Last saturday I was elected to the California Democratic Party State Central Committee. I'll be joining about 1500 other California democrats in shaping the party for the next two years.

I ran for and was elected to one of the 6 male delegates positions from the 21st Assembly District to the California Democratic Party State Central Committee. This means I'm going to the state convention for the next two years. A list of other Dean-supporters elected last Saturday is here.

What I want to hear from fellow bloggers is: what should my agenda be?

I was a groomsman for my friend Adam this weekend. (I have to blog about the great train ride from LA to San Diego later). Adam and Rebecca's wedding was pretty traditional, and I wouldn't want to insult them by calling Adam a geek, but:,

You know its a geek wedding when:

1) The wedding is in a library

2) Instead of a DJ, the bride's laptop is used for entertainment (i.e. ITunes), and

3) Wedding guests showed up wearing EFF t-shirts.

Can someone who reads this blog explain to me in detail how blogs for political campaigns enable "two way" communication with the public? What features of blogs are you talking about when you say "two way" communication? (or Participatory Politics if you will). Are we saying that blogging is "two way" because everyone can have a blog and link between blogs? Is that really a way to foster and nurture a community of supporters?

When I try to describe blogs as political tools, I get a blank stare - "Hows that different than a web site you update every once in a while?". How do I best answer that question?

I was reading a great article about Visionaries over at Greater Democracy and noted the DLC Memo mentioned therein. (For those of you who don't know the DLC is the Democratic Leadership Council - the so-called "centrist" Democratic Party group often associated with Bill Clinton).

What gets me about this May 2003 memo is the almost bizarre characterization of Dean supporters as "elitist":

Wow

Yes kids, it was worth a blink tag. It was that good.

If Kerry had spoken in 2003 like he did tonight, I don't think Dean would have gone anywhere. Its clear that Dean has rubbed off on Kerry.

I'll be posting more as it all soaks in.

From a first hand account of going to the 2004 DNC, this quote really struck home, as it the author is talking about people like me (emphasis added):

I grabbed a cab with another Boston-bound traveler. He was Alex De Ocampo, President of California Young Democrats and a Kerry delegate.

I asked Alex when he first started supporting Kerry, and he thought it was about a month before the Delegate Caucus (where delegates are elected by local supporters) in February. I thought about the people I knew in California who were elected as Dean delegates after a year of hard work, but aren't coming to Boston because Dean suspended his candidacy before the California Primary.

Well, I upgraded to Drupal 4.4

I don't see any new features, maybe there'll be some speed or bug fixes... I'll have to get some modules and play around with them.

Time for me to go to sleep.

I'm in Cape Cod.. About 100 miles or so from the 2004 Democratic Party convention. I really do wish I was there, mostly for the parties, but also to witness history (such as it is).

I might say its a good analogy - I'm physically close but might as well be a 1000 miles away. This article in the New York Times talks about an elite group of wealth individuals creating a vast, yet nimble, left-wing conspiracy which might usurp the Democratic Party. (also see Daily Kos on the article). Lots of talk about big money invested into efforts like Music For America. What an inspiring vision!

The INDUCE Act is being cosponsored by one of my senators, Barabara Boxer. In a discussion with several folks who had been active in the Dean campaign, and are who are universally supporting Boxer against her right wing republican challenger, Boxer's active support of INDUCE was brought up by a friend (Steve Ogden, for whom I am an alternate on the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee). The email is archived here.

Here's the highlights:

I had occasion to look at my apache logs for my web sites and noticed that there are a number of folks pulling rss feeds from my site. No problem yet, but I'm really kind of surprised.

I didn't think anybody really cared what I had to say, honestly.

Well, maybe now I have an incentive to write more ;-)