Just got this email from Rahm Emanuel, new DCCC chair, asking for feedback on what issues are most important. There is a link at the bottom to go to for a survey, which does not include election reform, but there a several places where you can let him know what other issues you think are important!
SUGGESTION, and question for all of you: What is becoming ever more apparent is the need to eductate officials about the e-voting and tabulating issue. Even champions like Boxer and Conyers are still not getting that while the other issues such as voter suppression are very important, we will never win anther election if we don't deal with e-voting. We need to be making this clear in our communications to officials. I am still trying to figure out the best way to do this concisely. If anyone has thoughts on this, I'd sure like to hear them!
Here is the email:
As you know, Leader Nancy Pelosi has asked me to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- an honor I enthusiastically accepted. I am determined to restore a Democratic House majority.
I have always believed that elections are won by candidates who stand for robust reform and change on behalf of Americans. In the past two elections, Republicans have successfully embraced the language of reform. But their "reforms" have benefited powerful special interests while disadvantaging millions of middle-class families and the poor.
Their tax "reform" has turned the hard-earned budget surplus under a Democratic President into a record federal deficit while shifting the tax burden onto the backs of middle-income families. Multinational corporations won huge loopholes while millions of working families were denied a child tax credit. IRS enforcement has been targeted at working families applying for the Earned Income Tax Credit rather than big corporations engaged in wholesale tax avoidance.
Their Medicare "reform" increased the profits of the pharmaceutical industry by $140 billion while expressly prohibiting the federal government from usi
ng its bargaining power to bring lower prescription prices to Americans.
Their energy "reform" would reward the big gas and oil companies and despoil our environment while doing nothing to develop alternative energy sources or stem our dangerous and growing energy dependence.
Now comes a Social Security "reform" that would cut benefits by forty percent and increase the national debt by another $2 trillion. This so-called reform would replace Social Security's guaranteed retirement benefit with a guaranteed fee for Wall Street.
It is up to us as Democrats to unmask these phony Republican reforms that benefit the special interests over the public interest. It is up to us as Democrats to counter with true reforms that set the right priorities for American families.
Even as I write this, we are hard at work in taking this battle of ideas to voters across the country. Beyond fundraising and recruiting top candidates, we have begun an aggressive program of confronting vulnerable Republicans on the disconnect between their rhetoric and their records. By offering an aggressive agenda, raising money, recruiting solid candidates, and just plain, old-fashioned hard work, we will recapture a Democratic House majority in 2006.
All of this will be accomplished on the shoulders of my good friend, Bob Matsui. It is with a heavy heart that I seek to fill his enormous shoes. While Bob cannot be replaced, I pledge to continue his good work as I attempt to live up to his high standard.
Thank you for your loyal support, and I look forward to working closely with you this year.
Rahm Emanuel
Chairman
P.S. - Nothing is more important to me than all of you who work so hard on grassroots outreach. Please take a minute to fill out this user survey to let us know what your interests are and how we can improve our communication with you. Please visit
http://www.democraticaction.org/survey1/index2.php?&sourceto give us your feedback. Thanks again!