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

First, an apology: As many of you know, I was in Northern Virginia a couple of weekends ago for the Winter DNC Meeting. I promised to blog about all of the Presidential candidates and their speeches. I actually spent about 45 minutes writing a very long and detailed post that evening; however, when I hit the “Submit” button on my WordPress site, everything disappeared. I had not backed any of it up. I completely lost all of it. I have not had any time since then to re-create it, and now it is kind of late to do so.

To summarize, though, the candidates did a wonderful job. While I have endorsed Senator Obama, each of our candidates reinforced my feeling that we will be well-served by whomever we select as our nominee in Denver in August. There was also a lot of concern in the hall for the reports of the hostage situation at Senator Clinton’s office in New Hampshire, and I can tell you that I had a short conversation with the New Hampshire Chair, Ray Buckley, later that evening — he looked both exhausted from the day’s stresses and relieved that the hostages all got out without physical harm.

It was a great DNC meeting, and the last one before we meet again the day after the Convention adjourns in Denver in August.

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Saturday was an opportunity for our State Central Committee and State Executive Committee to meet and get some last-minute business done before the caucuses. There was not anything really controversial going on, but we still had a great crowd anyway — even with snow falling throughout the state. That really impressed me — we used to wring our hands to make quorum at meetings just a few years ago, but even with bad weather and no controversy, we still made quorum easily for both meetings. Some of that is due to a rules change I helped bring about that changed the way we calculate quorum, but I think that a greater reason for it is that we have more folks who are truly excited about the opportunities we have to change Colorado and to change America in 2008 and beyond.

We approved the 2008 CDP budget — and we also noted that 2007 was the best off-year for fundraising in our Party’s post-Amendment 27 history. Rep. Mark Ferrandino, our extraordinarily capable and diligent Treasurer, attended his last meeting as Treasurer as we selected another quite able-bodied soul to fill his spot: Adams County Dems’ Treasurer Butch Hicks. I worked with Butch on the Site Selection Committee, and I know he will do an outstanding job as our new Treasurer, although he does have huge shoes to fill.

We handled a few other housekeeping items — a couple of minor rules changes, and formal approval of the delegate allocation to the counties for the State Assembly and Convention. Several Presidential campaigns had representatives there (Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Biden, Kucinich), and we also heard from our Congressional candidates in attendance. Senate President Peter Groff gave his first speech to the Central Committee in that role, and we also heard from the always-eloquent Speaker Andrew Romanoff. Finally, we heard some inspirational words about our role as the host state party for the National Convention from DNCC CEO Leah Daughtry.

After those meetings, three of the Congressional Districts held their meetings. The 2nd CD had a packed meeting where they debated when and where to hold their Convention and Assembly, finally deciding to hold it a couple of weeks prior to the State Convention and Assembly, in Westminster. Following those meetings, there was VAN training, and I led a training for some county party leaders on how to prepare for and hold the caucuses and county convention / assembly.

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A few other notes:

First, several people have asked me when I will be giving the next caucus trainings. While we are still working on a few other dates to firm up, here are the ones that have been set. On Friday evening, Jan. 11, I will be doing a training in Estes Park. The following day, Jan. 12, I will be conducting trainings for Larimer Dems in Loveland and for Weld Dems in Greeley. On Sunday, January 13, I will then be doing training in Park County, at the Jefferson Community Center. On Monday, January 14, at 7 pm, I will be doing training in Summit County (I’m assuming I will be in Frisco). The following evening, January 15, I will be doing the training in Rocky Ford. Then, on Saturday, January 19, I will be doing training here at home in Canon City, for Fremont County and the surrounding counties. Finally, on Wednesday evening, January 23, I will be conducting training for the counties in HD 63 in Alamosa.

So far, those are the ones that have been affirmatively scheduled. If you’d like for me to come to your area, please drop me a note and we’ll try to find a date that works well for everybody.

Second, Jay Fawcett, who ran an outstanding campaign for the 5th CD, and who forced the Republican Party to spend hundreds of thousands of national dollars on a district that they assumed was safe, is working hard to retire his debt from that campaign. Here’s a note from Jay:

ActBlue has reactivated my campaign account for the purpose of debt relief. I made a principled decision to pay all vendors and salaries first and I succeeded. But that leaves the campaign owing me about $70,000 I have been asking support to get to $50,000 on ActBlue by 15 December, after that I close out the campaign and move on. Any help and suggestions you can provide will be appreciated. Please spread the word and the web site.

Jay Fawcett

http://www.actblue.com/page/fawcett4congress

If you can, please visit the ActBlue site and help Jay as much as you can. I know he will appreciate it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 11:42 am and is filed under CDP, DNC, Presidential Campaign. 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.