Fundraising continues apace

I now have amassed THREE political contributions. The amounts aren't huge, but hey, every dollar is going to help. I have half of one hotel night paid for now - beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick! Several people have promised contributions at the fundraiser, which will be on July 18th. Dennis and Karyn Higgins of the 47th District are graciously hosting the fundraiser at their home. I have to say, the core members of the 47th are some seriously cool people.

Marched in Geoff Simpson's contingent for the Cornucopia Days parade in Kent yesterday. It was fantastic; one of the 47th District members works with a group that teaches nonviolent negotiating skills and basic civics education (political issues, etc.) to inner-city kids. The kids had expressed an interest in seeing what goes into a campaign, so she brought them along to the parade to join Geoff's contingent. Wow - what energy and enthusiasm! You've never seen a local candidate with that kind of support at a small-town parade. It was also fun because the kids were every shade of the human rainbow - most of the groups performing in the parade were either all-white, all-African-American, etc. We sure weren't - I was proud to be part of that group. We were by far the largest contingent in the parade - not just for a political candidate, the largest contingent for ANYTHING!

The chorus performance at Pride was really wonderful; we only got to do one song, but it was my favorite one, One World. We performed it to a CD of the song, which was odd but seemed to work, since we only had about half the chorus there. John was really touched by how many people came up and talked to him about his Vietnam Veterans for Kerry button. He says he's not encountered that many people who were other Vietnam veterans in years, and this is the first time in ages he's been able to talk to other veterans who aren't completely brainwashed Bush-bots. The Democrats really need to reclaim the gun issue; it's killing us with rural folks, hunters, veterans, etc., to have people believing (rightly or wrongly) that we're "gun-grabbers." Personally, I believe in ALL the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

We had a delegate conference call last week, and voting for the delegation chair. The less said about that, the better; more infighting (apparently there's been some hard feelings between some of the Kerry folks and some of the Dean folks). I think the problems have been resolved now, Adam Smith is officially our delegation chair, and with luck, we won't have to air dirty laundry outside our delegation. Enough said!

I missed the first conference call for LGBT delegates, as it was right in the middle of the workday. Too awkward to try to call in to that from work. I hope they have any future conference calls in the evening, although I know that's hard for the representatives from the East coast.