TheBanyanTree: Liberals on the Loose

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Along with over 51,000 other Minnesotans, we attended our DFL caucus on
Tuesday, March 2.  The high school parking lot was already full at 6:30 pm,
a half hour before the caucuses began.  All the political parties met at the
high school, with classrooms providing meeting places for the individual
precincts.

We found our room.  It was half full of disgruntled 40 and 50 somethings
squeezed into desks.  Conversation was flying around the room as more people
kept coming in.  Our little precinct is middle class, mostly white, college
educated, and very liberal.  Our Congresswoman is Betty McCollum, who is
liberal in the Paul Wellstone mode.  And that’s why we were there, we weren’
t going to let this election slip through our fingers again.  (It’s
interesting that John Ashcroft is languishing in the hospital right now –
karma, perhaps?)

It was standing room only by 7 pm.  A few younger people were in the mix, as
well as some blacks, a Chinese American couple, and several Hispanics.  We
looked around and wondered who was going to moderate our caucus.  But a
former elected official got up and called the meeting to order.

He looked through the packet and did the things that needed to be done.  We
didn’t have ballots for the primary election, so we wrote our DFL choice on
pieces of paper and passed them in.  John Kerry won easily, but there were
lots of votes for Kucinich and John Edwards.  Ray was a staunch Howard Dean
supporter.  I voted for John Kerry, but I’m not sure about him, I just feel
like most DFL people do, that he has a good chance to beat Bush in the fall.
Our country desperately needs to clean house and soon.

We took resolutions.  One woman proposed that we restore some of our child
and older people protections that have been gutted by our current state GOP
administration.  Another proposed that we work with other countries of the
world to resolve conflicts.  Another proposed to revamp the social security
administration.  Another proposed that we work towards universal health
care.  A “civil union,” but no marriage for gays proposal was voted down.

Ray and I volunteered to be delegates to the district convention in April.
That will be fun and interesting as we continue to push towards removing the
Bush administration from office.  Won’t our country breathe a breath of
fresh air when that happens?

Our moderator kept things moving and we were out of there by 8:30 pm.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Springtime is the land awakening.  The March winds are the morning yawn.
~Quoted by Lewis Grizzard in Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You