All Politics ARE Local

I used to not believe the phrase about politics always being local, and I didn't understand why presidential candidates pounded the pavement in small towns across the country, but after becoming involved in local government and community work as well as state, national and a bit of international, I realize how much translates at all levels.

Take the environment, for example - it's one of the best - I was at an Emerge event last night for South Bay and Peninsula community Democratic women leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a few of us were discussing the local environmental activities in Menlo Park and Atherton. A (male) candidate for the California Assembly, Paul Fong, was part of this discussion and since he's endorsed by the Sierra Club and running as the environmental (and educational) candidate, I asked him what he thought about what was going on at the state level and he said the current bill under discussion is "realistic." It concerns me that we still may not doing enough to keep the polar ice caps from melting, but we all agreed that if we don't start doing something at the city and state level, we'll never accomplish what we need to do nationally and internationally.

Fong is endorsed by the termed-out Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, whose seat he's running for (22nd Assembly District), as well as Anna Eshoo, Zoe Lofgren, and Mike Honda, all members of Congress. He also has the NOW endorsement and that of the state Democratic party. I was impressed by how well he listened to our conversation and how he quietly participated in the event. We occasionally have male candidates at these events, but often both elected officials and candidates at all levels don't stick around for the entire events. They're all so busy. They make appearances and then bolt.

This time, they all stayed (10+ elected officials from city and county levels), including Fong, currently a Community College Trustee, who seemed surprisingly calm for someone in the middle of a contested race, but I think he was just soaking it in, which would be a great quality to have in a representative. After all, the whole concept of representatives is to listen to your local constituents and help them out at the state and national levels.

The Emerge reception program last night was about campaign lessons learned, and it was interesting to hear all about what each of these women who had won local elections had gone through to become elected. (I'm not giving away secrets here, sorry! You have to go through the program.) I found it interesting how county and Assembly candidates were listening to stories from city council members and school board members, learning from them, and of course vice versa.

I hadn't been to an event like this in a while for various reasons (certainly not for lack of wanting to go), and I'll admit it's easy to get wrapped-up in what's going on nationally in terms of the presidential campaign going full steam, but it's nice to sit down with a bunch of committed local leaders and get perspective on activities at the city and county level, like with our parks. For those of you who have city council meetings available on TV or transcripts to be found online, I encourage you to observe and watch and learn. What you do locally can make a big difference.

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Sarah Granger will be blogging next weekend from Sacramento about the California state legislative process.