This is going to be a good year for Democrats - yes, it is.
Tonight I went to the Sanbornton Democratic town meeting. Sanbornton, NH is in Belknap County, which is an historically Republican stronghold in an historically Republican State. The Belknap County Chair, (Beth Arsenault) who is running for State Senate has put a lot of energy into seeing that every town in the County has a meeting to elect town Dem. Officials and delegates to the State convention. Many of these towns have not had a meeting in years, if ever. This was the 6th meeting in the last 3 weeks and 11 people attended. They were able to elect a full slate for the convention and a Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, vice chair and delegate. No one there could remember the last time there had been a Dems. meeting in the town. More than half had become activated or reactivated because of the Dean campaign. Two of us were Edwards alumni. This is major activity.
Highlights of the meeting:
1. The person who agreed to convene the meeting told a very funny story about why we were in the Library instead of the Town Hall. It seems that when she asked the new town manager about holding this meeting in the town hall she was told that the TM had to check with the selectmen at the next selectmen's meeting. The selectmen said a certificate of insurance was required. When the Dem. convenor went to speak to the selectmen the conversation ended when he quoted from the bible, (she knew chapt. Etc. But I forget only the quote) "I won't fight evil with evil". One of the other attendees asked "what was the context for that?" She said she wasn't sure but she was offended.
2. There was a man, new to town whose name was John Burch pronounced Birch. There was much conversation around his introduction. Quite the icebreaker of a name. It was suggested that it would be great to have him on the ballot. You know, even John Burch won't be voting Republican this time around...
3. One man was a bus driver who had driven Bush around during the primary 4 years ago. Said that Bush was fine i.e. friendly, nice, happy-go-lucky etc. but the people around him were very scary - especially Carl Rove a very focused person who spent a lot of time on the cell phone barking orders. It's so fun to get these behind the scenes glimpses from a Democratic point of view!
4. One of the people there had been at the demonstration protesting outside of the Bush event in NH yesterday. There were 3 people arrested. One was an 80 something woman who refused to move after the third time the SS (secret service) decided that the safety zone needed to be expanded. She sat down on her little stool and wouldn't move. The police actually lifted here up and carried her to the squad car. The bail apparently was set quite low and when someone commiserated with one of the others arrested they said, "What do you mean? I feel like Nelson Mandella or Martin Luther King" The Dems had banners and signs one which read "Hate the Poor, Start a War - Bush Chenry '04) I guess they used that as a cue card for a chant.
5. A story was repeated about an old Yankee Republican who was overheard saying "I can't vote for Bush and I can't vote for Benson (our idiot governor) but I've never voted for a Democrat in my life so I don't know what I'm going to do. I piped in with my 2 cents saying that this was not the Republican Party of the old Yankees, which was "the party of Lincoln" and was based on fiscal responsibility and stewardship for the next generation of both money and other resources (read environmentalists). I believe that many of these people may not vote at all this time around.
Overall, there was a lot of energy. People were saying that it was time to start taking action because enough was enough! There are 5 more town meetings planned before the end of April. The goal is to have a complete board in each town and a complete slate for the November election. There have been years when there are no viable Democrats on the ballot and I'm not sure there has ever been a full slate. Who knows next time we may have a primary!