Post 400

Here we are at post #400. It hard to believe. I'm going to give you a little insight today into where I have come politically the past six years.

Six years and one week ago, I came home from my LDS mission to Minnesota. While on my mission, I stumbled upon my first political rally. Jesse Ventura was holding a large outdoor rally on the campus of St Cloud State University the same day that we were going to campus for "street contacting." That was fall of 1998.

In the fall of 2000, I took a political science class at SLCC. I took it because I've always been a bit of a political junkie. (I took a poll during lunch on the 1992 Presidential election. I was in the eighth grade.) I took a look at where I stood politically. I decided that I was independant-leans Republican. I voted for George W Bush, Jim Matheson, and whoever was running against Orrin Hatch. Many of the other races got my Republican vote.

By the time the 2002 election came about, I was highly negative about Bush because of his failure to capture Osama bin Laden. However, I supported the effort to go to war against Iraq. I believed the lies about WMD.

The point where I started questioning the war started May 1, 2003, when Bush staged his "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier stunt. That set off my BS detectors. The more I read, the more upset I got.

In June of 2003, I started thinking about looking at the presidential campaigns. I made a list of qualities that I wanted in a candidate to support. One of those near the top of the list was the use of the internet. Jesse Ventura has used it powerfully in 1998, but it had been ignored since then.

I believe the date was June 26. It was somewhere around there. anyway, I was flipping through the channels and stopped on CSPAN. There was a guy speaking from Vermont, and I was laughing at the war over signs going on in the background. Some Naderites were holding large signs behind the speaker, and staffers/volunteers were trying to block them with signs of their own.

Suddenly, I started listening to the man behind the pulpit. He kept saying something that resonated with me.

"You have the power to take back your country."

Then, I saw it. His campaign URL was right there at the top of the pulpit. www.DeanForAmerica.com. I went and took a look. There was information on his stances on the issues. There was a thing called a blog that had information on what the campaign was doing.

There was also a monthly meeting taking place at the main library in Salt Lake for supporters of the campaign. It was at this meeting that I first met Peter Corroon, who was running the meeting.

I also noticed that there were many groups banding together in their support for Howard Dean. So, I decided, what the heck. Mormons for Dean was born.

Now, here we are. I am now an independant-minded Democrat. I'm a fairly well-known blogger, vice chair of my legislative district, as well as being vice chair of the state Educators caucus.

Howard Dean is DNC chair, Peter Corron is mayor.

And I've posted to this blog 400 times.

-Bob