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May 12, 2005

Enthusiasm

Last Saturday our local group, Democracy for Knoxville, hosted a house party at Miranda Godena's house. 30 open minded progressives were in attendance. This was in conjunction with about a dozen other house parties around the state.

The response was incredible. Much better than I expected.

The party featured a video made by the state PAC that featured Howard Dean speaking about what we're doing here in Tennessee and how it fits with the rest of the country. The video was recorded in March when Governor Dean was in Nashville. Apparently when he was asked to record a brief video his response was something like "well I can't do it tomorrow, I don't have time tonight, we have to do it right now." If only other politicians were so open and willing to give a few minutes of their time to people not kissing up to them or offering them money.

After the video and some mingling, there was a brief conference call where Tom Hughes, Executive Director of Democracy for America. He outlined what we're trying to accomplish. After the call we watched George Lakoff's video on the use of language and how to properly frame everything we do.

We didn't participate in the statewide letter writing campaign. Not because we think the state should restrict municipally run WiFi networks, but because we all pretty much despise letter writing campaigns. Especially ones where you sit in a room and everyone is expected to write a letter. Instead, we used the Lakoff video as an opening to discuss local issues and how to frame them. Most of our time was spent talking about the upcoming 2006 race for Knox County Sheriff or Tennessee being a "right to work" state and what being an employee at will means to Tennessee workers.

We were the only party to not charge admission at the door. It was a fundraiser but we felt that since we're still new and trying to grow our groups that it would be better to ask for donations after everyone had a chance to hear what we're about and what we're trying to accomplish. Apparently it was a good strategy. Our attendance was at or near the highest in the state and our contributions were also.

The most exciting piece of news for the evening was about the keynote speaker for the July 9 Democracy for Tennessee Convention. U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has agreed to speak to the group. An online registration page will be up within a week.

Posted by Paul Witt at May 12, 2005 04:55 PM

Comments

Posted by: gonzone at May 13, 2005 10:05 AM