Off to Socorro

I'll be joining a bunch of other progressives traveling down to the Democratic Party State Central Committee meetings and events in Socorro later today. In addition to voting members who were elected to seats on the SCC, others will be going down as interested parties to check out the fundraiser reception tonight, attend the SCC meeting and participate in the planning meeting for a progressive caucus and afternoon training sessions on Saturday .

I hope we get a huge turnout at all the events, but especially the progressive caucus meeting. It will be terrific to meet like-minded folks from around the state to discuss organization and strategy.

Bosco the peach-faced lovebird, he of Sunday Bird Blogging fame, will be traveling with us. It will be his first extended trip on the road and at a hotel, so I imagine he'll be quite excited and curious about all things Dem. We bought him a new traveling cage (yellow with palm trees) and hope we'll get alot of use out of it if we actually get some weekends free of politics and we can camp out in some of our favorite haunts this summer. The cage even came with mosquito netting!

It's been quite a week for political meetings. It started with a legislative townhall meeting put on by the State Party in Albuquerque on Tuesday that featured local legislative committee chairs. The speeches in some cases were excellent, some went on a bit long, and not enough time was left for questioning and provocation from the audience (!), but the after-meeting discussions were top-notch. It was great to see a meeting where the check-in process was easy, comment cards, free bottled water and hard candies were at the sign-in tables, and a roaming microphone and video-cam recorded the events and allowed comments and questions to actually be heard.

I found it particularly satisfying brainstorming with Rep. Mimi Stewart, State Party Director of Field Operations Joaquin Guerra, Deputy Executive Director Gideon Elliot and others after the meeting about how we can improve the Party, get our message out to more people in every area of the state, run candidates in as many races as possible, get people trained and win a few elections. It was also fun meeting Field Organizer Meredith Dixon's handsome Bernese Mountain Dog!

Last night we missed the Third Thursday meeting of the Bernalillo County Dems because we wanted to attend our neighborhood association meeting. We should have skipped that one instead. What a disheartening experience to find that so many present strongly support the proposed new, massive, 24-hour Wal-Mart near Wyoming and Menaul.

It was sickening to hear people praising Wal-Mart, insisting they don't believe the company discriminates against women employees despite a huge class-action suit and saying they pretty much don't care that traffic, air pollution and noise will increase dramatically in the Hoffmantown neighborhood. Talk about moral values: I wouldn't be surprised if this bunch would trade their liberty and voting rights for the alleged "bargains" available at Wal-Mart. Merchandise produced under slave-labor conditions in Third World countries? Small, locally owned businesses closing down in the neighborhood due to Wal-Mart tactics? Who cares!

Ah, well, If anyone reading this attended the DPBC meeting last night at the law school, I'd appreciate hearing about it in the commments to this post. We hated to miss it.

And so, off to pack for Socorro. It will be interesting to see how the resolutions passed at last Saturday's State Resolutions Committee fare at the SCC. And what will happen with the numerous resolutions that got put aside for later discussion and voting that never happened. Considering the overwhelming support for many of these at the ward and county levels, like the one calling for a living wage, it would be a travesty for the Party to let them fade into oblivion. We'll be working on it.