Subject: AIDS Delegates delegates slated in New Hampshire
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 23:22:03 -0500

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."