Romanoff brings his “A” game to the Denver County Assembly

Glad I was there to hear this first hand.  Andrew Romanoff helped me remember what being a Democrat is all about…and it sure isn’t about being spineless!

The best senator money can’t buy

I don’t think I need to say more than this…

Can a leopard change his spots?

There’s been a lot of talk bandied about in this period preceding the Colorado Senate Democratic primary.  There are folks that use the term “progressive” when they refer to Sen. Michael Bennet, and I want to make sure that we really understand what this means.

Now, in all fairness, I am very psyched about the fact that Sen. Bennet signed on as a co-sponsor of the Dream Act, and I even shook his hand publicly at a Democratic Party picnic and thanked him for his courage.  Also, he did sign on the the Lily Leadbetter Act, which guarantees equal pay for equal work.  I am glad that he decided to act as your garden-variety Democrat would act.

However, I just have to remind everyone of one of Sen. Bennet’s first actions when he arrived at the Senate, which was to join the “ConservaDem” faction led by Sen. Evan Bayh.  Right out of the gate, the ConservaDems trumpeted that they wanted a slowdown to spending and even threatened to slow down the President’s agenda.  Remember Rachel Maddow’s report back in March 2009:

Here’s the thing.  We need Democrats to act like Democrats.  We need them to be strong on labor, on consumer protections, on re-regulation of the finance and insurance industries.  When they can get those no-brainers down, then we will have a strong coalition to wage the war for comprehensive immigration reform, for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.  These social issues are going to take a whole lot of testicular fortitude to win,  and they will only be won when we Democrats win the confidence of the American people again.  They will be on the side of social change when they no longer live lives that are fraught with economic despair.  Let’s not forget that the first thing that many middle-class people say about undocumented residents is that “they take our jobs.”

Aren’t we listening to Middle America?

Support Lucia Guzman

I’m so excited to learn about Lucia Guzman’s candidacy for Senate District 34.  If you haven’t met her yet, she is a long-standing advocate for Denver county residents, from her work on the Denver school board, to her work with the Agency for Human Rights/Community Relations with the City and County of Denver.  We here at Liberal Latina endorse Lucia Guzman for Senate District 34!

For more information about her campaign, visit http://www.luciaguzman4colorado.com.

Here is a video from her recent campaign kick-off celebration:

By the numbers: Colorado’s presidential returns

Cara Degette at the Colorado Independent is news flashing us on some great numbers that came out from the election:

A blogger at ColoradoPols has crunched a bunch of election numbers in several interesting ways, and determined that of Colorado’s five largest counties, four went for Barack Obama. Only El Paso County, a reliable GOP stronghold, went John McCain’s way. And, the pol noted, Denver and Boulder counties turned out to be way more Democratic than El Paso County was Republican.

The presidential election results are based to the most recent data published by the Denver Post.

Here’s the breakdown of the big counties:
Jefferson 283,468 votes — 54.69% (Obama)
El Paso 264,407 votes — 58.97% (McCain)
Denver 259,647 votes — 75.29% (Obama)
Arapahoe 232,167 — 55.29% (Obama)
Boulder 159,469 — 72.33% (Obama)

In another interesting view, the pol, who goes by the moniker Precinct854, determined the five counties that registered the highest Republican presidential turnout were sparsely populated and rural, with all but Rio Blanco on the eastern plains.

Here’s the GOP breakdown:
Cheyenne 80.11% (890)
Washington 77.77% (1935)
Rio Blanco 77.38% (2425)
Kiowa 76.27% (630)
Lincoln 74.27% (1683)

And, of the five highest-percentage counties that went for Obama, San Miguel in southwestern Colorado came out on top, with 77.06 percent.

Here’s the Democratic breakdown:
San Miguel 77.06% (3,345)
Denver 75.29% (195,499)
Costilla 73.40% (1,236)
Pitkin 73.74% (7,260)
Boulder 72.33% (115,339)

This is really interesting to us at Liberal Latina, because of the high numbers of new and Latino voter registrations that were gathered in those very same four counties (other than El Paso) have also seen a growth spurt in the number of Latino/Hispanic residents.

Keep this in mind, mi gente.  Just because you see a family with undocumented/legal resident members doesn’t mean that no one in that household can vote.  We all know that even though Mami and Papi can’t probably vote yet, there are plenty of young people of voting age that can.  I read a statistic recently that every month 35,000 young Latinos turn old enough to vote!

And even if Mami and Papi can’t vote this time around, chances are that they have completed all citizenship requirements by the time the next general election comes around…or even sooner!  Don’t forget that you are eligible to apply for citizenship after 5 years as a legal resident.

Voter registration needs to be constant, year-round activity for the Latino population.  The Democratic Party better be along for the ride at every step of the way in this process!  Talk to your neighbors.  Keep them informed about politics and how progressive agendas are good for them.  When they’re ready to vote, get in touch with the Democratic Party branch in your area and get them registered!  We can’t afford to pass this up!

New Loud Latina Gear

Here is a picture of the first of my new liberal Latina swag that I’m going to be offering via this blog.  I hate that there aren’t a lot of women-specific (or even Latina-specific) gear for female liberals, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and design my own line.

Stay tuned for more stuff, because as stuff happens, I want to wear the slogans.  Everything will be cataloged on the “Latina Gear” page, which will be linked to the right of the page.  A percentage of each sale will be earmarked for various causes, and I’ll specify which as I identify a worthy one!

“Earmark”!  I guess that was a dirty word during the election, but ha ha!  They lost!

¡Sí, se podía, y sí se hizo!

(Spanish for “Yes, we could, and yes we did”!)

Man, we worked our culitos off for Barack Obama, and it really paid off!  It’s been a week since Election Day 2008, and here are some of the statistics regarding Hispanic voter turnout:

According to the Colorado Independent article entitled “Colorado Latinos turned out in record numbers,”

More than 330,000 Latinos voted in the state last week, compared with 165,000 in 2004, based on exit polling from media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Voto Latino, a national nonprofit organization that organized Latino voting drives in the state.

The data also shows that the share of Latino voters in Colorado has increased by 9 points to 17 percent since 2004. Nationally Latinos increased their share of the vote from 8 percent in 2004 to 9 percent in 2008, according to The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization.

This is increible, because it really shows how the electorate in Colorado increasingly has a Hispanic/Latino face.

I think Barack has some quick work to do on immigration reform!  He can’t afford to forget about us.  But I have lots of faith in him, because even during the last week he has shown a lot of solid judgment and good character.  Hell, if he can cut Joe Lieberman some slack, I know he has good things in store for nuestra gente!