Fellow Democrats:
What a ride! It's hard to imagine that the presidential campaign began almost two years ago in February of 2007. This beginning
included the state convention held right here, for the first time, in San Diego County. For this reason many of us were able
to meet most of the candidates for president. Among others, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
were all right here at our convention center 22 months ago.
In September of '07 recently retired Cmdr. Mike Lumpkin announced his candidacy for the 52nd District. The Santee Democratic
Club will be eternally proud of our role as the first Club to endorse Mike's candidacy.
As a club and as members of the Go Team and numerous campaigns we will forever be proud of the accomplishments of all Democrats
throughout East County, the 52nd CD, the 77th and 78th AD's and the eastern region of San Diego's 7th City Council District,
which surrounds Santee.
We turned out school board majorities in Alpine and El Cajon, elected the first Democrat to the La Mesa City Council in years,
helped Mary Kay Rosinsky gain a college board seat, and helped win San Diego's 7th for Marti Emerald. I encourage all of
you to view the 7th City Council District map at
http://www.sdvote.com/maps/Cust-Rdy_SD_City_Cncil.jpg and you will see why we need Marti Emerald as a friend of Santee.
What we accomplished was awe inspiring. As a member of the Mike Lumpkin for Congress campaign I watched a volunteer base
grow to over 500, with over half of you active on a regular basis. That part is easy to understand, when you have a qualified
candidate that leads by example. No one worked harder than Mike and it was inevitable that dedicated Democrats would follow.
The work done by individual campaigns was equaled by the work of Go Team members, including our own Community Coordinator
Barney McEntire. Most of these volunteers worked as Go Team precinct leaders and campaign volunteers for candidates from
president to school board, as well as working for or against propositions and referendums.
Now we deserve to rest and celebrate through the holidays. And then it's back to work in January. We have a Santee City
Council seat to win, as well as selecting a candidate for governor and a campaign to hold Barbara Boxer's Senate seat. We
have the task of recruiting candidates for local races in 2010 while we continue our voter registration drive in an effort
to increase our new majority in San Diego County.
If you are unsure whether your efforts paid off keep this in mind: only three Democratic candidates for president have won
in the history San Diego County. The other two were Harry Truman in 1948 and Bill Clinton in 1992. By turning out every
possible Democrat, we helped make history on many levels.
Sincerely,
Patrick Hurley
