It is sometimes difficult to communicate—particularly to beancounters and technocratic wonks—the importance of shared social experiences in political party-building. In our work with Vino Veritas, formerly known as Formerly Known As, formerly known as Dr*****g Li*****ly Ama*****, we have seen how badly people of similar politics just need to hang out. This is especially true for the minority party in an area such as ours.
A similar, though almost opposite, dynamic also aids party-building. People who share much of their politics, but who have found themselves cast into adversarial roles can benefit from social interaction.
Franzetta Crow, whom I worked against when she ran for City Commission against my friend Erik Williams is on this bus and turns out to be a very pleasant person. Although there are apparently Clinton delegates who refused to come to this convention, those who ride with us today are shiny and happy enough. And I have a feeling that the rifts in the Democratic Party that threaten to elect McCain could be repaired if the most vocal Obama supporters and the most rabid Clinton supporters were all forced to ride together for ten hours on a chartered bus watching left-wing agitprop on DVD.
The Obama campaign will soon be spending millions of dollars on hagiographic ads portraying the Senator as a Saint. They will, no doubt, sell a good portion of the campaign to the Clintons in an effort to get them to support Obama.
That money and political capital might be better spent on buses.
spacedark
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