Friday, July 13th, 2007...10:00 am
CDA Chief Crossing the Line?
Even though I don’t fit into any known “youth” category any longer, I still recieve missives from the various youth arms of the Democratic Party. I ran across this one from the College Democrats of America:
Dear College Democrat,
It is with great pleasure that I announce the one and only Senator Hillary Clinton will be joining us in Columbia for this year’s convention.
During the Convention, Senator Clinton will bring her campaign message of strength, leadership, and change directly to the College Democrats. This will be Senator Clinton’s second time addressing the College Democrats of America National Convention. Senator Clinton has shown a strong commitment to addressing the issues we care about, from affordable education and universal health care to the war in Iraq and climate change, and at the Convention, she will talk about her campaign’s new efforts to engage young people. We are very excited that she will be joining us in Columbia. To learn more about the Hillary for President Campaign, visit http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ .
The 2007 CDA National Convention will take place from July 26 – 29th on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. For more information on CDA ‘07 and to register please visit us at http://convention.collegedems.com/. Spots are going fast, REGISTER NOW! CDA’07 is the ONLY youth convention to have the top 3 Democratic Presidential Campaigns! Register NOW to join in on the fun!
Democratically Yours,
LaToia Jones
Executive Director
College Democrats of America
Here is what is bugging me, LaToia Jones, unlike the staff of other Democratic youth groups, is an employee of the Democratic National Committee. The College Democrats are actually an arm of the DNC. So, why is a DNC employee sending out an e-mail that appears to be taking sides in a primary? I understand the enthusiasm that she would have getting a big name speaker like Hillary Clinton, but this one seems to cross the line. If the text of the e-mail isn’t enough, the title of it (”She’s in it to WIN it!”) seems to push it over the line from hyping the convention to hyping the candidate. She even leaves out the names of the other two candidates that will be speaking.
NB - In a piece of wierdness that I only noticed when I copied the e-mail into my web publishing program, the link to Hillary Clinton’s website in the e-mail takes you to…Barack Obama’s homepage. I left it as is, try it out.
11 Comments
July 13th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I’m a college democrat in Maine and I received this email about Senator Clinton. It doesn’t concern me though because it’s virtually identical to the emails sent out by LaToia Jones when every presidential candidate has confirmed, which (seeing as you’re on the email list) you would have received as well. Why are you so concerned about this email while you didn’t complain about Obama’s or Edwards’? (I think someone just doesn’t like Hillary)
Here is the text of the email sent out about Senator Barack Obama’s Confirmation on June 27th:
July 13th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Dean may be the current chairman, but I am certain that there are still many Terry McAuliffe loyalists working for the DNC…and he has already signed on with Hillary.
The Clintons are well known for their bare-knuckled tactics, but they can also over-reach when beset by the hubris that is as much a part of their make-up as their political acumen. They need to stop treating this process like a coronation. The majority of independents still want someone else as the ‘08 nominee, as do a goodly number of Democrats, myself included.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
I remember getting the exact same email for John Edwards and Barack Obama. Maybe that’s why the URL for the Clinton website is Obama, given that she probably just cut and pasted.
It just so happens that she’s the most recent person to confirm, and maybe you just started paying attention now. Don’t make any assumptions when you’re not familiar with the process at all.
I’d recommend you take this post down or write a disclaimer about your misinformation at the beginning.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
and this is why CDA will continue to be the lapdog of the DNC.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I didn’t think there were college democrats…but only young democrats. I was yelled at about this once during the last campaign. Is this only an Arizona phenomenon? Whats in a name…
July 13th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
No, its a national thing too. There was CDA and YDA starting back to the riots at the democratic national convention in Chicago in the 70s. The split started there over which side would represent withdrawing from Vietnam and who was for Vietnam. The split then evolved into a “focus on college kids” versus “focus on young voters”.
The DNC finally settled the fight and took both of them under its wing. But years of inadequete funding and required begging to the DNC chief of that year led YDA to split off from the DNC and create its own Poltical Action Committee or became one of the infamous “527s”.
CDA now gets the full DNC “youth outreach” money and there are states where there is no YDA and only CDA and vice versa and there are states where there are both.
My argument is that as long as you are getting your money from the DNC- you have to take orders from them and that means support “Hil-Dog”
July 13th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I don’t think there is anything wrong with her promotion of Hillary in this email, she did the same to Obama, the same to Edwards etc.
What is wrong, and Ted I think you missed the point here, is that she, as a DNC employee, categorizes all candidates here.
“… top 3 Democratic Presidential Campaigns!”
Is it appropriate for a party staffer to evaluate publically which candidate are good and which aren’t? No votes have been cast … and already the DNC is saying that Edwards, Obama, and Clinton are the TOP? Or at least this DNC employee?
Unlike what Tom says, this is not a DNC lapdog thing at all … I’m QUITE confident the DNC is strict about this type of thing and probably should punish this political staffer for huge ignorance and a complete lack of political savvy. This is not Howard Dean or the DNC, this is 100% a Ms. Jones thing.
This woman should apologize to the other presidential campaigns. It is not appropriate for the DNC to do this, not at all.
July 14th, 2007 at 1:26 am
I’ve seen things like this happen several times on the local level. It can really disillusion people working campaigns when a party shows favortism in a primary.
July 14th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I have some mixed feelings about this.
On one hand, I did what is the honorable thing and resigned as First Vice Chair of my county party recently to begin working for the Allan Affeldt for Congress campaign. Allan then dropped out, and I was given the opportunity to rescind the resignation, but decided to keep it in effect because I am now working for the Bill Richardson campaign (though I did agree to rescind the ‘effective immediately’ portion and make it effective probably in about a month when we have a replacement named).
On the other hand, it is true that we are all Democratic activists, and if we are not allowed to endorse and work for candidates it sort of defeats the purpose of activism, doesn’t it? As long as we are willing to do our duty and carry out the duties of our office on behalf of any other candidates who request it, why shouldn’t we be able to endorse and work for candidates, so long as we make it clear that the endorsement is by ourselves only, and is not on behalf of any organization or affiliate that we may be members of or officers within?
July 15th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Eli-
The person in question here is not a democratic activist, but a staffer. Whether district chairs or club presidents can endorse is up to the bylaws of whatever organization they are a part of. Folks are often suprised that many volunteer officers are not banned from making endorsements.
In this case though, this person is a paid staffer of the DNC, and enjoined from taking stands for one candidate or another, or even making an itemized list of who the “top candidates” are.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Technically, I could make an endorsement but given that the Chair is supposed to not make one, I felt that it would be prudent to resign.
As of right now I still hold the title though (as I explained) until they replace me.
A title is a title though. You don’t have to have one to be an activist. And I’m still a precinct committeeman.
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