Talk:21st Century Democrats

Unsourced info moved from article to talk page
Moved this info from the article to the talk page: In December of 2004, 21st Century Democrats was fined a record amount for violating Minnesota campaign finance laws. The Center for Public Integrity described the incident as follows: "Another group that has had problems with often complicated campaign laws is 21st Century Democrats, a 527 operating in several battleground states. The group registered with the Federal Election Commission and the IRS, but did not file the correct forms in the state of Minnesota. The lapse earned the committee the state's largest-ever campaign finance fine—more than $400,000. Any 527s contributing to a state party "either have to register or in lieu of registering, they can provide the recipient committee with a statement that meets Minnesota's reporting requirements," Jeanne Olson, executive director of Minnesota's Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, told the Center. "A statement must accompany the contribution." The state's House Minority Leader, Democrat Matt Entenza, also came under attack for his $300,000 contribution to the group. Republican critics charged that the minority leader was hiding funds for his and others' campaigns; 21st Century Democrats supported voter registration drives and supplied staff to help Minnesota Democrats—many of whom served with Entenza in the state legislature. The group has since contested the fine, and on June 30, 2005, an administrative law judge ruled that the campaign board wrongly denied 21st Century Democrats the right of appeal in late 2004. When sources are found to back up this info, it can be added back into the article. Cirt (talk) 20:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC).


 * More unsourced WP:OR violations moved from article, here below:

Background
21st Century Democrats started out relatively small but has quietly grown in size and significance in the last few election cycles. In 2004 election cycle, according to the Political Money Line, it was the 13th largest Political Action Committee (PAC) in the United States raising nearly $7 Million. Among progressive ideological PACs, it ranked fourth behind America Coming Together, EMILY's List, and MoveOn.org. The group's long time Executive Director Kelly Young left the organization in 2007. Former Executive Vice President Mark Lotwis took over as Executive Director in July 2007. Unlike traditional PACs, 21st Century Democrats focuses on recruiting, training, and hiring field organizers to organize grassroots campaigns on behalf of candidates for local offices, statewide office, and even targeted presidential swing states. The strategy enables the group to get a value added return on its investments, and has proven to be successful. 21st Century Democrats wins the majority of its races, even though they focus on tougher, competitive races up and down the ballot. The group has strong ties to veterans of Paul Wellstone's campaigns, as well as Democracy for America, which grew out of Howard Dean's failed presidential campaign. , Unlike traditional PACs, 21st Century Democrats focuses on recruiting, training, and hiring field organizers to organize grassroots campaigns on behalf of candidates for local offices, statewide office, and even targeted presidential swing states. The strategy enables the group to get a value added return on its investments, and has proven to be successful. 21st Century Democrats wins the majority of its races, even though they focus on tougher, competitive races up and down the ballot. The group has strong ties to veterans of Paul Wellstone's campaigns, as well as Democracy for America, which grew out of Howard Dean's failed presidential campaign. ,

If/when all of the above info is sourced to WP:RS secondary sources, it may be moved back into the article. Cirt (talk) 17:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Removing negative POV about this group
The content in the second half of this article is very negative and about one or two incidents. If someone thinks they should be here, then other incidents need to be added to balance them. Free2Think4 (talk) 02:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please do not remove sourced info, the unsourced info was already moved to the talk page. If you wish to add info to the article, make sure you back it up as well with WP:RS/WP:V sourcing.  Thanks, Cirt (talk) 02:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC).
 * The fact is, everything else in the article is unsourced, and a violation of Wikipedia's Original Research Policy, and should be removed, save for the only section of the article that is sourced. Cirt (talk) 02:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC).

Overreliance on primary sources?
The sections Partner Organizations and 2008 election season are constructed and rely upon primary sources only, and are devoid of secondary source referencing. This should be avoided, in order to avoid violations of WP:OR. Cirt (talk) 16:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There is nothing in the policy that says using primary sources should be avoided. All it says is that care should be taken and to avoid interpretation or analysis.  Littlebutter (talk) 17:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

* Primary sources are sources very close to the origin of a particular topic. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident is an example of a primary source. Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:

* only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and

* make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source.

Examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; written or recorded notes of laboratory and field research, experiments or observations, published experimental results by the person(s) actually involved in the research; original philosophical works, religious scripture, administrative documents, and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs.[2]

Unsourced material obtained from a Wikipedian's personal experience, such as an unpublished eyewitness account, should not be added to articles. It would violate both this policy and Verifiability, and would cause Wikipedia to become a primary source for that material.


 * Okay, very hard to understand with the weird formatting you did here - but essentially, the point is that there is an overreliance on primary sources in this article. We should try out best to avoid this, and use more secondary sources, and less primary sources.  If not, we run the risk of interpretation from those primary sources, of which the bulk of the article is relying on at this point, which is bad.  Cirt (talk) 18:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

"Candidates list"
This listing of this organization is supporting is unencyclopedic, not to mention also self-promoting/advertising and certainly not NPOV balanced presentation. Also, it relies on a primary, rather than a secondary source. Cirt (talk) 21:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Removal of sourced material?
Please do not remove sourced material from this article. Cirt (talk) 08:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Religious discrimination lawsuit
There are not multiple "Legal Issues" described in this subsection, only the one Religious discrimination lawsuit against 21st Century Democrats. Therefore, "Religious discrimination lawsuit" is more appropriate as a subsection title, than "Legal Issues". Cirt (talk) 02:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Former Staff
Neither Kelly Young nor Mark Lotwis are with the organization any longer. Dan Lucas has been promoted from Political Director to President, and is actively in control of the organization. I removed what was beginning to be an unnecessary genealogy of former Executive Directors for the sake of limiting the article to useful information. --Soldmixon (talk) 13:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed References and Research Slugs
There are 13 citations for this article, 12 of which are third party citations. The only one that's primary is the link to the list of endorsed candidates on the organization's web site. It seems reasonable to accept the organization's list of endorsed candidates as valid. There remain a couple of places at the beginning of the article that request citations and question whether the claims are based on original research, but these claims appear to be supported by the first article cited. I'm going to verify that and add that citation to the first paragraph anon. --Soldmixon (talk) 13:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Washington Examiner Accusations
A section about the February 2014 accusations of the Washington Examiner was previously removed with the comment that the Examiner is a "biased news source". However, the article makes very specific factual accusations that have not, as far as I can tell, been rebutted in any other published sources. Indeed, if they were false, I would be surprised that they are not being sued for Libel. In any event, they are clearly considered by Wikipedia to be a rather right-leaning but legitimate news source. I have reinserted a reference to the article. If anybody has reference to any published contrary sources, please insert them also. If there is some reason that the claims of the article are obviously false, please discuss on this page. Erniecohen (talk) 19:32, 5 March 2015 (UTC)