Breaking: Crashing the Gate Book Signing in Raleigh

Quail Ridge

School is out for Katie then, so maybe I can figure something out. We have some wingnut friends in Hillsborough who might allow them to come swim in their neighborhood pool while I go to my librul booksigning.....A girl can always dream, can't she?

I was thinking it's June 12. My bad. Katie has school and there's no way I can make it. Durn. Well...that's OK. I'll mail my book to one of you and you can get it signed for me. Of course, I don't know why I would want it signed. I'm going to bed before I break my keyboard with my forehead.

Looks like I will be pickiing up the KOS guys at the airport friday morning and driving them around for two days.....any must do items for them? think I can talk them into having a beer with us?

My wife graduates NC State that weekend but being the incredible wife that she is she is going to host my MOM in town and let me go off driving with Markos and Larry...it's just too freaking scary...I wonder what evil revenge she has planned for me later...She is even letting me miss the morning graduation and only attend the smaller afternoon one.....WWWOOOOOTTTT what a gal!

My parents are coming into town early, which means that I either won't make it or will be introducing Markos to mom and dad and little brother (this latter is only if I can convince them after a day in the car to continue on to Raleigh). Any Bluencers going?

Well the day is going well so far. I met them at the airport with an Impeach Bush sign and got a smile from Markos. First stop so far was an interview with Rob Christensen @ the N & O where the main focus was on the influence of the neetroots on politics. Much of the discussion centered around federal politics but then Jerome mentioned local activists and BlueNC as an example of how the phenomenon is also transforming the way local politics is conducted. I piped in that if Rob wanted a prime examples of how blogs and the internet can influence local/politics races he need only look at how we effectively lowered the boom on Mintz and the great strides Kissel is making. BlueNC was mentioned several times.

Privately Markos and Jerome talked with me about how important it is for local blogs to pick up the banner and act as a focus for change on the local level.. More and more I think this is key. If we want to make long term changes and have lasting influence we need to provide the tools activists need to stay in touch in realtime and draw folks in at the bottom, on the precinct level. We need to show the huge strides progressives have made in this regard in the past 3-5 years...especially after the 2004 elections. Progressive dems now hold a significant number of seats on the SEC and that margin is growing. last night at the Wake CEC meeting we ran two progressive candidates, Chris Telesca and Janice Sears for the two recent openings that Wake had on the SEC. Janice was uncontested and got her seat, Chris T won handily also by a margin of 2 to 1. More progressives are serving on commissions and getting involed. We need to continue this trend.

Jerome and Marcos are taking a break while I blog in the lobby of the hotel...we start up again at 3:15.
WOOOOT