The folks at Women for American Ethics and Values got an email from their exalted leader and an invitation to examine the results of last week’s Primary. Young voters bear a brunt of criticism.
The note has upset some WAVE members who sent this note to TheLiberalOC. From my source, who is granted anonymity: “WAVE was not founded to be an organization of women FOR women. Until Joanna Weiss decided to run for office, WAVE supported the most qualified candidate regardless of gender. Now, they are behaving like a subsidiary of EMILYS List. Most of the women in WAVE are high achievers (or retired high achievers) and Ali (Monge), WAVE’s leader, is talking to them like they are schoolchildren.”
Here’s the note:
Hi, it’s Ali Monge here, Executive Director and President of WAVE. Today is International Women’s Day and the day after President Biden’s impressive State of the Union speech. I should be feeling celebratory, right? But I don’t.
This isn’t going to be your typical newsletter filled with announcements, calls to action and such. Instead, I’ve decided to write a letter from the heart (and the gut), something I have rarely done since I stepped into this role in February of last year. If you like it, great. If you don’t, hit delete and carry on with your day.
Before I dive in, I want to give a HUGE SHOUTOUT to all of our endorsed candidates. Thank you for your courage, your tenacity, and your willingness to do what the vast majority of us are unwilling to do. You put yourselves out there, you worked day in and day out, gave up sleep and rest and family time, all in the hopes of making our county (and country) a better place. Thank you.
Now to the meat of it.
I know I am not alone in saying or feeling this, but I am so disappointed over the results of the primary elections. The results hit us hard as an organization made by women for women, as an organization that has devoted the past 7+ years to advancing progressive change in Orange County, and as an organization that wants to see people turn out, vote, and get engaged. We underestimated how deep voter apathy is, and how low voter turnout, especially among young people (9% turnout among 18-34 year olds), harms our chances of winning. Is it really that hard?
If current results hold, none of our endorsed candidates will be moving on to the general (with the exception of the incumbents that we re-endorsed), which means that there will be NO new progressive women running for Congress in our county. The dismal election results also mean that the OC Board of Education will remain in the hands of MAGA extremists, and Huntington Beach will enact policies that restrict voter access and marginalize the LGBTQ+ community even more. The only bright spot is the recall of two OUSD school board members. That was such welcome news.
Now back to the women… though we would have rather had our endorsed women prevail in the primaries, the reality is the men in those races are now our best hope for flipping the House. I hope we can figure out a way to work together to get that done. Eyes on the prize, right?
But come on! Based on our count (and please correct me if I am wrong here), there are only 17 out of 52 California congressional races with a Dem woman in it. All the rest are either men against a Republican woman or two men. There is only one race where there are two Dem women for November. Great. It’s beyond same old, same old. It’s worse — we are moving BACKWARDS. This primary has really hammered home the fact that women have to work harder for everything.
In a time when women’s rights are under unprecedented attack, it is ironic that it upset so many that we were supporting women to fight for women in Washington. And we weren’t advocating for women just because they’re women. We are talking about DESERVING WOMEN — intelligent, well-qualified, sincere, hardworking women, with life stories that bring so much to the table.
What has also been disappointing — and honestly shocking — is what these past several months have revealed about our cozy (or so we thought) group of OC progressives. Call me naïve but I wasn’t prepared for the pettiness and backstabbing directed at WAVE for supporting our founder, effectively punishing the whole organization and tarnishing our reputation. How very unnecessary and counterproductive. Needless to say, this has caused a rift in a community, which, at the end of the day, wants the same thing: To get rid of MAGA forces.
We cannot carry on like this. We know better. And we should strive to do better.
On the plus side, the past few months have also revealed what we do best when we just put our heads down and do the work. Another HUGE SHOUTOUT to our core leadership, our members, donors, and our army of volunteers for once again delivering amazing results:
As always, I am proud of what WAVE has done despite the noise, the drama, the ugliness. Let’s all move on, start the healing process, dust ourselves off, and make sure that if a Trump presidency ever happens again, that we have the House AND the Senate to keep him in check. Let’s heed the words spoken by President Biden last night and show the world the POWER of WOMEN IN AMERICA.
In unity, and at your service,
Ali
…..
And this followed the personal email:
Election Postmortem at our March 21 WAVE General Membership Meeting
It is time to meet in person again! At the end of last year, we announced that we were going to shake up our monthly membership meetings. If you recall, in January, we hosted a webinar focusing on the extreme attacks on our school boards and city councils. In February, we had a very successful Day of Action for our OC Board of Education candidates in Costa Mesa. This month, we are back to a “regular” meeting on Thursday, March 21st.
Join us at 6:30 pm in San Juan Capistrano, where we will be discussing the “aftermath” of the March 5th elections — what happened, what some surprising and predictable outcomes were, and what this all means for November.
Our distinguished guests include Dr. Jon Gould of the UCI School of Social Ecology and Matt Szabo, reporter at the Daily Pilot. See you there!
DC- Your source said it best: “the most qualified candidate”.
Unfortunately we have seen the “hijacking” of elections not just byonied special interests but by so called “activists” who use their social media/ internet platforms to self promote.
It made ponder if Ms. Weiss wasn’t far off in comandeering support from otherwise useless hacks. It didn’t do shit to help her win but if you look at Victor Valladares and company, he got nearly 56 hits on his podcast (not a typo). Maybe WAVE should concentrate on voters not deadbeat dads, racists, rapists and felons.
I’m told WAVE has hired a management consultant to find out why so many members aren’t renewing. There’s also evidence from the Daily Beast story that the campaign was too cozy with EMILYs LIST
>> I’m told WAVE has hired a management consultant to find out why so many members aren’t renewing.
If I was a donor to WAVE, I would be concerned about how my donor dollars are being spent. It doesn’t take a mamagement consultant ($$) to figure out why members have quit WAVE in the past and present. WAVE leadership needs to look in the mirror and personally reach out to former — and key — members to have a series of honest discussions on why they’ve left the organization. IMO, WAVE needs to do alot more *listening* to their members (including former members), than *speaking* at their members. Hiring a management consultant is sometimes an excuse to avoid the truth of a situation, when they already know what the problem is.
For those “social media influencers” whining about how there aren’t women candidates running, consider how poorly those campaigns were run and then match positions to the male candidates who will carry the banner. And do write a check please