Annual Punsch Get Together @ Spittelberg 

DA Austria members will be getting together at the African Root Punsch Stand at Spittelberg Market on Thursday, December 13th to share in some holiday cheer. We hope you'll stop by to mull over plans for the new year over a glass of mulled wine!

Glühwein Evening

Issues & Actions

DAA's Get Out The Vote Statistics

Congratulations to all our voters and volunteers for helping win back the House and keep Democrats in crucial seats in the Senate as well as governorships and state legislatures! Here in Austria we did a spectacular job reaching and registering members. In fact, 1,393 absentee ballot requests - from both DA members and non-members - came through VoteFromAbroad.org in Austria alone. We could confirm directly with 53% of our members that they voted by absentee ballot (and we trust that there are many more we couldn’t reach)! Compare this to a national voter turnout rate of 48% this year. Our tireless volunteers made phone calls, sent text messages, hand-wrote postcards, set up registration tables and chased down random strangers with American accents to spread the word and help people request their absentee ballots. Now our eyes are on 2020 and we have more strategies for getting out the vote. We hope you’ll be ready to help when the time comes!

– Caitlin Ahern, DAA Database Manager, Member-at-Large

Progressive Bikeathon

From mid-September to election day, DAA Counsel Bruce Murray, assisted by volunteers from Democrats Abroad Austria, Progressive Democrats Abroad, Our Revolution Austria, and others, cycled over 850 miles from Wisconsin through Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and on to Pennsylvania. He and other Bikeathoners interacted with Democratic candidates, leaders, activists, and voters both urban and rural. Via radio, concerts, rallies, canvassing, phone-banking, social media, and yes, cycling, we Bikeathoners contributed to the ripples of our Blue Wave!   

– Bruce Murray, Counsel

Reviews

Midterm Parties in Graz & Vienna -  

We Made the Wave! More than 65 DA Austria members and a number of interested Austrians got together on Election Night to watch the exit polls and cross our fingers for a blue wave.

Biker Bruce skyped in from Pittsburgh, from the parental home of fellow DAA member Dawn Gartehner, whose parents generously hosted Bruce at the end of his more than 800 mile bike ride through the midwest.

A panel of special pundits – Keith Kornacki , Faith I am Joy, and (San) Andreas Fault (because CA Orange County shook up the state and went blue), also known as Keith Jacomine, Faith Hall Herbold, and Andreas Beckmann – accompanied us through the evening with a quiz and prizes.

Signs for a wave were good as the last round was called in the wee hours. The wave has been building ever since and Democrats had an astounding voter turnout. Thank you for being a voter! 

Graz Post-Election Dinner On November 7th, we Styrian Democrats awoke to good news, and the day continued to improve. We were thrilled to meet at The Pub on Mariahilferplatz for mojitos, beer and Tex-Mex food to toast the many victories – including the historic number of women candidates and winners – of the 2018 midterms. We welcomed a few new members and are planning monthly get-togethers to follow. Stay tuned!

– Jennifer Rakow-Stepper, Chair (Vienna) and Caitlin Ahern, DAA Database Manager, Member-at-Large (Graz)

A Thanksgiving for Giving Thanks

Democrats Abroad Austria welcomed 88 members and guests to our sold out Thanksgiving dinner on November 22 under the 600 year old arches of the Melker Stiftskeller in Vienna’s first district.

With good company – and 40 seats in the House and a lot of state legislative and governorship wins to be thankful for – we enjoyed a raffle drawing and were well fed with five turkeys (big thanks to Carrie and Fred!), lots of sides, homemade cranberry sauce, a peculiarly Austrian twist on my Great Aunt Sally’s Thanksgiving stuffing (folks asked for the recipe, so it's included below), and an amazing assortment of homemade pumpkin pies and desserts. Thanks to all who brought a dessert to share!

Young Andreas Nighswander was thrilled to win the grand prize!  

– Jennifer Rakow-Stepper, DAA Chair

Great Aunt Sally’s Thanksgiving Stuffing

Sharing the recipe because many asked. Serves 10

Ingredients:

• 1kg Italian sausages (Salsicci) – removed from the casings and chopped in bite-sized pieces 
• 2 onions –  finely chopped
• 1 bunch celery – finely chopped
• 3-4 very stale baguettes or white bread – torn into bite-sized pieces
• 500 g butter
• 1 cup raisins – soaked in sherry
• 1 cup pecans – chopped
• 1 cup parsley – chopped
• ¼ cup fresh herbs – thyme, oregano, sage

Instructions:

melt butter in pan

add pecans, lightly brown, strain, remove and set aside

sauté celery, onions and herbs in butter, remove and set aside

brown Italian sausages in butter, remove and set aside

mix ingredients together in a large baking pan. In case the mixture is too dry, pour some chicken broth and butter on top. The mixture should be chunky and loose in the pan – notlike a Knödel.

Bake at 180° C for 20 minutes or until heated through and golden brown.

Solidarity Sundays Vienna #19:  2018 Midterm Recap

On November 25th, Solidarity Sundays activists held a marathon session reviewing the crowning achievement of 2 years’ work: Democrats retaking the House and electing the most diverse Democratic caucus ever.

Juan gave us a look under the hood atwhat made victory possible– notably, women turning further away from the Republican Party, and the record-breaking 8.8 million vote lead over Republicans. He reviewed propositions that scored victories throughout the nation, which included impressive wins for redistricting and voting rights. The popularity of progressive propositions points to Medicare expansion as a new frontier for ballot initiatives.

Bruce Murray shared insights from his Cycling For Sanitybike tour through the Midwest.On two wheels, Bruce explored Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania in the weeks leading up the Midterms. He met voters, activists and politicians, pitched in to help with community projects and attended rallies where politicians led everyone to the polls. Hear about the fun and get inspired about our country’s capacity for self-renewal at the “Hindsight Is 2020” event on December 8th.

No sooner did Democrats learn that we did, indeed, deliver a Blue Wave, than we started talking about how to repeat it in 2020. Tanya reviewed structural factors that kept so many races tighton a day when 6 million more Americans voted for a Democrat over a Republican to represent them. She demonstrated how gerrymandering distorts the votes in 5 states, and how weakened voting rights and lax political spending rules make it hard to translate Democratic votes into power. These obstacles won’t disappear, and we must surpass this year’s turnout to assure victory in 2020. Attend a Solidarity Sundays meeting in 2019 and help achieve that.

Tanya Lolonis, SolSun Coordinator, Member-at-Large

Members Corner

A Present with a Purpose

Charity Auction for Refugees – Vielmehr als ein Geschenk! - find  the event on Facebook!