Politics
Entries related to things political.
Chris Angle declares candidacy
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 12/06/2007 - 14:57Yesterday, Chris Angle, 58, of Redding, filed forms with the Federal Election Commission to run for Congress in the 4th Congressional District. Chris will be running as a Libertarian candidate. Chris is a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) and in 2004 filed for a patent for a ‘Process for incorporation of exchange traded portfolios (a.k.a. exchange traded funds) into life insurance or annuity policies with an optional principal protection feature’.
His website should be up in about a week and I am expecting to receive a copy of his platform shortly. I spoke briefly with Chris this afternoon and congratulated him on his decision to run. While I traditionally vote for Democrats and for that matter, no longer even live in the fourth congressional district, I was glad to welcome Chris to the race. Our democracy is made stronger by a lively, spirited and respectful debate. I hope that Chris will bring that to the 4th CD race.
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/04/2007 - 19:31
Sen Clinton: Fiona is running for President
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/04/2007 - 12:15I hope, forty years from now, an opponent of Fiona’s in a Presidential primary, will look back at this blog post and prepare a press release stating, “AHA! I told you Fiona had been planning to run for President for years!”. Yes, if you ask her, she wants to be President. She would sure do a better job than our current President, and she knows that.
I give a lot of credit to people like Howard Dean, John Edwards, and Barack Obama for returning the role of President to its proper place in the American dream. The Presidency should be an honorable office sought by people hoping to make our country better for everyone.
When Fiona isn’t dreaming of being a President or Congresswoman, she is dreaming of being a paleontologist, a marine biologist or a fashion designer. The dreams of childhood, we need people like John Edwards or Barack Obama to help make the American Dream and the dreams of childhood a little more realistic.
So, when Fiona’s opponent, forty years hence, comes and read this blog post, I hope they read all of it. I hope follow the link to Hillary Clinton’s press release proclaiming that Sen. Obama is rewriting history, by claiming he hadn't been planning a White House run. I hope they read the disgust people have at Sen. Clinton’s word parsing and her inability to distinguish between hopes, aspirations and the hard word of planning and organizing a Presidential campaign. Somehow, Sen. Clinton’s speech sounds a little bit too much like Brutus accusing Caesar of being ambitious. Yes, Obama is ambitious. Ambition can be a great thing, and so perhaps I must play Mark Anthony.
Yes, Sen. Clinton, and whomever channels this sort of attack forty years hence, Fiona is planning on running for President, with all the childlike joy and passion a six year old has. It is a beautiful thing and shame on anyone who would speak ill of such dreams.
My support is with John Edwards, I believe he is the best candidate this time around, but I also have great respect for Barack Obama, and this latest attack by Hillary Clinton only improves my opinion of Barack Obama and lowers my opinion of Hillary Clinton.
(Cross posted at DailyKos)
Who Won Last Night’s Debate?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 11/30/2007 - 13:19As with any debate, each campaign likes to claim victory, independent of what actually happened, and I like to take a different viewpoint. So, I am going to declare two winners of last night’s debate in Ridgefield.
The first winner was Howard Dean. Yes, he isn’t running for President this time around and none of the proxies were there to speak on his behalf. However, three of the five proxies had been very involved in Gov. Dean’s 2004 Presidential bid. I don’t know about the other two, although one of the other two did benefit from a fundraiser that Gov. Dean did on the proxy’s behalf.
At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Gov. Dean spoke at various venues, and one of the key lines I remember from those speeches is, “If all you do is vote, you get a D.” He was pointing out that being involved in our democracy is so much more than just making it to the voting booth. The proxies on the stage, in addition to having worked hard for Gov. Dean in 2004, in addition to being proxies for candidates in this debate, have each run for elected office. They are the A students.
On top of that, every person who showed up for the debate, and those that listened to the stream on MyLeftNutmeg, somewhere between 70 and 100 people, are also honors students. Instead of simply catching a soundbite here and there and going to the polls as low information voters, each one of them stopped and participated in a grassroots discussion about where our country should be going. They are the other winners of last night’s debate.
Major kudos should go to Susan Cocco and everyone who worked together to make this wonderful event happen. It should be a model that Democratic committees and clubs around the country should emulate.
Advancing the Dialog - Presidential Proxy Debate
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/29/2007 - 20:30This evenings debate is part of an ongoing series to discuss the major issues of our day at a grassroots level. These sort of grassroots discussions are key to promoting democracy. During the introductions, Rudy Marconi, First Selectman of Ridgefield, who was elected for a historic fifth term with over 70% of the vote was introduced as was Selectperson Di Masters as well as a member fo the Ridgefied Board of Education.
Several DTC chairs and former chairs were then introduced, including Karen Dolan of Redding, Martha Aasen, former DTC chair from Westport and State Central member, and Fran Besmer of Kent. Jim Himes, Democratic Candidate for the Fourth Congressional District was also introduced.
The proxies for the candidates where then introduced. Richard Brodsky, NYS Assemblyman from the 92nd district which is around Dobbs Ferry is speaking on behalf of Hillary Clinton. David Stevenson, a long time Democracy for America activist is speaking on behalf of Kucinch. Kim Hynes is speaking on behalf of Edwards. Susan Cocco who is running the debate noted Kim's patent in anti-fungal research, as well as her involvement in the Dean campaign and running as a State Rep candidate. Lex Paulson is representing Obama. Lex was also involved in the Dean campaign and ran for State Rep. Jim Sullivan is representing the Dodd campaign. Jim ran for Congress in the Second Congressional District in Connecticut in 2004.
Following this, Susan introduced the bloggers, Matt from MyLeftNutmeg, Jackie from YourCTBlog and myself.
