| Day Three: Dean, former and current candidates, and more odd food.
My third full day in Pittsburgh was probably the most noteworthy in terms of events: the day started at 9 AM with none other than Howard Dean himself headlining what was billed as a town hall, but really turned into a half-interview half-monologue on Dean's part. The subject was, naturally enough, healthcare reform. (Parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven.) Dean took the time to calm the crowd down about some aspects of the healthcare debate, emphasizing that it wasn't nearly as bleak as some people made it out to be. |
| After a short break, we came back to the hall for the "Pennsylvania Leadership Forum," which was two seperate interviews with Senator Arlen Specter, and Congressman Joe Sestak, the guy who wants to unseat Specter in next year's Democratic primary. Overall the PA Leadership Forum left me happy to be a New Yorker. Specter was clearly and unabashedly sucking up to the left (Highlights here, here, and here), but Sestak seemed to me to be trying too hard to make a personal connection, and overdoing it. (Full Sestak segment here.)
Later that afternoon, I attended a panel discussion on the drug war, followed by "Turning Red Districts Blue: Organizing For Change," a discussion on how to win over Republican districts. It was here that I hooked up with "BuffaloPundit" Alan Bedenko and "BuffaloGeek" Chris Smith, both of WNYMedia. The three of us ended up hanging out for a little while with someone everyone here should remember: Jon Powers, former congressional candidate for the New York 26th, now the Chief Operating Officer of the Truman National Security Project. After the WNYMedia guys finished a short interview with Jon, the three of us met up with Robert Harding and went out to a late dinner at Primanti Brothers, thus mostly wrapping up the night.
Day Four: New York bloggers, Eric Massa, closing keynotes, the Irish gay bar, and out.
My last full day in Pittsburgh started slowly. Being incredibly bushed from 18 hour days wandering around (not to mention hiking back and forth to the hotel in blistering heat and humidity) I skipped the interview with Valerie Jarrett in favor of getting a little more rest. When I did haul myself down to the convention center, I dropped in for the first part of the "Si Se Puede 2.0" panel on immigration reform, before lighting out for the informal New York caucus at 2 PM. When I got there I found a goodly crowd already assembled, including none other than my favorite Congressman, Eric Massa. You may have
Massa's message, boiled down simply, was this: We need to get real health care reform passed, and without either a public option or single payer, it's not reform. The insurance companies are the enemy, and they're who has been destroying healthcare in America. Don't bother going after the Blue Dogs, he told the bloggers: target the Republicans. The Blue Dogs will go with the flow if public opinion supports it. Win the spin war, and don't feed the narrative that Democrats are destroying each other.
If you've watched any Fox News lately (not likely) you may have seen one small clip from Massa's soapboxing: where, after he noted that voters in his district weren't interested in a public option, he said he'd vote against the "interests" of his district if he thought it would benefit them. He immediately corrected himself and noted that he meant the opinions of his district, but that didn't mean much to the reporter from the Washington Times who was there videotaping Massa looking for "gotcha" material.
Let me take a moment out to say this: folks, this guy needs every ounce of our support that we can muster. He's one of the Republicans' top targets next year, and it's because he's fearless. Have you ever seen the miniseries Band of Brothers? The scene where an American officer sprints straight through a German-held hamlet as they're shooting at him, to take a message to the other flank, then runs all the way back? That's Massa all over. He doesn't care if what he's saying is impolitic, because it's true, and moreover he manages to make some incredibly great policy positions work in his district from a populist point of view.
After Massa left, the New York caucus continued (with the notable non-New Yorker figure of Jim Dean, brother of Howard Dean and head of Democracy for America). On the table was discussion about the state legislature, partiularly what's going to be done next year to try and fix the state senate by adding more good Democrats and removing some of the bad ones.
Once the caucus broke up, it was back to the hotel to change into something more formal for the evening's closing speeches and the afterparty. The closing keynotes were much more laid back than the opening speeches: Congressman Massa had a few brief remarks on the fact that he had been selected to receive the Paul Wellstone Leadership Award. The highlight of the lineup was the official keynote by two-time congressional candidate and netroots favorite Darcy Burner, of Washington state. (Parts one and two.)
After the speeches, there was still one last "official" party, which served for me as the kickoff to a night far too complicated to trouble with in what's already an overly long post. But it involved a bar made out of a church, some Democracy for America people, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, absinthe, and drunken origami. Trust me, this way it actually sounds cooler than it really was.
Finally, I staggered back to the hotel room and got as much sleep as I could before packing the next day, and coming back here to my native lands. |
