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

I’ve been swamped here at the office with my mortgage-paying job the past couple of days, so I have not yet had a chance to write about my incredibly busy weekend traversing the state. So here it is.

We began on Friday night, driving up to Hugo in Lincoln County for the Lincoln County Dems’ Convention and Assembly. Chair Jim Bowen is well-known on the Eastern Plains, and he does a great job running the county party. Over 40 people showed up for the meeting at the Hugo Community Center — a pretty impressive increase from 2004, when I had last stopped in Lincoln County for their Convention and Assembly.

As I’ve seen in most places, there was a respectful discourse about the Presidential race. In the end, the preference vote was a dead even tie, sending 2 delegates each for Sens. Clinton and Obama to the State and 4th CD Conventions. In the U.S. Senate preference poll, while there were a couple of votes for Mark Benner (he had served a couple of years ago as Lincoln County’s vice-chair), only Mark Udall reached the 15% viability point in the preference poll.

It was a wonderful atmosphere, with some homemade cookies and coffee off to the side, and wonderful informal discussion of the candidates and issues. What was particularly touching was that Jim had ordered some little stuffed donkey goody bags for all of the delegates — his wife arrived just in time to deliver them to all of the folks there.

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Brandy and I then drove up to Fort Collins, where we spent the night in preparation for a pretty hectic day. We started at the Larimer County Assembly and Convention at Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Collins. There was no doubt driving up what was going on — if the candidate signs were not a dead giveaway, the 20-foot high inflatable donkey out front adorned with Obama stickers and signs probably let folks know there were Democrats afoot.

Larimer County was emblematic of a problem larger counties were having — too many people and not enough space. Fossil Ridge High School is a wonderful new facility with the latest green technologies. However, its auditorium seats only 600-700 people. Larimer County had 800 delegates (that’s not including alternates!).

Their solution was about the only thing you could do: about 100 delegates had to literally sit in seats on the stage behind the speakers. Mind you, they probably had the best view, but it was pretty amazing to see the crowd. Furthermore, entry into the auditorium was limited solely to delegates — alternates had to sit in the commons area outside and watch a video feed. I was even a little surprised that I could make it in without credentials without too much trouble.

Pat Waak was there, and she opened the assembly with some words of inspiration — as with nearly everywhere else we go, the vast majority of hands shot up when she asked for first-timers to identify themeselves. Chair Adam Bowen led a wonderful team in Larimer that planned well for crowds at registration, and the meeting actually started almost on time (maybe 5-10 minutes late, but that has to be credited as “on time” compared to a lot of the other counties). We heard brief words from Sen. Bob Bacon, and Reps. Kefalas and Fischer, as well as Betsy Markey, who is running for Congress. Markey certainly had the crowd on their feet when she was through — she has become a pretty amazing speaker in this short run for Congress to date.

After some preliminaries, I spoke for three minutes (and, shockingly, kept to the time limits) for Senator Obama, followed by three speakers for Senator Clinton. The vote was not until later, and I had to scoot to the next stop….

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… Which was Greeley. Because I spent so much time in 2006 working with the folks in Weld County preparing for the State Assembly, I know many of the key people in the Weld County Dems. But I had never seen a crowd like this — a gymnasium packed to the edges with Democrats. Weld County has undergone a transformation in the past few years, but this truly has to take the cake — from the sounds of the crowd, you’d be hard pressed to believe that Republicans even have a chance in historically-red Weld County.

As I was preparing to speak for Senator Obama, Weld Vice Chair (and Greeley City Council member) Pam Shaddock caught my arm, “Doesn’t this crowd look like the crowd we had at the State Convention in 2006?!” It was clear that Weld County Dems were busting their buttons with pride over the swelling ranks of Democrats in Weld County.

Pam wrote to me later and told me that they had well over 1,000 at the county assembly and convention. Maybe not as many as the State Assembly in 2006, but certainly respectable — maybe even more so when you consider that the Weld County Republicans met the same day and apparently had less than 350 in attendance there!

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Already well behind schedule, I zoomed down to Aurora for the Arapahoe County Assembly and Convention. Another convention, another room crowded with people taking up every available cubic inch of space. There were people sitting in stairwells and along the edge of the stage. I spoke briefly with County Chair Mike Hamrick, who was working hard with Vice Chair Karen Hart to get final tabulations on the Presidential Preference Poll (the results there were 65% Obama, 35% Clinton). Mike told me that the auditorium there at the high school was the largest meeting space in Arapahoe County — further pointing out the difficulties of planning a convention in these people-flushed times.

Congressman Ed Perlmutter was there when I was there, and spoke a little before I spoke. He did a wonderful job talking about the importance of political involvement, finishing with a reading from George Washington’s Second Inaugural address. Congressman Perlmutter certainly has the support of the people, and he is proving to be an amazing choice representing the Seventh CD in Congress.

Pat Waak arrived after a stop in Adams County, and she spoke just before I did — and the same experiment proved successful, another crowd of first-timers. I then spoke very briefly of the need to keep these first-timers involved in order to be successful in November.

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After leaving Arapahoe, I tried to race down to Castle Rock for the Douglas County Convention and Assembly. Sadly, though, (and after a stop at a middle school I mistook for the high school) I was too late. As I arrived, the leaders of the Douglas County Dems were packing up to go — they had a dictate from the school to be out by 2:00, and it was ten until 2 when I got there. Chair Paul Thompson did report that the meeting went well and smoothly, with a large crowd.

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Sunday, I had planned to drive down to Saguache to assist with their County Convention and Assembly, but was called by the Obama campaign to attend a meeting in Adams County to confirm the selection of the delegates to the congressional districts and state conventions. The meeting went well, and smoothly, and Adams County has a full delegation to all of the later conventions.

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Tomorrow morning, I head up to Boulder County. Pat Waak and I will be addressing the Democratic Women of Boulder County on the state of the races in Colorado, as well as our roles as superdelegates and the process generally. I think the RSVP deadline is passed, but here is the link for more information. Maybe I’ll see you there!
http://www.bouldercountydems.org/events.aspx?date=3/12/08#evtid_1636

Saturday, it appears that I will NOT be where the rest of the political world will be, in Boulder and Jefferson Counties. Instead, I am currently planning on being in Lamar for Prowers County’s convention on Friday night, and possibly in Springfield for the Baca County convention and assembly later on Saturday morning. (I’m off to Amarillo overnight Friday to pick up my kids for Spring Break!) I’ll report from those, as well as from the lunch tomorrow, when I get a chance.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 6:02 pm and is filed under CDP, Counties, US Senate Race, Congressional Races, 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.