Saturday, I attended a Project Farm Team presentation in Denton, TX. The speaker was Vince Leibowitz who owns the highly popular Capitol Annex blog. When he was chair of a county in rural east Texas, Democrats won all races except one.
The concept of a Farm Team comes from baseball. From Wikipedia:
A farm team, or feeder team, generally refers to a team or club whose role it is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful players will move on to a bigger side at a certain point. This system can be implemented in many ways, both formally and informally.
Here is the mission statement from Denton’s Project Farm Team website:
Primary Mission
The mission of Project Farm Team is to help develop a base of Democratic candidates for public office in Denton County by training, mentoring, and providing support for individuals with an interest in public service.
As the name implies, this is a TEAM project that will build a cohesive base of Democrats, moving incrementally from private life, to public service at the municipal and school board levels, then into Denton County offices, and State offices.
Integrity is one of the requirements for participation in Project Farm Team. Other requirements include a willingness to attend a monthly meeting and to complete homework assignments.
Leibowitz also spoke about strategies to increase participation on the country level, and how to get important information to voters. One of his suggestion was that each precinct have its own blog to help distribute information. Pursuant to the suggestion I have a very rough preliminary blog for Precinct 2 in Wise County, Texas.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Thanks so much for coming, and for covering this. It was great meeting you. I certainly hope that the “farm team” concept catches on everywhere.