If you haven't yet made plans to attend one of the many Convention Watch Parties around town, feel free to join us at the:

Democrats In Action! Office
at 255 N. Fulton, Suite 104
Fresno, CA 93701
Between Belmont and Divisadero
Beginning at 6:00PM on Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Our nominee, Barack Obama will be making his
acceptance speech from the Invesco Field Arena in
Denver before a crowd of 70,000 people.
Join us for this historic event!

Light refreshments will be served.
See you there!

Madera County Democratic Central Committee
Annual Luncheon Fundraiser

Our Special Guest Speaker

Dean Florez
California State Senator

Please join us for a mid-day luncheon

"Making California A Better Place!"

Saturday, May 24, 2008
12:30-2:30 PM

~Madera Clubhouse Restaurant~
Located on the beautiful
Madera Municipal Golf Course
23200 Road 17
Madera, CA 93638

No-Host Cocktails & Non-Alcoholic Beverages Available   Read More »

California Democratic Party
For Immediate Release
April 14, 2008
  
Statement from California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres on the Historic Turnout in Sunday’s Congressional District-Level Delegate Selection CaucusesSacramento -- Senator Art Torres (Ret.), Chairman of the California Democratic Party, today issued the following statement:"Since I became Chair of our great Party in 1996, I have never seen such an incredible outpouring of Democratic activists at congressional district-level delegate selection caucuses. More than 23,000 Democrats showed up Sunday afternoon to support more than 2,500 candidates vying for 241 slots.“We should be proud of California Democrats for recognizing what is at stake for our state, our nation and our world in this Presidential election.“Not everyone can attend the Democratic National Convention this year, but everyone can participate from now until Election Day on November 4, 2008 to help elect a Democratic President.“My thanks to the great staff of the CDP, who handled this very difficult process --  first helping potential delegates with their applications, making sure they were completed correctly; helping the campaigns find appropriate caucus sites -- and then working the phones all day Sunday to make sure that these elections went smoothly; and of course to the conveners of each of the caucuses and their volunteers who helped coordinate these historic events. I also extend my gratitude to the local, state and national staff of both the Clinton and Obama campaigns.“Now the work begins anew and Democrats are ready to win back the White House in 2008!"

# # #

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California Democratic Party
For Immediate Release
April 14, 2008

Congressional District-Level Delegate Selection Caucus Results Now Available OnlineSacramento -- More than 23,000 Democrats turned out on Sunday afternoon to support more than 2,500 candidates vying for 241 congressional district-level delegate slots. The results of the historic caucuses are now available online at http://www.cadem.org  

Clinton caucus results: http://www.cadem.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.4026371/

Obama caucus results: http://www.cadem.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.4026365/

PLEASE NOTE: The results posted online were reported in by the Caucus Conveners. They are not considered final and official until the original ballots are returned to the California Democratic Party Sacramento office. 

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Viewing: http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/24815 

April 13th attend your District Delegate Election Caucus for the 2008 DNC Convention in Denver! by Susan Rowe  Published Tuesday, 04/08/08 @ 2:48 pm. Linked to California for Democracy. 

Written in a message from the Chairman of the California Democratic Party, State Senator Art Torres (Ret.) titled "You get to choose".

This Sunday, April 13, you get to pick the delegates who will be sent from California to the Democratic National Convention in Denver next August. Whether you support Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama, you'll have a chance to determine who goes to Denver and who watches on TV.

The caucuses to elect the delegates will take place everywhere in the state at 3:00 p.m., with sign-in starting at 2:00 p.m. Every aspect of the 2008 Democratic presidential race has generated lots of enthusiasm and excitement, so we expect that these caucuses will be very well attended. That's why we're trying something new this year.

The California Democratic Party has put up a widget on our website where you can go to pre-register for the caucuses. All you have to do is go to www.cadem.org and look on the right-hand side -- then just fill in the blanks and follow the prompts. You can cut down on the long lines and help out the campaign volunteers who are staging these events by taking this simple step ahead of time. The deadline for pre-registration is Thursday, April 10th at 12:00 Noon.

   Read More »

The Unions’ Man?
John Edwards does more than talk the talk on workers' but will he walk away with labor's endorsement?
By David Moberg July 23, 2007   Read More »

It many not be so obvious, but anti- Americanism is rife worldwide but what has prompted the negative sentiment? Is it US president George Bush's offensive in Iraq? Many people would rather have Americans interfere less in other countries affairs. But by virtue of being a superpower, the US sees it as incumbent upon itself to act as the Ombudsman in a turbulent world.

But not everything American is repugnant, the war on terrorism for instance, is praise worthy

It is time to get our troops home now.

It’s time for real change, not political calculation. Let our leaders in Washington know that you want change now.

Best Wishes,

Johnstone.

The Current state of the US Congress appears to be a state of retreat. Granted, I do not have the inside tract. However, with a 27% approval rating I believe it
is high time we started fighting fire with fire. The President of the United States in his arrogance is telling Congress to "bring it on" like he did our enemy. I say it is time to take him on by every legal means possible. It is what the American people desire.   Read More »

John Edwards Stakes Claim on Pirate Booty
By Brett Arends

The question of the day: Just how much of the $500 million sunken treasure found in the Atlantic last weekend belongs to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards?


I put a call in to Edwards' campaign yesterday morning to find out, but I haven't heard back yet.

The reality? The populist one-term senator will get an undisclosed piece of the action from the sunken 17th-century galleon.

The ship, laden with gold and silver, was found at the bottom of the Atlantic by a little-known exploration company, Florida-based Odyssey Marine Research (OMR) .

Even less well known is who owns OMR.

Biggest shareholder: New York-based Fortress Investments, a private equity and hedge fund manager. Senior adviser and major investor: John Edwards.

Edwards' personal financial disclosures show he's an investor in the exclusive Drawbridge Global Macro Fund, which owns the 9.9% stake in OMR.

Ten percent of $500 million. After costs, of course.

Fortress investor relations manager Lilly Donohue did not return a call or an email seeking information on the Global Macro fund.

Fortress' stake is even bigger than at first appears. In a complex holding, it owns 3.1 million shares, plus millions more in preferred stock and warrants. Total economic interest is the equivalent of 6.98 million shares.

Profits in the last week already come to $19 million.

OMR stock, which closed at $4.60 on Friday before news of the discovery, has since rocketed to $7.35. The value of Fortress' stake could be as much as $51 million.

Fortress isn't alone in cheering its good fortune.

Greg Stemm is the 49-year-old exploration boss at OMR. He's the one with the nautical beard. He's made more than $5 million in a week.

Stemm is sitting on nearly 2 million shares, plus around 200,000 options. Value today: $14.8 million.

A treasure-hunter with stock options. Isn't Wall Street terrific?

Company CEO John Morris, who took time out a year ago for cancer treatment, holds another 1.74 million shares and options. Value today: $12.8 million.

It should be even more.

OMR stock peaked Monday morning at just over $9, valuing the company at well above $400 million. The shares have come off sharply since.

The main reason for the decline? Saber rattling by the Spanish government. Madrid says the treasure found by OMR might be "Spanish" and they might sue to get it "back."

Ahem. Memo to the Spaniards: Whom do you think you're kidding? Every single ounce of gold your country's galleons brought back from South America, all those centuries ago, was stolen from the natives. The conquistadores raped, murdered and plundered the continent for every scrap of precious metal they could find.

If your pirates lost the gold and someone else found it, exactly how much moral claim do you think you have?

If we're playing finders keepers, the treasure belongs to Stemm, Morris, Edwards and the other shareholders in OMR. If we aren't playing finders keepers, it belongs to the Incas and the Aztecs.

OMR might need a really good trial lawyer on its side. Lucky thing they know John Edwards.

Tips from the experts on how an independent could seek the White House
By Tom Curry

WASHINGTON - Dear Consultant: I am a wealthy, former business owner who is now the chief executive of a large governmental organization. If I wanted to run for president of the United States as an independent, what do I need to do?
Dear Sir: The short answer is you need to gather enough signatures on petitions to get on the ballot in all 50 states. And spend a LOT of money on advertising.

Michael Bloomberg has that kind of money.

But will the wealthy New York City mayor follow Ross Perot's third-party blueprint of 1992 and 1996? Or Ralph Nader's of 2000 and 2004?

One Republican would like Bloomberg to do just that.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said Sunday, "A credible third ticket, third party, would be good for the system" because it would rebuke "both parties that have been hijacked by the extremes… Mayor Bloomberg is the kind of individual who should seriously think about this."

Bloomberg, for now, has disclaimed any interest in the White House.

That may be in part because of the obstacles to mounting an independent bid. But while they are large, they are not insurmountable.

Ballot access experts say a candidate would need to confront these questions:

Q. Why does an independent need a bevy of ballot access experts, signature gatherers, and lawyers?
A. Each state has different requirements for a contender to get his name on the ballot. In California, for example an independent would need nearly 160,000 signatures, while in Minnesota he'd need only 2,000.

"You are not a candidate until you are on the ballot," said ballot access expert Laureen Oliver, an advisor to Texas independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman last year and New York Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Golisano in 2002.

"An independent candidate can't get on the ballot until he has organizational structure. That's the number one reason that candidates who run as independents lose," said Oliver. "It's not money; it's structure…. You need to do 50 races simultaneously."

And if that organizational hurdle is not enough, keep in mind if an independent appears to be a threat to either of the major-party candidates, they might file lawsuits to try to keep him or her off state ballots.

In 2004, the Democrats, fearful of Nader, fought court battles to boot him off the ballot in Iowa and other states.


Too late to jump in the race?
Q. Is it getting late for an independent to begin mounting a bid for the White House?
A. Yes, said Oliver. Even though some states' petition deadlines are not until next summer, she stressed the need for early action to gather signatures. "The earlier you start, the better chance you have," she said. "Organization comes before signatures."

She added, "If Bloomberg thinks he'd going to come out in September or December and do this, I'll tell him point-blank, 'you're never going to make it.'"

Q. Is it necessary for a candidate to get on the ballot in ALL 50 states and the District of Columbia?
A. A candidate must win 270 out of 538 electoral votes to win the presidency. He would need to be on all or nearly all state ballots in order to have a reasonable chance to get 270.

The winner-take-all nature of the system makes it imperative to be a contender in as many states as possible. In 48 states the person with the statewide plurality (even if it isn't a majority) gets all of that state's electoral votes.


1992 versus 2008
Q. Is it more difficult or less difficult for an independent to get on the ballot in all 50 states than it was in 1992 when Perot ran?
A. It's easier now in six states, said Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, a leading source of ballot expertise. Since 1992, he said, several states have reduced the number of signatures needed to get in the ballot. It is more difficult in three states, he said: Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon.

Q. Are there any states which a candidate must form a political party in order to get on the ballot?
A. According to Winger, all states now have a procedure for an independent candidate to qualify without starting a new party in that state.

But, Oliver said, in New York it would be easiest for an independent to run on the ballot line of the Independence Party and in Florida to run as the candidate of the Reform Party, both of which already have ballot access.

Q. Are there lessons that a potential independent candidate can learn from Ross Perot's experience in 1992?
A. If the candidate were Bloomberg, then he'd need to advertise early. "He needs to raise the awareness and introduce himself to rest of the country. I don't think Bloomberg has anywhere near the same persona as Perot did in 1992," said Bill Hillsman, president of North Woods Advertising in Minneapolis, who devised ad campaigns for Nader in 2000 and for Democrat Ned Lamont in last year's Senate race in Connecticut.

"One of Perot's masterstrokes was to use the access to the ballot as a mechanism for mobilizing people," said Walter Stone, professor of political science at the University of California, Davis and co-author of "Three's a Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and Republican Resurgence."

"He held press conferences, brought the signatures to the state capitol, and made a big show of getting his name on the ballot in different states," said Stone. Ballot access "wasn't just a barrier, it was an opportunity to organize, to demonstrate support. That was a brilliant strategic move."

Bottom line: What's it gonna cost me?
Q. How much would it cost to get on the ballot in all 50 states?
A. According to Winger, a candidate would need a total of about 700,000 signatures nationwide. "If the bulk of the work were done in 2007, when paid circulators don't have much work so they charge less, it could be done for $2.5 million."

Q. What about the cost of TV, radio, and other advertising?
A. Hillsman estimated that it would cost more than $150 million for an advertising effort.

Hillsman said he hadn't talked to Bloomberg. But "I'm a fan of what the mayor has accomplished in New York and we would certainly talk to them if they wanted to discuss with us," he said. "The choice of a running mate would be key, and we like a lot of what Chuck Hagel has been saying about the war."

The Last Temptation of Al Gore
By Eric Pooley

Let's say you were dreaming up the perfect stealth candidate for 2008, a Democrat who could step into the presidential race when the party confronts its inevitable doubts about the front runners. You would want a candidate with the grass-roots appeal of Barack Obamaâ€"someone with a message that transcends politics, someone who spoke out loud and clear and early against the war in Iraq. But you would also want a candidate with the operational toughness of Hillary Clintonâ€"someone with experience and credibility on the world stage.

In other words, you would want someone like Al Goreâ€"the improbably charismatic, Academy Awardâ€"winning, Nobel Prizeâ€"nominated environmental prophet with an army of followers and huge reserves of political and cultural capital at his command. There's only one problem. The former Vice President just doesn't seem interested. He says he has "fallen out of love with politics," which is shorthand for both his general disgust with the process and the pain he still feels over the hard blow of the 2000 election, when he became only the fourth man in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose a presidential election. In the face of wrenching disappointment, he showed enormous disciplineâ€"waking up every day knowing he came so close, believing the Supreme Court was dead wrong to shut down the Florida recount but never talking about it publicly because he didn't want Americans to lose faith in their system. That changes a man forever.

It changed Gore for the better. He dedicated himself to a larger cause, doing everything in his power to sound the alarm about the climate crisis, and that decision helped transform the way Americans think about global warming and carried Gore to a new state of grace. So now the question becomes, How will he choose to spend all the capital he has accumulated? No wonder friends, party elders, moneymen and green leaders are still trying to talk him into running. "We have dug ourselves into a 20-ft. hole, and we need somebody who knows how to build a ladder. Al's the guy," says Steve Jobs of Apple. "Like many others, I have tried my best to convince him. So far, no luck."

"It happens all the time," says Tipper Gore. "Everybody wants to take him for a walk in the woods. He won't go. He's not doing it!" But even Tipperâ€"so happy and relieved to see her husband freed up after 30 years in politicsâ€"knows better than to say never: "If the feeling came over him and he had to do it, of course I'd be with him." Perhaps that feeling never comes over him. Maybe Obama or Clinton or John Edwards achieves bulletproof inevitability and Gore never sees his opening. But if it does come, if at some point in the next five months or so the leader stumbles and the party has one of its periodic crises of faith, then he will have to decide once and for all whether to take a final shot at reaching his life's dream. It's the Last Temptation of Gore, and it's one reason he has been so careful not to rule out a presidential bid. Is it far-fetched to think that his grass-roots climate campaign could yet turn into a presidential one? As the recovering politician himself says, "You always have to worry about a relapse."

For now, at least, Gore is firmly in the program. He's working mightily to build a popular movement to confront what he calls "the most serious crisis we've ever faced." He has logged countless miles in the past four years, crisscrossing the planet to present his remarkably powerful slide show and the Oscar-winning documentary that's based on it, An Inconvenient Truth, to groups of every size and description. He flies commercial most of the time to use less CO2 and buys offsets to maintain a carbon-neutral life. In tandem with Hurricane Katrina and a rising chorus of warning from climate scientists, Gore's film helped trigger one of the most dramatic opinion shifts in history as Americans suddenly realized they must change the way they live. In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, an overwhelming majority of those surveyedâ€"90% of Democrats, 80% of independents, 60% of Republicansâ€"said they favor "immediate action" to confront the crisis.

The day that poll was published, in April, I spent some time with Gore, 59, in his hotel room in Buffalo, N.Y., during a break between two slide-show events at the state university. Draped across an easy chair, he looked exhaustedâ€"not as heavy as he has been (he is dieting and working out hard these days) but flushed and a little bleary. He was in the throes of an eight-show weekâ€"4,000 people in Regina, Sask.; 1,200 in Indianapolis; 2,000 near Utica, N.Y.; a flight to New York City the night before for a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; then back to Buffalo this morning for a matinee for 4,000 and, soon, an evening show for 6,000. I congratulated him on the poll and mentioned the dozen or so states thatâ€"in the absence of federal actionâ€"have moved to restrict CO2 emissions. Gore wasn't declaring victory. "I feel like the country singer who spends 30 years on the road to become an overnight sensation," he said with a smile. "And I've seen public interest wax and wane beforeâ€"but this time does feel different."

So Gore is turning up the pressure. He has testified before both houses of Congress, recommending policies and warning the lawmakers that the Alliance for Climate Protection, his nonprofit advocacy group, will be running ads in their districts next year. He has been meeting privately with the presidential candidates (but won't talk about the meetings or handicap the race). He has trained a small army of volunteers to give his slide show all over the world. And on July 7, he will preside over Live Earth, producer Kevin Wall's televised global rock festival (nine concerts on seven continents in a single day), designed to get 2 billion people engaged in the crisis all at once. Since Gore is sometimes accused of profiting from the climate crisis, it's worth noting that he donates all his profits from the Inconvenient Truth movie and book to the alliance. He can afford to: he's a senior adviser at Google and sits on the board of directors at Apple. He's also a co-founder of Current TV, the cable network that was an early champion of user-generated content, and chairman of Generation Investment Management, a sustainable investment fund with assets approaching $1 billion. "I'm working harder than I ever have in my life," he says. "The other day a friend said, 'Why don't you just take a break, Al, and run for President?'"

That night, at the university of buffalo's Alumni Arena, there was a moment when Gore seemed to be doing just that. After the peopleâ€"students, middle-aged men and women, retireesâ€"took their seats, images of the earth appeared on three giant screens, and a natural-born teacher took them on a two-hour planetary tour. He was playful, eloquent, fully restored from his afternoon lull. He has given this presentation some 2,000 times yet still imbues it with a sense of discovery. He laid out the overwhelming evidence that human activity has given the earth a raging fever, then urged the people to respondâ€""If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate the baby's flame retardant! If the crib's on fire, you save the baby!" Yet he was optimistic. There's still time to actâ€"two decades at most, according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeâ€"and by rising to meet the challenge, this generation will achieve "the enhanced moral authority" it needs to solve so many other problems. Then, suddenly, Gore was laying American democracy itself on the couch, asking why the U.S. has been unable to take action on global warming, why it has made so many other disastrous choicesâ€"rushing into war in Iraq, spying on Americans without search warrants, holding prisoners at Guantánamo Bay without due process.

..pagebreak-->"I'm trying to say to you, be a part of the change," he told the crowd. "No one else is going to do it. The politicians are paralyzed. The people have to do it for themselves!" He was getting charged up now. "Our democracy hasn't been working very wellâ€"that's my opinion. We've made a bunch of serious policy mistakes. But it's way too simple and way too partisan to blame the Bush-Cheney Administration. We've got checks and balances, an independent judiciary, a free press, a Congressâ€"have they all failed us? Have we failed ourselves?"

As it happens, these are the themes that animate The Assault on Reason, Gore's new book (an excerpt follows). The crowd seemed to like themâ€"people were hollering and stomping on the aluminum risersâ€"and right on cue, a bright-eyed Buffalo student named Jessica Usborne stood up and asked the Question. "Given the urgency of global warming, shouldn't you not only educate people but also help implement the changes that will be necessaryâ€"by running for President?" The place erupted, and Usborne dipped down onto one knee and bowed her head. Her dark hair fell across her eyes and her voice rose. "Please! I'll vote for you!" she cried above the crowd's roar, which sounded like a rocket launcher and lasted almost 30 seconds, all but drowning out Gore's simple, muted, five-word response: "I'm not planning to run."

Sorry, Jessica, there is no stealth campaign. Despite what you may have read, there are no shadowy meetings in which Gore and his operatives plot his path to power. There is no secret plan. There's only a vigorous draft-Gore movement that he has nothing to do with (two independent websitesâ€"draftgore.com and algore.orgâ€"have gathered almost 150,000 signatures so far) and, from time to time, social events at which old Gore hands get together and play a few friendly rounds of what-if.

Some people who know Gore assume he's biding his time, waiting to pounce; since he's at 12% in the pollsâ€"tied with John Edwards, without even being in the raceâ€"he would easily get on the primary ballots if he declared before the deadlines. He may not be rich enough to self-finance, but with his Apple and Google stock, Web following and Silicon Valley connections, money wouldn't be a huge problem either. "He just has to say the word," says a wealthy friend. But those who know him well would be very surprised if it happened. He hasn't built a shadow organization. His travel isn't calibrated to the primaries. And he's just not thinking much about politics anymore. "He used to be intensely interested in political gossipâ€"who's up in the latest poll, and did you hear about so-and-so," says Carter Eskew, an old friend and former media adviser. "I haven't had a conversation like that with him since 2002 or 2003 [around the time he decided not to seek a rematch against Bush]. He's moved on, at least for the time being." In recent months, as Gore moneymen were recruited by other campaigns, they checked in with Gore. "I said, 'If I'm raising money for the wrong person, please tell me,'" says one. "Everyone asked that question, and his answer was always the same: 'Don't keep your money in your pocket waiting for me.'"

People looking for signs that Gore has a secret plan often point to the fact that he has lost a few pounds and hopes to lose many more. They mention that he hasn't asked the draft organizers to stop, the way he did before the 2004 election. They point out that in May, a group of former Gore fund raisers met at the Washington home of his onetime chief of staff, Peter Knight. (Someone handed out buttons that said al gore reunion 2007, but it was just a social event; Gore didn't attend.) They cite October as a good time for him to get in, since that's when the Nobel Committee announces its Peace Prize. Finally, they point to The Assault on Reason, the sort of book that could be a talisman of intent, since it takes aim at George W. Bush from multiple directions, diagnoses what's wrong with our democracy and offers ideas for curing it. Why else would you write a book like that, they say, if you weren't laying down a marker for 2008?

Al and Tipper Gore's home, a 1915 antebellum-style mansion in the wealthy Belle Meade section of Nashville, is laid out a bit like Gore himself: a gracious and formal Southern façade; slightly stuffy rooms when you walk in the door; and startlingly modern, relaxed, informal living spaces to the rear. The Gores bought the old place five years ago and are still retrofitting it, making it energy efficient with new windows, new heating and cooling units, solar panels on the roof. (The anti-Gore crowd zinged him recently because his electricity bill last August was 10 times the local average. The Gores pay extra to get 100% of their power from renewable sources, and their zealous retrofitting will no doubt bring their costs down. But it stung.) A new addition has a slate-floor family room (with a pool table and a flat-panel TV; Tipper's drum set and some nice acoustic guitars are nearby) and a gym and an office suite upstairs; there's a set of his-and-hers hybrid Mercury suvs in the garage. Al Gore and I settle down on the patio, near the swimming pool and the barbecue. "Did some grilling last night with my friend Jon Bon Jovi," he says. "His new record is great." He props his black cowboy boots on a brightly painted folk-art coffee table, scratches his mutt Bojangles behind the ears and talks about The Assault on Reason.

"The real reason I wrote the book," he begins, "is that I've tried for years to tell the story of the climate crisis, and it has taken far too long to get through. When the best evidence is compiled and there's no longer room for dragging out a pointless argument, we're raised as Americans to believe our democracy is going to respond. But it hasn't responded. We're still not doing anything. So I started thinking, What's going on here?" While Gore was mulling that, another test of American democracy presented itselfâ€"the walk-up to war in Iraqâ€"and American democracy flunked again. "In both cases, our democracy was pushed around by false impressions and wasn't able to hold its focus," he says. "That's the common denominator. Once I'd thought through all of that, I couldn't not write this book."

The Assault on Reason will be hailed and condemned as Gore's return to political combat. But at heart, it is a patient, meticulous examination of how the participatory democracy envisioned by our founders has gone awryâ€"how the American marketplace of ideas has gradually devolved into a home-shopping network of 30-second ads and mall-tested phrases, a huckster's paradise that sells simulated participation to a public that has all but lost the ability to engage. Gore builds his argument from deep drafts of political and social history and trenchant bits of information theory, media criticism, computer science and neurobiology, and reading him is by turns exhausting and exhilarating. One moment he is lecturing you about something you think you know pretty well, and the next moment he's making a connection you had never considered. The associative leaps are dazzling, but what will stoke the Democratic faithful are his successive chapters on the Iraq war, each one strafing the Administration for a different set of misdeeds: exploiting the politics of fear, misusing the politics of faith, misleading the American people, throwing out the checks and balances at the heart of our democracy, undermining the national security and degrading the nation's image in the world. For anyone who stepped into the Oval Office now and tried to end the war, he says, "it would be like grabbing the wheel of a car that's in mid-skid. You're just trying to work the wheel to see what pulls you out of it." But the mess we're in can't be blamed solely on the President or the Vice President or the post-9/11 distortion field that muzzled the media, immobilized Congress and magnified Executive power. "I think this started before 9/11, and I think it's continued long after the penumbra of 9/11 became less dominant," he says. "I think it is part of a larger shift driven by powerful forces"â€"print giving way to television as our dominant medium for examining ideas, television acting on our brains in ways that scientists are just beginning to unlock. As such, it's not the sort of problem that legislation is going to fix. Gore hopes that the Internet, which is so good at inviting people back into the conversation, will be the key to restoring American democracy. "It's going to take time," he says. "After all, we've been veering off course for a while."

..pagebreak-->If that sounds like a reference to 2000, so be it. But some will be disappointed to learn that Gore's book does not contain his long-suppressed account of that contentious year. He has never opened up publicly about the Florida debacle, and even in private he avoids the topic. Friends say he thinks the Supreme Court basically stole the election, but he won't say it. He has never indulged in postmortemsâ€"not even in the immediate aftermath. His psychological survival depended on looking ahead. "It was all about what's next," says his friend Reed Hundt, who was FCC chairman during the Clinton years. "He was not willing to be a victimâ€"didn't want to call himself that, didn't want people to think of him that way. He didn't want Americans to doubt America."

Gore often compares the climate crisis to the gathering storm of fascism in the 1930s, and he quotes Winston Churchill's warning that "the era of procrastination" is giving way to "a period of consequences." To his followers, Gore is Churchillâ€"the leader who sounds the alarm. And if no declared candidate steps up to lead on this issue, many of them believe he will have a "moral obligation"â€"you hear the phrase over and overâ€"to jump in. "I understand that position and I respect it, but I'm not convinced things will evolve that way," says Gore. "If I do my job right, all the candidates will be talking about the climate crisis. And I'm not convinced the presidency is the highest and best role I could play. The path I see is a path that builds a consensusâ€"to the point where it doesn't matter as much who's running. It would take a lot to disabuse me of the notion that my highest and best use is to keep building that consensus."

What it would take, specifically?

"I can't say because I'm not looking for it. But I guess I would know it if I saw it. I haven't ruled it out. But I don't think it's likely to happen."

His wife is more blunt. "He's got access to every leader in every country, the business community, people of every political stripe," says Tipper. "He can do this his way, all over the world, for as long as he wants. That's freedom. Why would anyone give that up?"

Gore knows it's in his interest to keep the door ajar. It builds curiosity. Before he could get serious about running, however, he would have to come to terms with the scars of 2000 and accept the possibility that he could lose again in 2008. That prospect may be too much to bear. "If he ran, there's no question in my mind that he would be elected," says Steve Jobs. "But I think there's a question in his mind, perhaps because the pain of the last election runs a lot deeper than he lets most of us see." There's an even deeper issue here, and with Gore, it's always the deepest issue that counts. What's at stake is not just Gore losing another election. It's Gore losing himselfâ€"returning to politics and, in the process, losing touch with the man he has become.

He was never quite the wooden Indian his detractors made him out to be in 2000 (nor did he claim to have invented the Internet), but he did carry himself with a slightly anachronistic Southern formality that was magnified beneath the klieg lights of the campaign. And his fascination with science and technology struck some voters (and other politicians) as weird. "In politics you want to be a half-step ahead," says Elaine Kamarck, his friend and former domestic-policy adviser. "You don't want to be three steps ahead." But now his scientific bent has been vindicated. The Internet is as big a deal as he said it would be. Global warming is as scary as he had warned. He wasn't being messianic, as people used to say, just prescient. And today he's still the same serious guy he always was, but the context has changed around him. He used to spend his time in Washington, but now his tech work takes him to Silicon Valley, to the campuses of Apple and Google, where his kind of intellectual firepower is celebrated. At Apple, where Jobs invited him to join the board in 2003, Gore patiently nudged the ceo to adopt a new Greener Apple program that will eliminate toxic chemicals from the company's products by next year. Last summer, Gore led the committee that investigated an Apple scandalâ€"the backdating of stock options in the years before Gore joined the boardâ€"and cleared Jobs of wrongdoing. Political people were surprised Gore took that controversial assignment. "That's silly," he says.

Gore's role at Google is less formal. He started as a senior adviser when it was still a small company, before the IPO. "I assumed he'd give us geopolitical advice," says CEO Eric Schmidt, "and he didâ€"but he was also superb at management and leadership. He likes to dive into teams that don't get a lot of attentionâ€"real engine-room stuff, like problems inside an advertising support group. He offers his strategies and solutions and then goes on his way. It's fun for him."

"It aggravates me when people say, 'He's the real Al Gore now' or 'He's changed,'" says Tipper. "Excuse me! He hasn't changed that much. This is somebody I have always known." The old Gore, she says, "was an unfair stereotype painted by cliques in the media and Republican opponents. Now, yes, there were constraints"â€"the vice presidency, the Monica mess, the campaignâ€""that weighed on him. And, yes, you grow and you change and you learn. So I see the same person, and I also see a new person who is free and liberated and doing exactly what he wants to do. And that is fabulous."

That's the person Gore would risk losing if he re-entered politics. "He learned something from his very difficult time after 2000," says Schmidt. "I think he got more comfortable with who he is. He had to go through a difficult personal transformation in order to achieve greatness. That sets him up for the next chapter. I have no idea what he'll do. My advice is to do whatever he's most passionate about. Because that is working."

"The slide show is a journey," says Gore, standing beside his trusty screen in a Nashville hotel ballroom. It's mid-March, and he's addressing 150 peopleâ€"students, academics, lawyers, a former Miss Oklahoma contestant, a fashion designer, a linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles. They've come at their own expense to learn how to give the slide show. There's an undeniable buzz in the room, the feeling that takes over a group that knows it's part of something that's big and getting bigger.

..pagebreak-->It has been five years since Tipper first urged her husband to dust off his slide show. The couple was still climbing from the wreckage of 2000, and she was convinced that his survival depended on reconnecting with his core beliefs. He assembled the earliest slide show in 1989, while writing Earth in the Balanceâ€"carrying an easel to a dinner party at David Brinkley's house, standing on a chair to show CO2 emissions heading off the charts. She wanted him to find that passion again. They were living in Virginia, and the Kodak slides were gathering dust in the basement. So he pulled them out, arranged them in the carousel and gave his first show with the images mostly backward and upside down. Tipper said, "Hey, Mr. Information Superhighway, they have computers now. Maybe you should use one."

A year passed before they realized what a phenomenon this was becoming. "We were on tour, doing the slide show, and men and women would come up to Al after," Tipper says. "Silently weeping." The weather started getting unmistakably weird, and Gore kept working on the slides, making the show more powerful. Producer Laurie David and director Davis Guggenheim saw it and asked him to turn it into a film. Gore didn't think it would work as a movie. It has now grossed $50 million globally and sold more than 1.5 million dvd copies, and its viral effect continues. In Los Angeles, producer Kevin Wall saw it and decided to put on the global extravaganza called Live Earth. In Washington, a retired Republican businessman named Gary Dunhamâ€"in town from Sugarland, Texas, for his wife's Daughters of the American Revolution conventionâ€"saw it and started giving his own version of the show to anyone who would listen. Dunham became the first of more than 1,200 to be trained as presenters. "All the trainees will tell you the same thing," he says. "That movie changed our lives."

In the ballroom, Gore gives the trainees some advice about the limits of time and complexity. ("Trust me on this. If audiences had an unlimited attention span, I'd be in my second term as President.") Even more important is the hope budget. "You're telling some not only inconvenient truths but hard truths, and it can be scary as hell. You're not going to get people to go with you if you paralyze them with fear."

And then, for the next five hours, Gore walks them through it, slide by slide, deconstructing the art and science, making it clear both how painstakingly well crafted and how scrupulous it is. He relishes the process, taking his time, bathing these people in a sea of data in which he has been splashing happily for years. He punctuates his presentation with pithy attention grabbersâ€""O.K., here's the key fact ... Here's your pivot ..."â€"and brings to bear much of what he knows about politics. "Here's something you need to know about for defensive purposes," he says, explaining the science behind a terrifying series of slides illustrating how a 20-ft. rise in sea level would swamp Florida, San Francisco, the Netherlands, Calcutta and lower Manhattan. The trainees are scribbling hard, arming themselves. Gore smiles. He was always better at political combat than people give him credit for. Later, a woman stands up in the back of the big room and asks the Question. "Not to put any pressure on you," she says, "but, by golly, we deserve a leader like you." They've got oneâ€"whether or not he runs.

"I have enjoyed the luxury of being able to focus single-mindedly on this issue," says Gore, back on the patio at his Nashville home. "But I am under no illusions that any position has as much ability to influence change as the presidency does. If the President made climate change the organizing principle, the filter through which everything else had to flow, then that could really make a huge difference."

What would President Gore do? Well, on Capitol Hill in March, Citizen Gore offered his ideas. He advocates an immediate freeze on CO2 emissions and a campaign of sharp reductionsâ€"90% by 2050. To get there, he would eliminate the payroll tax and replace it with a carbon tax, so the cost of pollution is finally priced into the market. "I understand this is considered politically impossible," he told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "But part of our task is to expand the limits of what's possible." He would adopt a cap-and-trade program that would allow U.S. industry to meet reduction targets in part by trading pollution credits. Critics often dismiss carbon offsets as the green equivalent of religious indulgences, but in fact they stimulate the marketâ€"moving entrepreneurs to find dirty plants, clean them up and sell the CO2 reductions. Gore also wants a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants that don't capture and store their carbon emissions and much higher fuel-economy standards for cars. After Gore presented these views on Capitol Hill, critics assailed them as costly, unworkable economy cripplers. His reply: in a few years, when the crisis worsens, these proposals "will seem so minor compared to the things people will be demanding then." And, of course, he's not running for anything these days. He's in the vision business now.

I ask Gore if he regrets not having made climate change the organizing principle of his cautious 2000 campaign. Doing so might not have won many votes by itself, but it might have helped free him from the consultants, unleashing a more authentic Goreâ€"and that could have made all the difference. "There's a tree-falls-in-the-forest factor here," he says. "Because the many speeches that I made about this were not really reported. More than half the articles written about global warming that year said it might not even be real. But I take responsibility for not having the skills needed to break through the clutter. At least not then. Perhaps I still don't."

But what if he does? What if he could take who he is now, all that he's learned, and carry it back into the maelstrom? Could he stay as he is or would he revert? What if he launched a new kind of campaign: no handlers, just the liberated Gore talking about what really matters to him? Would he seem too squishy? These days he improvises, giving freer rein to matters of the heart and spirit than he ever could as a candidate. He draws from a number of faiths, from philosophy and self-help and poetry and from Gandhi's concept of truth force, the idea that people have an innate ability to recognize the most powerful truths. He often cites an African proverb that says, "If you wish to go quickly, go alone. If you wish to go far, go together." Then he builds on it. "We have to go far, quickly," he said in April at the Tribeca Film Festival, where he was introducing a series of environmental films that will be shown at Live Earth. "We have to make it through an uncharted region, to the outer boundaries of what's known, beyond the limits of what we imagine is doable." Then he recited a famous line from the poet Antonio Machado: "Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk." I once heard him get tangled in that line during the 2000 campaign, but this time, he wasn't trying too hard. "We must find a path that we create together, quickly," he said. "With truth force. To seize the opportunity that lies before us." His words were simple, direct and powerful. One clue to how he found that power lies at the end of the poem, in a line Gore doesn't recite, as the poet reveals his desire "to be what I have never been ... a man all alone, walking with no road, with no mirror."

Gore is not carrying a mirror. He's not selling himself; he's selling a cause, a journey. There are no consultants fussing at him, telling him how to be himself. "There's no question I'm freed up," he says. "I don't want to suggest that it's impossible to be free and authentic within the political process, but it's obviously harder. Another person might be better at it than I was. And it's also true that the process is changing and that it may become freer in time. Obama is rising because he is talking about politics in a way that feels fresh to people ... But anyway, I came through all of that"â€"he waves a hand that seems to encompass everything, the advisers pecking at him, the attacks in the media, his own mistakes, the unspeakable Florida debacleâ€""and I guess I changed. And now it is easier for me to just let it fly. It's like they say: What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." What would this Gore be like as a candidate? This Gore is just not all that tempted to find out.

Edwards: Move Past 'War on Terror'

NEW YORK (AP) - Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a "global war on terror," calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.

In a defense policy speech he planned to deliver at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a "bumper sticker" slogan Bush had used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison to the invasion of Iraq.

"We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes," Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery. "By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have setâ�"that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam."

In the first presidential debate last month in South Carolina, Edwards was one of four Democratsâ�"including Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravelâ�"who said they did not believe there was a global war on terror. Front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama indicated that they did.

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq but has since become a harsh critic of the conflict. In his speech, he reiterated his call to remove American combat troops from Iraq within a year and vowed to "restore the contract we have with those who proudly wear the uniform to defend our country and make the world a safe and better place."

Edwards outlined several steps he said he would pursue as president to strengthen the military, including using force only to pursue essential national security missions, improve civilian-military relations, and root out mismanagement at the Pentagon.

He said he would created a "national security budget" to include the activities of several agencies, including the Pentagon, Energy Department, and Homeland Security. He also said he would boost the budget for military recruiting.

But Edwards saved his toughest words for the Bush administration, whom he accused of engaging in wrongheaded military adventures while abandoning U.S. "moral leadership" in the world. Because of the administration's poor stewardship, Edwards said troops were exhausted, overworked, and potentially ill-prepared for future threats.

"Leading the military out of the wreckage left by the poor civilian leadership of this administration will be the single most important duty of the next commander in chief," Edwards said.

Anticipating the speech, the Republican National Committee sent out a research document titled "Edwards' Troop Profiteering," noting that his campaign routinely solicits donations to help Edwards pursue his anti-war efforts.

"One can't help but wonder how John Edwards is comfortable beefing up his campaign coffers at the expense of our troops," RNC spokeswoman Summer Johnson said. "Edward's profiteering isn't only in poor taste but it also illustrates his hunger for the White House trumps his sensitivity toward those serving America."

Poll in Iowa picks 2 leaders
Tuesday, May 22, 2007

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) â€" Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat John Edwards are atop a poll of likely Iowa caucus voters because both presidential candidates have invested so much time organizing and visiting the state, activists in both parties said Monday.

Romney was backed by 30 percent, ahead of Arizona Sen. John McCain with 18 percent and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani with 17 percent, according to the poll in the Des Moines Sunday Register.

Among the Democrats, Edwards was ahead with 29 percent of those surveyed, compared with 23 percent for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and 21 percent for New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to the poll, which was conducted May 12-16.

Clinton dismissed the Iowa results during an Associated Press interview Monday in Florida.

"There have been so many polls in Iowa, as there have been in every other state," she said. "In the last week, there have been polls where I've been ahead, polls where I've been second, polls where I've been in third. I just think it's way too early to put much stock [in them], especially in a caucus state, because you're never really sure whose going to show up in January to attend a caucus."

Romney's strong showing is a reward for his focus on Iowa, said Iowa Republican Chairman Ray Hoffmann.


Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Dear Friend,

Congress has the power to end this war. They authorized the invasion of Iraq under the War Powers Act and they can now de-authorize it and bring the troops home.

De-authorization can�t be vetoed. And it�s not up for negotiation with a President who believes mere stubbornness is a foreign policy and that he can just ignore the will of the American people. The time has come to stand up to George Bush once and for all. Let�s not wait or waver while more people die.   Read More »

Madera County Democratic Central Committee

Annual Luncheon Fundraiser

"Making California A Better Place!"

Saturday, May 12, 2007

12:30-2:30 PM

Our Special Guest Speaker

John Chiang

California State Controller

Please join us for a mid-day luncheon at

~Madera Golf & Country Club~

19297 Road 26
Madera, CA 93637

$40.00 per person
Students $25.00
Your RSVP is REQUIRED

For more information contact: Link

Peace Fresno & a Coalition of Mountain and Valley Organizations call the people of the Central Valley and the Foothills again to gather for the annual march and "Rally in the Valley for Peace and Justice: Bring the Troops Home Now!" to insist that our government end this unjust, immoral, and illegal war against the Iraqi people which has already claimed the lives of 3,127 American military personnel (2/14/07), 256 military from other countries, an estimated 655,000 Iraqi civilians and an unknown number of American civilians.

On March 19, 2003 the United States began its war in Iraq. Four years and many deaths later we mark that date to say:

NO to the agenda of war,
NO to the U.S. attacks on our civil liberties and
No to the degradation of environmental safeguards.

RALLY IN THE VALLEY

EATON PLAZA
AT MARIPOSA AND N STREETS

SUNDAY

MARCH 18, 2007

1:30-5:00 PM

MUSIC BY:

GREEN MACHINE
LONESOME JEM
RAGING GRANNIES

SPEAKERS:

DOLORES HUERTA OF THE UFW
DAVID SWANSON OF afterdowningstreet.org
CONGRESSWOMAN LYNNE WOOLSEY (tentative)

INCLUDES A MARCH THROUGH DOWNTOWN FRESNO WITH A "DIE-IN" AT THE FEDERAL BUILDING.

BRING YOUR OWN SIGNS OR USE ONE OF OURS.

The latest public statement by Al Qaeda highlights the importance of stopping the escalation and drawing to a close our involvement in the Iraq Civil War.   Read More »