From: AIDSVote96@aol.com Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 23:22:03 -0500 Subject: AIDS Delegates delegates slated in New Hampshire AIDS VOTE 96 MEDIA ADVISORY contact Wayne Turner in Manchester at 603. 622.6444 room 140 or 202.986.0435 For immediate release January 20, 1995 ACT UP'ers negotiate History Democratic National Committee Chair recognize openly Gay, HIV positive challenger to Clinton Participation in Caucus makes Michael the only New Hampshire alternative to Clinton (Manchester, NH) - Veterans of the 1992 ACT UP Presidential Project made history today as Dave Fowler, the chair of the Democratic National Committee and his New Hampshire counterpart Joseph Keefe acknowledged, embraced and welcomed the candidacy of Steve Michael, the first openly Gay American to run for President. Fowler and Keefe spoke with Michael, who is also HIV positive, his lover Wayne Turner, Allen Ritter of Washington, D.C. and Dan Sundquist of Manchester, Hew Hampshire. The activists won over new supporters and earned the praise of Fowler and the applause of dozens of party leaders at Democratic caucuses held in the Granite State on Saturday, January 20. Fowler, speaking to the collection of party activists at events held in both Manchester and Concord, publicly thanked Michael for raising AIDS issues in the Democratic primaries, and encouraged attendees to meet with the delegation of AIDS activists. Both Keefe and Fowler pledged to offer the activists logistic support in accessing party members in New Hampshire. "While I appreciate the kind words from Mr. Fowler about my candidacy, I know the truth of the Clinton AIDS record. It spans the entire sixteen years of the epidemic. In twelve years as governor and four years as president, Bill Clinton has failed to ever exercise the kind of leadership that we know is needed to end this global nightmare. Clinton must declare war on AIDS. He must focus national attention on an epidemic that has already taken the lives of over a quarter of a million Americans. Before he gets the support of people with HIV and AIDS he must fulfill his 1992 campaign promises." Michael is competing with Clinton for delegates and votes on a number of Democratic primary ballots this year, running on the same, yet unfulfilled AIDS promises that helped Clinton win the White House in 1992. Michael's supporters elected a slate of delegates that include Sundquist, of Manchester. If Michael is able to garner 15% of the vote, members of that slate would become delegates to the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Only the Clinton-Gore and the AIDS Cure Campaigns have delegate slates lined up. That makes Michael and the AIDS Cure Campaign the only meaningful or legitimate alternative to the President in the Democratic Primary . AIDS is now a legitimate campaign issue in the 1996 campaign for President. Sundquist who was recently arrested in Nashua, New Hampshire for following the recommendations of the 1991 National Commission on AIDS Report that support the distribution of clean needles to addicts was particularly concerned that party leaders were quick to embrace the Michael campaign, yet, "are campaigning for the re-election of a president who has the power to sign executive orders that could lift legal barriers to the sale and exchange of clean needles to addicts today." Citing countless reports, studies, the 1992 Democratic Platform and Bill Clinton's own words from 1992, Sundquist believes that it is time for the President and the Party to do more than talk the talk. "They must walk the walk." Ritter, who was coordinating the floor efforts for the AIDS activists in Manchester notes that when he, Michael and Sundquist first walked into the caucus site, state party leaders were not so supportive. "In fact," Ritter states, "it was clear they were attempting to marginalize us and AIDS once again. We were told we could not participate in the process. This room, they said, 'Was for Clinton-Gore.' They told us we had to leave the main auditorium and go to 'your own room.' 'What room? It turned out that they had failed to provide our delegates with a room. After a while they gave us the biology lab. That wasn't enough. Would Fowler come to us? Would we have an opportunity to meet with other delegates? The party people had no answers. So we ACTed UP. We demanded to meet with Fowler. We wanted full access to the caucus site and to the party leader, because after all, we are Democrats too." Ritter emphasizes that it proves that you have to always be prepared to "ACT UP and fight for your rights. By being persistent we were able to force the party and it's leadership to recognize our leadership and our AIDS agenda." Their persistance also gave the activists an opportunity to meet with several sympathetic state legislators who want to do more around AIDS including Democratic House Leader Rick Trombly, Representatives Martha Fuller Clark and Cecelia D. Kane. In Concord, Turner was also forced to be aggressive in order for AIDS to become an issue at that caucus. Turner was originally told that he could not put campaign signs up because it was a "Clinton-Gore event." But, he too persisted. "We are here for our lives. I was not going to take 'no' for an answer. Our signs stayed and the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee spoke to the delegates in Concord about AIDSwith a Steve Michael sign in the background ." Turner points out that the two events in New Hampshire today prove that Bill Clinton and the Democrats need not be afraid of discussing the AIDS crisis. "Each time AIDS was mentioned by either Fowler of Keefe the delegates assembled, applauded." As a point of fact, several Clinton delegates have agreed to help the AIDS Cure Campaign continue the struggle all the way to Chicago. Michael sums the event up this way, " The presence of less than ten persistent AIDS activists changed the tone of the Democratic Caucus. We made AIDS an issue once again. Maybe, just maybe President Clinton and the Democrats will finally get it. We are trying to secure them, their place in history and save our lives as well If they would live up to those 1992 AIDS commitments to ACT UP, Bill Clinton and the Democrats would secure the support and admiration of the millions of us in America that are infected or affected by HIV or AIDS." After all, as the final report of the 1993 AIDS Commission states, "What should be done is not complicated. But it requires leadership, a plan, and the national resolve to implement it."