Larimer County - A Picnic Inside a Brewery
(Cross-Posted to DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)
Yesterday afternoon, we headed up to Fort Collins for the annual Larimer Dems’ picnic. As I mentioned in my last post, it was held at a pretty unique location: the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins.
Now, I’ve been blessed to meet a lot of celebrities over the years in my party activism. But I didn’t expect yesterday to be one of those celebrity-meeting days. I was wrong. I had the great pleasure of meeting Kim Jordan on Saturday.
Who is Kim Jordan? Kim Jordan is the co-owner of New Belgium. She’s also a GREAT Democrat! New Belgium has been a wonderful supporter of the Democratic Party and progressive causes for years — the very first ASDC meeting that Pat and I attended in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2005 featured a reception sponsored by New Belgium. But its not just that Kim is a successful and progressive owner of a brewery that makes her a celebrity — its how she and her husband run New Belgium that makes her a celebrity (she certainly didn’t act like a celebrity — when I met her, she was behind the bar with her employees, pouring drinks). New Belgium is to beer and brewing what Ben & Jerry’s is to ice cream. That’s not over-stating it one bit. After a year of working for New Belgium, every employee becomes a part-owner in the company. They also get a new bike. Take a look at the history and civic responsibility exhibited by New Belgium here:
http://www.newbelgium.com/story.php
Okay. I realize this isn’t really about Kim Jordan and New Belgium. Instead, once folks made their way up to the second floor of the brewery, they were greeted with nearly 200 Larimer County Dems and a lot of fun. The event featured a celebration of the fact that two of the fastest-rising freshmen in the Colorado Legislature are Larimer Dems: Reps. Randy Fischer and John Kefalas. Both did a great job with the crowd. Also featured was the newest county commissioner in Larimer County, Randy Eubanks. Larimer Dems are hoping to win a majority on the Board of County Commissioners in 2008 — they’ve begun winning a lot of the state and regional races county-wide, and are looking to transform that success into better wins at the county level.
There’s also a real effort afoot to focus on local races — strengthening the Democratic bench. Earlier this year, I wrote about the transformation of the Fort Collins City Council into a progressive-majority council. There’s now an effort to elect more progressives and Democrats on the Loveland City Council, as well.
Of course, the highlight of the afternoon was to hear the three Democratic candidates for the Fourth Congressional District. Angie Paccione, Betsy Markey and Eric Eidsness all did a great job sounding the same message: regardless who wins the Democratic nomination, we must unite behind the nominee to ensure that we defeat Marilyn Musgrave in November of 2008. I’ve got no favorites in that race, but the Larimer Democrats who attended seemed to be the loudest for former Rep. Angie Paccione. However, it was clear that both Markey and Eidsness had good pockets of supporters present, as well.
Thursday night, I’m headed to an event in Denver sponsored by the Colorado Young Democrats with former Senator Gary Hart. If you’d like information on that event, go to the CYD website at:
http://www.coloradoyoungdems.com/
Hope to see you there!