Monday, April 7, 2008

MDP Jeff-Jack Recap

Yesterday the Michigan Democratic Party held the annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner at Cobo Hall in Detroit. I thought I would post a not so brief recap for those of you who couldn't make it to the event.



The event started out with a reception for the Youth Caucus. It was great to see all of the elected officials and party leaders who came out to support the young folks like us who are active in the party. Our own congressman Rep. Dale Kildee was among those who came to start the evening with the youngest members of the party. We heard from Gary Peters who is running a great campaign to become the next congressmen from Oakland County. He encouraged us to stay involved in politics. Even though I enjoyed seeing the older crowd, the highlight of the Youth Caucus reception was hanging out with other folks (read: ladies) our (my) age interested in politics.




The dinner was well a dinner. There was chicken which was both well seasoned and tender. For the price of the ticket I would have expected a Porterhouse steak or a bucket of crab legs. There was also pretty decent cheesecake (I'm a cheesecake snob) and the rest of the food wasn't really worth mentioning.

The dinner included lots of awards, but since I was sitting in the corner and they didn't show the award recipients on the jumbo tron screen I can't tell you who won what. There were a lot of speakers including Gov. Granholm, Lt. Gov. Cherry, Sen. Levin & Sen. Stabenow. The main speaker was the Gov. Brian Schweitzer from Montana. He seems like a regular guy who just happens to run a state. He had a funny metaphor about driving a car backwards you put it in 'R' and when you want to go forward you put in in 'D'. I used that metaphor with someone at work and they laughed so I will plagiarize it liberally.


After the dinner, we met at the lounge in Cobo for refreshments. I had a good time and it was great to spend time with new and old friends. Plus, if nothing else, by attending the Jeff-Jack Dinner I didn't have to watch the Tigers get whooped by the White Sox.
Enough of my ramblings, it is almost tip off of the title game where I hope Memphis will beat Kansas.
-Kyle