PRIMARY ELECTION 2008 EDITION
DAWN Report
DEMOCRATIC ACTIVISTS FOR WOMEN NOW
In This Issue: Emerge Trains Next
Generation of Women
President’s Corner
Leaders
Historic year for women Successful program
as Hillary Clinton runs trains hundreds of
a close race for Democratic women.
President. Page 1 Page 2
DAWN Endorsed
DAWN Elects New
Candidates & GOTV
Board
A full list of DAWN
A new Board is elected
endorsed candidates
at the May 18th
brunch. Page 2
and GOTV info.
Page 3
President’s Corner: Closer
Than Ever by Carol Garvey, President
For Democrats 2008 has already proven to be
an historic year of firsts. First and foremost:
the emergence of a woman and an African
American male as frontrunners for the
Democratic Nomination for President after
24 states, including California, held
primaries on “Super-Duper Tuesday” (Feb
5th). Since then I have traveled to both Texas
and Pennsylvania to GOTV for Hillary in
those state’s primaries. Between the two
trips I ran to become a committed Clinton
Delegate, coming in second to win the
Clinton-Alternate Delegate spot. I’ll attend
the Democratic National Convention in
August in Denver, Colorado and am hard at
work strengthening my biceps and triceps in
case my hand-raising services are called for.
Given all that has happened this election
season with, to and for Hillary Clinton,
DAWN’s endorsed candidate for President,
it’s nail-biting time. Clinton is within
spitting distance in the total delegate count
(both pledged and Superdelegate): 1975 for
Obama versus 1780 for Clinton with 2026
needed to win (2209 counting Michigan and
Democratic Activists for Women Now | www.sccdawn.org | June 2008
DAWN Endorses
HILLARY CLINTON
for President!
HillaryClinton.com
Carol Garvey, President of DAWN,
canvassing for Hillary Clinton in
Florida). Leaving aside Florida and Michigan
for the moment there are still 200
uncommitted Superdelegates and another 81
up for grabs from among Puerto Rico,
Montana and South Dakota. The DNC
meets May 31st to decide how to seat the
Florida(210) and Michigan (156) delegates;
those two states have been entangled in a
“test of wills” with the DNC since moving
up their primaries ahead of the DNC-
imposed timetable
Both the Obama and Clinton camps have
spun the numbers to their advantage and
though Hillary (affectionately called “La
1
JUNE 2008
Dama” or “La Mama” by Latino voters in
Ft. Worth, Texas) is down, she is far from
out. The Philadelphia Inquirer cited the six
different versions of the Delegate vote count
that “Real Clear Politics” keeps track of in
it’s May 23rd editorial: “In most inclusive
count, Clinton has the numbers”: They
wrote; “To understand how razor-thin this
majority is, consider that if the Puerto Rico
turnout is slightly larger than we have
imagined, or Clinton’s margin is slightly
greater-then Clinton would finish the
primary process leading in every
conceivable vote count. With two million
voters, a 28 percent victory would put
Clinton over the top even in the count,
which excludes Florida and Michigan and
includes estimates for Obama’s caucus
victories”.
Citing other “close” races (Ted Kennedy,
Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown)
that were not nearly as close as this horse
race Andrew Stephen (May 22, ’08 the New
Statesman) wrote: “None of these male
candidates had a premature political
obituary written in the way that Hillary
Clinton’s has been, or was subjected to such
righteous outrage over refusing to quiesce
and withdraw (cont. on page 3)
 D A W N | J U N E 2 0 0 8

DAWN BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
DAWN Elects New Board at
May Brunch
President
Carol Garvey by Carla Collins, Executive Vice President

Executive Vice President On May 18, DAWN members gathered to

Carla Collins
Vice President Membership
Joan Goddard
Vice President Fundraising
Parris Correa
VP Political Action
Noelani Sallings
Secretary
Alison Taylor Coy
Treasurer
Lee Sturtevant
Directors
DenieseAlejandro
Julie Lind, Barbara Boone, Bobbie
Nipper, Jean Cohen, Ashley Roybal
Darcie Green, Carole Kaye
Burga Santiago, Deepka Lalwani
The DAWN Report
The DAWN Report is published
quarterly. It is the newsletter for
the Democratic Activists for
Women Now. DAWN is a
Democratic club accredited by the
Santa Clara County Democratic
Central Committee. Newsletter
subscription is included in $30/
$10 DAWN membership or may
be purchased separately for $20 to
DAWN, P.O. Box 6614, San Jose,
CA 95150.
elect the DAWN Board and learn more
about Emerge California, an organization
creating the pipeline for democratic women
to elected office. By unanimous acclaim
Carol Garvey was reelected President.
Elected to the DAWN Board are Carla
Collins, Executive Vice President, Joan
Goddard as VP of Membership, Parris
Correa as VP of Fundraising, Noelani
Sallings as VP of Political Action, Alison
Taylor Coy as Secretary, and Lee Sturtevant
as Treasurer. Ten of the twelve Directors
seats were also filled by Deniese Alejandro,
Barbara Boone, Jean Cohen, Darcie Green,
Carole Kaye, Deepka Lalwani, Julie Lind,
Bobbie Nipper, Ashley Roybal, Noelani
Sallings and Burga Santiago. The slate was
elected for a 2-year term.
As the Brunch Keynote Speaker, DAWN
was excited to have Executive Director
Gretchen Schoenstein from Emerge
California. We learned about their
successful initiatives to increase the
number of Democratic women in
appointed and elected leadership
positions. Since 2002, Emerge has given
Democratic women the skills and tools to
run for office. From December to June the
participants meet for one weekend a
month to learn what it takes from experts
to run successful local and statewide
Community Invited to Celebrate Harold Riddle’s Life
campaigns. The women get intensive
training, mentorship and a network of
support that is paying off: 114 graduates
have garnered over 60 appointments to
boards and commissions, 21 runs and 13
victories for public office. And these
numbers are expected to rise with the
today’s class as over half are currently
running for office.
Emerge classmates are all women, all
Democrats, and all interested at some level
in running for office. They range in age
from 25-70 years and half of all graduates
are women of color. They also represent a
variety of educational and socio-economic
levels because Emerge recognizes that
government is stronger when it reflects the
people it is designed to serve. The need is
great.
Gretchen noted how term limits have hurt
women in office but that when women run
they often win. In order to get more
women to run Emerge has expanded to six
other states and by 2016 Emerge America
plans to be in 20 states. The Republican
party has a similar program that has been
around a bit longer and is currently in
16-18 states. For more information, visit
www.emergeca.org

Co-Editors This coming Sunday, June 1,

Carla Collins & Jennifer Myronuk services for Thomas Harold Riddle
Design will begin at 2 p.m. at St. Mark’s
Jennifer Myronuk Episcopal Church, 1957 Pruneridge
Ave., in Santa Clara. A reception
Database
will follow at the Italian-American
Bobbie Nipper
Heritage Foundation, 425 N.
Contributors Fourth St., San Jose. Donations in
Carla Collins, Carol Garvey, Jennifer his memory may be directed to San
Myronuk, Joan Goddard
Jose State Alumni Association
Web Site: Student Scholarship Fund, One Beloved community members, Loretta and
www.sccdawn.org Washington Square, San Jose, CA Harold Riddle at a recent DAWN event. Harold
95192-0126. passed away on April 26, 2008 and will be
Email: greatly missed.
carolgarvey2003@yahoo.com

2 Democratic Activists for Women Now | www.sccdawn.org | June 2008

 D A W N | J U N E 2 0 0 8

DAWN ENDORSED CANDIDATES: ELECTION 2008

Hillary Clinton (and Carol Barbara Sprenger Otto Lee Emily Reilly Rose Herrera Paul Fong
Garvey)
President of the US:  CA Assembly District 21:  Richard Hobbs, - *open
Hillary Clinton  Ira Ruskin (inc.) www.hobbsforsupervisor.com
www.hillaryclinton.com www.iraruskin.org
Get Out Congressional District 11:  CA Assembly District 22: 
Santa Clara Co BoS Dist. 3: 
Otto Lee
Jerry McNerney (inc.) Paul Fong www.ottolee.org
The Vote: www.jerrymcnerney.org www.paulfong.org
San Jose City Council D2:  
CA Primary Congressional District 14: 
Anna Eshoo (inc.)
CA Assembly District 23: 
Joe Coto (inc.)
Ash Kalra
ashkalra.com

Election ‘08 Annaeshooforcongress.com www.joecoto.org

San Jose City Council D4:  
Congressional. District 15:  CA Assembly District 24:  Kansen Chu (inc.)
Mike Honda (inc.) Jim Beall (inc.) www.kansenchu.com
www.mikehonda.org www.jimbeall.com
San Jose City Council D6:  
June 3, 2008 Congressional. District 16:  CA Assembly District 27:  Pierluigi Oliverio (inc.)
Zoe Lofgren (inc.) Barbara Sprenger – Dual
Lofgrenforcongress.com www.sprenger2008.com San Jose City Council D8:  
  Emily Reilly - Dual Rose Herrera
CA State Senate Dist 11:  www.emilyreilly.com www.roseforsanjose.com
sccdawn.org Joe Simitian (inc.)
www.joesimitian.com CA Assembly District 28:  San Jose City Council D10:
Anna Caballero (inc.) Nancy Pyle (inc.)
CA State Senate Dist 13:  www.annacaballero.org www.nancypyle.com
Elaine Alquist (inc.)
*Open Endorsement: Though
www.alquist4senate.com Santa Clara Co BoS Dist. 2:  DAWN has not officially endorsed
George Shirakawa - open  * either candidate in this race, our
www.georgeshirakawa.com members are free to endorse and
support either candidate.

PRESIDENT’S CORNER: Hillary Makes History (cont. from page 1)
refusing to quiesce and withdraw obediently from what, in this
case, has always been a knife-edge race”. This longer view,
written from a journalist in England argues that the “blatant”
and “unashamed sexism” spewed nightly by major news
networks’ pundits about Hillary Clinton has served to
undermine her campaign.
I’ll be a yellow-dog Democrat until the day I die and pledge to
work hard to elect whichever candidate wins the nomination in
August. This race has brought home to me the importance of
DAWN and the work we do to mentor and support progressive
women candidates for office. The board’s recent decision to
partner with Emerge by offering two scholarships to the next
Emerge Leadership Training Program is a good step in
furthering the mission of DAWN in Santa Clara County. Emerge-
trained women are better equipped to handle every aspect of
running for office, and the percentages of electeds among their
graduates proves it.
Remembering Rita: It is my sad news to report the passing of
Rita Sowash Duncan, a founding member of DAWN and one of
our early Treasurers. As school nurse and mother of six (and like
Nancy Pelosi but with a "mother-of-six" voice) Rita exercised a
practical approach to child-rearing.  This included just just one
rule: one hour max of TV per week per child.  Anything over that
would lead to a 25 cent-per-hour fine deducted from the
offending child's allowance.   Needless to say, her children
excelled in school.  During her time on the DAWN board and on
the Central Committee Rita advocated tirelessly for Choice and
Gun Control.  During interviews she held candidates' feet to the
fire until she was satisfied they they were giving an honest
answer.  Rita was also famous for her dry sense of humor and her
persimmon cookies.
I also want to send my deepest condolences to Loretta Riddle as
we celebrate her beloved husband Harold Riddle’s life on
Sunday, June 1. Their shared love of people, politics, travel,
culture and community inspired generations of local leaders,
myself -- and countless others -- included.

Democratic Activists for Women Now | www.sccdawn.org | June 2008 3

 D A W
| N

Calendar of Events: June - July 2008

Saturday, May 31:
Cardea Center for Women Annual Women’s Leadership
Forum. 2 - 5 PM, San Jose Public Library - West Valley
Branch Library, 1243 San Tomas Aquino Rd. in San Jose.
Please RSVP:events@cardeacenterforwomen.org
Sunday, June 1:
Memorial Service and Celebration of Harold Riddle
Sunday. Services for Thomas Harold Riddle will begin at 2
p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 1957 Pruneridge
Ave., in Santa Clara. A reception will follow at the Italian-
American Heritage Foundation, 425 N. Fourth St.,
Tuesday, June 10:
Fundraiser for Ira Ruskin with Gavin Newsom. 6pm -
9pm. Sheraton Palo Alto, Palo Alto, CA. RSVP to Stefanie
Roumeliotes (415) 402-0303.
Saturday, June 21:
6pm, Lt. Jose A. Santiago Memorial Foundation present
it's 2nd Annual Fundraiser~Dancing Under the
Stars.  Location Santiago/Taylor Residence, 2322 Hoya Ln,
Gilroy, CA 95020. Live Music, Paella Dinner, Wine Tasting
and Raffle Prizes.   Suggested Donation: $100. RSVP (408)
655-4737.

Monday, June 2-3: Sunday, June 22:

Get Out The Vote activities, varied by campaign.
Tuesday, June 3:
Primary Election Day
Sunday, June 8:
Voice for Change Fundraiser & Awards. Planned
Parenthood Advocates, Mar Monte. 2-4pm in Los Altos
Hills. For more information, please contact Joan at (408)
297-9255 x226, or rsvp@ppmarmonte.org
Rev. David Bruner of the San Jose Center for Spiritual
Living will perform a marriage ceremony for all same sex
couples. This service is a gift from the church, there is no
fee. For more information, please call Mat Lindstedt at 408
832-3800, or matlindstedt@sanjosecenter.org
Saturday, July 26:
Save The Date! 4th Annual Democratic
Club's picnic at Rainbow Park. Free for members of any local
democratic clubs and $10 for non-members.  

Democratic Activists for Women Now June 2008

Be sure to check the date above your name on the mailing label below. That is when your DAWN dues must be renewed.
Don’t let your membership lapse, especially during this important election year! Only members current for
at least 30 days can vote for endorsements and other DAWN voting issues. Renew now: www.sccdawn.org

Democratic
Activists

for
Women
Now
P.O.
Box
6614
San
Jose,
CA
95150

Address
Correction
Requested

Labor and Printing Donated