Ag and Rural Caucus for June
| Better Practices 6:30 pm Thursday 6 June CD 5 and north Idaho: Building parties Naida Spence, chair, Spokane County Democrats Tim Copeland, treasurer, Walla Walla County Democrats https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88689149657?pwd=R3dXbFRpYVUyeGVhb3ErTFI0QXlpZz09 Policy Briefing 6:30 pm Thursday 20 June To be determined – working on it https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85907982157?pwd=MU4vV3E3VGZ5VU02dnhvZjg2b3hKZz09 Paste link into browser. |
| Public Lands Commissioner Candidates LD 19 (southwest Washington) has invited the Ag and Rural Caucus to sit in on their Meet and Greet session with two of the candidates for Public Lands Commissioner. A third viable Democratic candidate, Patrick DePoe, appeared at an earlier session. Jaime Herrera Beutler is the principal Republican in the race. The Public Lands Commissioner oversees the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Hilary Franz, the incumbent, is running for congress. I encourage you to Zoom with our friends in LD 19 tomorrow evening. I regret I will not be able to join you. Don 3 June 2024 |
| Sticking Together Think about it a moment. Democrats in deep red districts tend to stick together. Without money or voters, we rural Democrats accept stranger bedfellows than if we enjoyed a comfortable majority. Accepting is one thing. Sticking together, though, is a higher standard, at least in the sense of building structures. We have only a couple of examples where LPO’s (counties and LD’s) are able to survive the turnover of key individuals. Institution building is demanding and most of us do not make the grade. We have even fewer examples of where local parties build reciprocal support with their neighbors, where parties reach out to share and mentor neighbors undergoing the recurrent turnover of personnel. Two examples come to mind. The north central Democrats led by Karen Keleman from Douglas County have developed extraordinary structures to coordinate with Chelan County and to elevate neighboring county parties and LD’s. The other example is LD 19 led by Amber Rosewood. Amber is lending organizational leadership to the county parties in LD 19 to help build their own capacity. Karen and Amber mark two different waystations on the road to durable party institutions. Naida Spencer of Spokane is at the starting gate. She is just beginning and has no guarantee of success. Tim Copeland of Walla Walla is right there with her. Join us Thursday to meet Naida and Tim, and to share your stories of success and failure in keeping our fragile parties moving forward. Don 3 June 2024 |
| Building Parties in CD 5 and North Idaho Naida Spencer, chair of Spokane County Democrats, is working hard to build Spokane’s capacity. She is also reaching out to CD 5 colleagues, and north Idaho Democrats as well, to get Democrats talking to each other. She has had a great start. Tim Copeland, treasurer of Walla Walla County Democrats, and Naida got their heads together after Naida saw Walla Walla’s website. Tim worked with Naida on websites and introduced Naida to Neon One, a CRM. Join Naida and Tim for a Better Practices session. Listen to them tell their story. Learn their aspirations. Encourage them. Give them ideas. Wish them success. This is what Better Practices is all about. Don 26 May 2024 |
| Summer Fun: “A Rural Democrat…” contest Identity is everything in today’s politics. And “rural” is a current favorite of political organizers. Yet the content of rural as an identity is left undefined. It is time that we, who are rural, step forward and advance a favorable image of rural. We talk about controlling policy agendas. Let’s work on owning our identity. Rural cannot be taken seriously having our own image we can wave. The identities that swirl around our political talk are artful blends of fact and imagination. We can take liberties with census data and voting habits as long as we are not too flagrant. Every dark side has silver tones if you look hard enough. This is a call to have fun with sloganeering. Email me with your suggestions for how to package the good, the honorable, the praiseworthy parts of being rural and a Democrat in Washington. Examples: “A Rural Democrat fixes things” “A Rural Democrat, where who you are is who you are” “A Rural Democrat knows who owned your house before” “A Rural Democrat celebrates Thanksgiving – with family” And so it can go. Have fun with this. I will include your suggestions in a special box in this summer’s mailings. Don 5 May 2024 |
Our Better Practices roundtable is on the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm.. Use the link above for 2024.
Our Policy Series is on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm. Use the link above for 2024.
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Our mailing address is: Ag and Rural Caucus 2921 Mud Creek Rd Waitsburg, WA 99361