State Democrats' holiday party

Well, I broke down and went to the state Dems' holiday party after all. I emailed Nova and asked her if it was possible to attend the reception (not the dinner - I didn't want to push it) if I couldn't afford the $50 "suggested donation." She said sure, so I went to the reception. It wasn't exactly a scintillating party, but I'm still glad I went. There were the usual raft of speeches from the usual folks - Congressman McDermott, Senators Cantwell and Murray, outgoing Governor Locke (who, oddly, made a beeline for me as he came offstage to say hello and shake my hand), and Chris Gregoire, among a number of state representatives.

It wasn't quite the wake I was fearing, as the party had just announced two days before that they'd come up with the money for a full hand recount, so Chris' campaign is still alive. Thankfully, Chris had the good sense to hold out for a FULL recount ("either recount all the votes or recount none") - anything else, besides not being the right thing to do, would have been political suicide. That idiot Vance and that crook Rossi would have made hay with that in the media. Voters never look kindly on "cherry-picking" votes from favorable counties.

I have to take back some of my earlier ranting about where in the hell was Kerry with his leftover millions - Congressman Adam Smith called him up, and Kerry promptly donated $250,000 to the recount effort. The DNC, MoveOn PAC, and Howard Dean's Democracy for America all donated between $200,000 and $250,000 each, so the campaign was able to produce the $700,000 deposit and still have some money to pay for the actual recount. They're still going to have to come up with more, of course. I donated what I could at the party - it was pretty pitiful, only $20, but if they get enough people donating $20 and $40 here and there, they'll have the funds.

Had a long talk with Bryan Kesterson, newly elected as 47th District Chair, at the party. I explained our frustration with the PCO situation (having someone in the position who essentially talked John out of running, who then refused to actually walk the precinct when the Coordinated Campaign asked him to), and how that made both of us ineligible for any of the elected district positions, and ineligible to vote at the county, and how we were both feeling pretty disenfranchised right now because of that. He made a few suggestions (he really wants to get both of us involved again), one of which really excited John when I told him about it. He wants to have basically a legislative lobbyist for the district in Olympia, someone who goes down there to buttonhole our reps and senator when there's issues that need to be addressed. He thinks, and I agree, that that's more effective than writing letters or making phone calls. Since what that would mean is basically talking to Geoff and Pat and Frank Chopp or Lisa Brown (respectively, heads of the state House and Senate), and sometimes Steve Johnson, that'd be a job either John or I could do. It really perked John up a lot to think of having a useful role again.

Another suggestion Bryan made was for a possible Veterans' outreach in the 47th, having John head that up. John liked that idea, too. Bryan also pointed out that our two state committeepersons, Tyler and Betty, both might have occasions when they might be unable to attend, and require proxies. Bryan suggested that perhaps John and I could serve to fill in as their proxies should that be needed. Since the state committeeperson jobs are the ones we'd really wanted, we both liked that idea. Bryan also said that we could be appointed to fill vacant PCO slots in other precincts, which at least keeps us part of the district, and actively part of the county party.