In my last letter, I said how well Alisha Morgan spoke at the King Day Celebration behind the podium. A friend at work, who goes to Alisha’s church, said that if she had been in front of the podium, I would have noticed that she will be a mother in the spring.

The AJC had a lovely picture of Alisha today mentioning the obivious.

Also, in the last letter I mentioned the Cobb Democratic Women’s meeting. I didn’t mention that there was a good crowd and there were 3-4 new members. A friend said that she had been to Atlanta for the forum, the previous Saturday, of candidates running for the head of the Democratic Party in Georgia. Donzella James had dropped out of the running for chair. It was a good forum and I look forward to the election. Only previously elected county delegates (not me) can vote.

Georgia Democratic trivia – party by-laws state that if the party chair is of one gender, the second in command must be the other gender.

Point

If Andy Rooney can use his years of experience and strong intellect to shine some light on areas in the dark, why can’t Herb Butler.  At the CDW meeting, Herb said that Georgia Democrats have a short history of electing party heads and that we are traveling in new territory. Previously, the Democratic governor appointed the party head. Herb said that the new party head should not be an elected official because of the temptation to use the party to support his candidacy. The potential for conflict of interest should disqualify elected officials.

Counter point – Terrific Democrats, Mike Thurman and Doug Stoner are running for 1^st vice chair and if elected would do a wonderful job. Is there a candidate running for a position in the state party who has no connection to any candidate in the state? Isn’t the possibility of a conflict of interest alive, if Mike Thurman’s campaign manager, cousin, or good friend gets elected?

Stay tuned, we’ll see how this works out over time. Also, the possibility of error is more than a possibility with me. Let me know if I have gotten something wrong. For instance, when I said earlier that I listen to Al Franken on local radio, I listed the wrong station. It is 1690AM. Al has announced that he is quitting the show in mid Feb. Will he announce that he will run against Senator Norm Coleman in 2008? Stay tuned.

Local genius (he lived in East Cobb for a while) and excellent talk show host, Tom Hartman will take over Al’s time slot.

Washington Rally – Know someone locally who went to Washington, please let me know. I’d like to mention their name.

Marietta  Rally – I had forgotten that every Friday at lunch, on the Square in Marietta, a few nice people gather to protest the war. I saw them on TV recently. I didn’t make it to Washington but I can make it to the Square for at least one Friday. If you don’t have a sign, they might have a spare. Just being there, smiling REAL big and waving (go for eye contact – don’t wave at clouds) is enough. You will be amazed at how many people will wave back and honk their horns.

There used to be (wonder if they are still there) a Sunday evening vigil at the Square. You could always tell when Roswell Street Baptist church lets out. I hope they didn’t learn that language or finger gestures in Sunday school.

Angry Benson  - that’s what the AJC called Benson Manica in a story about Young Dems last Thursday 1/25. “Manica calls the state’s republican leadership “the Christian supremacist Taliban.” Sounds more like understatement than anger.

Benson also passes along this bit of information:

Support Family Day at the Capitol.

Saturday, Feb 10th, 9-10 a.m on the steps (Washington St. side) of the State Capitol. We will have a
Family Day Rally and press conference, coordinated by the GA AFL-CIO and the Atlanta-N. GA. Labor Council. The legislature will go in to session that Saturday at 10: 00a.m.

Our message will be: Raising the Minimum Wage is the best way to show that legislators are Family Friendly.

Remember the fun we had 2 years ago on family day with a march from the stadium to the capitol??? With this just being announced (and I am sure the short notice was intentional) we have less that two weeks to put this together. We look to have at least 200 family, friends, union and coalition members standing with us on this day.

Please spread the word about Family Day at the Capitol (personal or work email list, BLOGS, Democratic Party list serves, etc.) We'll pass along more information as it becomes available.

C. Benson Manica
cbmanica@gmail.com

I’ll add this to Cobb County Democratic meetup website calender.

I like this calender and hope you find it very user friendly for finding local Democratic events

 http://democrat.meetup.com/909/

I’ll see if I can figure out how to use my digital camera at the East Cobb Dems Forum this Thursday. Terrorism is the subject and top quality has been the essence of the speakers. Ck “Calender” on http://democrat.meetup.com/909/