(Cross Posted to DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)

600%.

That’s the increase we saw in Canon City’s participation last night at Drinking Liberally.

Okay — that’s a little misleading. Canon City has a new chapter of Drinking Liberally, and their second meeting ever was last night. At the first meeting, two people attended. Last night, a dozen attended the event at Brother’s on Main Street in Canon City. Now, I’m expecting that trend to continue each time we meet. In two months (four meetings), we should have, oh, just over 15,000 there — the total population of Canon City. Right? Right?

Maybe not — but the meeting was a good sign of continued activism in the Republican area of Fremont County. Several new people who had not been active in the Party in the past showed up, along with some familiar faces, including new County Chair Kevin Bradley. I explained Drinking Liberally last month, when I wrote about my trip to the one in Colorado Springs, but for those of you who missed it, DL is a relatively new phenomenon where like-minded progressives get together (usually twice a month or so) and have a drink or two and just talk politics. It’s relatively informal, with a speaker or two, but mostly just a chance to meet Dems over some drinks. Its a simple — yet powerful — premise.

And it’s a premise that’s catching on in lots of places in Colorado. Just recently, new chapters in Boulder (a second one), Canon City, Lakewood, and Longmont have started. They join chapters in Denver, Highlands Ranch, an original Boulder chapter, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins. For a list of all of the Colorado chapters, and when they meet, go to:
http://www.drinkingliberally.org/locations.html#co

Here’s my challenge, though: there are too many places where we SHOULD have chapters, but don’t. Where’s Pueblo? Greeley? Steamboat? Frisco? Grand Junction? Durango? Glenwood Springs? If Canon City can do this (and last night’s attendance and interest was evidence that we can), Pueblo and Greeley — at a minimum — can surely do this! This is a great opportunity to draw in new, often younger, folks into the county party. Go to the DL site and find out what it takes to start up a chapter in your community (not much, by the way), or attend a DL event if you already have a chapter.

—————————

I did leave DL a bit early last night to participate in the first meeting of the CDP’s Site Selection Committee. Pat Waak has appointed me to chair the SSC again this year. Our job is to solicit bids for the 2008 Colorado Democratic Convention and Assembly. We’ve learned that by bringing the Convention and Assembly to a community that wants it, and will work for it, the delegate experience (and the nomination experience) works so much better. This morning, I sent an e-mail to all county chairs detailing the site selection process — here’s the e-mail (with a fix to the at least one grammatical error I found after the e-mail went out):

Dear County Chairs:

As many of you now know, the Colorado Democratic Party now has a standing committee on Site Selection to help choose the site of our biennial State Assembly and quadrennial State Convention. Every two years, the State Party solicits bids from counties and communities interested in hosting these major events.

State Party Chair Pat Waak has recently appointed the Site Selection Committee for the 2008 Colorado Democratic Assembly and Convention. I am honored that she has selected me to chair this Committee for the second straight term. By rule, the Committee must consist of ten members (not including the chair), and at least one must be from each of Colorado’s seven Congressional Districts. This year, the Committee consists of:

– Daniel Willis, Denver (CD1)
– Angie Layton, Louisville (CD2)
– Butch Hicks, Westminster (CD2)
– Terry Hart (Pueblo County Chair), Pueblo (CD3)
– Mary Beth Pyle (Mesa County Chair), Grand Junction (CD3)
– Nancy Galvin, Greeley (CD4)
– Jay Ferguson (El Paso County 2nd Vice Chair), Colorado Springs (CD5)
– Maritza Carrera, Highlands Ranch (CD6)
– Jen Walmer (Arapahoe County Chair), Littleton (CD6)
– Dennis Larsen, Arvada (CD7)

Over the next few weeks, the Committee will be working to develop a Request for Proposals to send to all county chairs in the state. We anticipate that the RFP will be sent to county chairs approximately April 9, 2007, with a deadline for proposals to the State Party by May 7, 2007. It is the Committee’s goal to make a decision and recommendation to the State Executive Committee by mid-June.

The draft Delegate Selection Plan has a tentative date set for the State Convention and Assembly of May 17, 2008. Also, please note that the draft DSP also calls for Congressional Districts to meet on May 3, 2008, instead of at the State Convention, which may make it easier to find venues in your community for the State events.

We’re sending you this e-mail as a county chair to alert you to this process so you will have time to discuss this with your various county parties. While we are sending this e-mail, and the RFP, to all counties, we recognize that many counties won’t have the infrastructure or capacity to handle the State Convention and Assembly. Rather than attempt to identify the counties that can handle this job, we have decided that you are much better at determining whether it makes sense for your county (or group of counties) to be submitting a bid or considering submitting a bid.

If you do feel you may have the capacity and/or infrastructure to host the State Convention and Assembly, I would encourage you to explore the interest level in your community for doing such a job. What we’ve learned in Greeley in 2006 and in Pueblo in 2004 is that this event creates hundreds of thousands of dollars in income for a community, and it revitalizes the volunteer base of a county party. Weld County went blue for the first time in years in 2006, and a portion of that was due to the exposure and volunteer base from the 2006 Democratic Assembly held there last May.

So, if you’re interested, please look for the RFP in your e-mail inbox on or about April 9. And if you have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me.

– Dan Slater

First Vice Chair, CDP
Chair, CDP Site Selection Committee

If you’re interested in your county bidding for the State Assembly and Convention, talk to your county chair and county party officers, as they’ll be the ones in the driver’s seat of the decision whether to bid. I’ll keep everybody updated as the process moves along, at least to the extent I can.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 11:26 am and is filed under CDP, Counties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.