Last night in a very red county in CO we had a forum for democratic voters. And we got a full house in attendance. The County dems had hoped we would get 30 or 40 people and, holy cow, we had at least three times that many.
This happened in a county congressional district that has a hard time getting dems to vote, let alone participate and caucus.
And it was fun. Let me explain.
None of the candidates for the presidency was there. However, each campaign sent a "representative" to speak for the candidate.
So there were two locals, whom I knew, speaking for John Edwards and Barack Obama. And two younger people from the state organizations for Hillary and Kucinich.
All four did a great job. The men I knew speaking for Edwards and Obama, known to many of the political junkies here, were great and debunked the media crap. Like we really know down deep, they both agreed that the media are making this a wrestling match because they love the ratings. The two young people for Dennis and Hillary were in total agreement. I think it was harder for them as neither of them is from the area (had to drive down from the Denver area), and maybe were a bit intimidated since they knew no one. Many, many of the voters attending went out of the way to compliment them all, regardless of what buttons they were wearing.
As a Hillary supporter, I was quite interested in the young man speaking for her. His name is Doug Vilsack. Yes, he is the son of former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. He had graduated from Colorado College and knew the area. He is currently attending law school in Denver.
He has known Hillary since he was a child. His uncle, it seems, had worked with Hillary right after they graduated law school. They shared an office as they both worked on putting the Watergate criminals behind bars. I know they were just two of the many young people hired to do the nuts and bolts. But they did it, proving early on, they had a commitment to ending corrupt government.
I was lucky to speak to this young man and he told me he wished other people could meet Hillary in person; that she's funny and fun, easy to be around, smart and witty and she really cares about people.
I appreciated the other speakers as well. The young lady speaking for Kucinich was great, represented him well, and I was anxious to tell her so as I could tell she was nervous about her performance.
The men who spoke for Edwards and Obama were more polished, older and clearly used to speaking in public.
And oh yea, no one (spectators) in any of the camps was nasty and the general feeling was one of unity. I wish we had more of that here.