March 4, 2005: Headlines: COS - El Salvador: Politics: Congress: Asia Week: When Rep. Mike Honda started his campaign for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, his major opponent, Alvaro Cifuentes, with a year’s head start, was publicly claiming he had the votes to win

Peace Corps Online: Directory: El Salvador: Special Report: RPCV Congressman Mike Honda: February 9, 2005: Index: PCOL Exclusive: RPCV Mike Honda (El Salvador) : March 4, 2005: Headlines: COS - El Salvador: Politics: Congress: Asia Week: When Rep. Mike Honda started his campaign for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, his major opponent, Alvaro Cifuentes, with a year’s head start, was publicly claiming he had the votes to win

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-123-27.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.123.27) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 12:58 am: Edit Post

When Rep. Mike Honda started his campaign for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, his major opponent, Alvaro Cifuentes, with a year’s head start, was publicly claiming he had the votes to win

When Rep. Mike Honda started his campaign for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, his major opponent, Alvaro Cifuentes, with a year’s head start, was publicly claiming he had the votes to win

When Rep. Mike Honda started his campaign for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, his major opponent, Alvaro Cifuentes, with a year’s head start, was publicly claiming he had the votes to win

Behind the Headlines


By Maeley Tom, Mar 04, 2005

[Excerpt]

Honda’s Fortitude Pays Off: Battling for a leadership position in a national political party is no easy feat, even for a congressman.

When Rep. Mike Honda started his campaign for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, his major opponent, Alvaro Cifuentes, with a year’s head start, was publicly claiming he had the votes to win. A party leader even suggested Honda may want to drop out to support Cifuentes in exchange for a non-elected leadership post. Instead, Honda was more determined than ever to put up a good fight because he knew the stakes were too high to back down.

Vida Benavides, a key volunteer adviser, claims the key to this challenging campaign was to let Honda be Honda. His congressional record and his ability to deliver the dollars and votes to the Kerry-Edwards campaign gave him solid credentials. But his advisers knew that his gregarious personality, warmth and charm were his greatest campaign weapons.

Honda’s approach was to do it the hard way: talk to individual delegates, one on one. With the help of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and household names such as Donna Brazile, he began to gain support from DNC members from the South and the red and blue states by demonstrating his ability to bring the progressive and conservative ideals of the party together. After he received the endorsement of the powerful AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers — based on his long-standing record with labor and education — his campaign was on a roll.

His passion in getting the party’s leadership to reflect the true face of America became so persuasive that it convinced his former opponents — Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Nelson Diaz, former DNC Hispanic Caucus chair — to drop out to show unity behind Honda. The rest is history.

Even as the roll call was being taken on the floor, Honda had no idea what the final vote count would be. But his floor whips were remarkable. Not only were they able to deliver the votes pledged to Honda, but they were also able to get people to switch votes for Honda during the roll call.

After the victory Honda told me that while the win was sweet, he was most touched by the dedication and energy his small army of volunteers put forth day and night to help make this happen for him.

Honda’s longtime and devoted chief of staff, Jennifer Van Der Heide, and staff member Brian Jung volunteered endless hours for this monumental effort. They were able to bring together some of the most politically savvy APA talent in Washington. Gov. Gary Locke and former DNC and White House staffers, such as Courtni Pugh, Mona Pasquil, Benavides, Chung Seto, Maria Haley, Ginger Lew and Jadine Nielsen, dropped everything to help out. APA delegates, congressional staff members and campaign state directors, such as Ana Ma, Bel Leong Hong, Mona Mohib, Gloria Caiole, Madalene Mielke, Charmaine Manansala and Nancy Biery, joined the Honda team.

Personally speaking, I can state that Honda certainly has come a long way from the days he and I were delegates to the Democratic National Convention in New York, spending our spare time distributing copies of AsianWeek to conventioneers.





When this story was posted in March 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:

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March 1: National Day of Action Date: February 28 2005 No: 471 March 1: National Day of Action
Tuesday, March 1, is the NPCA's National Day of Action. Please call your Senators and ask them to support the President's proposed $27 Million budget increase for the Peace Corps for FY2006 and ask them to oppose the elimination of Perkins loans that benefit Peace Corps volunteers from low-income backgrounds. Follow this link for step-by-step information on how to make your calls. Then take our poll and leave feedback on how the calls went.
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Story Source: Asia Week

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - El Salvador; Politics; Congress

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