More than 250 people attended the opening of the Pacific Palisades Westside Democratic Club’s campaign headquarters at 1408 Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica last Thursday. The event, which was synchronized with the night of President Barrack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, included a public ribbon-cutting ceremony and a host of Democratic representatives. The attendees included 33rd Congressional candidate Rep. Henry Waxman; Los Angeles mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti; Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom; L.A. City Controller Wendy Greuel,; Mike Bonin, Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s chief of staff; and former Santa Monica Mayor Dennis Zane, who was representing current 53rd District Assemblywoman Betsy Butler. The headquarters will be open seven days week until the election, said Gary M. Bettman, Pacific Palisades Democratic Club (PPDC) headquarters manager. He said he was more than happy with the turnout. ‘We had so many people arrive that our elevator actually broke down.’ The PPDC will be sharing the space with Organizing for America’California in the lead up to November 6, said club president Melissa Grant. The California Democratic Club and the West L.A. Democratic Club are also backing the two groups’ efforts in both the presidential and local races. ’I just got back from Charlotte and let me tell you, when the First Lady was speaking there wasn’t a dry eye in the house,’ Garcetti told the audience. ‘She reminded us what it is to be Americans, and Bill Clinton reminded us what it is to be Democrats.’ Garcetti said that the election comes down to a clear choice ‘between whether we go backwards towards failure, or forward towards the progressiveness that we have seen.’ Holding up two signs that read ‘going’ and ‘forward’ that he brought back with him from North Carolina, Garcetti said that ‘we are the ones who define what it means to be Americans, where one person equals one vote and each voice should be equal to the others.’ Bonin said ‘The difference between the Republican party and Democratic Party right now is as stark and as clear as it could ever possibly be. It’s a vision between two very different Americas, one of survival of the richest with every straight man in it for himself, and on the other side, one of a party that stands up for things’a different vision of America.’ ’We’ve got a fight on our hands and we are going to win it,’ Bonin said. ‘We are going to keep Barack Obama in the White House. We are going to give Henry (Waxman) and his party the majority in the House and we are going to keep the Senate’are you fired up?’ The former yoga studio that is now serving as a Democratic campaign headquarters boomed the sounds of the audience’s applause and cheers. ‘I want to welcome you to Democratimonica,’ Bloom said to the audience. ‘If you gathered up all the Republicans in Santa Monica, they might fill this room.’ ’I am proud to be the mayor of a town where every member of the City Council is a Democrat,’ Bloom continued. ‘I’m proud to be running for the 50th State Assembly District race but I am here to talk about Democrats in Washington and getting them re-elected.’ ‘We have had it with the Republicans in Congress,’ Waxman said. ‘Every step of the way they have tried to frustrate President Obama: the stimulus bill they voted no, the energy bill they voted no, the health bill they voted no, the bill to regulate Wall Street and these wild expenditures of other people’s money, they voted no.’ Despite the obstacles, President Obama passed the Affordable Care Act, he passed the legislation to regulate for Wall Street, and he put in money for infrastructure and new healthcare technology, Waxman said. ’He has done things by Executive Order when he couldn’t get it through Congress, but he can’t do everything on his own’that’s why have to do things for him,’ Waxman said. ‘Re-elect President Obama and re-elect people who will support President Obama.’ Besides various volunteer efforts, including phone calls and canvassing efforts in Nevada, the PPDC will host watching parties during the three upcoming presidential debates and one vice presidential debate.
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