Code Neon Blue!

Monday evening some of us from Prowers County attended a meeting in Las Animas, hosted by Alex Netherton and the Bent County Democrats. (Wouldn’t that make a good name for a band?) There had been plans for a representative from Mark Udall’s campaign to visit with everyone beforehand, but that fell through. Since I’d needed to go to Las Animas early for personal reasons, I didn’t get the cancellation call, and wound up wandering around by myself at the Bent’s Fort Inn. I didn’t know they had a birding trail behind there! Next time I will go even earlier, in better shoes!

Luckily for me, Annajo Sanchez, one of our Colorado DNC party promotion worker bees (no, that’s not their real job title. I’m blanking on the actual title) had ALSO left home before she got the call. So we were able to just relax and talk over a plate of the (not-so) famous Bent’s Fort Inn sushi until everyone else arrived.

Pat Waak, our state chair, gave a well-organized talk and slide show, zooming us through it in time for local people to get home to watch the Rockies game! She’s been traveling around to try to contact as many county Dem groups as possible. We had people from five counties in attendance this time, which is pretty good considering how spread out all the towns are down here.

Pat started out with the “state of the State", showing how voting percentages and opinion poll numbers are changing in the Dems’ favor. Rural areas are where a LOT of this change is happening, which is nice for us, as it means candidates and office holders can’t just take us for granted like they used to. Well, not as much, anyway.

This happy overview of good things to come led into a look at the timeline for the 2008 caucuses and how it all works. I know everyone reading CodeNeonBlue knows how to look that data up at coloradodems.org, so I won’t go into details here.

Next up was how to be chosen as a Colorado delegate to the National Convention in 2008. Short answer: It’s hard. Lots and lots and lots of other people are interested.

Slightly longer answer: There are still 55 slots available. Of those, 36 will be elected from the Congressional Districts. Here in CD-4 they need to choose 3 males, 2 females and 1 female alternate. For all the people who don’t make that cut, there will be an open election at the State convention for 12 At Large delegates.

(Disclosure: I’m not angling to be a DNC delegate, so that’s one less person competing, if you’re already planning how to make your move. What I want to do is be there blogging it!)

The final topic of the evening was the Jerome Project. I could tell you about it, but then I’d have to recruit you. Just trust me when I say it’s a good plan for getting out the vote in 2008!