Hillary Clinton
A few days ago I wrote about the opening of a national Democratic campaign office here in Harris County. I had the opportunity to pose a few questions to the campaign over the weekend about this office and their larger plans. Here’s what we discussed:
– The office is part of the coordinated campaign between Hillary Clinton and the DNC, with the intent of helping Democrats get elected up and down the ballot.
– When I asked what the focus was, they said it was for general turnout, and they were not focusing on any specific candidates or races.
– I asked if this office was for Harris County specifically or if it was intended to encompass the broader area. They said the focus was just on Harris County, and that there were coordinated campaign efforts being run by volunteers elsewhere. I personally think that Fort Bend County deserves attention as much as Harris does, but there you have it.
– The Harris County office is the first one they will open. There will be others but did not give specifics when I asked how many or where they would be.
– They emphasized that this is part of a 50-state strategy that was announced in June, that doing this was always in the plan, and that it was not in reaction to anything. (They didn’t mention any polls, but I figured that was implied.)
– I asked about sharing data with the locals. They said they will use their own resources to develop data about voters and aim to bring in new volunteers and other people of interest, and yes, they will share information developed with local and state parties. There is a longer-term focus in that the intent is to help state and local parties build up their voter/volunteer data for beyond this election. This too is something the Clinton campaign has said they would do for some time. It’s frankly one of the reasons why I never “felt the Bern”, because I never got that impression from the Sanders campaign.
– All that said, this office is for this election. There will not be paid staff here beyond November. Hopefully we’ll get enough out of this to build on going forward.
– Those who are interested in participating in any way should go to http://hillaryclinton.com/events for more information.
Here’s a Trib story about the opening on of the office on Saturday. It’s got a fair bit of rah-rah and an excellent headline, but not really anything you didn’t already know. Anyone out there attend this? Leave a comment and let us know what you thought.
Maybe they should help their candidates that run for houston city council and county court before opening offices?
If their local candidates are too lazy to put basic ideas in writing, on a website how do they hope to excite their base?
Joseph,
Aren’t the positions you speak of non-partisan offices?
Ban the Box, Paid Leave, Parental Leave, Equal Pay, Credit Check, Public Banking, Pre-k, etc are all non-partisan.
Funny, I missed where any of the 16 city council members did something as simple as adding these ideas to their website.
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Joseph, City employees have paid leave, they have paid parental leave, I guess you are suggesting that anyone who has a business in Houston should have to provide those and all the other suggestions. If you are then you have a wish list that needs to focus at the National level. I am curious do you have a great job and pay thousands in taxes and want a tax increase to pay for all those things?
I already did it on my website.
If Amanda Edwards and her staff are too lazy to bring ideas to the table.
I guess I’ll have to bring the table…