PUC's Voice Newsletter - April 2004

Calling All Democrats
By Rev. Marsha Tomlinson
CA State Chair/ Pacific Regional Director

Attention all supporters of Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman and John Edwards: We Democrats need you to elect John Kerry this fall. Here are just a few things you can do:

Join your local Kerry 2004 Meetup. Bring your knowledge and experience in grassroots organizing to the next Kerry 2004 Meetup. Your work through local Meetups are important to John Kerry's victory this fall. We will win this election one community at a time, one vote at a time, and Meetups can really help.
Visit www.JohnKerry.com. Learn more about John Kerry, his stands on the issues, and how you can get more involved in his campaign.
Get involved with your local Democratic party. Help organize local outreach events and voter registration drives.
Reach out to friends and family. Talk to everyone you know about the importance of this fall's election, and invite them to get involved with you.

Let’s elect John Kerry this November and make America an even better, safer, stronger, and more prosperous nation. We also need to change to composition of Congress, so support local Democrats and let’s take back our country from the extremists!

Here’s an example of the immediate need for Democrats to take action against the Bush administration:

Journalist Bob Woodward has revealed that President Bush has a secret deal with the Saudi royal family to influence the November election by manipulating gas prices: "According to Prince Bandar, the Saudis hoped to fine-tune oil prices over 10 months to prime the economy for 2004. What was key, Bandar knew, were the economic conditions before a presidential election, not at the moment of the election." [Plan of Attack, p. 324]

Once again we see that President Bush and the Republicans will say or do anything to win the election in November — even strike secret deals with foreign governments. Bush also revealed secret Iraq war plans to the Saudi government before he told his own Secretary of State.

Kick ‘em out! Vote Democratic!

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Swing State Nation
By Robert Curriden
SC PUC Chair

Turn on the television. Go ahead, anywhere in the United State turn on the TV, and watch it for say about a half an hour or so. What is the one thing you’ll notice, at an increasing rate as we approach November, to beat the money spending limits that come into effect when their party conventions occur this summer? Ads, dozens of them, back to back, each speaking of the moral fiber and campaign promises of all sorts of local politicians.

Except if you live in 17 or 18 States of our Union, you get preferential treatment in the media blitz, which is expected to cost upwards of 600 million dollars before the dust settles in the 2004 Presidential Elections. These 18, which are often called Swing or Battleground States, meet two very important criteria for Mr Bush and Mr Kerry; these states are considered to be undecided, and usually have large numbers of electoral votes, though there are exceptions. Thus far, Bush's re-election ads have run at least 35,000 times, mostly in 18 competitive states but also nationally on some cable networks, while Kerry's ads have appeared more than 12,000 times in 17 states, according to TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, a Virginia-based nonpartisan organization that tracks ads. Commercials by liberal interest groups have run thousands of times as well (1). Now I’m sure that both candidates would say that every citizen of the US was important, and needed to vote, but in looking at the breakdown of the Electoral College, and where they are spending their money, well, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Most of the politically savvy of our nation are aware of the existence of the Electoral College, but very few understand how it truly works. Due to how Electoral Votes work, it is possible for Presidential Candidates to ignore entire sections of our country, and only aim at those states that will win them the election in the Electoral College, regardless of how the popular vote turns out. Using the 2000 Elections as an example, the Electoral Votes broke down as follows, courtesy of the Washington Post:

Obviously, for those who live in Maine, or North Dakota, even if their entire state voted the same way, they would still only amount to 3 or 4 votes, respectively out of 537, or about a half a percentage point of the entire vote whereas a state like New York, which has 33 Electoral votes, amounting to 6 percent of the vote, or California, which carries about 5.5 percent of the vote with it’s 30 Electoral Votes. The net result of this is that in those state which are swing states, especially those with larger populations and whose electoral votes are not unusually divided according to the popular vote, large segments of the populations whose candidate did not with the state, lose their voice in the election by having their states votes count towards the winning candidate.

And our candidates are very well aware of this. Between March 3rd and March 14th of 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign spent over $8,197,514 on 8,071 campaign ads in AR, AZ, CA, FL, IA, ME, MI, MN, MO, NH, NM, NV, OH, OR, PA, WA, WI, WV, as well as on National Cable, and the Kerry campaign spent over $310,137 on 415 campaign ads in AR, AZ, FL, IA, ME, MI, MN, MO, NH, NM, NV, OH, OR, PA, WI, and WV (1). The thing to notice in both of these lists outside of the extreme amounts spent is that the lists of states are nearly identical barring a few assaults on Kerry camps by the Bush-Cheney campaign! Needless to say, our candidates are well aware of where the fight over this election will be fought.

So where does this leave us, both within PUC and without?

In states not on those lists, we need to get out the vote anyway, and make the opposition, which at least within the Pagan Community should be on a basis of track record of religious tolerance, work for the electoral votes of that state, and make our voices heard.

For those of us who live in Swing States, our job becomes doubly important. Not only do we need to get out our own votes, and fight for our state, but we need to encourage everyone we know to do the same. Sadly, according to studies conducted by George Mason University (3) just 54% of the eligible voting population turned out for the last Presidential election, and on Election Day of 2002, the last date that data is readily available on a national level, barely 39% of those who could have, bothered to vote. There is a huge potential out there to be tapped, if only we can get everyone we know out there to do their sacred duty to Lady Liberty, and vote!

When we go out to do our work on the So Vote It Be Campaign, and work our various voter registration drives, especially in the drive we are all working on to honor the work of Shirley Davis, we need to remember what we are fighting for and we need to remember exactly how the arena we are in works. Those ads we are all getting sick of seeing every time we turn on the TV need to send a warning out to us, and motivate us to get more and more of our community out to the polls in November, and make our voices heard. So Vote It Be!

Sources:

1. AP News feed for Centredaily.com http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/special_packages/election2004/8453302.htm

2. Disinfopedia http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=U.S._presidential_election%2C_2004:_Campaign_Ads

3. George Mason University United States Elections Project http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm

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Welcome to Puerto Rico Politics 101
Rosa M. Vicente Velázquez
Puerto Rico -PUC territory chair

In the Caribbean Island of Puerto Rico the major debate is
Politics. Every day in the media we hear about the campaigns that
our politicians embark and how they treat the campaigns only to
attain power. This past year our days were spent seeing and hearing
how corruption takes away the opportunities of my people to move
forward, to progress. But the people can be like those monkey
statues of see no evil, hear no evil or even speak of it.

There is a song by a rock band called La Secta all-star in one of
the songs it says: "Every one wants to govern, our minds control,
In the Grand Throne wants to seat, to Destroy the others works;
Todos quieren gobernar nuestras mentes cotrolar en su gran trono se
quieren sentar para lo que hizo el otro destrozar".

The reality of Puerto Rico is there are three sides to it all
and to their political parties. And they really enjoy the bashing of
each other.

For example the PNP (Partido Nuevo Progresista) the candidate is
Dr. Pedro Rosello, ex governor of Puerto Rico, during his
administration most cases of corruption happened in each department
of the government offices. He always responded in this manner to
accusations: "I didn't know what's going on with them, I don't have
nothing to do or say."

The other party which is the democratic party the PPD (Partido
Popular Democrático) the candidate running is Commissioner Noun
Resident in the Congress of United States Aníbal Acevedo Vila. One
of the issues coming out to light with this person is that he
recently returned $20,000 that he put in his personal bank account.

And finally the PIP (Partido Independentista) This is the
independent party. Wanting for PR to become independent from the
USA. And at this moment they are not running any campaigns for Rubén
Berríos which has been the leader of this party.

The elections in November of the President of United States
don't affect us directly because we don't have the right to vote for
any of the candidate. We are only a commonwealth and territory,
with a democratic system, but we have nothing to do with the
elections of the New President of United States of America.

The status in Puerto Rico of the Pagan Community is coming
together to protect our rights. The factor of who is running for
President, or governs Puerto Rico does not affect the plan of
uniting the Pagan community of Puerto Rico.

April 2004

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Calling All Democrats

Swing State Nation

Puerto Rico Politics

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