Fun Times at the Progressive Caucus

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

I asked around to see which of the Friday night caucuses would be most worth attending, and almost to a person, I was told the progressive caucus was the place to be. Need further proof: there was a rather terse exchange between party higher-ups and progressive caucus leaders who were critical of Art Torres' approach to the allocation of funds in all counties. "'Art's doing it his way.' 'He's doing nothing," CDP staffer Jery Lacayo mocked, responding to a presentation of an earlier meeting that many in the room felt was distorted. "We're getting screwed. ... How the hell can we beat the Republicans instead of each other." To which the progressive caucus chair said, "We in the party who want to know how the party money is allocated are not through." And in a debate over making the names of all executive board members public, one of the progressive caucus heads said, "In an open democracy, we need to know who's on this E-Board." But the CDP's Crystal Strait noted that names were kept private because of privacy concerns. The party is also revamping its immigration platform apparently, and in a rather humorous back and forth, after opening up the room for discussion of the immigration debate, the committee promptly responded to every suggestion with "Sign up for the immigration committee!" Later, there was talk of Senator Sheila Kuehl's single-payer health bill, SB 840, and naturally, attacks on Speaker Fabian Nunez's and Senate President pro Tem Don Perata's less comprehensive AB 8 followed. While the governor has not promised that he will sign AB 8, he has made it quite clear that he will veto SB 840. The plan discussed to get Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign a bill that will eliminate most private insurance in California: "Make it so hot for him that he can't not sign it." Outside of propelling the governor to the core of the sun, I don't see that happening. There was lots of debate -- with lots of language that would make a sailor blush -- over delegate selection for the presidential nomination. I don't know enough about this fight to comment much on it, but I can report that the mood in the room tended to tilt toward selecting delegates before the primary because its perceived that this will encourage greater and more diverse participation. "Broadband for the haves and dial-up for the never wills," was the mantra of the room's primarily pro-net neutrality crowd. It helped serve as a preview of tomorrow's net neutrality debate (which CMR will be covering).And finally, a straw poll was taken to see where the caucus stood on the presidential primary. The results: Gravel 0, Dodd 0, Biden 1, Clinton 2, Undecided 6, Richardson 10, Obama 12, Kucinich 17, Gore 27, and Edwards 47.