Back in the fall, alivingston put out a call for a Chicago-area Daily Kos meetup, which took place on October 8.
It was, obviously, in the very thick of election season. People were fired up, turnout was huge, netroots candidate Dan Seals showed up and gave a speech, and the whole thing was captured by the crashing the states film crew. Good times...
So alivingston and I were talking and we decided it's time to do it again. Without an imminent takeover of both Houses of Congress, though, what are we going to talk about? Well, join me below...
So it's freezing cold, the Bears just lost the Super Bowl, and there isn't an election coming up. Is this really such a good idea? Why now? Well, lots of reasons.
1. There is an election coming up, silly! As you probably know if you live around here, the municipal elections are actually going to be happening on the 27th, just two days after the meetup. Because the mayor isn't facing much of a challenge, the elections haven't gotten as much attention as I expected, but there are lots of interesting aldermanic races. I've volunteered for a couple, and I know lots of you have worked on others. Come talk about them.
2. Barack Obama. Turns out Illinois is a pretty interesting place from which to be looking at American politics these days. Who went to the Obama announcement in Springfield (or the UIC speech the next day)? What did you think? Who loves Obama? Who hates Obama? Who loves to hate Obama? Who hates to love Obama? Who thinks they might love Obama but isn't 100% on board yet? Who's already found a place to crash in Davenport next December and January?
3. Look, the time to do this is now, not in October 2008. This is going to be a remarkable election cycle, and in order to make as big a difference we need to talk as early as possible about setting priorities. I've been talking to lots and lots of people about what they want to focus on between now and November 2008, and there are about a trillion different answers. Putting pressure on the Democratic Congress to get it right...Presidential politics...local politics...Congressional races...? What are you thinking about? What do you want to accomplish in the next two years?
4. Margaritas. Yum.
Use the comments to RSVP, talk about aldermanic elections, complain about the choice of date/time/location, or ask how it's possible that I didn't even mention Yearly Kos in this whole diary.
Date: Sunday, February 25, 2007
Time: 3:00 pm
Place: Blue Agave, raised level (this has been reserved -- here's a link with some more info about the place, including map/directions)
Address: just off intersection of State and Maple.
(Not to complicate, but two addresses are given since it's an intersection)
1 West Maple Street, Chicago IL, 60610
1050 N. State Street, Chicago IL, 60610
Blue Agave phone: 312.335.8900
