Boulder's Drinking Liberally had a smaller than average group last night. A couple folks did show up from Longmont, which was a nice surprise.
We had plenty to talk about though. Discussion ranged from Colorado politics to national politics to policies to party strategy vs. tactics to the 2008 election. We talked a little about celebrities, federal investigations, blogs, and books. Differences between CO and southern states also came up.
Besides the camaraderie and the good beer, I learned a couple things too. More below.
The CO gubenatorial race came up. I think we're in agreement that Ritter will come out ahead, but it will end up close. We talked some about the CD-4, CD-5, CD-6 and CD-7 races. The recent
polling on CD-4 and CD-7 came up. We mentioned the state legislature, but didn't go in depth on that.
We had some good laughs about the TX-22 and TX-23 races. I for one hope the GOP finagling comes back to bite 'em. It's a good case on how not to play politics. The CT-Sen race came up, of course. As did Salazar's quiet support of Lieberman and why that continues. Yesterday morning, Jay Marvin on AM-760 mentioned that Salazar's support might violate state Dem rules. I haven't had a chance to look into that; can anyone shed some light on the subject?
We spent some time on party tactics and strategy (or a lack of one, depending). I think we also agreed that on a national scale, Dems are still spending too much time on tactics, too much time saying they're not Republicans and not enough time saying they're Democrats.
Health care came up as an important issue. msobel pointed out that few people can speak to Kerry's 2004 health care proposal due to the complete absence of discussion about it. I think the larger point is that Dems do have plans that can be considered strategic, but those plan suffer from a lack of attention. No thanks to our uber-liberal media, right?
An issue I enjoy discussing came up again: framing. The right-wing has a multi-decadal head start on developing their language and we're playing catch-up. Andi, a new attendee, thinks Dems are starting to develop their framing a little and I agree. More people need to become aware of the tool so:
George Lakoff has written some excellent books on the subject: "Don't Think of an Elephant", "Moral Politics", and his latest, "Whose Freedom?". Buy or borrow these, they're well worth your time.
And what would a progressive discussion be without bringing up Hillary and 2008? I maintain my belief that she won't get the nomination. msobel didn't let us forget that she does know what she's doing and she's not afraid to try out different things to achieve her goals.
Don't spread this too far: we even talked about Paris Hilton (re the Paris Hilton tax), and Jon Benet Ramsey (more so Kerr's problems).
We lauded Patrick Fitzgerald and dissed on Ken Starr's ability to leak nearly his entire investigation.
And a smattering of randomness:
One attendee had an opinion on the Plame leak printed in the Boulder Daily Camera:
http://www.dailycame...
I learned there is a Centre, AL. I further learned that AL farmers grow soybeans, cotton, cucumber!, and watermelon. Like a typical American, I never spent much time thinking about where my cucumbers might come from. The difference in southern-state politics and Colorado politics was reinforced. I've never lived anywhere else but Denver and Boulder, so it's always interesting talking to people from other states.
Cool site: http://www.philosoph...
Books people should read:
Confederates in the Attic
I Hate Republicans
American Theocracy
Conservatives Without Conscience
Blogs to visit:
SquareState
Unbossed
ColoradoConfidential