An Important Announcement

I seek to be your Delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention

Pledged to Howard Dean for President

16th Congressional District
Delegate Selection Caucus

Sunday February 8, 2004 @ 2:30PM to 5PM
(Doors close at 3PM)

San Jose High Academy Gymnasium
275 N. 24th Street, San Jose, CA 95116

I ask you all to lend me your support by joining me at the Caucus for an exercise in direct democracy. Our system for choosing the next President begins with this basic meeting of registered Democrats from our Congressional District, the 16th District, represented in Congress by the Hon. Zoe Lofgren, who will convene this caucus. Even in this great metropolis the process starts with neighbors meeting in gymnasiums and homes to choose their delegates.

Now believe me the process may begin simply, but it rapidly becomes an quick lesson in higher math as delegates are awarded to the candidates based on the percentage of votes that each candidate receives in our March 2nd Democratic Primary. But I am eager to make the commitment and to faithfully carry to our National Convention the choice of the voters of this District.

The year 2004 is barely one month old, but the most important Election in this Nation since 1932 is well under way, right now.

I have been actively supporting Gov. Howard Dean in his campaign to become the next President of the United States and return our government to fiscal responsibility and end this detour into irrationality abroad. I joined with other local Democrats at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sv4dean/ in April 2003, because I want my Country back!

Now, I am not a lawyer or a politician (Teresa might argue that last one...) but the study of our Nation's history and politics has been a lifelong passion, ignited by the 1968 Presidential Campaign. As a precocious 12 year old I volunteered in local Democratic campaigns in my native Shawnee, Oklahoma. I worked precincts and did straw polls on street corners all Summer, staffing the local HQ on weekends. I attended the Oklahoma State Democratic Convention that year with our local State Senator and his wife and this inspired me to work that much harder and to attempt to attend the National Convention in Chicago as a page. After a long letter writing and fundraising campaign I did indeed find myself on the train to Chicago in late August 1968, paying my own way as you had to be 14 to be an "official" page. And so began a life long obsession with the public affairs of this great Republic.

And so when I tell you that I have never been as concerned about our Nation's course and it's future as I am right now, well, then you know that includes Viet Nam, Dick Nixon, Watergate and the election of Ronald Reagan, twice! All of these pale in comparison to where this Nation is now and where it is headed. We have turned truth on it's head. Our President calls for a Clear Skies Initiative that rolls back air quality standards and rewards polluters who refuse to modernize. A Healthy Forest Act that will prevent wildfire by cutting more trees and building more wilderness roads. We went to War, risking the blood of our children and the treasure of our nation's labor to remove an imminent threat, one with biological weapons, nuclear intentions and capabilities. We found a tenacious foe and were welcomed with bombs and shattered limbs and lives, rather than the promised smiles and flowers, with only the Weapons of Mass Distraction emanating from Washington and the Media, to justify any of it.

With Howard Dean we can change that, and we will!

Our fiscal house is in great disorder, we face deficits at record levels as far as the eye can see. The playing field of our national economy is no longer level as unbalanced tax cuts and a corrupt "good 'ol boy" backscratching style of corporate governance has taken hold. This same opportunism now threatens our freedoms as the Right, using the vehicle of the Republican Party, seeks to implement it's social agenda by using our fears to manipulate the political atmosphere. This misuse of legitimate fears on the part of Americans has been the most egregious offense of this Administration, and that is saying something.

But with Howard Dean we can change that, and we will!

Masters of the "Friday Announcement" this Misadministration has gutted years of institutional memory from our government as well as tailoring regulations at all levels to move their agenda and reward their friends. We have former chemical industry lobbyists running EPA Departments and current industry lobbyists writing the regulations!

With Howard Dean we can change that, and we will!

So please join me and your fellow Democrats and neighbors on Sunday, February 8th and we will begin this process, we will nominate and elect Howard Dean the next President of the United States.

I ask you for your vote, I won't waste it.

R. Gregg Johnson
emailto jsnjroofing@pacbell.net





  ¶ 12:40 AM