I’ve been pretty busy with the DeStefano campaign recently, and haven’t been writing here as much as I should. I have been struggling with whether or not to put posts from the DeStefano campaign here, the way I have put posts to other sites. So far, I haven’t put many such posts here.

However, today, I will include one of my recent posts. As many of you know, we spent last weekend at Falcon Ridge, a folk festival we go to each year. As I sat and listened to the music, I thought a lot of participation in politics and participation in music. I hope to write more on this soon.

My first comments on this came in this post

This week, I will catch up on all the email that piled up while I was camping at a folk music festival in New York. I promise. Tonight, Mayor DeStefano will address the Groton Democratic Town Committee meeting and tomorrow he will attend the New Haven Democratic Convention. What do all of these events, including the folk festival have in common with all of the focus on the DVD last week?

Actually, quite a lot. All of them are about public participation. Whether you are sitting on a hillside, clapping your hands and singing along, or attending your first political convention, we need everyone to become more involved in the communities they are part of. So please, attend a town Democratic convention, or at least a town committee meeting where you live. Get involved in the municipal campaigns, and save some time for hosting a house meeting for the DeStefano campaign.

Together we can make Connecticut better.

At the same time, there are more news stories about upcoming campaigns. The this article about the Secretary of State’s race in Connecticut. The Stamford Advocate wrote this story about the Stamford Mayoral race. Given my role in the DeStefano campaign and my friendship with Mayor Malloy, I feel I need to stay clear of this race. However, I do want to echo the Advocate’s closing line, “At minimum, they [the three candidates running against Mayor Malloy] ought to provide Stamford voters with something they haven't had in years --lively, extended debate on the issues.”

I also received an interesting email from Marilyn Mackay which starts off with, “Voters have been flocking to the unaffiliated column over the past decades proudly proclaiming themselves as "independent". At the moment there are at least six Democrats running for Secretary of State in 2006. The real election will be at the primary. “

Marilyn suggests that we should start talking about getting more people participating in not only general elections, but also in primaries. She suggests a few different tag lines. What I like for a tagline is
“Don’t throw away half your vote, register with the party of your choice so you can vote in the primaries.”