December Lebanon County Democratic Newsletter

Events in the calendar are of interest to Lebanon County Democrats, but are not necessarily sponsored by the LCDC or even the Democratic Party.

Wed, DECEMBER 2, 7 PM	LCDC Executive Committee, LCDC. If you are an officer, district leader, or committee head you are expected to attend. If you are a committee person, we hope you will come, too. Registered Democrats in Lebanon County are also welcome. We will be discussing the 2016 budget and planning for the committee at this time. Agenda New Business Proposed Budget for 2016 Proposed Calendar for 2016 Proposed Seminar Schedule for 2016 Strategic Planning Committee formation Issues Committee formation Candidates for 2016 elections Should LCDC hold an endorsement convention and endorse candidates?
Sat, Dec 5, 12 Noon	PA Dems Delegate Selection Workshop, Lebanon Community Library, 125 N. 7th St, Lebanon. RSVP here: http://www.padems.com/webform/2016-delegate-selection-workshops Looks like there will be people from other counties coming for this event, so if you’re interested, RSVP and get there early.
Wed, Dec 16, 5-8 PM	LCDC Holiday Open House, LCDC. We invite you to join the Lebanon County Democratic Committee at headquarters for our annual holiday open house. Family and friends are encouraged to attend. This event is free for all, but donations are always accepted. RSVP here.
Thu, Dec 17, Noon	LEAD Holiday Party!. Sinkhole Saloon, Palmyra LEAD is Lebanon County’s premier liberal/progressive discussion group. Meets 3rd Thursday every month, exc. Aug
Monday, Dec 28	DNC Delegate forms available on PA Dems site
Wed, JANUARY 6, 7 PM	LCDC Executive Committee, LCDC. If you are an officer, district leader, or committee head you are expected to attend. If you are a committee person, we hope you will come, too. Registered Democrats in Lebanon County are also welcome.
Sat, Jan 9, 11 AM	Penn Ag Democrats Jefferson Luncheon, details TBA
Sun, Jan 10 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM	Team Litz Victory and Debt Retirement Party, Humane Society Thrift Shop. See below for details.
Tues, Jan 12	State of the Union message
Sat, Jan 16	LCDC Campaign Seminar 1 – Election Rules and Procedures (tentative)
Wed, Jan 20, 7 PM	LCDC Executive Committee, LCDC. If you are an officer, district leader, or committee head you are expected to attend. If you are a committee person, we hope you will come, too. Registered Democrats in Lebanon County are also welcome. We will be discussing the 2016 budget and planning for the committee at this time.
Thu, Jan 21, Noon	LEAD Meeting. Sinkhole Saloon, Palmyra LEAD is Lebanon County’s premier liberal/progressive discussion group. Meets 3rd Thursday every month, exc. Aug
Fri, Jan 22	Delegate pledge forms due to PADems
Fri, Jan 22-3	PA State Dems Committee Meeting
Mon, Jan 25	Deadline for Delegate statement and pledge forms
Tue, Jan 26	First Day to circulate and file nomination petitions.
Wed, Jan 27	Presidential campaigns notify delegates, send petitions
Thu, Jan 28, 7 PM	Annville-Cleona Dem Meeting, Annville Town Hall, 36 N Lancaster St. Meets the fourth Thursday of each month. Contact Pat Stephens, 867-1275 for more details.
Wed, FEBRUARY 3	LCDC Executive Committee, LCDC. If you are an officer, district leader, or committee head you are expected to attend. If you are a committee person, we hope you will come, too. Registered Democrats in Lebanon County are also welcome.
Tue, Feb 16	Last date to circulate & file candidate & delegate petitions
Tue, Apr 26	PRIMARY ELECTION
Tue, Nov 8	GENERAL ELECTION AND VICTORY PARTY!

I. Local News - Whether you’re sick of campaigns or can’t wait to jump into action, 2016 will soon be here and that means a lot more local campaign activity than we’ve seen in a long time. Money will be rolling in for the other party and volunteers will be rolling in for ours and passions will run high. Steel yourself for the drama by taking care of your health, your family and anything else you care about this holiday season and enjoy opportunities to meet with friends at our various holiday get togethers.

Then, think about getting involved in 2016, as a volunteer, a delegate at the Convention or as an actual candidate for office. Plenty more opportunities will be announced in the months to come, but here are a few this month:

a. Thinking about running for office in 2016 or 2017? Please get in touch with the Campaign Committee at Campaign@lebanondemocrats.com, text or call 717-873-7680 and we can steer you to the resources you will need. Also, plan to attend the LCDC Seminars we are scheduling for 2016. More details to come.

b. The 2016 Democratic National Convention is on the horizon!. If you want to get advance information about the delegate selection process, you can get a preview on the state party website: http://www.padems.com/content/pa-delegate-selection-plan

As for volunteering at the convention, all we know now is that there is a site on the web where you can indicate your interest in volunteering: http://www.phldnc.com/help-make-history/

c. The Future of the LCDC: Strategic Planning-- At the recent LCDC Leadership Summit the group identified numerous priorities for the Democratic Committee to address in our effort to grow support in Lebanon County and beyond. As an outgrowth of that meeting, it was decided that there was a need to revisit and expand on the Strategic Planning drafted from 2006 and 2014. Many of the major areas of concern still need to be addressed and a renewed effort to address the priorities is warranted and necessary.

All District Leaders and Lebanon Democrats are encouraged to get involved in the planning and development of Action plans to reach our goals now and throughout the next few years.

Five priority goals have been initially identified and are list below and several committee members have already volunteered to serve on the steering committee. If you want to be a part of the process to move our Party forward and have positive ideas on how that can best be accomplished, please plan to attend the December 2, LCDC Executive Committee meeting. If you cannot attend the December 2 meeting at 7:00 PM please, contact Lois Herr or Dan Sidelnick and let us know your thoughts about how you can be involved in this process.

Priority Goal #1: Enhance the Image of the LCDC to educate and attract Lebanon County voters

Priority Goal #3: Expand and Broaden Party membership by reaching out to multiple constituencies.

Priority Goal #5: Identify, develop and support strong candidates for Local office to Win Elections

a. Team Litz Victory and Debt Retirement Party Team Litz will hold a victory and debt retirement party in the basement of the Humane Society Thrift Shop on Sunday, January 10 from11:30AM-1:30PM. Hot Dogs and Sauerkraut for a donation. To also help the Humane Society in an off-month, please consider shopping in the Thrift Shop and/or adopting a kitten too. Thank you for your consideration.

b. Part-Tay! The LCDC Holiday Open House is from 5-8 PM on Wednesday, December 16 at the LCDC and the LEAD Holiday Party is at Noon the next day at the Sinkhole Saloon in Palmyra. we hope you can make one of these events, but if you’re planning to go to the LCDC Party, they’d like an RSVP so they can plan on food, etc. You can do that here.

c. ¡Gracias! (and thanks!) to all the wonderful volunteers who helped out for ¡Salsa the Vote! last month. Just like the Fiesta, we brought double the amount of food we had the previous year and ran out even earlier! We estimate we had over a hundred attendees on a cold November Sunday night. This kind of outreach can only grow and we are starting to see the pay-off already and will see more in the future. Thanks especially to Cesar F.Liriano, the MC,who also provided the DJ, much of the food, helped coordinate set-up, take-down and, most important, served as cheerleader in chief for the Democrats running this year. Thanks to all our great candidates:Cesar F Liriano, Cornell Wilson, Cesar B. Liriano, Aurelis Garcia, Jo Ellen Litz, Chris Tarsa, Wiley Parker, Michael Deitz, and Laura Quick, all of whom shared their campaign and fellowship with our friends in the audience. Thanks also to our other contributors: Bea and Dick Brown, Barb Lauver. Soon Slayman, Maureen Gettle, Lou Caputzal and his entire family!, Lois Herr, Stephanie Siegel and all the other people who planned all Fall for this event. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some names, and I apologize.

This can only get bigger and more important to the community each year. All of us at the event came away thinking that we had seen the future not just of the Lebanon County Democratic Party, but the future of our country. We hope more and more of you will want to be a part of this in the years to come.

Elections can be exhilarating, nail-biting and profoundly disappointing all at the same time. It takes a brave person to run for office and sometimes it takes several tries before there is a victory and sometimes, unfortunately, there never is one. We had a number of great candidates this year locally, not just in the General Election, but also in the Primary. Listed below are the candidates who won this year, several by less than a handful or two of votes. Behind them are many local Lebanon County Democrats who contributed money, knocked on doors, made phone calls, stood at the polls and otherwise supported these candidates. If one less volunteer had been there, perhaps one of these close victories might have gone the other way. On the other hand, if one more volunteer had chipped in, perhaps this list would have been longer.

Anyway, here’s a list of our newly elected (or re-elected) officials. So please applaud them in the comfort of your own home and congratulate them when you see them. And thank those who were not victorious this time for running great, dignified and passionate campaigns. They, too, are the future of the party.

Most representatives do not expect people to be paying attention. That’s why the more people call and express their opinions, the more likely we will be listened to. Even if you know they will never vote your way on an issue, they do keep records of how many constituents disagree with them and it might help if they hear push back from their colleagues.

We now have a Community News section on the website for community events or news not directly related to LCDC, but of interest to some of our members. http://lebanondemocrats.com/community-news/

Joel Smith is seeking photographs of local democrats at democratic functions or with democratic candidates. He’d like to compile a photo album for our website. If anyone has photos email them to lebanoncountydemocrats@gmail.com and please try to include the names of the individuals in the photo, date of the event, and event name if applicable.

If anyone has content suggestions for the website please send an email to lebanoncountydemocrats@gmail.com. The committee is open to any suggestions that will help maintain a successful web and social media presence.”

b. Facebook pages Check out these sites for more information from the Lebanon County Democratic Party on local events. If you haven’t joined this Facebook page, now’s the time!!

John Harvey has found an interesting website that has all types of statistical and demographic information related to politics. For example, here is a graph comparing the change in family income for each president since Kennedy.

The PA Democratic Committee puts out a regular bulletin with news about Democrats state-wide. There is news about the Governor, legislature, county and general news. Not sure how to subscribe to it, but it looked pretty good. You can try writing to pressoffice@padems.com if you’re interested.

If there’s anything you want to share with this newsletter audience, please let us know.

Please feel free to share it with like-minded Democrats or progressive Independents.

(The monthly Editorial and snarky asides are strictly our opinion and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Lebanon County Democratic Committee or even both editors! All content of the newsletter is exclusively the responsibility of the editors, so if you would like to contribute or correct, please contact us directly.)

LEAD Holiday Party!. Sinkhole Saloon, Palmyra

LEAD is Lebanon County’s premier liberal/progressive discussion group. Meets 3rd Thursday every month, exc. Aug

Monday, Dec 28

DNC Delegate forms available on PA Dems site

LCDC Executive Committee, LCDC. If you are an officer, district leader, or committee head you are expected to attend. If you are a committee person, we hope you will come, too. Registered Democrats in Lebanon County are also welcome.

Penn Ag Democrats Jefferson Luncheon, details TBA

Team Litz Victory and Debt Retirement Party, Humane Society Thrift Shop. See below for details.

State of the Union message

Sat, Jan 16

LCDC Campaign Seminar 1 – Election Rules and Procedures (tentative)

LEAD Meeting. Sinkhole Saloon, Palmyra

LEAD is Lebanon County’s premier liberal/progressive discussion group. Meets 3rd Thursday every month, exc. Aug

Delegate pledge forms due to PADems

PA State Dems Committee Meeting

Deadline for Delegate statement and pledge forms

First Day to circulate and file nomination petitions.

Presidential campaigns notify delegates, send petitions

Annville-Cleona Dem Meeting, Annville Town Hall, 36 N Lancaster St. Meets the fourth Thursday of each month.

Contact Pat Stephens, 867-1275 for more details.

LCDC Executive Committee, LCDC. If you are an officer, district leader, or committee head you are expected to attend. If you are a committee person, we hope you will come, too. Registered Democrats in Lebanon County are also welcome.

Last date to circulate & file candidate & delegate

petitions

PRIMARY ELECTION

GENERAL ELECTION AND VICTORY PARTY!