PRIMED FOR PRIMARY
Marin volunteers step up for favorites in presidential race
Volunteer supporters for several candidates in the hunt for the Democratic presidential nomination canvassed door to door this weekend in Marin County as the countdown to “Super Tuesday” commences.
“That’s not something we’ve seen before,” Marin Democratic Party Chairman Paul Cohen said. “Usually candidates just do fundraising in Marin.”
Cohen said the increased activity in Marin is likely because California’s primary election figures to play a more consequential role in who wins the nomination. Californians go to the polls March 3, three months earlier in the calendar than the 2016 primary.
California is just one of a dozen states holding primaries on what has been dubbed the new Super Tuesday. With 416 delegates, California has far more delegates than the next closest state, Texas, with 228 delegates.
The race is at a critical juncture, with Bernie Sanders, the progressive senator from Vermont, beginning to emerge as the front-runner. On Wednesday, a Public Policy Institute of California poll showed Sanders jumping out to an 18-point lead in California’s Democratic presidential primary. His nearest rival was former vice president Joe Biden, who had the support of 14% of likely voters.
Mark Solomons of Fairfax, who is helping lead the volunteer organizing effort for Sanders in Marin, said Sanders’ advocacy for the Green New Deal is one of the reasons he is supporting him. The deal sets the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years while also guaranteeing a job with a family sustaining wage and retirement security to all Americans.
“My daughter is 14 and I just know the future I want for her has to include a major change away from fossil fuels,” Solomons said, “and of course ‘Medicare for All’ is an idea we should have instituted a long time ago.”
Solomons did some volunteer work for the Sanders campaign in 2016 but said he is much more engaged this time. A group of Sanders supporters has been meeting every Saturday in Fairfax to do phone-banking.
“It’s easier to do it with more people than by yourself,” Solomons said. “It’s a great community effort.”
Solomons was expecting more than 20 volunteers to participate in a canvassing effort on Sunday.
Fearn de Vicq of Corte Madera, the volunteer leading Elizabeth Warren’s organizing efforts in Marin, said her group has been doing limited canvassing in Marin and other Bay Area communities for several months but began a more serious effort about two weeks ago. Volunteers come to her house to phonebank or debark on a three-hour canvassing shift.
She and other Warren supporters have been meeting ev
ery Monday at Pond Farm Brewing Co. in San Rafael “to get to know each other.”
De Vicq, who moved to Marin three years ago from New York City, said she and her husband are longtime Democrats but this is the first time she has ever been politically active. She said Donald Trump’s election as president motivated her to get involved.
De Vicq said she is concerned about income inequality and likes Warren’s idea of imposing an annual 2% tax on every dollar of net worth above $50 million and a 6% tax on every dollar of net worth above $1 billion.
“If there was a little more income distribution, it would go a long way towards making everything more affordable for everybody,” de Vicq said.
De Vicq said she is supporting Warren, not Sanders, because, “He wants to basically tax everybody.”
“Warren is a self-professed capitalist and wants to put the guard rails back on,” she said. “She’s about capitalism with regulation. Sanders is more about making everybody pay for everybody else.”
Norman Solomon, a Sanders delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention from Marin, said, “Warren is my second choice, but Bernie is far and away the best candidate for social justice, health care, economic fairness and the environment. He’s consistent in his fierce advocacy for extending the economic security that was advanced by the New Deal and has eroded in recent decades.”
Volunteers supporting Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, launched their first canvassing effort in Marin on Saturday. Prior to that they have been phonebanking and distributing literature at the Marin Farmers Market and the College of Marin.
Lori Sackman of Novato, a retired widow, is leading the effort together with Brian Gallagher, 25, of San Anselmo, who recently graduated from University of California at Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in political science. The two linked up at a meeting the Buttigieg campaign hosted for volunteer organizers in September.
Sackman said she respects Buttigieg’s “calm demeanor and the fact that he has good people around him and that he listens.”
She also likes the fact that he was a Naval intelligence officer — her daughter serves in the Navy — and that “he would like to bring the country back together.”
Gallagher also cited Buttigieg’s goal of uniting Americans as major reason for his support.
“We’re at a place where our country is so divided that families can’t get along over politics,” he said.
Gallagher, who grew up in Michigan, also added that he and Buttigieg share a “similar backstory.”
“I’m gay so I have that in common with Mayor Pete,” he said.
David Kunhardt of Corte Madera, who served as a Hillary Clinton delegate at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, is another Buttigieg fan.
“I have felt for a few months that Biden is toast,” Kunhardt said, “When Biden drops out, the rational middle is going to be looking for a place to put their bet.”
Jon Fisher of Tiburon, CEO of CrowdOptic, a San
Francisco-based tech company, hosted a fundraiser for Joe Biden at his San Francisco office in December.
Fisher said he is concerned about Biden’s lackluster performance so far.
“I think the Democratic Party is letting things run away here in a variety of capacities,” Fisher said. “I think it is a real shame if as a party we’re going to put the wrong person forward here.”
Fisher said he considers former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg the only other acceptable Democratic
candidate.
Asked who he is most concerned about winning the nomination, Fisher said either Sanders or Warren.
“You can paint them with the same brush,” he said.
De Vicq said she was a New Yorker during all three of Bloomberg’s terms as mayor. She said he was a “great mayor for New York City.”
“But I just don’t know if he will have a broad national appeal,” she said. “I also don’t like the idea of anyone buying their way into an election.”