UDFL Blog

Hey everyone, meeting today at 5pm in Coffman Room 305, and there will be free pizza!

Today at 4:30 in the Coffman Theater the kickoff to November 4th begins! Come see:

U.S. Senate Candidate Al Franken
U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison
Rep. Phyllis Kahn
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman

Join the U-DFL, Students for Barack Obama, and Students for Al Franken by welcoming these candidates to campus!

Also: U-DFL Meeting at 5:00 in Coffman Thursday (9/11/08)

Senator Barack Obama will be at the Xcel Center in St. Paul this upcoming Tuesday! Doors open at 7pm, entrance to the event will be first come, first serve, so be sure to get there plenty early. RSVP for the rally event here and on the Facebook event page.

If you want to volunteer, e-mail Curt at curtbaker@gmail.com.

Here’s the info:

Minnesota ACORN is seeking an intern to assist in building up our foreclosure campaign and Financial Justice Committee. We are seeking an energetic, self-motivated individual looking to gain experience in grassroots organizing while helping expand our campaign committee to stop unreasonable foreclosures. ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is the nation’s largest organization of low- and moderate-income families fighting for social and economic justice. Members of our Financial Justice Committee have taken leadership on fighting foreclosures and predatory lending over the last decade, working to pass the strongest anti-predatory lending legislation last year in Minnesota and also claiming victories in local government and against corporate targets.

This year, we have played a key role in fighting for the Minnesota Subprime Borrower Relief Act of 2008 and continue to seek victories against predatory lending practices and unreasonable foreclosure procedures.

Our Financial Justice Committee is run by families facing foreclosure and predatory lending victims who are fighting to stop unreasonable foreclosures and hold people in power accountable to working families losing their homes. Our summer foreclosure campaign intern will play a critical role in building and expanding this campaign committee. We will provide training in member
recruitment, building an organizing committee, turning people out to meetings and events, developing campaign strategies, working with leaders, doing grassroots fundraising, writing press releases, and much more.

To be a good organizer, you need a strong commitment to grassroots organizing; the energy & dedication to work long hours, both in an office setting and out in the neighborhoods; the ability to juggle lots of things at once; a sense of adventure, and a sense of humor!

Visit our website at www.acorn.org for more information.

Hours: 20-40 Hours/wk
Compensation: Unpaid internship

For more background, check out ACORN’s website at www.ACORN.org
MN ACORN
757 Raymond Ave. Suite 200, St. Paul MN 55114
(651) 642-9639, x102 / (651) 642-0060 fax

To apply for this position, please email cover letter and resume to Paul Dillon at mnacornorg1@acorn.org.

Hey everyone there is no meeting today, our next weekly meeting will be next semester. Ashwin Madia (DFL-CD3) however will be here tomorrow at 9pm in the Board Room at Coffman. See you there!

This was sent to us from the Minnesota DFL:

We are currently looking for motivated interns to assist with our field program during the summer months. Hours are somewhat flexible, but we would like someone who can commit to 20 hours/week and a regular schedule. This is a great opportunity for any of your students who are interested in pursuing a career in progressive politics. Interns would get a variety of field experience. We are open to taking on interns who are at any point in their college career. Experience is not a requirement, but we are looking for individuals with a solid commitment to Democratic politics.

We are also looking for volunteers to help us elect a Democrat to the U.S. Senate and send Norm Coleman packing. This is an excellent opportunity for anyone who wants to get involved but does not have the time or need to commit to an internship.

Interested students can submit a resume to Amanda Peel at apeel@dfl.org or call at (651) 251-6332.

DFL endorsed candidate for Congress Ashwin Madia will be coming to the University of Minnesota next Tuesday (May 6th) at 9pm in Coffman Memorial Union Room 307 (the Board Room).

Ashwin Madia is a graduate of the U (and former Student Body President). Don’t miss this opportunity to help the U-DFL welcome Madia back to campus, and to learn more about the Madia campaign from the candidate himself!

Today we will have the last regular U-DFL meeting of the semester. However we will be having a special event very soon with DFL endorsed candidate for Congress in the Third, Ashwin Madia! Stay tuned for more details about that event.

Minnesota polls for Senate, President (h/t Daily Kos):

Rasmussen: President, Senate. 4/22. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (3/19 results)

Senate

Coleman (R) 50 (48)
Franken (D) 43 (46)

President

McCain (R) 38 (43)
Obama (D) 52 (47)

McCain (R) 42 (47)
Clinton (D) 47 (46)

Looking good for Obama, still some room for improvement in the Senate race.

Senator Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary yesterday. Congratulations to her and her campaign are in order. However the contest for who will have the most pledged delegates is over, as Barack Obama has now for all practical purposes clinched the lead in those delegates. NBC’s Chuck Todd explains:

If Clinton is to get the nomination she’ll have to get the Superdelegates to overturn the choice of the elected delegates, and frankly I do not see that happening. Since February 5th the Superdelegates have been breaking towards Obama, and the majority of the remaining undecided delegates I’m sure realize that reversing the results of the primaries and caucuses would only lead to upheaval and chaos within the Democratic Party, which would severely weaken us heading into the fall. Hillary Clinton has all the right to continue her campaign, but she should not sink us to the gutter politics her campaign took us in this last contest. The New York Times makes my point:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.

If Clinton runs a positive campaign here on out, her staying in the race would in my view actually benefit us by increasing Democratic turnout in the remaining states. But once that last primary is over, we have to turn our attention to the Republicans and preventing John McCain from serving a third term for George Bush. I know it is tough for those supporting other candidates to support someone they have been opposing in the primaries. As a Dean supporter in 2004, I know the feeling. But we will only have a ticket to get on one Democratic boat this November. Obama’s going to be our boat, let’s not sink him before we ever get out to sail. Whether we supported Clinton, Obama, or someone else, we are all on the same team, and we must pull together once the primary season has ended in order to successfully push forth a progressive agenda in the fall.