The State of Political Debate, part 2
Last week, I was working at the Starbucks near the Amazon offices (where I had a few meetings) and I shared a larger table with a backpacking traveller who was reading the NYTimes. (We need more European-style community tables in bars and coffee palace--you get to meet lots of interesting people that way... but I digress.) I asked him (David) where he was travelling from, and he told me he was from Leicester in the UK. After chatting a bit about football (the Leicester football club was recently relegated from the top-flight Premiership division), we turned to politics. Out of this, I mentioned that I was attending a John Kerry "houseparty" they next evening to donate to the campaign. (This houseparty, hosted by my pal Mr. Stoesz from The Blue Hammer, actually took place at the cool Kuhlman clothing store downtown.)

I was happy to see him turn up on Saturday and we chatted briefly. Some interesting tidbits:

David believed it would be difficult to get this amount of crowd (over 30, I think) out on a Saturday night for a grassroots political fundraiser--he just didn't feel the voters felt that kind of ownership in the campaigning.

He likened the character-related barbs used in much of the political discourse (ads and public statements) as really being at the level of student union campaign rhetoric, and wondered if American politicians ever actually debated issues and ideas.

I wonder that myself, sometimes.

BTW, if you haven't ponied up for the Kerry campaign (the most I've ever donated to a political campaign), it's time to do it now (before someone has a wacky idea like delaying the candidate's nomination in order to continue to raise more money). You can go to JohnKerry.com or use this link at The Blue Hammer, where funds will continue to count toward Mr. Stoesz's houseparty. (And please, somebody take the top donation amount away from me.)