UPDATED:  July 25, 2010 11:57 PM
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Maryland Democratic Party Claims Diversity Is Its Strength
The Diversity Leadership Council is launched to engage cultural and social communities in the state to provide voter education, increase voter registration, and bolster get-out-the-vote efforts for 2010 fall election 
By: Sam Prasad Jillella

SILVER SPRING, MD -- More than 150 Democratic activists, on a hot summer afternoon, congregated in down-town Silver Spring to support the launching of the Maryland Diversity Leadership Council.

  A perfect cross-section of the richly diverse community of Maryland — African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Continental Africans, Jews, veterans, women and lesbians/gays/bisexuals/trans-genders — cheered the elected leaders as they announced this new initiative of the Democratic Party to promote diversity and engage cultural communities this election year.

The Diversity Leadership Council program was started as a way for the party to continue engaging groups who voted for the first time during the 2008 presidential election. The program celebrates diversity as one of Maryland’s greatest strengths in order to cultivate Democratic activism in the many cultural and social communities in the state.

Each Council will set its own priorities, but will share the common goals: provide voter education and early voting awareness, increase voter registration, bolster get-out-the-vote efforts, and engage in grass-roots fundraising.

Maryland Democratic Party Chair, Susan Turnbull, said: "We are fortunate that Maryland is so rich in its diversity. These Leadership Councils represent groups who make up the fabric of this state and we want them to know how important they are to Maryland Democrats."
Maryland Lt. Governor Anthony Brown said: "For Democrats, diversity is about more than a few talking points. For us, it's action. It's why Governor O'Malley and I have fought to protect minority owned businesses during difficult economic times. It's why we've fought to ensure that your cabinet looks like our communities. It's why we've fought to reduce the performance gap in our schools and to cut disparities in our health system."

Brown added, “There is a great deal of work still left to do. During these difficult times, we can't afford to let anyone take Maryland back. We need four more years of forward-looking leadership to build on the progress we've made and protect the priorities we set."

Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-MD) of Fort Washington announced she has joined the Maryland Democratic Party's Diversity Leadership Council (DLC), to promote diversity and energize activists across the state.

"We don't have to pretend about our diversity. As the first African American woman to represent the state of Maryland in the United States Congress, I understand the importance of promoting diversity as one of our greatest strengths," said Edwards.
Most joyfully, Edwards ensured: "By embracing the unique diversity we enjoy across the state, we strengthen bonds between the many cultural and social communities, increase communication and understanding, and learn to work more effectively together to achieve our shared goals. I am excited for this opportunity and look forward to working with the other members of the Diversity Leadership Council in this effort."

Determined to utilize the enthusiasm generated during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Democratic Party has launched the appealing initiative to galvanize minority populations and engage other key voting blocs.

"It's important for people to know there is a vehicle for them to express their opinions," said House Majority Leader Kumar P. Barve ((D-Dist. 17) of Gaithersburg, who is a co-chair of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Leadership Council.

The leadership councils have been assigned chairs or co-chairs, and every council has a director, who oversees day-to-day activities, said Travis Tazelaar, the party's executive director.

Matthew Verghese, staff director of the Diversity Council told Asian Fortune: “This initiative was started in early 2009, and there are presently 8 councils. The sizable minority groups in Maryland amount to roughly 50 percent of the state’s population — African American (30%), Latino (7%), Asian Pacific Islanders (5%) and Jewish (10%). Our task is to engage them and other minority communities, and make them active participants in the political process. President Obama changed politics and political campaigning for ever, using the internet.”

When asked how are they trying to reach-out to all the diverse communities, Verghese said, “one can be at home and do all the work — making phone calls from the computer through phone-banks, social networking, facebook, myspace, youtube, twitter, etc — and each one of us can be a part of the change.” For more information about the Maryland Democratic Party’s Diversity Leadership Council, visit the website: http://www.mddems.org/diversity

Between 2006 and 2008 general elections, the Gazette reported, “more than 253,000 Democrats were added to the registration rolls in Maryland. During the same period, Republicans signed up about 45,000 new voters, according to state elections board statistics.”

Nearly three-quarters of new Democratic voters, or almost 190,000, participated in the 2008 election, Tazelaar said.

Democrats acknowledge there is work to be done, because Barack Obama is not on the ballot. The task now is to convince those who voted for Obama to turn out in a non-presidential year.

U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Dist. 7) of Baltimore said President Obama should campaign for Gov. Martin O'Malley and other Democratic candidates and remind voters who turned out in 2008 that their votes are important this year to guarantee President Obama's success. In an interview with Gazette, Cummings stated: "It's not enough to say, ‘I support somebody.' The most important thing is that they come out and pull that lever."

The co-chair of the Latino Leadership Council, Del. Joseline Peña-Melynk (D-Dist. 21) of College Park claimed her community is fired-up over the national immigration debate, and calls for just a little stimulation to proceed to the polls. "I think people are more educated on the need to be involved and to have their voice and their vote heard," she said.

The leaders of the Democratic Party, in their speeches said the Republicans talk about being an inclusive party, but in reality, they have little to show for it.

Barve, the first Indian-American elected to a state legislative seat in the US, in 1990, said “Republicans can't point to any minority candidates already serving in Annapolis, while Democrats can point to officeholders from many different cultures.”

"The Democratic Party doesn't talk about diversity; we elect it," said Del. Heather R. Mizeur (D-Dist. 20) of Takoma Park. "And on the Republican side you have chirping crickets, total silence on their diversity slate."

This gubernatorial race might rest on Democrats' ability to mobilize minority voters.

The Maryland Democratic Party has a specific goal of reaching out to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, seeing great potential for this type of organizing.
The AAPI community is represented in the legislature by four Delegates: Kumar Barve, Susan Lee, Saqib Ali, and Kris Valderrama. There are at least four other AAPI Democratic candidates running in 2010 including Sam Arora and Hoan Dang in District-19, Neeta Datt in District-14, and Shukoor Ahmed in District-23 A.

It is estimated by the AAPI Leadership Council that there are approximately 300,000 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Maryland (5.2% of the population) out of which 85,000 have been identified as current voters.
About a quarter of the AAPI population is Indian, and slightly less than that is Chinese. There are also significant populations of Koreans, Filipinos, and Vietnamese. Nationally, Asian Americans have been moving in the Democrats’ direction.

The 2006-CNN exit polling listed Asians as 2% of the total vote in Maryland but did not break down how they voted due to the small number involved.
The AAPI Leadership Council is working to increase those numbers as well as the profile of those already voting, contributing, and participating. They have organized themselves entirely with volunteers into committees for membership, communications, finance, and grassroots organizing. Their goal is to not just bring out their community for candidates with their own backgrounds, but to support Democrats in general.
The two outstanding issues for the AAPI community are small business and education. The reasons they move to Montgomery County is the schools. That is quite consistent with every other population group in the area.

During his speech, Cummings asked the cheering crowd — “Look to your left, look to your right. Smile! Don’t frown! Look at what we have here. Think about this — this is absolutely awesome. It’s so often people look at our diversity as our problem. I am convinced our diversity is our promise. No doubt about it!”

“Sometimes I look at the Congress of the United States, I look at the democratic side, and I say to myself ‘I thank God that we have this diversity,’ because there are certain things that come to play — issues that we deal with, things that we are more sensitive to. And if you lock out people from discussions, you don’t make the kind of decisions you should.”

“We got to make sure that we don’t want to stand back and let our future shape us. But, we are about to business of shaping our future…I want to remind that all of this is bigger than us. This is not only about you, this is about generations.

Cummings electrified the crowd saying: “It’s not about the next election — it’s about the next generation!”

“When I look at the crowd right here, I say ‘no matter what they do, those other guys cannot put together a crowd that looks like this’ — that is black, and its brown, and its Asian, its Latino, its African-American, its whites, its gays and lesbians — who did I leave out, exactly who Democrats are?” Donna Edwards asked roaring crowd.

Edwards fired-up the activists saying: “We embrace a diversity that we are — we love it!”

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