Friday, September 26, 2008

Goldman challenges "sham, manipulated, undemocratic" process used by Richmond DEMS to endorse Jones.

Goldman for Mayor - 26 September 2008 - For Immediate Release

Statement from Paul Goldman, candidate for Mayor, former Chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, and recognized as one of the few leaders who stood up to the old, closed process, even suing the old Democratic Party, to make sure all Democrats got an equal say in party matters:

"I was just informed that the Richmond City Democratic Committee, in an example of a closed, non-democratic, boss-run, who-cares-about-the-issues-or-the-best-interests-of-Richmond process that would have even embarrassed the segregationist regime of Harry F. Byrd, last night endorsed Dwight Jones without (1) ever interviewing any of the other Democrats running for Mayor about their positions on the issues, (2)without providing notice to anyone even the press about what they were going to do, (3) (3) without considering how should an embarrassing and undemocratic process could split Democrats and thus hurt the chances of the Obama-Biden ticket to carry Virginia, (4) without any consideration on how such an embarrassing, insular and exclusionary process would hurt the ability of any Mayor to bring our City together and (5) without any consideration to the fact that the RCDC, which never helped me one wit when I was fighting to end this kind of power-broker controlled process of picking our Mayor, has shown once again that never wanted to give average Democrats any say in picking a Mayor in the first place.

As I have said repeatedly in this campaign, my career has been successful in making historic changes that have opened up our society so that all people can have a greater say in their government and their city and their state and their country because I have never been afraid of challenging the political establishment and the political power-brokers: and I see no reason to stop now.

Earlier this year, in a column for Style Weekly, I warned that something like this could happen. No one paid attention. No one cared.

But I believe that the people of Richmond, whatever their political philosophy, agree with me that we have come too far to turn back now. "

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