Couldn't agree more

DDDB member please respond I want to hear what you think of your fearless leader.

Who knows? It might have gone the way of the coelocanth rather than the dodo.

Hey, lil' bobby, take it up with your own club.

http://www.cbidems.org/pages/cbid.announce.html#community

Hey Lil' bobby nobody who matters or doesn't matter can stand you!

I matter, or maybe/probably I don't, and I happen to like Bobby. So let's engage his arguments with substance, not the usual vitriol. More flies with honey and all that.

sure. so that must mean no need to comment here as their is no substance but only vitriol in the original post.

btw, bobby, your own club endorsed Batson, Owens, Diamondstone, Tasini, Mark Green. Is CBID going the way of the Dodo?

Carroll, in respone to a couple of your points:

"Bill Batson and they didn’t even do that. I know they raised some money and went out and petitioned and canvassed a few times but it wasn’t enough"
Carroll - baton's campaign faught a political machine with literally 20x the funding AND big media support- the fact that many candiates either shifted or explicity stated they were opposed to atlantic yards says a lot for dddb's efforts.

"I know what people are going to say they are a 501c3 they can’t get involved, and if you believe that I have bridge to sell you."
Carroll - organizations that are not favoured by th political establishment CANNOT afford to play around with this - it is much like taxes- anyone can mistake on them - but the ones who get audited are usually political enemies...

is Daniel Goldstein perfect? nope. Nor am I but to paraphrase chris smith in the new yorker, count me in with the shrill protesters.

malcolm armstrong
Fort Greene Brooklyn

I think one question is what is the role of DDDB? They are an advocacy group. Remember that Planned Parenthood and ADA also endorsed Chris, but I didn't see much actual help coming from those sources.

DDDB has filed lawsuits, FOI act requests, and informed politicians and people about the problems with Ratner and his plan. Without that it really would have been a done deal. All of that activity justifies their existence.

This was, as far as I am aware, the first entry by DDDB into influencing elections. They highlighted the candidates that took the right position on Ratner's plan. I didn't always agree with their choices, but the same can be said of NARAL and Emily's list. These groups judge on particular issues. BY simply highlighing the candidates who take an anti-corruption, pro-community position on Ratner, DDDB is informing the public.

I did see many DDDB people on the ground. I am sure there could have been more, but you know the saying that working with the grassroots is like herding cats.

DDDB, like many of us, need to learn from our losses. That is what determines what groups survive and what groups don't survive losing: whether they learn from it.

I can see that I pissed a few people off, and I would say I didn’t want to piss people off but instead stir the pot.

Now first I am not a member of CBID, nor is anyone in my immediate family.

Second, CBID did more in this election cycle than DDDB. CBID is by no means in good shape. I am a realist and want to see a strong grassroots club come out of all of this. That is Why I think a new Club will have to emerge in Central Brooklyn

Finally, DDDB can bounce back form this if they get their act together. They need to sit down with people like Jim Brennan and Joan Millman who have been working in this community for years and see if we can reduce this terrible project.

My problem with DDDB is that they did what they wanted to do this entire election. They were not team players. My words were harsh and maybe too reactionary because I was very upset with the group. But I do stand by my main theme, if this group wants to survive they need to come into the fold and become team players. DDDB has pissed off elected officials who should be on their side but aren't because of some of the rhetoric that has come out from DDDB.

This is why in my post I did not go after the group but its leaders because there needs to be a change at the top. I have the utmost respect for many members of DDDB and they were some of the hardest working volunteers for Chris and Bill. If they were offended by this I am very sorry.

Lets keep this in perspective, the DDDB candidates were by and large longshots who had little chance of winning anyway. You can't go expecting DDDB to win unwinnable races. Hakeem Jeffries had run for this office before and had all the machine backing and money, so the odds were stacked against Batson when he got into the race. Ken Diamdstone was an extreme longshot running against a 25-year incumbent. It would have been a miracle on the order of the '69 Mets if he'd won. Chris Owens was last in fundraising, was the only candidate not actively holding public office that represented cd 11, and the other candidates were thus all better known than him. Chris was also a longshot.

DDDB is fine and healthy, you can't blame them for anything more than backing longshots that didn't come in. If they were backing a favorite, any favorite, in any of these races, or even an even shot to win in any of them, it would be different. They were not.

Bill had the issue to win with if he had the proper backing which I think DDDB could have done.

I disagree with that, there was no issue strong enough to get Batson elected over Hakeem. Not when Hakeem had run for the seat before and was well known, had all the machine backing and all the money, and Bill had never held political office and was relatively unknown outside progressive circles.

Batson just wasn't going to get elected unless Hakeem fell on his face. Atlantic Yards had nothing to do with it.

On a new blog called why I wrote The Death of DDDB I fully explain why I wrote my last post

Please Check it out