April 8 PDA-Virginia Meeting in Fredericksburg

[Catchawave]

UPCOMING PDA MEETING IN FREDERICKSBURG, APRIL 8

The main agenda item of this meeting will be meeting and hearing from 6 Democratic candidates (or their representatives), 2 each from the 1st, 5th and 7th Congressional Districts, asking them questions about their philosophy, ideas, programs and campaigns, and voting on which (if either) PDA-Virginia chooses to endorse in the upcoming Democratic caucus process to choose which of them will be the Democratic candidate in the fall election.

The meeting will be held at the campus of the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, in Combs Hall, Room 139, from 12 noon to 3:00 PM. DIRECTIONS are as follows:

From I 95, which goes through Fredericksburg, from either direction, take Exit 133 into downtown Fredericksburg on Route 3, take it eastbound, which is Williams Road (it is Plank Rd. taken to the west), about a mile or so, cross over (or under) Route 1 (Jefferson Davis Highway). Immediately afterward, Route 3 splits, Route 3 forking to the right, Route 3-BR turning left. Take Route 3-BR, which is still Williams Road (Route 3, the wrong road to the right, becomes Blue and Gray Parkway--don't take this), which goes right to the campus (I suspect there will also be signs to the campus). Take it about 4 blocks to College Ave, turn left on College Avenue, Combs Hall with be on your right, a block and half down College Ave. A campus map showing the location of the building is http://www.umw.edu/pdf/MWC_campus_map.pdf. Combs is in the lower right of the map.

A list of other agenda items will be sent out before the meeting.

All candidates have been asked to submit written responses to 5 issues that the National PDA has specified as required from any candidate seeking PDA endorsement. Their responses to these 5 questions will be circulated by email prior to the April 8 meeting, and considered in addition to whatever they say at that meeting as we make our endorsement decision. All PDA members who can possibly attend the meeting are encouraged to do so, in order to take part in the live discussion with the candidates. However, any member who cannot attend is entitled to vote absentee by email prior to April 8, based solely on the candidates' responses to the questions (and anything else they learn about the candidates from their websites, of course).

Everyone receiving this email is entitled, and encouraged, to attend this meeting, whether or not they have decided to become full-fledged PDA members. In response to our initial announcement of this meeting, which laid out how to become a member, an encouraging number of you have emailed back indicating you would like to become a member. If any more of you would like to vote on April 8 for one or more of the candidates, please send a return email immediately so indicating, and please put JOIN in the subject line.

However, even if you have not yet decided to join, please come to the meeting, meet us, meet the candidates, and check out what PDA is doing nationally, state-wide, and in our districts. This is the first Congressional election cycle in which the PDA has been in existence, and around the country, PDA is promoting progressive candidates. As we all know, while it is important to elect Democrats to replace Republicans, it is also important to elect as many progressive Democrats as possible. In Virginia, it appears that a number of the Republican representatives may be vulnerable to strong Democratic opponents, and we believe that all 3 of the districts whose candidates we will be hearing from on April 8 could be up for grabs, so our endorsement matters. And the Congressional (and Senatorial) election cycle provides the best avenue to go out to the voters on the issues of importance to us.

The candidates who will be coming (or sending a representative, if they are not available) are:

1st CD: Shawn O'Donnell vs Lorenzo Grant
5th CD: Al Weed vs Bern Ewert
7th CD: Brad Blanton vs Martin Dudziak

Hope to see you all there. And look for upcoming emails with each candidate's response on the 5 issues. The 5 issues themselves can be found on the PDA National website, http://pdamerica.org/orgs/endorsement-policy.php.

Peter Rush for PDA-Virginia Steering Committee