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It was the worst possible day for the DFL's Wellstone Memorial Bean Feed: with wind-whipped rain, the weather seemed more appropriate for Oregon in late November than for Minnesota in early October.
Nevertheless, a little over 50 people turned up to huddle under the picnic shelter in suburban Richfield to eat hotdogs and baked beans.
The advocates for presidential candidates were not given speaking time but were permitted to set up tables. Of the volunteers for candidates, the Kucitizens were by far the largest bunch, with 8 volunteers. There were about 5 or 6 volunteers for Clark and 1 each for Edwards and Kerry. I was surprised that none of the Dean volunteers showed up, because back at the Minnesota State Fair in August, there had been slightly more of them than of us.
Anyway, we heard brief talks from State Attorney General Mike Hatch and Hennepin County Attorney(?) Amy Klobuchar, as well as three state legislators from the area. Of the speakers, I was most impressed with Amy Klobuchar, and I predict that there's a bright future for her in politics if she wants it. All the speakers reported that they felt a change in people's attitudes, a new questioning of the Bush administration.
Congressman Martin Sabo was going to speak later, but I was getting a little too hypothermic to stick around, so I left, but not before speaking briefly to Sabo, who graduated from the same college that I did.
So anyway, it's too bad that the weather didn't cooperate, but the event was worth going to anyway. We signed up another Kucinich supporter (not bad pickings for a group of 50 people, many of whom were already committed to another candidate) and got tentative agreement from some musicians to play for the reception that will follow Dennis's announcement in Minneapolis on October 14.
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