get out their Bob Mulholland novelty masks, just for the party access possibilities:

The road to the Democratic National Convention in Denver may go through San Jose.

The state Democratic Party is holding its annual meeting here the final weekend in March, and party officials are awaiting word on whether Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will accept invitations to appear.

Why would the dueling Democrats come when Pennsylvania holds the next crucial primary April 22?

One word: superdelegates. And perhaps a chance to throw in a megabuck fundraiser or two.

"There will more politicking going on at this convention than in decades," predicted Bob Mulholland, adviser to the state party. Mulholland would know. He's one of about 20 uncommitted superdelegates in California whom the campaigns are heavily wooing in their quest to secure their party's nomination.

The convention is right in the sweet spot, a few weeks before Pennsylvania. And the fundraising opportunities in the Bay Area are numerous. I don't think there's any question that Obama and Clinton will be on hand. But will there be chocolate fountain parties for uncommitted superdelegates only?

A Turning Point For The Progressive Movement in California

Here we see California Democratic Party strategist Bob Mulholland acting like a four year-old because he feels the grip of power slipping away.



Julia Rosen has the full story on this at Crooks and Liars. Much ink has been spilled from the results of the executive board meeting and the squashing of the censure resolution of Dianne Feinstein, but the bottom line is this. That meeting will be remembered as the moment when the grassroots rose to prominence in California. It will be remembered as the moment that Courage Campaign became the MoveOn.org of California. And it will be remembered as a turning point, the moment when the establishment that has been running the Party their way for decades finally got nervous.

Art Torres' message to the party was cleverly edited to make it look like he just spent a few minutes on the Feinstein situation. Actually, he spent about a half-hour on it, extolling the virtues of the senior Senator and pleading with the members not to go forward with condemning her. The scene in the Resolutions Committee resulted in the chairman phsyically shoving an activist for putting up a sign. That's a defensive posture, and it springs from the mentality of a leadership which chooses not to work in concert with, or even listen to, its base.

Bob Mulholland is nothing but a firewall. He was sent in to hold back the rabble, and this past weekend he did his job. That he's paid by the rank and file of the party to ensure that their voices aren't heard is certainly perverse, but the bigger problem is who's paying him. Last weekend's events did change the conversation. The Party leadership has two options. They can listen to the concerns of the rank and file, and build lines of communication to facilitate that, or they can continue this practice of stonewalling and plowing forward with their own agenda. The former could succeed; the latter is destined to fail.