In the past couple of weeks, I’ve posted a couple of informational diaries regarding an upcoming fundraiser that the Penn College Democrats were planning to host. Titled ‘An Evening in Blue’, we set out to bring together candidates for various offices – mayor (Michael Nutter); state legislature (Paul Lang); and congressional candidates (Dennis Spivack, Lois Murphy, and Patrick Murphy) – to interact with Democrats on-campus. Furthermore, knowing that the netroots will be an important factor in upcoming elections, we also invited Chris Bowers (from MyDD) and Duncan Black (Atrios, from Eschaton) to address the group; furthermore, Booman also showed up, bringing together some of the most prominent liberal bloggers on the Internet.
The setup of the fundraiser was fairly open – we decided to allow everyone to mingle for quite some time before we got to the speakers. During this time, I had a chance to chat with most of the speakers. It was a shame that I didn’t quite have a chance to speak with Chris and Atrios as much as I had wanted to, but I was able to speak for an extended period of time with Booman, which proved very insightful. We spoke about a range of topics, including the notion of supporting Fightin’ Dems somewhat blindly, the Ohio and Illinois intraparty squabbles, and many other issues. I also had a chance to speak with Lois Murphy, who seems to be running an extremely tight operation in PA-06 and stands a great chance of winning a race she nearly won last year against Jim Gerlach. Student attendance exceeded any expectations I had; I was surprised to see a good number of students (roughly 60-65) turn out for an event that is still 7 months away from Election Day. From my experience, the most populated meetings for Penn Democrats has been the events leading up to Election Day in 2004, but the fact that so many people turned out bodes well for the upcoming election season.
Once everyone settled down, our president, Nathan Hake, introduced each of the speakers. Chris and Atrios spoke first, and, to be honest, I was quite a bit more interested in hearing what they had to say than the actual candidates themselves. Chris’ speech focused on the positive prospects that the party has in the upcoming elections, along with the idea that Democrats need to formulate a coherent political ideology to attract voters. Atrios, as is his style online, was very sharp-witted and funny, and he geared his speech towards advocating us students to volunteering our time and effort to candidates in any race that we could. In fact, Atrios posted his thoughts over at Eschaton tonight on the matter. I agree that providing monetary incentives for students to aid candidates would greatly improve participation. However, that’s another reason that we held this fundraiser tonight: if we have increased funds, we can afford to pay for students to commute out to the suburban Philadelphia area to help out other congressional campaigns (the Murphys, Allyson Schwartz, etc.). I know one of the reasons I’m hesitant about volunteering at every possible moment is because I simply can’t afford to pay for round-trip train tickets every weekend. If students could be reassured that volunteering wouldn’t cost them anything, that in and of itself would increase participation, I feel.
The candidates who spoke afterwards (with the exception of Joe Hoeffel, who is currently not running for public office) tended to appeal to the notion of helping make the world a better place. I don’t remember the exact details of all the speeches, but what stuck out to me was Patrick Murphy’s appeal to us to step back and think: are we doing all we can to make the world a better place? He told us the story of one of his staffers who was at the fundraiser; this particular young woman dropped out of Brown University – one of the top universities in the country – to join his campaign. One of the members of Penn Dems simply showed up at his headquarters this past weekend to start helping out Patrick’s campaign because he came by our weekly meeting last week. When you have inspirational people running for office, particularly someone as charismatic as Patrick Murphy, you feel as though you’re truly working to make the world a better place for everyone. As Joe Hoeffel said, it’s not just family values that Democrats advocate; it’s the community values that the Democratic Party stresses – that all Americans are in this together, that we should help each other out – that makes us strong. It drives us when we’re down; it keeps us dreaming of a better day even during the darkest nights.
After the speeches were finished, dessert was served (the chocolate-covered strawberries were obscenely good), and more socializing took place. I had one last chance to speak to Chris, and I plan on going to the ward committee meetings nowadays – not only to get to know more about Philadelphia politics, which is something I feel is important for the Penn Dems to get more involved in – but to also get to speak more with Chris, who is one of the most thorough (and a personal favorite of mine) bloggers I’ve had the privilege of reading. At the end, we took a few pictures, and after staying well past the time we had reserved our reception room, we were kicked out of Houston Hall. I’m not sure exactly how much money we raised tonight (I’ll be finding out from our treasurer later this week, I’m sure), but coming away from this event, I feel that there is a renewed energy growing within Democrats to take a step forward after taking several back. 2006 is going to be our year…and it’s going to start at the grassroots level – whether it be at college or in any sort of community.
Below are the candidates’ website. If you couldn’t happen to attend our fundraiser tonight, please do show some love to the following members. They can all use as much help as possible.
Paul Lang – candidate for Pennsylvania State Senate (6th District)
Dennis Spivack – candidate for House of Representatives (DE-At Large)
Lois Murphy – candidate for House of Representatives (PA-06)
Patrick Murphy – candidate for House of Representatives (PA-08)
Below are some pictures from ‘An Evening in Blue’. Enjoy!
People socialize and enjoy appetizers at the beginning of the fundraiser.
Patrick Murphy and MyDD’s Chris Bowers
Penn College Democrats president Nathan Hake
MyDD’s Chris Bowers
Duncan Black (Atrios)
Paul Lang, Pennsylvania State Senate candidate
Philadelphia City Councilman and mayoral candidate Michael Nutter
Penn alum Dennis Spivack, DE-At Large candidate
Lois Murphy, PA-06 candidate
Former Congressman Joe Hoeffel (PA-13)
Patrick Murphy, PA-08 candidate
A bunch of Penn Dems getting their picture taken with Paul Lang, Patrick Murphy, and Michael Nutter. A 4 to anyone who can correctly guess who I am. 🙂
