Cheap plastic chairs, good wine and even better company greeted us Friday night when we attended the Raleigh stop of the
Crashing the Gate book tour.
It was a cool night in North Carolina with a full moon rising. Markos and Jerome arrived early at Quail Ridge Booksfor the event, with lots of great local Dems and representatives from assorted progressive causes there for the meet & greet.
The crowd seemed a good match for the book's basic message of "people powered politics." The theme of starting locally to build and support good progressive candidates so that our next generation is in place and strong when the party dinosaurs start to drop back was well illustrated by the whole atmosphere The chairs were rickety white plastic and the microphone squealed with feedback all too frequently, but the energy and optimism in the room was refreshing.
Folks from Code Pink were there, gearing up for a bus trip the next day for the
Mother's Day Vigil at the White House. Local environmental groups made announcements. Local candidates and elected officials mingled with college students and business folks and grandparents as the place slowly filled, then overflowed with people who came to hear the authors in person.
The evening had a distinctly grassroots flair. I spent some time chatting withGreer Beaty, a young working mother running for the NC House. She was enthusiastic about a campaign event she had going for the next morning. She had been looking for some type of campaign activity that her own two children could be participants in, and she was inviting families of all ages--from toddlers in strollers to grandparents--to meet up with her in a neighborhood park and to join her in a canvass from house to house to show folks that yes, this is what the Democratic Party looks like. Congressman David Price was expected to turn out to walk the neighborhoods in support.
There was lots of fresh energy and buzz from the recent primaries--stories, for example, about candidates with great local support, including one who had spent little money, but personally knocked on over a thousand door to win their district with over 70% of the vote.
And of course there was the excitement of having Markos and Brad Miller in the same room for the first time. As Markos quipped, it was nice for him to meet Brad in person, because as you know, they have been romantically linked! (See getmeoutofdixie's Markos and Brad Sittin' In a Tree and Brad Miller's Markos and I Are Just Good Friends if you missed all the fun.)
North Carolina State Senator Janet Cowell did the introduction for the early Q&A session, stressing the need to localize issues and work as a team.
I was a bit disappointed with most of the early questions from the crowd. Some of the people who raised their hands seemed more interested in getting the mic for their own little soapbox issues than really asking pointed questions about the book's message, but Jerome and Markos treated each remark with good attention and made some excellent points, ranging from blistering attacks on special interest groups and their "what can you do for me?" mentalities to dispersing the "myth of the good Republican," that is, supporting a member of the opposing party in a lesser-of-two-evils kind of mentality because they promise to uphold your own pet issue.
After a brief break the main scheduled event of the evening started promptly at 7:30. By this time the chairs were all filled and people were lining the aisles and spaces of the bookstore to hear the speakers.
My husband arrived at this point, getting there in time to hear Brad Miller's introduction and bringing the kids over when soccer practice was finished. (The kids mainly wandered happily through Quail Ridge's children's section while the speeches went on, but they chatted happily with both Markos and Jerome for a few minutes at the end of the evening.)
Congressman Brad Miller gave a great introduction for Markos and Jerome, mentioning his own early involvement in politics as one of the young guys in a good ol' boys kind of network. Now he's watching and participating in this new wave of interest and involvement, as folks discover through the medium of blogs not just a place to read about politics, but to have conversations. He mentioned how he's seeing true energy and activism emerging out of the blogsphere.
Jerome and Markos tag team the main presentation about the book. Jerome is serious and authoritative; Markos is warm and funny, peppering his talk with little anecdotes about people and the back stories of the book. He begins by thanking Brad Miller: "May I call you Brad? We have been romantically linked."
Both Jerome and Markos are good at tying the national issues of their book into local Carolina politics, mentioning local races that have been successful and the issues around the Vern Robinson attack ads, using it to illustrate how we need to counter ads like that where the candidate claims to be a Christian but publishes lies and demonizes whole groups of people.
The speakers are relaxed and make great connections with the audience. Markos jokes and doesn't miss a beat when an older lady has trouble getting her cell phone to stop ringing, and Jerome pauses to introduce his great grandmother, who has a front row seat in the crowd tonight.
Markos mentions some of the local press the Quail Ridge event has received, citing a "big scary picture" of himself in The Independent, a local, well, independent newspaper that was one of the sponsors of tonight's event and has run some great articles lately. (See: The Revolution Will Be Blogged, a great summary of what the blogs and net roots could mean for the future of politics that also hits on the Vern Robinson ad that insinuated Markos was having a gay affair with Rep. Brad Miller.)
There's no hard sell for the book, just a funny quip about Drudge and a nudge to "Buy liberal books and make conservatives cry." Their message is enthusiastically received, with lots of nodding of heads and breaks for spontaneous applause.
Many of the follow up questions center around "Message": how do we craft a unified Democratic message, and how do we enforce message discipline?
Markos ties his answers back to what was, for me, the money quote of the evening: It's not about policies, it's about values. Dems tend to try to engage people in the head vs. in their hearts. Folks may disagree with you on policies and programs but will trust you and vote for you and work for you if they think you make decisions from the same values base that they share. Markos reminded the crowd us that Kerry had slogans that people dismissed, Bush had values that the voters bought in to.
Markos and Jerome both stress how effective it is to get people involved at the local level when there's a social and fun aspect to it--things like chapters of Drinking Liberally and the old Dean Meet-ups proved that if you want people to get involved and stay involved, they have to make personal connections.
The remaining questions from the audience range from voting machine and voter disenfranchisement to media access to Hillary Clinton to local blogs, but both speakers are great at keeping the focus on the book's message of staying active locally. Jerome acknowledges issues with money and voting machines, but refocuses that these are items that distract and mask the real problems in the Democratic Party, and we need to change the landscape and structure to see effective changes.
A long line forms afterwards for book signing and I'm pleased I was able to be there early and Markos has already signed my copy. He was very friendly and gracious when I met him, and although he was attentive and polite, I don't think he was familiar with me from my DKos user ID (which is not surprising given the number of diaries posted daily at Dkos over the two years I've been hanging around and the number of people and faces Markos has seen in the past few months.)
I had a great time. I met a few fellow Kossacks-- Dr Frank Lives, for one--- he's instrumental in the Democratic Party at our county level. I got to shake Brad Miller's hand and thank him for his involvement at Dkos. I met some great folks from Code Pink and fellow blogger Chun Yang from both DKos and Street Prophets. Chun Yang remembered both her southern hospitality and her Pastor Dan connection by bringing cookies--genuine North Carolina Moravian cookies--to Markos and Jerome and a copy of her book, No Ashes, for me.
Fellow bloggers, fellow Dems, shaking the hands of national leaders and progressive candidates and getting to meet my blogsphere heroes--it was pretty much a perfect Friday night for me.
Brad Miller introduces Jerome and Markos:
The Family Brown with our blogsphere heroes!