Perhaps you've read of the kerfuffle so wrenchingly presented late Friday by Kari Chisholm of Blue Oregon, media consultant who counts Jeff Merkley's Senate campaign among his clientele. Chisholm, acting on behalf of the Merkley campaign, found outrage in an email sent by Liz Kimmerly of the Novick campaign, inviting candidates to a meeting of Oregon members of the Progressive Democrats of America. Acting as state coordinator for the state on behalf of PDA, Kimmerly's job was to organize Oregonians by Congressional District into chapters, which could then (obviously) attempt to leverage their membership into influence on Oregon politicians.
Which is what she apparently did, beginning with a Portland chapter. In addition, given the high interest of the Senate campaign (including her own, certainly), she set in motion a process of local endorsement to be used as a recommendation for national endorsement.
That's been enough for the narrow cadre of bloggers associated with, paid by, or otherwise connected to the Merkley campaign to declare a major scandal involving misconduct and conflict of interest. All weekend, Scythes for Jeff have called for Kimmerly's head, a statement of some kind from the Novick campaign, and general weeping for the virtue and chastity of Oregon PDA, not to mention the national organization.
And all weekend long I kept thinking, if the circumstances surrounding Kimmerly's actions in starting Oregon PDA and trying to hold an endorsement represent scandalous wrongdoing or inappropriate conflict, wouldn't it be the PDA that was going to complain loudest? After all, the bleating for heads to roll got pretty loud at the #1 statewide political blog. If they felt aggrieved, surely they would take matters into their own hands and determine what level of involvement for a campaign senior staffer is appropriate or not. But since this was dropped--coincidentally?--on a Friday evening before a holiday, I wasn't sure how long it might take for PDA to say their piece.
The meeting of the state's first chapter showed real growth since its inception in late 2007, bringing together this month 45 PDA members from the Portland area, including Martha Perez, an exciting young Latina activist who is running for City Council, and local students, excited about organizing.
State Coordinator Liz Kimmerly explains, "The first step for PDA Oregon is for us to build chapters in congressional districts throughout the state. These chapters, working with PDA Congressional District point people, will begin to develop relationships with representatives' district offices to lobby for the PDA's Progressive Legislative Agenda, as well as to create a presence for progressives within the state Democratic party and to encourage new members from constituencies to join this effort to bring forth a progressive governing majority in U.S. Congress."
Kimmerly comes to Oregon from Los Angeles, California, where she had been active in PDA's local chapter-a powerful force in mobilizing the L.A. progressive community. Upon moving to Oregon, Kimmerly, who had seen the impact of PDA's inside-outside strategy in California's Democratic Party politics and on the streets, set about organizing PDA members in her new home state.
Over several months, she participated in PDA National conference calls for New State organizing and has been forming a team with well-known progressive activist Moses Ross and others, which will be looking for leaders among the PDA base to form chapters in a wide range of Congressional Districts in Oregon.
Here's what the national assocation is telling us:
Liz Kimmerly is our state coordinator, yes.
Although we know she works for Novick for Senate, we care so little about the implications that it's not even worth mentioning.
Liz Kimmerly has an established, trusting relationship with PDA.
The first set of duties for a coordinator according to Kimmerly is to set up chapters in Congressional Districts (like, Portland). We're going to print her direct quote on the duties of a State Coordinator, by way of agreement.
The first state chapter was formed in late 2007.
Over several months, Kimmerly worked in partnership with well-known Democrat Moses Ross in Oregon.
Kimmerly and Ross will be looking for leaders for the chapters from among PDA membership.
The Merkley group are premising their concern trolling predominantly on the inherent conflict of interest between Liz Kimmerly, State Coordinator PDA, and Liz Kimmerly, Novick for Senate. If this were a conflict of interest to PDA, by God you'd think they'd mention it rather than talking blithely about what a great job Liz is doing organizing for them, West and East. That doesn't sound like how you'd describe a rogue volunteer, does it? It actually sounds like they think she's an...asset. As for her simultaneous role with Novick, the silence speaks volumes.
More....
One of the Portland chapter's first initiatives was to come out to support PDA Advisory Board Member Jeff Cohen in his tour through American cities with former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter at Portland's Lincoln High School, discussing the effect of the media on the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
At the event, Progressive Challenge 2008 cards with information about PDA and printed with the Progressive Agenda were distributed to the audience, who were encouraged to get involved with PDA Oregon activities.
At Saturday's Portland meeting, in addition to discussing Progressive Challenge 2008 and Oregon's upcoming presidential primary and encouraging chapter participants to join both PDA's Issue Organizing Teams and the training sessions on Congressional lobbying, chapter members reflected upon the opportunities for the PDA Portland chapter to weigh in on the 2008 campaigns, most notably the race for Oregon's Senate seat.
Moses Ross apprised members of the process by which a local chapter's endorsement can be referred to the PDA National team for consideration, but the chapter membership was ambivalent about whether an endorsement vote was important. Each major candidate was represented at the meeting, but an endorsement was tabled until next month's meeting. At the February meeting, irrespective of whether the chapter chooses to vote to endorse any candidate, members will be able to engage in a full discussion with each contender about their positions on the PDA issues. That discussion will be facilitated by Moses Ross.
Once again, a quick rundown of what this passage tells us:
There was other stuff planned for that meeting Saturday; it wasn't a quickie quiet meeting planned for an endorsement. In fact, as far as the national is concerned, that WAS the reason for the meeting, and their first order of business after setting up.
At that meeting, there was discussion about doing an endorsement for consideration by the national. Moses Ross apprised everyone of the rules, not Liz Kimmerly.
Apparently, some people there didn't want to start that process. And that was...OK! Since it's a nice open, democratic thing we do, the interview will be next month instead, and even then it's an open question as to whether the chapter will make an endorsement.
Moses Ross will run that process if and when it happens.
If the first part of the outrage is the supposed conflict of interest, the other part is Kimmerly's supposed hijacking of the endorsement process, making a quick and secret job of it.
And as with the question of conflict, if by PDA's standards there was misconduct worth mentioning, sanctions worth considering, or organizational changes necessary...where is it? It seems instead that the national is saying that since both major campaigns were represented, if the assembled at the meeting had WANTED to go forward, that wouldn't have been a problem. It wasn't PDA that stopped them according to this statement; it was "member ambivalence." Viva ambivalence! But hey, even if they put it off, an endorsement seems fine with them. Even--and this is key--an endorsement generated by a chapter in which Moses Ross and Liz Kimmerly are intimately involved, especially Ross when it comes to managing the details.
When Portlandia had her conversation with Jeff Merkley at a cocktail party and reported what his answers were to her questions, the same people who spent this weekend calling for blood were barely able to acknowledge the conversation MIGHT have taken place. Her account was fully questioned and denied, spun and discounted--despite her appeal to have anyone try to correct the record. No correction ever came, and at least one of Merkley's answers have since been confirmed by traditional media source.
Compare that to this: a paid media consultant to Merkley writes a highly conclusatory column that invokes the name of the Executive Director of PDA in order to cast a negative pall on what he (Chisholm) claims are conflicts of interest and misconduct. Those who counseled for patience and some kind of response--not from Novick, who appears to have had no personal involvement in any of it--but from PDA national, who would in theory be the aggrieved party, now appear to be vindicated. Their message clearly is: nothing to see here folks, move along.
RSS Feed: http://www.loadedorygun.net/rss/rss2.xml
