Deltas’ Message: Don’t Move; Organize

Dr. Khalilah Brown-Dean (Thomas Breen photo)

November 16, 2016 - One week after a nationwide wave of populist, conservative discontent helped Donald J. Trump win the presidency and Republicans retain majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress, community leaders called for frustrated New Haveners to work together to protect abortion rights, protect immigrants, and prepare voters for the next election.

Dori Dumas, president of the Greater New Haven NAACP, called for more volunteers to help out with her branch’s year-round voter registration and civic education drives. Mary Elizabeth Smith, program director at Junta for Progressive Action, encouraged all New Haveners to participate in Junta’s regular Know Your Rights clinics. Susan Yolen, vice president at Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, asked for more friendly faces to volunteer at their Edwards Street offices on Saturdays to help welcome patients otherwise greeted by a weekly encampment of abortion protesters.

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Sanderistas Win 1

Thomas Breen photo

November 8, 2016 - Bernie Sanders was no longer in the running in the presidential election Tuesday, but some local activists inspired by his campaign regrouped to win a state representative seat.

The Sanderistas coalesced behind the campaign of first-time candidate Joshua Elliott, a Democrat who Tuesday won the vacant 88th state General Assembly District seat.

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On The Doors: LEAP Lesson, Biz Jitters

Thomas Breen photo

November 7, 2016 - When candidates in the only competitive local race knocked on doors this weekend, they heard about more than just local worries.

New Haven has no truly competitive local races in Tuesday’s general election. (Technically the Republicans do have a candidate on the ballot in the 93rd General Assembly District and someone on the ballot for Congress, but there have been scant signs of a real campaign.)

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Hillary Road Trip Hits A Battleground

New Haven’s Oliphant and Colter at Dresher Clinton HQ. (Thomas Breen photo)

October 10, 2016 - Willow Grove, Penn. — Standing outside of an ACME supermarket on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, Carter Colter asked a question that he had been repeating to incoming and outgoing shoppers for the past three hours.

“Excuse me, are you registered to vote?”

Colter, 70, a retired advertising salesman who had joined a group of volunteers who traveled from New Haven down to the Philadelphia suburbs for the weekend to volunteer for the local Democratic Party, was wearing a yellow windbreaker emboldened by a deep blue Hillary Clinton sticker.

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Trump Bombs In The Cask Republic

Clinton supporters watching debate at Cask Republic. (Thomas Breen photo)

September 27, 2016 - “Shut up,” someone at the front of the room shouted with exasperation as Donald Trump defended his self-proclaimed (and thoroughly fictional) early opposition to the Iraq War.

“No, keep talking,” the person sitting next to him responded with a smile. “This is good for us to hear!”

Such was the prevailing attitude on Monday night in a crowded side room at Cask Republic on Crown Street, where dozens of New Haveners gathered to laugh and cheer and grimace as they watched the first presidential debate between candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

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Diehard Activists Keep A Flame Berning

Aliyya Swaby photo

July 27, 2016 - As Democrats from around the country nominated Hillary for Clinton for president with the help of former rival Bernie Sanders, Bruce Carter was out in the street declaring, “Bernie or BUST!”

The Texan father and husband said he would have gone through the motions of voting for Hillary Clinton a few months ago. Instead, he decided to rally fellow black voters behind the banner of a candidate no longer running at an emotional rally at Thomas Paine Plaza Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with Clinton’s formal nomination inside the hall at the Democratic National Convention.

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Day 1 DNC Diary: Cracks Beneath “Unity”

Lucy Gellman Photo

July 26, 2016 - While protesters marched the downtown streets here Monday, decrying the presidential nomination system as rigged and nominee Hillary Clinton as corrupt, officials took the stage at the opening of the Democratic National Convention a few miles south and proclaimed, one by one, the virtues of a unified party.

The words didn’t always match the reality on the ground — in the street, or event in the halls of the Wells Fargo Center.

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Criminal Justice Reformers Rally For Sanders

Barbara Fair (Thomas Breen photo)

April 25, 2016 - A day before Bernie Sanders drew over 10,000 supporters to a mass rally on the Green, some of his local backers held a small rally of their own to highlight theirs and the campaign’s call for criminal justice reform.

Criminal-justice reform activist Barbara Fair said she organized the rally outside the federal courthouse on Church Street Saturday to draw attention to the differences between Hillary Clinton’s and Sanders’ histories and approaches to criminal justice reform. Sanders and Clinton face off in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary in Connecticut.

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Wait—Is This Rubio ... Or Malloy?

Marco Rubio (Lucy Gellman photo)

February 5, 2016 - Portsmouth, N.H. –  “Talk to me,” an undecided New England Republican implored Marco Rubio, “about the war on drugs.”

In the process, he handed the ascendant Republican presidential candidate an opportunity to speak to New England moderates while holding on to his conservative base — the challenge that Rubio faces as he seeks to clear the field of party establishment-backed contenders in next Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary on the heels of a strong showing in this week’s Iowa caucuses.

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1 Quotation, 2 Interpretations

Lucy Gellman photo

February 2, 2016 - Milford, N.H. — Robert Reich offered a powerful argument for voting for Hillary Clinton for president — or else for voting for Bernie Sanders.

On back to back days on the New Hampshire campaign trail, supporters of each Democratic presidential candidate invoked a quotation from the former U.S. labor secretary and current UC Berkeley professor to make their case.

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Selling Point: Hillary Has Pals, Drinks Martinis

Valerie Plame (Lucy Gellman photo)

February 1, 2016  - Keene, N.H. – according to Ex-C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame, Hillary Clinton is more than just a former first lady, U.S. senator, and secretary of state. She drinks martinis. She knows how to laugh. And she has girlfriends.

“I asked a friend of hers, ‘OK, she seems swell, but does she have girlfriends?’” Plame said, looking out on a small circle of volunteers who had gathered in the Clinton campaign’s Keene headquarters for a lunchtime break from a day of canvassing and door-knocking. “I asked that question because I wanted to know the more human aspect to her. Frankly, she’s been our wallpaper for decades, and what tends to happen is that, after a while, a caricature forms.”

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