Some of the travels in the last few days should be of interest to all of you. On Monday, I met with the Metro Chairs after the County Chairs conference call to go over the DNC’s new Neighbor to Neigbor Project. The room was full, and we reviewed the powerpoint put together by the Democratic National Committee. I had several copies of the DVD to share with chairs in the room. There were representatives from Larimer, Weld, Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Park, and Denver Counties. We have a lively discussion of using MySpace and other sites for communicating with young people.

On Tuesday, Bill Compton and I spent time with DNC Political Director, Dave Boundy, and Artie Blanco, the Southwest DNC Director. Colorado will be a target state, so Dave spent the day visiting with the Udall campaign staff, the Governor’s political people and various other organizations. We talked about the potential campaign for 2008. Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada are definitely on the radar screen because winning these four states can compensate for a loss in a big Eastern state.

Wednesday was filled with meetings and planning so that Thursday morning I could hop a flight for Las Vegas. There we had a Western Strategy meeting sponsored by the Project New West. I had the opportunity to hear about the latest data, along with other chairs from Montana, Wyoming, and Utah and staff from New Mexico, Idaho and Arizona. Following the briefing, we attended the Presidential Debate. Many of you saw the debate, although I must say that those of us there were lucky not to have the press spin.

After the debate, we attended a reception and then a dinner. At the reception, Rep. Kucinich, Gov. Richardson, Sen. Biden and Sen. Edwards came by. (For Desparate Housewives fans, James Denton was there.) In fact a lot of Creative Coalition folks were at the reception.

A dinner was sponsored by the Project New West. I sat with former Congressman Larry LaRocco from Idaho. We had met many years before when he was first running for office. This time he is running for Senate — the Craig seat. He talked about how he is spending a day each at different jobs around the state so he can see what it is like.

Friday morning, I flew back to Colorado and tried to catch up on more fundraising work. That evening I spoke at the House Majority Project fundraiser in Denver. We should be so proud of the work that our representatives are doing to serve Colorado.

Saturday morning, Jonah Fructer, who works on the Coordinated Campaign, and I drove to Steamboat Springs. We met 50 people at a pot luck lunch, and then Sky Gallegos, Deputy
CEO for Intergovernmental Relations, DNCC, and conducted a community conversation on the upcoming 2008 Democratic National Convention.

I followed that with caucus training and a presentation of the Neighbor to Neighbor Project. We got good coverage this morning in the local paper. http://steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/nov/18/democratic_convention_boost_economy_voter_interest/

That night we attended the Backcountry Ball in Steamboat Springs in support of Ken Brenner’s announcement that he filed the papers for a potential candidacy in Senate District 8. Ken has done a great job as a Steamboat Springs Councilman and has been involved in regional planning.

Just so you know we are not slacking, Jonah and I drove back to Erie this morning. I then went to Arvada to moderate two very fine debates. John Giardino and Evie Hudak are both running to replace Sen. Sue Windels. Before an audience of 75 people, they answered questions posed by the community.

The second debate featured the candidates for Congressional District 2: Will Shafroth, Executive Director of the Colorado Land Coalition; Jared Polis, former President of the Colorado State Board of Education; and Joan Fitz-Gerald, former Colorado State Senate President. The crowd grew to over 100 people. Each candidate answered 5 questions that had been submitted by the community. They all did a great job.

And it was a great day for Colorado.

Pat

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 7:12 pm and is filed under CDP, Counties, DNC. 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.