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Last Meeting for Spring 08!

Thu, 01 May 2008 20:35:26 GMT

April 30, 2008 was our elections meeting, therefore no minutes were taken, just vote tallies. They are as follows:

University Democrats’ Elections for the Fall 2008 Semester

April 30, 2008 8:00 p.m.

Events Amendment

For: 48
Against: 28
Abstain: 11

Voting Amendment

For: 58

Against: 18

Abstain: 12

Webmaster Amendment

For: 31

Against: 45

Abstain: 12

President

Andrew Kirk: 29
Zack C. Hall: 41

Alex Ferraro: 22

Presidential Runoff

Andrew Kirk: 38

Zack C. Hall: 52

VP
Jimmy Talarico: 62

Alex Ferraro: 22

Abstain: 2

PR Director

Andy Jones: Voice acclimation

Secretary

Michael Hurta: 10

Brittany McAllister: 59

Ballot to Suspend the rules

Yes- 20

No-21

Treasurer

Laura Bloomer: 35

Gene Vela: 16

Kendric Hornsby: 8

Michael: 2

Abstain: 6

Events Chair

Jasmine Blake: 25

Emma Vernon: 33

Abstain: 4

Volunteer Coordinator

Megan Forbes: 25

Thaddeus Woody: 35

Abstain: 3

Historian

Jess Faerman: 22

Kendric Hornsby: 2

Megan Forbes: 30

Abstain: 9 (**Note that all of these were absentee ballots, thus no runoff was necessary)

Eleventh General Meeting

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:54:46 GMT

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 8:00 p.m.

Definitely definitely pay your dues!

Dining with Dems was awesome!

Laura Morrison on campus phonebanking! The sign up sheets are up front- doing it in Parlin 208 from 5:30-8. It’s looking really close in the polls!

Congrats Seniors! Nick Chu! Thanks to everyone who’s out here and still a part of UDems. Nick never thought he would make it as high as he did. We are the frontline of Travis Co. Dems. Dems depend on us. Nick has a man date from the people. Marcus Ceniceros! He had a fun time being president during 04 with Kerry. He’s really excited that all of ya’ll will get to experience this next year with Obama or Clinton. He came to the first meeting and KNEW this was where you could actually make change. Treat it with respect. Seriously grandpa? There are so many people who want to be involved and don’t know how and they are going to come to this meeting and try to figure it out. Laura Hernandez! She couldn’t have done it without her officers. We’ll carry on the tradition. We need more minorities and more women leadership.

Block walking! APC endorsed city candidates. Jimmy doesn’t have clip boards either. The gas crisis has probably contributed to a shortage of clip boards. The two endorsed ones that really need our help our Lee Leffingwell and Laura Morrison within APC. THE RETURN OF UDEMS AND APC! The numbers are really close….

Picnic Auction- Eastwoods Park off Dean Keeton- Emma & Jasmine will make desert. Half of the people make picnic baskets and the other will buy them. That sounded kind of pedophile like?

PAC presentation: Andrew, treasurer. We did a lot of work this spring supporting candidate because that’s what we do. Our spending is approaching the $500 mark that the Texas Ethics Committee says we can’t spend more than to influence elections. The fall is a big opportunity to influence elections and something needs to change with our expenditures. Our spending for the fall- we’ll be working with the coordinated campaign and the TDP and things like that… He’s proposing a summer committee/task force where we all have input and look into it. We’ll look into the pros cons and propose a solution we can take in the fall. There’s a 60 day moratorium on the PAC process so that’s why we’re talking about that now. We can’t take any action unless we manage oru resources.

Member of the week is Emma! On Saturday Jimmy, Zack, Marcus and Jasmine hung out with Jimmy’s dad. Emma spent 15 hrs. painting our A-Frames! She risked her life for UDems this weekend.

This took us five days to finish and a lot of money. It’s in the West Mall. The little one will go on Speedway so the freshman will get sucked into Udems

Nominations:

Pres: Zack C. Hall, Alex Ferraro, Andrew Kirk

VP: Jimmy Talarico

PR: Andy Jones

Secretary: Brittany McAllister, Michael Hurta

Treasurer: Gene Vela, Laura Bloomer

Events Chair: Jasmine Blake, Emma Vernon

Volunteer Coordinator: Thaddeus Woody, Megan Forbes

Historian: Jess Faerman, Kendric Hornsby

*Emeritus: Marcus Ceniceros, Nick Chu, and Bruce Elfant*

Ben Trotter 4 Life!

I need your email address and phone number!

We’ll go through the offices in that order 3 minutes, 2 minutes, then 1 minute for everything PR and down. The period of time for questions is one minute each per candidate.

Absentee Ballots: nothing short of grandmother’s death will be accepted. Test, Ta’s session, Kanye West concert will be accepted. Send them to secretary@udems.org and webmaster@udems.org by 7:00 Wednesday with your reason for not being there

Amendments:

T.Bray: Amendment to allow people to vote if they hadn’t paid their dues a week ahead if they were a member the semester before.

Jamie Upham: Webmaster should return to the officer ship position.

We are going to vote to endorse CDA president next week! (Katie Naranjo is running!)

Marcus: This Monday is the first day of early voting. At 11:45 a.m. we will be voting with Randi Shade and she’ll be having a rally.

Jessica Garcia: All activist groups invited to a meeting Monday night at 6 p.m. in Mezes, to form a support group within the activist organizations.

Ray: Volunteer Trip in May to New Orleans. Working with St. Bernard project. Cost is $80. May 19-24. Work in the day and party at night!

Garrett: Texas Freedom Network’s movie screening “The Education of Shelby Knox” from Lubbock, TX who was a Southern Baptist girl. A lot of her friends were getting pregnant and getting STD’s. Tuesday, April 29, 2008 4-6 p.m. Shelby Knox will be there! Free pizza! A lot of other orgs. Are cohosting it. Texas Freedom Network summer internship- they work to fight the religious right! Paid phone banking Monday night! tfn.org

Gene: Coordinating phone bank for Jerry Garcia, our endorsed candidate for AISD: An hour and a half phone bank trying to do it in MEZ 1.306 before our mtg. Block walking both Saturdays from 10-12, come see Gene

Sanchir: Randi Shade! Phone banks Sunday-Thursday.

Chris Billock- Grassroots Campaign- He’s got a lot of stuff in his bag. Hiring full time and part time. Hiring seniors to direct canvassing offices for the summer. Canvass for the dem party. Tobias is a student here- he’s going GC.

Mark Mark Mark! He is seconding what Jimmy said about the APC blockwalking. The Austin Chronicle called APC the Rolls Royce of grassroots campaigning!

Michael Hurta- intern for Rick Noriega for US Senate- looking for more interns for the summer- in all major cities in Texas. 10 week commitments for a min. of 20 hrs. a week. Contact ryan gigs at ryan@ricknoriega.com or talk to him after the mtg. today

Jasmine- Katie has been in UDems for 10,000 yrs. She’s currently pres of TCD and is running for CDA pres.

Tenth General Meeting

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:06:24 GMT

Tenth General Meeting, Wednesday, April 16^th, 8:00 p.m.

Larry Joe Doherty! Inviting us to participate in kicking some Republican hind end in November! We want to see Mike McCaul fall in the fall! His office is at 3563 Far West Blvd. 512-345-5277 right off the Far West Shuttle. Field Director is Marco Mancila! They will stay here to sign anyone up who wants to work as a volunteer on the campaign. He’ll find something for everyone to do! 160 miles of asphalt to cover- Tom Delay’s fault. Help him help undo Tom Delay. We’ll make a change together and he appreciates us.

Dues! They’re five dollars. Pay your dues, give up Tiff’s Treats.

This week’s member of the week is Katie Naranjo. Running for CDA president!

New TCD Officers- Tory Lauterbach- Vice President, Andy Jones- Communication Director, Jasmine Blake- Secretary!

Volunteering! Sunday we’re volunteering for Randi Shade at Noon on Sunday- Meet at Littlefield Fountain at Noon! Sign-Up!

TCD and other organizations are sponsoring trips to Baton Rouge! They’ll pay for your gas and all of this stuff- block walking and canvassing. Please come see Tory at the end of the meeting.

This Sunday we’ll meet and make A-Frames at 2 p.m. at Ben’s 32^nd and Grooms! It will GOTV! Meet at 1:45 outside of Littlefield Fountain.

Dining with Dems!

Senior Gifts: Ashley Boggs, Kurt Neumann, Marcus Ceniceros, Nick Chu, Alex Hunt, Nathan Friedman, Laura Hernandez

Jimmy only wanted to talk about white supremacy at Grandma’s. It upset Grandma Talarico.

Dr.Robert Jensen specializes in making grandmother’s uncomfortable and pissed off!

Campaign Academy is going on! Jimmy & KT went!

KT is speaking to this. A project started by Rep. Strama. Next Thursday is KT’s Bday party- aka Burnt Orange Report- Scholtz Garden- 16^th & San Jac- 8:00

Zack C. Hall this Sunday at 8:00 mtg. with Udems, Lation Leadership., Longhorn LULAC- talking about coordinating Voter Reg & DREAM Act

Next Friday & Saturday the 25^th & 26^th at Winedale Picnic at 7 p.m.- $5 for students- come see Jamie

Regional Conference with UDems Peace Department countering Dept. of Defense- at SMU

Gene Kelly this Friday at 4:30 at Scholtz- Jerry Garcia is having a campaign coordinating meeting

Nominations next week!

Ninth General Meeting.

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:32:46 GMT

Ninth General Meeting Wednesday, April 9, 2008 8:00 p.m.

Brittany feels awful right now, so these minutes shall reflect that.

TYD Convention! Register at http://texasyds.org

BBQ Fundraiser- Katie for CDA Pres

Andy Jones is running for Communication Director, Jasmine is running for Secretary of

Member of the Week- Nick Hudson! He will be getting his prize from Jasmine soon.

NBC is Back! 5106 Duval St.- Katie/Alex’s house- Laura doesn’t like Chit Chat during the office

Initiative 1: An issue was brought to our attention and LAURA jumped on it. Nick was a big role in bringing this to our attention. A couple of members of the Travis Co’s Sheriff’s Office- Major Darren Long, Captain Arthur Dennis are coming to speak. Attorney Nicole True & Alberto Garcia also are speaking. They will be answering our questions. Jimmy is our timer.

Initiative 2: Lauren Deanna Comm. Outreach Director for OxFam… And Nick. Speaking against/for our clothes being made in sweatshop.

This meeting is taking forever.

Counting/Caucusing

Initiative 1:

Yes- 24

No- 8

Abstain- 6

Initiative 2:

Yes- 33

No- 2

Abstain- 2

Senior Gifts- We have 7 people graduating. Senior night is April 23^rd. We’re tithing.

Garry Brown is running for SDEC 14! So is Susan Shelton!

Randi Shade says thank you. Getting this endorsement was by far the most important. If you didn’t vote for her she will make sure you are proud of our endorsement of her. This Sunday we’re doing block walking. Office is really close to campus. Office at 25^th & Longview- 12 noon on Sunday blockwalking! T Shirts, stickers, phone banking and volunteering opportunities. Suite 313.

Some of our friends from the University Leadership Initiative came out tonight. Thanks Longhorn LULAC, Longhorn Leadership Council, thanks! Secondly, Sunday, April 20^th, at Ben’s house- we’re doing an A frame making party- On this A-Frame we’re advertising UDems mtgs. & our endorsed candidates.

Ramey Ko! We love you Ramey Ko! President of Capital Area Asian American Democrats. Don’t have to be Asian to be a part. Saturday April 26^th- rackenboat festival races on Lady Bird Lake- we’ll be doing Voter Reg- May 3^rd is Asia Fest- Ramey is running for a delegate to the national convention for Obama! Went to U of Chicago and Sen. Obama was a prof their- volunteer for senate campaign in 04- founded Asian Americans for Obama nationally.

Jeremy Martin- Chair of TX Law Dems. Hosting St. Rep. Jessica Ferrar- Jim Dunham is special guest- next Weds. At TTLA- the roof top 6-8 p.m.- April 16^th. tld@law.utexas.edu

Eigth General Meeting.

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:16:31 GMT

Eighth General Meeting April 5, 2008

For you die hard readers: we had spring break and then the DA runoff debate, so there are no actual minutes from those.

Congrats Delegates!

Pay Your Dues, Pay Your Dues, Pay Your Dues, Pay Your Dues! Can’t vote in the City Council Endorsement meeting Saturday but you can for the ICE Debate next week!

Runoff Election Day! Early voting 7a-7p thru Saturday. On Election Day, Tuesday April 8^th outside Jester- we’re passing out fliers and encourage people to vote for Montford, passing around sign-up sheet.

Forty Acres Fest “Worst ways to pick a candidate booth!” From 10-4 Email events@udems.org

Issues Committee- Frankie Rodriguez & Ameya Latkar, Meetings every Tuesday at 6.

Place 4 Elections:

Cid Galindo- Maroon & Orange, 1995 founded Group Austin- City Development Organization, served on Austin City Planning Commission 2004-2007. Won Austin Firefighters, Police, EMS, Downtown Austin Alliance & Neighborhood Association. Urban Planning is his biggest deal. Within a generation, Austin’s pop. Will increase to about 3 million. (30-50 yrs.) If we’re going to care about our environment and keep growing we need someone who knows a lot about urban planning.

Laura Morrison- Project Mgr. for Lockheed Martin, UCSD grad, Cochair of Austin neighborhood plan team, Protect character and vitality of Austin neighborhoods, tackling congestion on roads, developing comprehensive growth mgmt. policy, endorsed by Austin sierra club, better Austin, Austin gay lesbian political caucus, stonewall dems, north Austin dems, south Austin dems, capital area progressive dems, caaad

Ken Vasseau- We couldn’t find a picture of him. This seat has been vacated so everybody and their grandma are trying to get in. Small scale campaign. Doesn’t have a website but does have a myspace. He’s got a few friends on there. Stop crime at Highland Mall. That’s pretty good. Issue bonds at a low rate to help fund public services. Wants to find solution to the panhandling epidemic. Look for a solution. Against converting freeways into toll ways. He didn’t friend Frankie on his myspace—yet.

Jennifer Gale- Ran for Austin ISD in the last election cycle. One three of the six campus precincts.

Sam Osemene- Recent grad of UT. Got in through GI Bill. Served in navy for many years. He is receiving his master’s in poli sci soon from here. Talks a lot about the federalists. Most of his poli experience comes from the fact that he worked on the Ron Paul campaign. Hardcore libertarian. He’s lived here a long time. Proposes relocating the ARCH away from downtown and other measures to help the homeless.

Robin Cravey- former UT student, asst. ed of Daily Texan, started Ecology in TX mag while at UT, owned and managed taxi cab service in 70’s. Went to law school in 90s. Uses a scooter and his wife uses a hybrid. Director of Austin Bar Assct. Parliamentarian in the Austin Planning Commission, Pres of Zilker Neighborhood Assct. Editor and publisher of Children’s Magazine. Affordable housing, jobs, Keeping Austin Green, focusing on the economy and helping small businesses. Comes to UDems meetings pretty often.

Yay issues committee.

Councilwoman Kim- Thanks to Laura, Katie, and Jazz helping her with the campaign. Appreciates opportunity to get to know us better. Contributes financially. Believes the opportunities we have at this time are special. When she was a student at A&M. The Aggie Dems club was really small- inspiring to come to our campus and see us being such a poli force in Travis Co & university. We had a positive energy… Made a difference. Many people she believes in this room that will be elected officials one day. Inspiring to share her experience and help us get that done. Working on issues of poverty, environment, transportation, border issues. Sometimes it’s not a glamorous job- you gotta make calls, block walk, etc. That’s the spirit of the Dem party- anyone who has a voice will be heard. That’s why she’s so proud to be a dem. Student Safety Task Force- she formed with Sheryl Coal. Jack Polmeroff of Lambda Thi Epsilon- Asian American frat- died of alcohol poisoning. Disrupted his family and frat members lives. Formed this with UTPD & APD to collaborate with Fire Dept.- Apt. Associations- to give students info about how to stay safe. She’s amazed at some of the things our peers do. Three level decks- parties where they use plastic black sheeting… who knows where the exit is if there’s a fire? Greek sororities and fraternities especially but other groups. Three Deck rule… not any higher than this. It’s an ordinance. She’s worked on Affordable Housing. Concentrate on your studies without having to worry about working another job. Being able to go to Princeton to get her Master’s in Public Affairs. She got that opportunity- now she’s giving back. Honored by this opportunity to make sure everyone has access to a good education regardless of their economic background. Making sure we have more resources to help our small businesses in Austin. The Domain- a lot of subsidies given to them by former council- now in the charter election in November to take the subsidies back. A lot of local small bus. Are upset about that. Taking customers away from 2^nd street & West Campus. In Austin we pride ourselves on small businesses- and all of the owners she just named are supporting her- including Amy’s Ice Cream. They call her and they know that she will help them right away. Your support is critical to her campaign.

Q: If re-elected, what would you like to improve on?
A: Probably the way we communicate with the citizens and share information in a timely manner. Electronic communication is not perfect. A Wal-Mart supercenter is going into a neighborhood in an abandoned mall. They found a way through our city codes and ordinances to do this- and their staff should’ve notified the neighborhood ahead of time. We can do this with the Legislative Alert system like they have at the capitol. It sounds simple; it’s not. It’s something that takes a lot of money, but she’s willing to invest in it over time.

Q: I’m a resident of WC and have been for the last year. A lot of students live in certain areas.. He’s disappointed by price of housing- skyrocketed- it’s been a struggle for students with fin aid. Read about lack of responsiveness for utilities in WC- water flooded basements in some of these buildings. Do you think the article was fair? What have you done or will you do to address these issues?

A: Packing in more people per square mile- there wasn’t sufficient planning on the utilities. She has expertise in this and knows about state procurement laws including professional services. She thinks that there was an ambitious goal to try to get more affordable housing in exchange for height. She thinks what happened there is a lesson that we need to think comprehensively about all of these things- sidewalks, roads, historic oak trees… all of these multi-faceted things. In the past 3 years we’ve had accelerated rapid growth- she never foresaw all of this growth- property values down town- 1.5 bil worth of property- will double in three years. Basically the city is running at warped speed and things are being missed. They need to take a breath and make sure they’re planning their budgets early. She’s been an advocate for this. This needs to involve the entire community. We need to have a concenus of what works for us and understand what’s expected for us.

Q: How do you validate your two methods of deciding your stance on an issue you don’t have an opinion on it? Do you decide based on your voters or yourself?

A: Both. We need to make sure our citizens understand what’s coming and what’ it’s about. In grad school she’s learned how to take a lot of info and a lot of statistics- she wants to be able to explain it to citizens that she’s served. Villa Muse deal in a film studio outside the ECJ. Sounds great thousands of jobs. Hayfield and a flood plane? They go in executive session and realize there are irreconcilable issues with this. She looks at all the info and comes to a position she’s comfortable with explaining an justifying in a way that is honest and compassionate because there are sometimes people you’re not going to please. If they are racing ahead of where the public is- they will yank them back. Recall position on the toll roads. You need to bring people along, educate them, understand what the constraints are. Rushing things can really have a backlash.

Q: What’s your position on the toll roads?
A: Voted against all TXDot Toll Roads. Trusts TXDot as far as she can throw them. They gave her info that they changed the staff’s info on the answers. Oak Hill has been waiting for 20 years to have relief to the traffic congestion- didn’t ask for three story highways- lights, noise, destroying oak roads and part of Williams creek. They wanted something more parkway to keep the more charming natural character of Oak Hill. Worked with them to scale it back- mediation involving the two sides.

Matt Glazer is in the back- he’s the field coordinator. Internships and volunteer stuff with him. Who’s Matt Glazer? He’s the shady guy in the back.

This Saturday in GEO or JGB we’ll have our endorsement meeting. There will be food and coffee at 11. We know this is right in the middle of Forty Acres. Mix it up a little bit.

Jamie and Andrew are going to show us the updated website. In case any of you have seen last semester’s website… we decided to revamp the whole thing because the old one was not updated. What is Udems? Who are our officers? News goes on here. Membership. All of the links that are on the old website are on the new one. Come to this website for the events. We’ll keep the upcoming events updated. Get in the habit of checking the website for this. Seniors: send her a bio and picture and she’ll put that on the website.

Upcoming initiatives.

Nick Hudson- 30 second spiel on ICE! The local and fed have collaborated for about 30 yrs. Really closely. The Travis Co Sheriff’s office expanded its collaborating with ICE- resulting in more deportation of immigrants and the immigrant families are being affected. Trav Co Sheriff’s office contends that its good for crime and stuff and it brings more money to the county. But the city is actually losing money on the deal.

We will have a meeting next week where we discuss the pros & cons of this issues. Local comm. Leaders will discuss why they’re for or against this and then we’ll vote on it.

Lauren works with OxFam- have officially launched their campaign to make UT Sweat-Free. Tying in to a national campaign to do this. Especially Nike- they outsource. And Nike makes millions of dollars off of our name. 41 schools are in on it. They want to be able to present this to Nike and really officially change it by next spring. We’ll make it available on the website.

Our PR Director. This is neither a Hillary nor Barack issue. He got an email from his mom- there is a shirt offered on Café Press that said I wish Hillary had married OJ. The shirt advocates domestic violence and murder. We want you to send a letter to them that says we are not buying any more merchandise from them. The message of domestic violence needs to be stopped. They’ll brand your logo and order whatever you want. If you want something made you go and get it made. There are a lot of grass roots liberal organizations.

Dr. David Jefferson Distinguished Lecture Series, Monday, 4/7 7 p.m. ACES 2.302- “Electronic Voting: How to throw an election!”

Judge Jan Breland’s sanctions hearing, old courthouse at 9 p.m. thursday

Lots and lots of outside announcements!

TYD Convention! Woooo! April 11^th-13^th convention in Austin. Strama, Dukes, Dogget- great trainings, people coming in from D.C. to help us. We want Udems to 1. Come and we’re also electing our state officers- come talk to the previous state officers. You hear what’s going on all over the state. Lots of hospitality parties afterwards. Texasyds.com Sign up, come, have fun with us. Link on udems.org. We have some people running for office within Texas College Dems- like Andy Jones. There is a registration fee for the convention- if you want to go and don’t want to pay the fee- be on the host committee- we’ll have a meeting tomorrow- we’ll have 2 or 3 meetings before next weekend- you’ll get to help run the event at the actual event. Registration is $15. Texasyds.com Right side link- 76^th annual thing- you hit it. Matt Glazer in the house will sponsor 10 people to go if you can’t afford it. If you’re on the host committee, you have to do work.

Andrew’s is really important. Udems is obviously going to the convention. So we need everyone to send their date of births to Jamie at webmaster@udems.org or treasurer@udems.org You have to be young

Marcus and some other people are doing Teach for America- domestic peace corp- when you graduate- you decide to give two yrs. Of public service anywhere across the country- you commit to teach for two years and then afterwards there is money available for grad school or to go into the public sector- partnerships with law schools and grad schools and with consulting firms- if you get accepted to work there and get extra bonuses once you come back to the firm. If you want more info- sign-up sheet teachforamerica.org Marcus is teaching first grade in Houston reading & writing. Alex Hunt is teaching middle school math. There is Houston and Rio Grande Valley in Texas that you can go to.

Jamie- is also doing senior gifts- this is the third time we’ve done this. She is raising money. If anyone wants to give her some money to fundraise for that.

Jeremy Martin- he’s a first year law student at UT- Texas Law Democrats. Wants to give an open invitation- if anyone’s interested in law school or whatever- meeting tomorrow at 6 p.m. TNH 3.142 or email president@udems.org It’ll also be on the website!

Katie is representing Rosemary Lehmberg- if you want to help on the campaign we have opportunities before Tuesday and on Tuesday- she has the signup sheet going around and you can come see her after.

Marti Bier- campaign mgr. for Randi Shade. T-shirts out in the lobby and Randi will be at Player’s for sure.

Alex offers a constitutional amendment with Nick, Marcus, Ben.

We’re fliering all day next Tuesday! And a rally Monday with Mindy.

Jimmy wants to invite everyone to Player’s-

Last announcement! Jess! She turned 21 yesterday! Party at her appt. this Saturday. Really fun our parties are amazing and they’re always talked about! Email historian@udems.org!

Seventh General Meeting

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:55:16 GMT

Laura was caucusing last night like many of you were. That’s what she said?

This is a really chill meeting!

Everyone cheers for Carolyn with Pizza?

Congrats to all of our endorsed candidates. They all worked hard, we all worked hard for them. It paid off. We tip our hats to them. Open the floor.

Dan… how about that Ron Paul?! Dan wants to thank us all. Another Democrat is another Democrat. It’s far better than the alternative. We have not seen the last of him. He owes us a huge debt. We made it fun.

Andy… Dan said everything he was going to say. It’s always disappointing to lose, but he congratulates Judge Hurley. She’ll do a fine job. He appreciates our work. Be proud of what we did, and now the real work begins in November. We need to help Valinda get re-elected.

Mindy… She’s in a run-off. When people heard she had UDems behind her, people on the campaign trail thought she’s got it. Come by headquarters anytime.

Coronado… Only countywide Democrat running against a Republican in November.

Elfant… Our support made it possible for him not to have an opponent. It’s a lot cheaper that way.

Maxey… His voice is gone. We are going to deputize everyone at the county convention. 7,000 people- we can register those 100,000 people.

KT… Has a message from Noriega. 3 mil voted in Dem. Primary. No run-off. Democratic nominee in November against John Cornyn. More dems voted in primary than republicans in midterm elections 06. More people caucused last night in the Dem primary than voted in the 04 dem primary.

McCullough… APC. He’s really proud of us.

Lipscombe… Jasmine on his behalf. He really appreciates all of the work that we did.

Sam Houston, Linda Yanez, Scott Ozmun, Karen Hueber, Richard McCain, Maria Canchola, Andy Brown also all won and couldn’t be here.

Ray- Precinct 148- Obama or Clinton supporter- we are short 15 Hillary alternates and 27 Obama alternates to be delegates. If you know anyone who wants to do this let Ray know. 700+ on campus. E-mail president@udems.org and she’ll forward it to Ray by tomorrow afternoon.

We didn’t have a member of the week last week, so we’ll have two this week: two of the most hardcore block-walkers: Doug Luippold & Laura Bloomer.

Happy Birthday Zack C. Hall! He’s turning 21!

Sixth General Meeting

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:54:37 GMT

Sixth General Meeting Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Jess, take it off, take it off, take it off!

Volunteering

This weekend APC block walking, last push before election day
1:00 both Saturday & Sunday
Tuesday, March 4^th: Flyering around campus, some phone banking- place TBA, we’ll be doing it 8 a.m.-6 p.m. You can do either or.
Monday night Guerilla effort in Zack C. Hall style, vice@udems.org if you want to spread those flyers around
Phone banking with Nick was fun.

Precinct Conventions

VOTE!
Then caucus for presidential candidate. You have to vote in the primary if you want to caucus.
You can vote early or you can vote on election day at your precinct polling location
On campus students go to Jester East to vote and caucus.
All caucus locations are Election Day voting locations.
Precincts 266 or 267 West Campus, combined voting Lamar Senior Center 29^th & Lamar
Riverside precinct 420- Pleasant Hills Apt. Amkin Drive., 429- Library- 1600 Grove Blvd., 421- Country Club on E. Riverside Dr.
Look up your precinct at traviscountytax.org or on your Voter Registration Card
Caucuses start at 7:15, but be there beforehand 7:00 or earlier for parking and all the other stuff
10,000 people in West Campus- 35 parking spaces, there’s also ballroom dancing & a bridge tournament- no space to caucus inside, you’ll be caucusing outside- 2 check-in points
Precinct Chair will be the temporary convention chair, calls meeting to order, appoints a temporary secretary, election for a permanent convention chair & permanent secretary, people can’t sign in until every single person has voted at this location. Clinton & Obama campaigns are working on this to change this detail with the party.
You can sign in for anyone- including Kucinich who isn’t on the ballot. After sign-in, they will figure percentages of sign in and allocate the delegates. Instructions in the packet the chair gives to you. Number of people signed in on rolls divided by delegates that can be sent on to county convention. That equals threshold for viability. The candidate crowds will caucus separately- the delegates are already set- only thing you’re deciding is number of people to go onto convention at the next level. As long as you have voted in primary, you don’t have to be present to be a delegate. If there are more people than delegate spots this time, there will be an election for that.
Encourage at various precinct caucuses, suggest that people will die if they do not go to the next level. And fill in it that way. Otherwise there’ll be a massive election that keeps everyone there until midnight.
Debate of resolutions- packet of them that come to each precinct- debate those and vote on approval of them- you don’t have to stick around for this if you don’t want to.
One most important thing that determines the benefit for your candidate for president: SIGNING IN AT THE BEGINNING.
As we know in politics, showing up is half the battle. In caucus system, it is all of the battle.
Vote early, come back at 7:15, sign-in for your candidate.
It will be repeated at the county level to go to the state level- that convention is here in June.
No one is confused.

We all have been working really, really, hard. That’s what she said. We have six days left onto the primary. The candidates that we endorsed will win and we will have a party for them in their honor next semester. We are absolutely inviting out all of our endorsed candidates that Laura knows will come.

Outside Announcements:

Two door hanging projects going on: 1. Finish 25,000 APC door hangers- Ryan has done a fantastic job, we only have 5,000 or less. We have done Dan Grant & Brian Thompson’s district, but we haven’t done Hyde Park. 2. This weekend we are starting a project to go to people that didn’t vote early with a personalized door hanger, we’ll harass them with where to go. 10,000 on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and maybe Tuesday.
If you can block walk on the weekend. Talk to Jimmy. If you can block walk any other time talk to Ryan & Mark. You endorse these guys and they need your help to get elected on election day.
Dan Grant- ::clears throat:: First, he listened to KLBJ. There are some genuinely crazy people there. He’s in the presence of Mark Strama who owes a great deal of success to us. There are thousands that are working for Clinton & Obama, he just needs a few. Block-walking, door hanging, pushing literature. We are going to triple the number of people that vote in Austin alone. Targeting is out the window. We need to cast our net wider. Your individual labor really will make a difference in turning part of Austin blue. If you can spare AN hour, Dan needs it. If you’re over 21 ::clears throat::, you may be rewarded appropriately. Much like pizza, much like food, they are going to be recruiting people to go to specific points of this county, Bastrop, and Harris County. You will be compensated for your work. $100 for the day to stand and hand out APC flyers in Travis and specified ones in other places.
*We participated in a Town Hall forum with Ron Paul, YCT, and CR. We were lining up at the microphone like a bad concert. We had 51% of the time, they had 49% split up between them. Andy gave a shout out to Brittany for standing up in what she truly believes in on the radio.
Andy Hathcock- was calling voters and he called Dan Grant. Dan thought it was a robo-call. *My back is twitching.* He has a request. The day before election day, AFL-CIO puts out signs at every single precinct the day before election day. If you show up there at 11^th & Lavaca between 4-5 p.m. on Monday and have transportation to do this, it would be appreciated. David Bentliff is the contact person. And Andy’s campaign is doing block walking. Sign up with Katie. Meeting at Taco Shack on Saturday. Get in touch with her if you need a ride or anything.
Jim Coronado- the energy he sees here- he was a student on campus in 70’s during McGovern years- president of Capital City Young Democrats in ’75. The energy here matches that in those days in the anti-war years. This is a fundamental time that our energy can capture this city and this country with what we do here. It will make a big difference for years on out. He remembers when Bruce Elfant was YD president and precinct chair at Jester. The main contribution you can do for him most is the endorsement door hangers. He encourages us to spend time together because the relationships we build will benefit us now and in the future.
John Lipscombe- Jasmine on behalf of him. Tomorrow we’re going to push for phone banking after block walking. We’ll have pizza. Jasmine can drive and pick up anyone who needs her to. Events@udems.org
Glen Maxey- he would say biggest thing you can do is flyer at the FAC in the next two days and door hangers, door hangers, door hangers, and doing the awesome work that UDems can only do.
Andy Brown- Scroll Down, Vote Andy Brown! Volunteer for APC and scroll down.
Mark Strama- first of all he was proud of us last week at the debate. Laura represented us very well. What was even cooler was going home that night and turning on CNN that night when they re-broadcasted that we got ourselves the seats right in the camera angle. Two days ago he was at opening of Obama office- don’t skip school to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity, but you probably ought to skip school. But he’s afraid he created a bad storyline. But the Obama dude said they’d be fools not to skip school for this chance. Yes, Mark, I wrote this down. We’ll be excited about either nominee Short of Obama education plan: $4,000 100% Tax Credit for first $4,000 most students spend on higher education- fully refundable and attainable at time you pay for college. For some kids that will pay all of their higher education costs. Both plans call for inflation adjusting- relative to cost of higher education. There will be a box on the tax form to send in their financial aid form- there will be no second form. Mark called Kirk Watson the next day. Mark tells everyone he learned everything he knew by working for Rodney Ellis, State Senator from Houston. But as an elected official, he looks to Kirk Watson. He didn’t feel miserable for himself, he felt miserable from Obama about the Chris Matthews thing. First: Scroll down for Andy Brown. Secondly: This may come to a close soon, or this may go on all the way to the convention. This is going to be the best convention ever. Things that differentiate the candidates are so marginal. Conservatives have a war for what the party stands for. We don’t. We as a party know where we want to take the country.
Randi Shade representative, more efficient in spending, more creative and effective, sign up with him in the back.
Ben Trotter is running for Student Government. One year at large. See and vote for him.
Nick Chu and other past presidents opened an office at Dobie Mall on campus. Come there between campus to phone bank. 7:30 doors open for Obama’s town hall meeting. There is a student rally with surrogates- OC guy and some other ‘celeb’ at the office. We’ll be flyering and dorm storming all of UT at 11:00 p.m. Two paid internships available. Talk to Ben. Something about bringing them to the water and Dan Grant will make them drink.
Kate Morrow- former UD, now working with Hillary campaign. We have an Austin headquarters at old Kinky office, on Ben White. We have phone banking, surrogates, and the Clinton’s coming. They can provide rides also.

Fifth General Meeting

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:53:56 GMT

Fifth General Meeting

We’re pretty excited and tired. At the same time.

Where is Laura’s PR?

Let him just say- this was his first Voterama, and he doesn’t think we can top this. We had the four local stations came eight times. Plus Dan Rather reports. Glen saw us 9 times on MSNBC- And there was a Glen Maxey sign.

Fruits of our labor, via Television. News 8 Austin loves us.

Tabling… Tom Abram from ABC 13 Houston is coming at 11:30, so please table. We table everyday from 10-2 on the West Mall. If you table you can get points toward Dining with Democrats and Member of the Week. We’ll be passing out APC & UDems Endorsement flyers to people going into FAC to vote to make sure they vote for the right Democrat.

Volunteering 1 p.m. Sat & Sun, have 25,000 door hangers to pass out, we will be block-walking

Treasurer, you’re up. It’s good to see a lot of new faces; but that just means we want you to become an actual member, dues are $5. We really want you to join!

Debate Screening Party, hosted by us and the Senate of College Councils, Texas Union Ballroom, doors open at 5:30 p.m., 1000 capacity

Debate!!!
Hillary- Andy Jones & Jimmy Talarico, Barack- Nick Chu & Zack Hall

Hillary Opening- They are also fans of Obama. They think she’ll make the best president- her personal strength, her unique experience, gives her the ability to handle the problems she’ll face in the Oval Office. Experience has been talked about a lot in this campaign, but everyday she got to witness the workings of Bill Clinton’s tenure. Anyone will tell you they are an excellent governing campaign. Her abilities also helped her get into the Senate; a lot of Republicans were surprised at her abilities to get healthcare for children and soldiers. People don’t need to hope, they need to know that people can bring our troops home, and fix our economy.

Barack Opening- Barack is the change this country needs and we as students need to recognize that. We need to look at the problems that this nation faces because of the bad policies of the Bush administration. Education is more expensive, Oil is more expensive, and people cannot afford their homes anymore. 45 million people are without healthcare. The politics of the past have not helped. We need the candidate who’s going to forget the divisive politics of the past, we need a candidate who did not vote for the Iraq war. Obama’s someone who has worked for students, and as students we need to get out there and work hard for someone who has worked for us and will continue to do so.

Obama- You say that the Clinton administration was able to accomplish a lot of thigns. Why do you think Sen. Clinton was not able to deliver healthcare, why was it not able to perform in the 1990s?

We can’t deny it’s unsuccessful, but now she has learned from those mistakes. She was just the first lady then and it was hard to push legislation, now she will be the president and it will be easier. She’s pushed healthcare benefits for wounded soldiers that come back from overseas. If you start with a small program, putting it through the Republicans in congress will get you a tiny program. But if you say that we need universal healthcare now, we’ll start with a great program and end up with something better.

Hillary is divisive and won’t be able to bring back the change that they say she can bring healthcare. 47% of America doesn’t like Hillary. Obama can bridge the gap between Republicans & Democrats. He has been pushing legislative policies since his days in the State House, since his days in the Senate, and as a community director.

These ideas of unity are great and they need to happen, but when these politicians get to office they lack the ability to do the duties of our chief executive.

Clinton- Change is a popular word in this campaign. Change is just a verb without any nouns or subjects in the sentence. Tell us what are we changing from or what we’re changing to.

We’re changing from a divisive politics of the past that does not get healthcare reform or tax cuts for poor, instead it gets a divisive congress- it gets us Newt Gingrich & the Republican party with more power. Obama has the ability to bring together independents and even a few Republicans. There’s a reason he was down in the polls this time last year and now he’s up. Because the more people that hear about him. Instead we’ll have a working majority of Independents, Moderate Republicans, and Democrats. To get healthcare reform that covers all of America, to make college more affordable, finally. But with Hillary as president we can get a lot of those things, but we can’t get read of the divisive politics. We see Hillarycare happening all over again. It’s time that we start a new Democratic Party- the one of JFK, not of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton.

The glue that holds us all up again is experience. Newt Gingrich had no experience on the national stage with pushing legislation through. If we have someone who knows how to handle politics on a national level, it will help. George Bush didn’t. Barack Obama doesn’t. We have a failed immigration, healthcare, education system.

Experience is important to push national agendas through. But what type of experience? Making sure you check your intelligence, knowing where the sources are coming from, and using sound judgment. Do you vote against a war or vote for a war proposed by a president who had already deceived us?

Frankie- Republican candidate who has served 22 yrs in the navy, 5 years as a POW, senate career dating back to 80’s. How does her experience tack up against his?

She revolutionized the healthcare system in one of the most rural and poorest states in the country. She has just as much experience helping real people. Her base of support has been poor, uneducated people. She doesn’t talk about vague issues like change and hope- she talks about recession, healthcare, and education. The only reason Clintons are divisive is because they win. If Barack Obama wins, it will be the same thing. He has yet to say how he was going to bridge the divide on abortions, gay rights, and separation of church and state.

Hope is not just words. It’s something that makes people march in the streets. Someone who worked on the Wal-Mart board does not bring me hope. Let’s look at his experience in the U.S. Senate. Clinton campaign keeps saying he has no experience: his first education bill was to increase Pell grants- it passed, he has pushed healthcare reform- vetoed by Bush, in Illinois legislature he did the same thing, pushing toward healthcare reform. On environment- he has worked in senate to make ethanol more available and give incentives to companies to use it and start giving incentives to more automobile companies to use it. On nuclear proliferation, he has worked to stop foreign countries. He did not vote for the war in Iraq. We need a candidate that never supported this war in the first place, and Hillary is not the one.

Assuming that Hillary wins, Texas is 5 seats away from taking majority of House, Texas has a huge conservative base- the people who are conservative have a negative opinion of Clinton. How does Clinton not hurt the Texas House races?

Hillary has more negatives but that’s because she has been around for a long time, and Obama’s been around for about 5 minutes. As soon as the Republican machine goes to dig in his voting record, they’ll find more. It’s not right, but to have this idealistic view that Obama is going to be immune from attacks, is naïve. The idea that we catch the tailcoats of the presidential candidate is a little flawed.

The reality is that there are new voters energized by Barack Obama.

We are so close to losing that, we are so close to losing this. That sounds like the politics of fear, of George W. Bush.

We’re talking about revolutionary change. Tell me what revolutionary change he’s brought and what history he has bringing national change to the country?

People are saying he inspires me, he is going to get rid of divisive politics of the past, and that’s why we vote for him. We’re excited. The way he changed lives in Chicago as a community worker, the things he did in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has been a leader for this country. What is this man going to do for us? He’s going to get healthcare for all people, fix NCLB, fix our schools, make funding more equalized in education system so that everyone has the opportunity to move forward, he will fix the housing crisis. We worry that Hillary motivates Republicans to vote.

These are great things that we’re promising, but they’re worried that his greatest accomplishment is him promising that. He’s not comfortable trusting this one chance to win the White House with someone who has not had experience. It was not politically courageous of him to vote for him against the war because he represents one of the most liberal districts in Illinois.

Change comes from wanting change, being inspired and believing that you and everyone around you can do something for the common good. He inspires the best of us, you guys.

Why are you the better candidate to beat McCain?

Mccain’s message is that he’s got experience in the senate. Look at his crowds—he does not get the crowds that Obama does. He’s old. His message clashes very well with McCain’s. I’m a Republican and I’m for the surge—and Barack’s a Democrat and against the war. Ours is the candidate that can say I never supported the war.

How does Hillary respond to the critics who say she can’t beat McCain?

Already answered that. Jimmy is responding to them. This is exactly what’s wrong with Obama campaign- people who are good people should be thrown out because they’re old. I am tired of voting for people I want to have a beer with. I want to vote for a grown-up.

Closing- Obama- In the 1930s, a governor from nowhere, who has nobody, said that there is nothing to fear but fear itself—in the 1960s there was a senator from nowhere said we choose to do things like go go the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard. There is a candidate who is liberal who makes us inspires, that said that there is nothing divisive between you and me, and let’s go and make this idea of America inclusive. Without any regard to what you did in the past, let’s come together and make sure America wins, that America is okay,.

This message was brought to you by the letter R and the number 2. Let’s talk about political courage and being a statesman/women. She represented a massive powerful state- upstate NY was in favor of the war, who better to represent the people. Roosevelt didn’t come from nowhere. Kennedy was in congress for over a decade. They were insiders, parties of the fast.

I hope that you will vote early, and down ballot. Guess what? We have a senate race, a congressional race, we have races that matter here where it counts. The presidential race is not the only important race in this primary.

Shout out to our volunteers! We chose 12 people- most upstanding UDems members- the ones who really stick it hard where it counts. Ohhhh. She has heard nothing but good things from CNN and they want us to come back for more. Ohhhh.

We had separate University Democrats endorsements in some races from APC endorsements.

Ryan Giggs is our APC coordinator. Three things: Volunteer to blockwalk this weekend or any other time that you have. Get in contact with UDems officers. Find out how to put these door hangers on doors. If you live in one of those big apartment complexes, please get in contact with Ryan, because we need door hangers on the doors. Leave here with a stack of these yellow flyers- hand them to your friends, etcetera. You need this flyers, you need to help us blockwalk.

There is a visibility rally for Hillary going on outside Gregory. There will be TV cameras there and a lot of fun. If you’re interested or been swayed by Jimmy’s beautiful oratory, come talk to him. Hillary Clinton website, info about tomorrow’s event.

Obama sends staffers to colleges all over Texas. Alex from national office. Precinct captain things coming soon.

Marcus would like to have all 5 past presidents stand up. As past UDems presidents, we issued an endorsement and it’s making waves all over the blogs.

Karyl Anderson Krug: Board certified in criminal law. Second woman ever to be appointed to…

Glen Maxey has official numbers: Since November, 47,000 people have registered to vote in Travis County- new. 38% are under the age of 25. 28% are under the age of 35. Since January, 33,000 registered. Final week, Monday and stuff, 13,000 people in last two days. Campus precinct has 2,600 brand new people, 4,315 active voters, 2,870 suspense voters. Precinct 266- West Campus, 1,200 since September, 3,000 active, 1,800 suspense. 28,000 students registered to vote! Young people will cast at least 25% of the vote in Travis County.

KT- 713 votes were cast today, 750 yesterday, yesterday alone more voters were cast on campus than in the entire 2006 early vote period. We are approaching by tomorrow, there will be more votes cast than in the 2004 primary in three days. Half the level of the general election is what we’re out. Harris County in 2004, there were less than 1,000 votes in the first day. Yesterday, there were over 9,000 votes. Every single county in the state is at or breaking records in early voting. We are looking at the highest voter turnout in the history of the Democratic Party in Texas if everything keeps going at the same level.

TrueBlueAction.Com to get a ballot to vote by mail.

Jennifer Kim’s rep- Paige, she has been really sick for a couple weeks. She got her doorhanger. We rock. We want this energy to continue with City Council.

Mark MCCollough- Do the damn door hangers. It’s the most important thing.

Marcus representing Randi Shade, running against Jennifer Kim. Randishade.com

Fourth Meeting.

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:05:03 GMT

Fourth General Meeting February 6, 2008

Hello everyone! She is Laura; she is exhausted.

Recap of past events

Guerilla Voter Registration

1. Zack got his permission from the Voter Rights Act of 1964

2. They got 10 UDem-ers to San Jacinto and did Guerilla registration with code names

3. Illegally put cards under all the doors of San Jac, Evelyn told them no

Bonanza Blockwalking

1. Blockwalked Longhorn Landing

2. Most of the Commons on Riverside

International Students Forum

1. Presentation for International Students to explain American political process

2. Differences between two main parties

3. They repped UDems, Three guys from CR

4. Their countries’ ways are much different, so they got to see our political process

5. Frankie met an Iraqi student whose family back home is paying a lot of attention to our process

Democracy Bowl

1. Jesse Jackson v. Al Sharpton team

2. We had some injuries (Marcus)

3. Randi Shade came and brought her son who’s really cute

4. Democracy Bowl II coming soon… about two weeks from this Saturday

Monday Marathon

1. We registered 2,000 voters, total 4,500 across Austin

2. Barack Obama came. He was just walking the drag.

3. We showed a video of the last registered voter (YouTube It!)

4. This guy went to WholeFoods but they were closed so he googled on his phone where another table was and then came to us

5. Registrars of the Week: (Thursday-Monday contest) 2^nd place winner w/ 65 registered voters: Thaddeus Woody, 1^st place winner w/ 250 registered voters: Emma Vernon

Super Tuesday

1. We were in Kinsolving watching the results

2. Good Times?

3. Alex is apparently Andy Jones, you’ll see that as well.

4. We showed a video from News Channel 8 & Austin American Statesman http://www.statesman.com/news/mplayer/news/61747 & http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=199707

5. Katie Naranjo is going to make a shirt that says Ferraro speaks for me.

6. Actually, Andy speaks for him.

7. Laura hopes everyone doesn’t think she looks 10 lbs. heavier like Jimmy… or was that Wes…

Dues & Buttons & Shirts

1. T-Shirts are $10

2. Dues are $5

3. Buttons are $2

4. See Andrew after the meeting

Volunteering

1. Two Events for Andy Hathcock

2. One is Saturday at noon, blockwalking, meet at Littlefield Fountain

3. One is phone-banking at 6 p.m., meeting in Issues committee room, bring your cell phones to use for this

4. Food on both events

Speaker: Chris Elliot, Outgoing Travis County Democratic Party Chair

1. As a testament to how much he thinks of UDems… he’s got a trial starting on Monday but he agreed to come

2. He can’t say enough about UDems and what they’ve meant to him and the Travis Co. Dem. Party

3. He thinks being the Chair is being like the quarterback of a football team: if you win you get more credit than you deserve- if you lose you get more blame than you deserve

4. There are lots of Democrats in Travis County that actually care—they work and they’re passionate about it.

5. He’s the envy of every Democratic chair in the state, because he gets so much support, has two full-time staff members

6. The deck was stacked against the Democrats in 2001 with redistricting

7. Strama beat Stick & White almost beat Baxter. 146 vote difference.

8. 2004 election year—Kerry carried Travis Co. pretty much wholly

9. We won so many positions nobody thought we could win, but we took those seats back and got a ton of momentum going.

10. Back then UDems did some wonderful things. Voterama ’04.

11. Presides over County Executive Committee- made of precinct chairs in county, predecessor generally held quarterly meetings, but he called monthly meetings with so much going on, and they voted to continue those to this day.

12. Compared to all major urban counties in Texas, we have 216 precinct chairs, we have 170 filled… Why don’t we have the other 40 filled? Well, no other urban counties have even 50% filled.

13. DPI reflects what the particular Democratic strength within an area is—in the Bensen area it was 46% so people thought it would be a really hard race for Dems to win. Donna Howard and Kathy Rider were in that race. No primaries b/c it was a special election—Donna had 49% of the vote, so had to call a run-off, and she won that… “Wow, there is really something special going on there with the Democrats.” This is where he’ll say he contributed with turning Travis Co. BLUE

14. “Republicans… they print money somewhere.” What we lack in money, we make up in enthusiasm. HELL YEAH!

15. Four Republicans left in elected offices in Travis County. Paul is trying to beat one of them as constable. “Going to.”—Paul Labuda

16. Q : Obama or Hillary: OBAMA! A: His reason: He thinks both of them would be tremendous presidents… He is looking at which is most electable, He thinks Obama can attract more independents, thinks Hillary will drive more Republicans to the polls for irrational hatred for her, he thinks it will be WWIII on her from the day she gets in the office

17. Q: Do you think the momentum of the last four years has been because of the incompetence of the Bush administration? And if a Democrat gets elected do you think we’ll lose that momentum? If so, how can we keep it? A: This election is driven by people who are SO GLAD that Bush is not going to be our president, on both sides… We’ll be disappointed if our least favorite Democrat gets elected at times, so it will wane at times. All of these things we’re so passionate about now, healthcare, Iraq, etc.- we’ll get these things fun.

U.S. Senate Democratic Debate

1. Co-hosting a debate between Rick Noriega & Ray McMurrey with Keep Travis Blue

2. E-mail for anyone who wants to submit a question to debate: KABdebate@gmail.com

3. There will be a couple of live questions, but mostly e-mail them in

Outside Announcements

1. Cecil with Students for Obama- She went to Iowa for caucusing, it was the best thing she’s ever done in her life… All of that Iowa excitement is coming from Texas—opening two offices, one at Congress & 8^th, opening next week, one on campus, best way to find out about this is Students for Obama- Union- Forty Acres Room- Tuesdays at 6 p.m.

2. Katie Naranjo is a surrogate for Rosemary Lehmberg- She was impressed by how ballsy Rosemary is by sticking it to Tom Delay with Ronnie Earle. Awesome fruit salad and breakfast tacos at 9 a.m. Saturday, looking for a paid intern for TX College Dems $8/hr, 4-6 hrs. a week, talking to people that are College Dems in Texas, go see Katie

3. Alex with Capital Area Asian American Democrats- Nick Chu is receiving an award, AFL-CIO building at 5:30

4. Dan Grant is starting block-walking and phone-banking next week, Obama raised $4 million since the polls closed last night.

5. Andy Hathcock wants to reminds us that there are 13 days until early voting starts

6. Paul Labuda: Republican law officials are bad news. Let’s take back that office.

7. Laura gets a lot of e-mails from different campaigns with volunteer, intern, and job opportunities, sign the bootleg sign-up sheet and she’ll send us an e-mail

8. Marcus & Zack are in Oklahoma and they want to say they love and miss us.

9. Please come to Players, it’s totally awesome. We have lots of new members!!!

10. Jennifer Lehmberg, UT Student- she is Rosemary’s niece. She wanted to show up for her aunt- she feels like having a presence on campus is the most important thing for her campaign.

Third Meeting

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:08:49 GMT

Third General Meeting, Wednesday, January 30, 2008 8:00 p.m.

Kicking it off with Nick Chu.

Raise your hand if you were at the endorsement meeting last Saturday!
Endorsement mtg. with Central Austin Democrats + University Democrats = Austin Progessive Coalition
It may not mean a lot until you realize that we hang these door hangers with our endorsements on them at every house in Central Austin. There are a lot of doors. Like 15,000.
Endorsements Listed.
Railroad Commissioner doesn’t just deal with railroads. He also deals with oil. We found that out.

Committee Updates

Issues

1. Confirmed Ameya as Issues Co-Chair

2. 6 p.m. MEZ 2.122, Tuesdays

3. Researching Complexity of Primary Process

4. Austin City Council Races

Hospitality

1. Starting an e-mail server

2. 8 p.m. MEZ 2.122, Tuesdays

GOTV

1. 6 p.m., MEZ 1.122, Wednesdays

2. Getting people registered

Treasurer

Buy our sweet t-shirts. S, L, XL
Pay your dues
Buy buttons

Events

Democracy Bowl- after volunteer event- Clark Field, behind San Jac Dorm, 3:30
Laura & Jazz are going to tackle Jimmy to get his hair messed up. But Jimmy says it’s not gonna happen.
We invited Dan Grant & Mark Strama who has a laser arm
Super Tuesday Watch Party- February 5^th- Kinsolving North Lounge 6 p.m.- We’ll try to make it fun- invited other organizations- to learn more about the primary process

Volunteer

Every time Jimmy tells you this is an important volunteer event—this one really is.
It’s been called the UDems Saturday Bonanza.
We’ll meet at 12:30 at Littlefield Fountain. It’s our last big push for voter reg. before deadline on Feb. 4^th
We’ll have food. Major food.
We’re going to pass three clipboards down, and then back. Each section has its own.
There are a lot of new members, but this is your perfect opportunity to get involved this semester.

GOTV

We passed out bundles to everyone of voter reg. cards
Take the packets to your classes; get as many people registered as possible.
Doug did 250 in the last week, so there’s no reason that you can’t do that many.
Because Edwards dropped out, Texas could actually be the decider in the Democratic Primary.

GOTV Contest

Register as many people as possible between Jan 31^st- Feb 4^th
Turn in all of your completed cards to Jasmine by 8 p.m. on Mon., Feb 4^th, in front of the Co-Op
The gift is a surprise.
Just e-mail something@udems.org (preferably events@udems.org)

Marathon Day

This Monday, the 4^th from 8 a.m.-midnight
In front of the Co-Op
Sign up with Jimmy
Food, water, and drinks so you can stay nourished all day long.

Speaker: Judge Eric Shepperd

Andy Brown hooked him onto a political form of crack: UDems meetings!
The first election he ever came to Nick lost every race. Then he ended up being president. This is America. What a country!
Glazer puts out BOR, he reported 15,000 door hangers that mainly go to Central Austin. This is important because they almost always vote- strongest voters in Austin.
His opponent got the most votes on election day, but most of his came in on early voting day, where we put all the door hangers.
Andy Brown showed up at the meeting to represent him because he worships on Saturday and was at church.
Any time we call he asks how much we need him to write a check for.
Eric Shepperd has a Facebook site.
He officiated Ali Fuente’s wedding.
We have so much potential. More and more people will get to know the candidate because of us.
Our endorsement carries wide-ranging effects not just because of door hangers but because of the people we effect.
One thing he loves about the endorsement process is that you have to earn it. You have to show up. And you have to tell people why they should vote for you.
This is what the democratic process is about. This is what’s meaningful about running for office: Staying here until 11:30 and then going to Player’s.
9,354 voted for him in his race. The difference between the winner and the person who didn’t win was 152 votes. That’s a really small margin of error. (Hopefully it wasn’t an error.)
One person can make a difference. Most of you have 152 votes. Or some of you may have at least 50. Or 5 for some of you.
At Judge School he met the person who won by 7 votes.
Once you get them registered, you have to get them to go out and vote. If they see in your eyes that you care about the candidate that you’re supporting, they’ll vote for them.
“When Democrats win people live better lives and that’s just the bottom line.”
It’s always going to be about voting for the right people, and that is ALWAYS going to be a Democrat.

Laura will sleep better at night because she’s so motivated now.

February 4^th is the last day to register to vote!

Zack C. Hall- this is inside- we have to get everyone of the 50,000 students on this campus to vote. We have about 8,000 students that live on campus. Katie is going to drive around to all of the dorms and drop them off.

John Lipscombe wants to give us his heartfelt thanks for our endorsement meeting on Saturday. The energy level in here now is the same it was 30 years ago. 512-826-5517 is his cell. Hit him up.

Andy Hathcock wants to say thank you so much for the endorsement.

Karen Huber is wearing our shirt. And thanks for our endorsement. Phone banking and block walking sign-up sheets with the bank.

Aubrey with Brian Thompson campaign… tomorrow is his big fundraising event, on 1419 Preston Ave., right down the road.

Rick Reed cannot think us for his endorsement because we did not see it fit to endorse him. He wants to say shame on you. His 19 year old daughter cried herself to sleep last night knowing that her university did not endorse her father. www.electrickreed.com

Nick with Students for Obama. Phonebanking tonight at union. Debate watch party at 6 @ Schultz Garden. Meeting next week is super important b/c they’re organizing for March 4^th. 6 p.m Burdine 208

Jennifer Kim, City Council Place 3 Election- her rep- kickoff party Feb. 16^th- she’s really trying to push the fun things. She’s going to be at Players obviously. How obvious was it?

Andy Brown.. the word got out and over 350 people came to his event. He’ll be blockwalking with us. Scroll down, vote Andy Brown!

Dan Grant, running to the front saying Thank You Thank You Thank You… friends of Michael McCall… he’s reading a letter. McCall is using the same line but for the reverse purpose. Liberals want to drown babies.

Marcus Cenisceros, past UDEMS president, Randi Shade’s election, she’s a badass. She’s opening up her campaign office just a few blocks at the meeting. randishade.com

MOW: Ray Skidmore, he helped the officers out when we needed him. ::wink wink::

Two weeks from today, 7:30 p.m. on campus Ray McMurrey v. Rick Noriega, we’re co-hosting the debate with Keep Austin Blue