Democrat Meeting

Despite the fact that Jamie has come down with something--a cold plus bronchitis, maybe, we went to our first democrat club meeting last night and then went to dinner afterwards and had a great time! The girls loved the new babysitter and so did we, so we'll definitely be calling her again. It was *so* nice to go out together and do something we both care about and also nice to know the kids had fun while we were gone. They keep asking us when we're going out again.

The democrat meeting was interesting. They meet at a restaurant once a month. I predicted we would be the youngest people there and that was pretty close to being the case. 99% of the people there were 50 plus. But they're working on bringing in younger people, so that might change. We heard a lot of candidates speak and you had to wonder why some of these people were running at all as their speaking skills were non-existant and on top of that, they really seemed to have nothing to say. "I-uh-would like your vote" really doesn't get us there, does it? But there were some that were good and one woman in particular, I would like to work for. She's having a fundraiser and we're planning to go.

Then, THEN, they had a labor union organizer speak. I'm a girl from a right-to-work state and I've never been in the same room with a union organizer before. I don't even know anyone who is a union member or of any companies that are unionized. I mean, yes, the democrats in Texas are pro-union (not *this* democrat, though—I hate labor unions), but I've never heard anyone really talk about it. It's like being a Methodist. You can spend your whole life being a Methodist and yes, everyone there pretty much believes in hell and believes people (such as the Baptists down the street) will be going there but no one ever really talks about it and it's certainly hardly ever and maybe never preached to you because that would be a real downer, wouldn't it?

Anyway, this little union organizer is talking about union this, union that, my company paid for my education 100% because the union forced them to and now I'm going to law school, too! Aren't unions great?!? Rah fucking Rah. And Jamie kept shushing me and then he took my straw away because I was smacking it on the table and rolling my eyes. And then one of the older gentleman there was going on about scabs and something about freaking Roosevelt and the Great Shift of Wealth. Is it any wonder the democrats always lose? And, as always, there's some guy who has something he wants to bitch about so he brings it up to the group (that's what makes these things fun!). Last night's irrelevant bitch was, "how dare the dems in Connecticut run someone against Lieberman?!?" and then Words were Had (Lieberman isn't a "real" democrat and anyway, Republicans would do the same thing) and then he was mocked because what does that have to do with anything? I didn't jump into that, but if I had, I would have started yelling about Clinton raising money for this Loser and then segued into what a loser Gore was to shove Clinton aside in the 2000 election.

Before we left we met someone about our age. She approached us to ask if we were with the media because she had never seen anyone take such thorough notes at one of their meetings before. Jamie told her he wanted to research the candidates when we got home which was only part of the truth—we were also furiously passing each other notes about the speakers. Anyway, she was very fun to talk to and we let her know we were interested in volunteering so she signed us up. We're going to choose a candidate or two and work for them until election time and then work on fund-raising.

Over all, I'm glad we went, and we plan to join the group and continue going.