I’ve already written about the Presidential and NH U.S. Senate candidates speaking at DemocracyFest in New Hampshire last weekend. However, there were several other candidates that were out presenting themselves to grassroots activists. It sort of had the feel of a tradeshow where the vendors, candidates in this case, jockeyed for the attention of the activists.

The most immediate campaign is the special election in Massachusetts Fifth Congressional District. Rep. Marty Meehan is stepping down to become the new Chancellor of UMass Lowell. There are five Democrats competing for this seat, including Jamie Eldridge. He had a large folded brochure talking about his positions on universal health care, the economy, global warming, education and Iraq. At the top of the front, he identifies himself as a ‘Progressive Democrat for Congress’. He has substantial support from the Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts and many Democracy for America members in Massachusetts. Kate Donaghue was showing Mr. Eldridge around and encouraged me to visit a fundraising page she, and a few friends, had set up on ActBlue.

Another congressional candidate that was there was Clint Curtis. Some of you may remember his name from investigations into voting machine tampering in Florida in 2000. Instead of recapping here, I would encourage all of you to go out and read his biography.

Another Floridian in attendance was Charlie Grapski. I didn’t get a chance to spend much time with Charlie, so I’m not sure if he is running for any office anytime soon, but he provides another fascinating glimpse into the Floridian political system.

Moving beyond the House and Floridian politics, another interesting candidate I met was Ed O’Reilly. Ed is running for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts against Sen. Kerry. His palm card talks about calling for an immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, pursuing renewable energy, universal health care and direct investments in local education. It will be interesting to see how much traction he can get against Sen. Kerry.

Yet some of the races that I’m most interested in are the state legislative races. New Jersey, Virginia, Mississippi and Louisiana all have their state legislative races this year. In Virginia, Jay Donahue is running for the House of Delegates in the 86th District. His opponent was unopposed two years ago. You can contribute to Jay’s campaign via ActBlue.

One race that particularly caught my attention, however, is Deborah Langhoff’s. During one session, I spoke about how much I appreciated my DFA friends pouring into Connecticut to help with Ned Lamont’s campaign and I suggested that we should return the favor by visiting Massachusetts in August, leading up to the special election there, or going down to New Jersey for their state legislative elections.

Afterwards, Deborah came up to me and said, “New Orleans is wonderful in October”. As an Edwards supporter, I like the idea of going down to New Orleans to help with the post Katrina cleanup. Working to help get Deborah elected to the State House there is another important part of the house cleaning that needs to be done.

The session afterwards was led by Matt Dunne, who ran for Lt. Governor in Vermont in the last cycle. He was talking about Service Politics. I would love to go to New Orleans for a week in October with a group of old DeanCorps, as well as newer OneCorps and Service Politics volunteers to help rebuild New Orleans as well as to help Deborah in her campaign.

It is candidates like these that give me real hope for the future of politics in our country and I hope that everyone spends a little time finding out more about these candidates as well as talking about other exciting new candidates.