Preview video about tomorrow's war protests:

The video descrip there has links to the schedule, etc. And I think some of you Deanies may be in the video :)

March Meetup:

A quick report on our March meeting at the School for International Training. We had the extraordinary privilege of having two Democratic party leaders join around thirty of us. Ray Buckley has taken on among many other responsibilities the vice-chair of the Northeastern Region of the country, which interestingly enough includes New England, the Middle Atlantic, islands in the Caribbean, and Democrats living abroad world wide. His political roots and many of his activities are in Manchester, NH. Peter Mallary, after a varied career in Vermont state government and serving the Democratic party, is now its chair. Their discussion and insights were fascinating, and we greatly enjoyed their company. I can't cover all the topics they did here and keep this brief, but I will summarize by saying that they report that the Democratic National Committee is excited by its new chief. Gov. Dean is the first openly elected chair of the DNC in some time (President's typically designate who will be the chair of their party as Clinton did.) As we know, Dean's passion is to build the party from the grassroots up (as the Republicans have done in recent years and the DNC has not). The parties in both NH and VT are working hard to do this, getting their voter lists together, organizing volunteers and committees, etc. It is a national effort which Dean started out with the significant request that each state party submit a five year plan indicating where it wants to be in 2010 and specifically how it plans to get there. Communication within the party is to be a major focus, and both our guests are very involved in finding ways to improve it. The meetup had many questions and the discussion was wide-ranging and lively. We were all very appreciative of our guests' having come so far on a winter night.

Our DFA Meetup at Crackskull's in Newmarket was well attended, as
usual. There were nine first-time attendees, in addition to a number of reporters, including a photographer, who were attracted by the presentation by John Lynch, candidate for Governor of New Hampshire.

Additionally, Paul McEachern was able to respond to Lynch's no new tax (except maybe for an increase in the cigarette tax) with his support for a more broad-based levy.

At the Keene/Brattleboro (VT) meetup, we had twenty-one people in attendance. We had Jan Backus (D) as a guest speaker, who is running for Lt. Gov. in Vermont. We discussed the newly formed DFNH and questions arose from a Vermonter, on what we hoped to achieve. I stated that we wanted to create an organization that built back the DEAN network, created during the primary, to tap the growing energy for change in local (and national) governance.

Some attendees expressed views on their disappointment with how John Kerry has not been visible and vocal enough at this point in the campaign. It was stated that this is Kerry’s plan based on what has worked for him in the past, however the consensus remained that a copy-cat plan of what worked in the past, may not necessarily be relied on for this year’s National election tactics. We all felt that this was much bigger and different than Massachusetts elections.

It was also brought up that there were not enough positive platform issues being discussed by the Democrats; instead, most issues are negations of Bush’s actions. Out of that discussion, we proposed to contact the Kerry campaign, with a list of positive platform issues. The hope was voiced that this election seek to attain "higher ground."

For canvassing:
To answer the question, Why does my vote really matter?
Ms. Backus suggested that the Party collect stories on close votes.

Ironic/sad notes:
An acclaimed and talented Vermont "Teacher of the Year" is about to be blacklisted under the current administrations "No child left Behind" program.
By ntobi at 06/03/2004 - 10:06pm

We had a solid meeting last night. Billy Shaheen, Paul Hodes (Democratic candidate for 2nd congressional district), former Dean staffer and now ACT organizer Graham Roth each made very solid and well received presentations. We had about 60 people in attendence, which was down from our April meeting, when we had 100 people at the Meetup. The lower turnout was due to three things: 1) scheduling conflicts with other Upper Valley civic meetings, continued problems with getting our location for the Meetup properly posted on the Meetup/DFA website, and 3) a new location for the meeting (we're finally on the Dartmouth campus, which will be great for attracting students).

Still, it was an enthusiastic group, including at least half-a-dozen people who were first-timers at Meetup!

Billy Shaheen was really great talking about Kerry and why he deserves our support. We watched Kerry's new ad, which is excellent. Paul was very effective in his remarks, and I think people left feeling very good about his campaign, which is just underway. Finally, a number of people from the Upper Valley will be attending the canvassing on Saturday in Manchester.