From Poker to Politics

PART 2: JOINING THE PARTY

In 1996, I moved from Downey, California back to Saginaw, Michigan, where I had grown up. My mom died in 1995, and my dad, almost 90, was very lonely without her. I phoned him every single day after my mom’s death. Dad got sick during the winter of 1996, and I decided the time to return home had come.

I have done a lot of work in the field of state laws on poker. State poker laws vary widely throughout our country, and about half the states have a framework that was out of date a century ago, let alone now. By 2005, I felt that I had many good ideas that could be put into practice. I had even put up a website called Fair Laws On Poker (FLOP for short). So I decided to make some contact with the Democratic Party in Michigan, and went to my county’s monthly Dem meeting in May of 2005. Frankly, much of it was pretty boring, but I kept attending. In the fall of 2005, a group of Dems decided to form a club, so I pitched in my lot with those people who were a bit unhappy with the way things were going with the county party. My suggestion was to name our group the Saginaw Area Democratic Club, and that name was adopted. I also put my rulemaking skills to work and set up the framework for their initial bylaws. They let me be on their Board of Directors.

That spring, the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) had their annual gathering of Congressional District people in Lansing to get grassroots input into their platform. I asked my District Chair to be one of those people and was able to go as an alternate. Note that our contribution is an addendum that is “considered part of the platform,” but the actual platform itself is written by a special group that does the job. Even so, it was a fun and educational experience for me. Our MDP Chair, Mark Brewer, runs the meeting, and he is a master at guiding us without looking like he is doing anything other than allowing everyone free rein. In particular, he is deft at avoiding positions that are consistant with party values but liable to cost the party some votes. Here is one example. There was a ballot proposal in 2006 to legalize dove hunting. Naturally, our sympathies were for the peaceful little birds that coo in the morning (I did not even know they were edible). However, Brewer told us that the ballot proposal would fail even without our taking a stand against it, and it was politically unwise to take an anti-hunting stance. We went along with him, and in the November election, the proposal failed by a solid margin.

In the fall of 2006, we had a heated race for state senator in my county. Saginaw is an automobile town (we make Chevys), meaning the city is Democratic. However, the outlying part of the county is rural, so the GOP is strong there. Our elections are very competitive, with both parties having their chances. That year, there was no incumbent senator in the race, so we were flooded with money and party election workers from Lansing. The Democratic Campaign Manager, David Randels, wound up staying in my guest room for three months. I got quite a political education from him, and we became good friends. Despite the fact that the Democratic candidate narrowly lost (he faced a wealthy heart surgeon who spent a lot of his own money), Dave was given credit for managing a good campaign. He now heads the Michigan Senate Democratic Caucus. One of the things I picked up from David was the habit of reading the NY Times Online every morning. This has kept me in good touch with what is going on in the world.