Selected Reaction to the Blue 88 Forum

I've been crying in my root beer all weekend that I didn't make it to Columbus for the candidates forum sponsored by Blue 88 and a host of others (including Akron's own SCPD.) Prof. W came down with the grunge going around so I could not bail off to Columbus and leave her with two rambunctious, cabin-fevered urchins.

Yesterday I attended long training session with SCPD folks, many of whom were in Columbus. Rather than read all the blog accounts and (if they exist) news accounts and come up with an out-of-my-butt analysis, I'm just going to give you the filtered impressions of the people I talked to. These are very liberal activists who, as it happens, don't read blogs very much. This isn't a large or representative sample but, if I can contribute anything to this particular conversation, it's adding a little perspective from outside the blogosphere.

The consensus in the group was, first and foremost, that Subodh Chandra stole the show. People were also impressed with Richard Cordray, candidate for Treasurer.

On the other end were Marc Dann and Jennifer Brunner who didn't show. People were not happy about that. And then there was Paul Hackett who got booed for talking trash about Sherrod Brown. Based on what I heard, reading favorable blog posts may be the Aughts version of reading one's own press clippings. In other words, I wonder if Hackett went in with unrealistic expectations of how an anti-Sherrod speech would go down.

Fact is, most liberal activists, like most people, don't read blogs. They don't know how great Paul Hackett's run in Ohio 2 was, they haven't heard the story about how Sherrod Brown came into the race, they are unfamiliar with the plagairism scandal, they actually think his wife is pretty cool.

Maybe Hackett can win the nomination without appealing to the non-wired liberal segment of the party. He better hope so. He isn't going to appeal to them with a winking acknowledgement of Sherrod's sins against the blogosphere.