Changing America one election at a time.

Here are a couple of important events coming up to let you know about:
One, our weekly meeting is next Tuesday, December 13 at 7 pm at the Lincoln Restaurant, 4008 N. Lincoln Ave (6 pm for dinner/social hour beforehand). We’ll be hearing from Kelly Cassidy, the current state representative 14th District, who is running for election to the seat she was appointed to after Harry Osterman was elected Alderman (this district is roughly in Edgewater/Rogers Park). We have already heard from her opponent, Paula Basta, so after we hear from Kelly we will be able to vote on this race. We will also be hearing from Democrats running for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, including Kari Steele, Stella Black, and Patrick Daley Thompson (we’re waiting on confirmation for several other candidates as well). You’ll remember that we have already endorsed Debra Shore for commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District; three commissioners will be elected in this cycle.

We’ll also be voting on several races: last month we heard from several candidates who are now eligible to be voted for endorsement. Rudy Lozano, Jr. (state representative in the 21st District), John Arena (running for committeeman of the 45th Ward), and James Cappleman (running for committeeman of the 46th Ward) are all eligible for endorsement; endorsed candidates William Guzzardi and Alonso Zaragosa are eligible for adoption. Per our by-laws, we can endorse as many candidates as we wish in an election cycle, but we are limited to adopting 4 per cycle (adopting implies a higher level of commitment on our part). If you are a voting member and unable to attend the meeting, please send me your proxy votes by 5 pm on the 13th; if you have a question about your voting member status, please send it to northsideDFA@gmail.com. Remember, to be a voting member you must attend three NDFA meetings and complete three volunteer events for our adopted and endorsed candidates – and you have to tell us you have done these events before Sunday at 8 pm before the Tuesday meeting by sending an email to northsideDFA@gmail.com.

Two, this COMING SATURDAY December 10th, we are having a NDFA Action Day for Ilya Sheyman’s campaign for Congress – remember our goal of replacing a tea-party leaning Republican with a good progressive Democrat? This is a great opportunity for a Democratic pick-up: let’s make the most of it. We’ll be car-pooling up to Highland Park this Saturday, leaving from the Pier One parking lot at Broadway and Berwyn at 12:30 pm: there will be opportunities for all your favorite kinds of campaign work from canvassing to phone banking to data entry. If you would like to join us, please let us know by RSVP’ing to http://www.doodle.com/gnqc6a76mfykvx5k.
Also this Saturday evening is the NDFA Holiday Party: hopefully you received an invite under separate cover. If you did not receive the evite but would like to attend, please let me know so you can be included. We’re looking forward to a bit of holiday social frivolity.

One easy and quick thing you can do to help our candidates (besides throwing a little cash their way, of course) is support our candidates for endorsement by national DFA. You can find those campaigns (and others who have applied for endorsement) on the Democracy for America website, but I encourage you to support these campaigns of our endorsed candidates:

Will Guzzardi: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/campaigns/4336-will-guzzardi-for-stat...
Debra Shore: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/campaigns/4248-friends-of-debra-shore
Ilya Sheyman: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/campaigns/4173-sheyman-for-congress

I’ll have more news from other endorsed candidates in the next few weeks, but for now I hope you can make it to at least one of our events in the next week –