The Meetup Dance

I went to the first Yolo County Meetup for Howard Dean’s campaign this evening at a coffeehouse in South Davis. The previous local Meetups have been in Sacramento, but there is now sufficient interest in the campaign on the west side of the causeway for groups to start officially meeting over here. There were about 35 attendees, and apparently 8 or so other were meeting closer to campus, as logistics still need to be sorted out. Prominent at the meeting were three local elected Democratic party officials who had seen Dean speak at the California Democratic Party annual conference in March and were amazed and flabbergasted by his performance.

I am an independent voter and haven’t committed to supporting anybody in the Democratic primaries (which apparently I can vote in without having to re-register as a Democrat), but Dean certainly has most of my attention. It comes down to a matter of pragmatics: who has the best shot of sending our loon of a president off to permanent ranchside brush-clearing duties? Dean, a fiscally responsible centrist with a great deal of gumption, is looking very good.

Meanwhile, the latest news from the Let’s Make California A Laughingstock electoral saga is that Arnold is running, Arianna is running, Dianne is not, and the rumors are that Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante will be running as well.