Last Modified: November 4, 2006
Campaign for Sacramento County Central Committee, District 5, Democrat (I lost)
Well, the campaign is over and I lost... which is actually OK. It was really fun, and I may try it again next time! (I think it's every two years.)
In the meantime, however, I am now running for President of the Town and Country Democrats, here in Sacramento (www.tcdems.org). I also still work for the Sacramento Gray Panthers (www.gpcal.org)
More campaign stuff:
Campaign literature for my Central Committee run:
(I'm behind Angelides and to the right. Arnie and Joan are on the left...)
Why am I running?
Margie Metzler
916-921-5008 or 248-6148
margiemetz@hotmail.com
I come from a long line of political activists. I remember both my parents circulating petitions and walking precincts in our lily-white, suburban, and very Republican neighborhood near Chicago. My father, an economist at the University of Chicago, traveled regularly to Washington DC to serve on the Board of Economic Advisors during every Democratic administration; he stayed home when the president was a Republican and wrote furiously. I vividly recall his writing to President Nixon after the bombing of Cambodia and getting one of those meaningless responses we get now from Bush. I know for sure he was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and I’m pretty sure he was on Nixon’s enemies’ list.
It’s my turn now. I owe it to myself to do absolutely everything I possibly can to change the course of the country I love so much. The timing couldn’t be better: I am mature enough to handle it if I lose, and young and active enough to serve faithfully if I win.
Other qualities I bring to the table include creativity, ability to write, a great sense of team spirit and the ability to work well with just about everyone. I am an active member of the Town and Country Democrats, Gray Panthers, and Sacramento for Democracy, so I am attuned to what is happening in this area across the political spectrum. I am tech-savvy and can operate a computer or a website with the best of them.
I have the courage of my own convictions, but I am also a good listener. I have been known to change my mind, and can admit it when necessary. But I am also a person of unflinching loyalty to my core values: democracy, the rule of law, and the Bill of Rights. I believe that the beauty of this nation is its respect for all, and nothing is more worth fighting for than that.
The Democratic Party I love believes “We’re all in this together,” not “You’re on your own, Buddy!”
I want my country back.
Article I wrote (unpublished):
Courage
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Memberships
- Town and Country Democrats
- Sacramento for Democracy
- ACLU
- NOW
- Common Cause
What Have I done for the Democratic Party and its Candidates?
- Numerous letters to the editor (some examples below)
- Wrote articles for Town and County newsletter, OWL (Older Women's League), Gray Panther's newsletter, and Califonria Democratic Dialogue.
- Member of Communications Committee, Town and Country Democrats
- Member of Sacramento for Democracy Steering Committee and current Secretary
- Attend hearings at the Capitol for Medicare Part D
- Attended SEIU Rally at Capitol and several anti-Arnie marches
- Worked with ABC (Alliance for a Better Califonria) to defeat Schwartzenegger's propositions: office work, phones, walking precincts
- Kerry campaign:
- Served as secretary, volunteer, and cheerleader for NE headquarters
- Voter Registration (without breaks to the present)
- Walked precincts
- Phone banking
- Webmaster for sites including Town and Country Democrats (www.tandconline.org), the Sacramento County office (now hibernating), and Nevada county Democratic Women (now defunct)
- Held three house parties
- Officer and volunteer for Sacramento for Democracy
- Campaigned for presidential candidates in the past, including Adlai Stevenson, Jack Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry.
- Wrote for newsletter, Santa Clara County Democrats
- Maintained office, Waldie for Governor, in the 70's
Endorsements
- Town and Country Democrats
- Sacramento for Democracy
- Stonewall Democrats of Sacramento
- Pictures from the Out of Iraq Event in Sac, Jan. 7, sponsored by Sacramento for Democracy and http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/event. Includes special speakers Charlie Brown, David Dionisi, Sean Penn, Cindy Sheehan, Norman Solomon.
- Trip to Hurricane Country to do volunteer work, Sept..-Oct. 2005
- Photos of the Peace March in San Francisco, March 19, 2005.
- My other websites: Town and Country Democrats, Sacramento and California Gray Panthers
My letter to Helen Thomas:Ms. Helen Thomas April 4, 2006 Dear Ms. Thomas, I can’t tell you how much your courageous act of standing up to the President in his recent press conference meant to me. Like many of my friends, I have given up on getting news from mainstream TV or most of cable (with the exception of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show). I do enjoy watching Bush in an impromptu setting which will include real questions, though that doesn’t happen too often, largely because he never calls on people like you who ask those questions. Your wonderful, pithy and complete question, as well as your repeated (though unsuccessful) attempts to force him to answer it, made my week! I hasten to add that we all here in liberal Sacramento admire you greatly. I recently read Front Row at the White House, and I just loved it. I commented on your part in that press conference at meetings of my Democratic club and also two Gray Panthers chapter meetings, where you are indeed a heroine. We all eagerly await the publication of your new book and I can guarantee you will sell some copies here! Thanks again for everything you do. Your persistence, intelligence, wit and honesty stand out in this Washington DC like a beacon, and your insights help many of us fight the good political fight. Sincerely, Margie Metzler |
Letter to the Bee, August 9, 2006: Re: Slavic immigrants' crusade against homosexuality collides with gays' battle for acceptance, equal rights, By Dorothy Korber and Deepa Ranganathan , Sunday, August 6, 2006, http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14289410p-15116920c.html To the Bee: I found this article incredibly saddening. I have a gay younger brother who suffered all during his adolescence. He struggled with internal self-hate, unremitting loneliness, bullying, and lack of understanding at home. (Our mother thought he was still “going through a phase” after 30 years with the same partner!) And like Darrick Lawson, he became a warm and loving man who has spent much of his life fighting intolerance and hatred. I just don’t understand how some people come through such adversity committed to love, and others cannot move beyond hatred and intolerance. If God thinks homosexuality is a sin, He will deal with it. It is not my business or my responsibility to judge anyone but myself. We as a society need to reframe the discussion of human relationships. Contrary to some politicians, it is not marriage that is the foundation of human societies, but the family. Surely we can harness our joint brain power to come up with a mechanism for adults to form families that will give them dignity and full ownership of the benefits of American society. Margie Metzler |
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Re "CTA's endorsement of Republican a surprise," April 10: I am just amazed and horrified that the CTA chose to support
incumbent Bruce McPherson over Debra Bowen in the secretary of
state race. Surely teachers, above all (I am an ex-teacher and
ex-CTA member myself), realize the importance of free and open
elections in a democracy. The secretary of state's most critical
function is to ensure that elections are absolutely clean and
counted without impropriety. McPherson's record on the Diebold
voting machines, even after seeing compelling evidence of problems,
is abysmal. I shudder to think what will happen if we have yet
another improper election in the near future. The public is near
the breaking point as it is. (this letter also sent to CTA) http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/21635.html Re "Health care bill appears doomed," Sept. 6: I will leave it to state Sen. Sheila Kuehl to explain to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger what her bill says, since it appears he can't read it. But I can tell you what being uninsured is: • It is being over 60 and finding only temporary or part-time jobs, none of which offers benefits. • It means not being able to afford routine tests, including bone density tests and colonoscopy tests. • It means having to forgo antidepressants because we can't afford them, at a time when they are most necessary. • It means living in fear, almost every minute of every day. • It means knowing that after working for 40-plus years, the only place we can go is to an emergency room. The stress alone is damaging my health. I watch with fury as virtually every safety net is being stripped from the middle class in this country. We can't declare bankruptcy; we can't buy drugs from Canada; and Republicans in power want to gut Social Security and Medicare. No one thinks they will end up in my situation, but it is happening all over this country. You can bet I will be voting in November, and it will be for Phil Angelides. - Margie Metzler, Sacramento (This one was not published). Bee has a front page article today: Do you feel safer today? My answer: I have been immersed in 9/11 memorials today and am saddened beyond belief. Five years ago I prayed ardently that we as a country would have the intelligence, sanity, restraint, and knowledge to figure out how to defuse anger abroad, protect our nation from further attacks, and capture and punish the perpetrators. Not one of those things has happened. We are worse off now in every way. We have spent billions to inflame the Islamic world, turn our allies against us, swell the ranks of suicide terrorists throughout the world, destroy a nation which had nothing to do with 9/11, and demolish our military. The money we tossed away could have been used to shore up Social Security and Medicare, enhance education and salvage the lives of many Katrina survivors. We have also damaged the middle class in this country in fundamental ways while we’ve enriched the top 1% beyond their wildest dreams.
I have never been so pessimistic about my country in my 62 years. Letter to the Bee October 27, 2006, printed Nov. 3: Diebold's GOP ties I felt totally dispirited when I read "Rumors of hacking discourage voting," Oct. 27. Every single person I know believes that voting machines have serious problems, and at the very least, vendors of such machines should have no connection with any political party or campaign. It is common knowledge that Diebold has such connections with the Republican Party. When we've tried to get these machines decertified, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson refused. Don't people care about the appearance of malfeasance anymore? Don't they care that millions in this country have lost faith in the political system? Some do. I do, everyone else I know does, and Debra Bowen, McPherson's Democratic opponent, does. - Margie Metzler, Sacramento |
One of my all-time favorites: Garrison Keillor, writing as advice columnist Mr. Blue in Salon magazine, re the 2000 election:
Dear Mr. Blue,
I am writing to you not because I have marital woes, dysfunctional family problems, writer's block, etc. but because on Jan. 21, I still feel as angry and despondent as I did on Dec. 12 when the Supreme Court handed the presidency (and therefore my country) to a candidate whose claim to victory shall ever remain dubious.
I consider myself a creative and resourceful person with a dry sense of humor, but my heart is so heavy now. My good friends all seem to be booked in steerage of the same boat I'm on. Part of me would love to drop out, but there is something within me preventing the luxury of dissociation So, Mr. Blue, what's a fellow to do?
Leftover Sixties Idealist
Dear Leftover,
President Bush is in the Oval Office and nobody is so surprised and alarmed as he. His uncertainty is visible in the way he makes entrances and carries out the simplest public acts, and it's sort of endearing, isn't it? I mean, the guy is certainly aware of his own shallowness, he has to live with it every day of his life. Bill Clinton stole the show every time the two were together in public, right up to when the Bushes got the Clintons stuffed into the limo and sent them away. To attempt to govern from a set of bromides and applause lines is not a fulfilling or dignified life for a grown-up, and Mr. Bush's greatest pleasures as president may be his encounters with tour groups in the White House. So save some despondency for him. As for anger, you can go be angry at the Supremes for their impulsive lurch into judicial activism, and yes, you could be angry at the Florida Republican machine for their brazenness, but where do you stop? Do you cut in Ralph Nader for some anger, and Donna Brazile, and Al Gore, and Colin Powell for vouching for a man he well knows is a lightweight, and Sen. McCain, and all the other folks responsible for this tongue-tied bozo? It's too long a list. You'd wind up a sour embittered old coot snarling at the TV. Best to clean out the files and start fresh. Take a vacation from the media and do some good for yourself.
The two best antidotes, I think, are the outdoors and the classics. The inherent interest of the photo op and the sound bite and the focus group pale next to the beauty and grace of the natural world when you venture out into the woods and consult your immortal soul, or the majesty of Marcus Aurelius or Horace or Ovid. They speak to us from the ruins of cities that knew their own Dubyas, and they speak to our condition vividly and with powerful wit and conviction beyond anything you'll find on the evening news. Just as soldiers might read the 23rd Psalm the night before battle, it suits you to listen to the ancients before you re-enter the lists. When you're ready to resume citizenship, take a trip to Washington and poke around the Capitol, visit your congressman, see what sessions you can attend, try to cop a ticket to the Court, pull strings to get an inside glance. It isn't that hard to get behind the ropes. But do know that the Supreme Court has no power to hand the country over to anybody, and Mr. Bush is not running the country. He is trying to manage the presidency, a very different thing. The country belongs to the people, and is in the hands of God, and in another year and a half, you can try to pull the levers in your direction. Courage.
Questions,
comments or suggestions? Please contact me at
margiemetz@hotmail.com