California Democratic Council Hears from Democratic Party Chair Torres and Superdelegates

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Plans to take back Presidency and parts of red California

By Sharon Kyle and Dick Price
Publishers
LA Progressive

The 150 Democratic Party activists who gathered for the 56th Annual California Democratic Council convention this past weekend in Fresno certainly had sky-high hopes about their party’s chances in the November elections—but they had their fingers crossed behind their backs, as well.

The woeful George W. Bush Administration—certainly the worst in living memory with its foolhardy and unjust Iraq War, its increasingly obvious willingness to bail out the rich at the expense of the working poor, its legacy of disdain for individual rights—had convention-goers salivating about the chance to advance a truly progressive agenda this fall. Talk in the convention’s workshops centered on how to capture parts of California and the nation—those infamous Red Counties and Red States—that haven’t landed in the Democratic column in decades, if ever.

At the same time, fear nipped at the corners of the gathering that Democrats are never so efficient as when they are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory—especially during Saturday night’s “Superdelegate Forum,” which pitted the overwhelmingly Barack Obama-supporting audience against an eight-person panel of superdelegates who just as overwhelmingly endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Brave talk aside about how all good Democrats will unite behind whichever candidate emerges as the party’s nominee, it was clear to many that the prolonged and increasingly divisive primary battle has put in play an election that should have been the Democrats for the asking—even among such long-term and heavily involved activists as these who would drive into Fresno from all corners of the state for a gathering like this over a sultry Cinco de Mayo weekend.

Breakfast of Champions

The two-day event got off to a bang Saturday morning with an old-fashioned barnburner of a stump speech by Joel Murillo, Fresno County Democratic Party chair, who recalled that Fresno hosted the first CDC convention, back in 1956, which featured presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson as its keynote speaker.