Live From The Jefferson Jackson Dinner!
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We’re live at the Jefferson Jackson dinner. Still waiting for the main event to start.
We’re eating chicken and are only allowed to drink red wine for free. (Is someone complaining?)
Your humble bloggers are successfully able to blend in so far or at least no one has spit on us yet.
One of our special correspondents reports that Clinton has entered the building!
Markell says we’re going to keep the Senate seat in Democratic hands by sending AG Beau Biden to the Senate. Is this an announcement?
Clinton onstage!
Clinton giving shoutouts to local pols, including RAM. He talks about Beau quite a bit. “I was looking at Beau Biden backstage, thinking how young, handsome he is. It’s hard not to hate him.” LOL!
Clinton – people hire Democrats when there’s a mess. They want us to clean up the mess. If they just want to hear speeches they hire Republicans – everything is candy.
Clinton’s theme: Republicans won in 2009 by running on economic issues and not social conservatism. The person who ran as a social conservative (Hoffman NY-23) lost because he didn’t focus on economic issues.
Speech is mostly about economic issues.
Clinton: we need a health care reform bill, even an imperfect one. Obama doesn’t want to have to explain why we don’t have reform in the State of the Union address.
The Gods played a joke on Karen Weldin Stewart by having her follow Bill Clinton’s speech (after a break). She talked a lot about old people and it didn’t make that much sense.
Awards being given out right now. Beau Biden spoke, but no official announcement.
Carper told a long story about keeping it short. In that spirit he’s talking for a long time. Carper is talking about energy and green jobs.
No announcement from Beau!
Comment by Jason330 on 10 November 2009 at 6:50 pm:
For the record Ginger Gibson is not a skank (ask a follow up question once in a while).
Comment by Nancy Willing on 10 November 2009 at 7:03 pm:
So spill, who’s sitting with you? Mike Matthews? Let me know what Celia Cohen is wearing.
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 10 November 2009 at 7:21 pm:
I haven’t seen Celia yet.
At table Cassandra, Mike M.’s HS gov teacher, nemski, Redwater Lilly and partner, Jason330 and the lovely Mrs. Jason330, XStryker.
Comment by anon on 10 November 2009 at 7:32 pm:
WTF? Ginger Gibson’s a cutie. But she bites.
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 10 November 2009 at 7:41 pm:
Ginger Gibson hasn’t bitten me yet, but I didn’t ask her if she would. Are you at the dinner anon? Come introduce yourself – some of us are at Table 77. I’m the one with awesome shoes.
Comment by Delaware Dem on 10 November 2009 at 7:47 pm:
Reading the updates and the tweets live from New Mexico, where your very own Delaware Dem has gone to round up some Republicans.
Comment by Rebecca on 10 November 2009 at 10:59 pm:
Delware Dem, I met your Dad tonight. He’s so proud of you!
Comment by Rebecca on 10 November 2009 at 11:03 pm:
Oh, a little side item, some yahoo in a pick-up truck with a sign about No-Bama Health Care drove around the parking lot a few times while everyone was inside.
Comment by Delaware Dem on 10 November 2009 at 11:09 pm:
Thanks Rebecca.
Comment by Rebecca on 10 November 2009 at 11:11 pm:
Cassandra, thanks for the buttons. Very elegant! And it was a treat to me you at last.
Comment by Rebecca on 10 November 2009 at 11:19 pm:
That would be “meet you”
Comment by Bonnie Stone Fischer on 10 November 2009 at 11:28 pm:
What a great night – @res Clinton gave a great talk and so did my Dad, Richard Stone. Thought it was interesting how much their talks paralleled with each others! I am a proud proud daughter – what an honor for Daddy to achieve the Lifetime Achievement Award – all 6 of his children were there along with 4 grandchildren!
Comment by cassandra_m on 10 November 2009 at 11:43 pm:
Hey Bonnie! Many of us were at the table next to yours and your dad was completely awesome. Congrats to him and to your family! If you have any good pictures of your Dad getting the award, email us one or two and we’ll post them up. Congrats again!
Hey Rebecca — nice to meet you finally too! The buttons were a huge hit.
Comment by lizard on 10 November 2009 at 11:44 pm:
How’s Mathews doing? Is he sticking with the diet?
Comment by John Manifold on 10 November 2009 at 11:50 pm:
Great to see the recognition for Lau’l’s favorite son. Richard Stone gave the second best speech of the night. [Ted Kauffman gets the bronze.] Go Bulldogs.
Comment by Brooke on 11 November 2009 at 12:15 am:
I’d love to have put Mr.Stone’s entire speech up on youtube It was nothing sort of outstanding.
Comment by 5semg on 11 November 2009 at 12:30 am:
I sat right next to Pandora tonight at the dinner…great company for a great event!!!
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 11 November 2009 at 6:10 am:
Matthews looks great, you can hardly recognize him.
Congratulations to Mr. Stone, his was definitely the second best speech of the night. He certainly had a big cheering section.
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 11 November 2009 at 6:11 am:
One of the most popular items of the night was the Delaware Liberal pin, which was spotted on the lapels of many elected officials.
Comment by Rebecca on 11 November 2009 at 7:43 am:
Bonnie,
Your Dad brought tears to my eyes when he talked about voting absentee from his ship for FDR and Truman. And I dearly loved how he recognized your Mom and asked her to stand up. What a wonderful family. It was a great speech.
Comment by DB on 11 November 2009 at 8:01 am:
Sounds like you guys had a good time. Who would have thought when Jason, Dana & I were arguing about tax cuts on Blogspot four years ago that actual Delaware politicians would someday be wearing DL pins in public?
Like watchin’ me own kids grow up before me own eyes…
Comment by pandora on 11 November 2009 at 8:02 am:
5semg, I really enjoyed meeting and talking to you! Everyone had a blast last night.
Comment by MJ on 11 November 2009 at 8:51 am:
It was a good night, even with the cluster phoegk of the seating. We had one couple who were seated at different tables in different parts of the room. At least none of us were out in the lobby watching everything.
I had a table about 50 feet from the stage and was able to have a short conversation with the President. We actually have some friends in common that I was able to mention to him. It was an honor to meet him finally. Speech went a bit long though.
And it was great seeing everyone again!!! Haven’t seen most of the DL crowd since the wine tasting last January, although the real hip DL’ers were down for the Sussex Drinking Liberally this summer. And I want UI’s and Pandora’s shoes. Cassandra – you looked marvelous. And Mike is really looking great.
It was a good event, although for next year, I’m taking over the seating. There’s actually a sane way to do it. I didn’t get to hear the other speeches as I left after Joanne Cabry from the 14th got her award from KWS. How in the hell did she ever win an election?
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 11 November 2009 at 9:00 am:
LOL about KWS. Her speech was something about going to a conference with a lot of old people, the George McGovern is really old and feeble and doesn’t know what month it is and that Mary Travers from Peter, Paul & Mary is dead. I swear that’s all I got out of it.
Comment by cassandra_m on 11 November 2009 at 9:09 am:
It sounded like a flashback to me — McGovern, Peter Paul and Mary, other 60’s references. No idea what the point of the speech was, tho.
Comment by Scott P on 11 November 2009 at 9:15 am:
You’re right. I kept expecting to hear her say something about Thanksgiving, or a pile of trash, or a VW Microbus. In her defense, it had to be hard. It was like putting that crappy little opening band that no one’s ever heard of on after the Rolling Stones.
Comment by Scott P on 11 November 2009 at 9:41 am:
My favorite line was a Churchill one that Clinton quoted, “The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.” He’s right. We’re like every episode of House.
Comment by Suzanne the Berliner (yeah, for real) on 11 November 2009 at 11:10 am:
All I remember about KWS is that I stated loudly to my partner “Please make her stop, she is so obnoxious” while we were walking around the room – the woman sitting at the table next to where we stood cracked up and just about spit out her water laughing.
HOW THE HELL COULD ANYBODY VOTE FOR HER?
Comment by Brooke on 11 November 2009 at 11:22 am:
Suzanne, are you going to run for that job? Don’t you think it’s, um, …..nice? That someone who’s a registered Democrat has, and got it?
Comment by Suzanne on 11 November 2009 at 11:43 am:
Party Affiliation does not mean that the person is capable and will make good decisions as Insurance Commissioner – I care about the outcome more then the person and I just don’t see her as being capable to move the office ahead. If Gene Reed hadn’t had the problems with the money from Insurance Companies, I believe he would have beat her by a lot. I hope that a qualified Democrat primaries her during the next election.
And no, I would not run for that job or, for that matter, any elected job. I do not think that I am qualified to be an elected official at this point. And if I can’t give it my all – I won’t do it, because I would be doing a disservice to me and others.
Comment by Brooke on 11 November 2009 at 11:53 am:
I agree, party affiliation is no sure bet. But all these jobs have to be filled. I live in a town with mostly volunteer government. Sometimes the people who run aren’t the people *I* would choose for the jobs they pick, but unless people deal themselves in, NO ONE does the work. Ideally, you have qualified people competing, but that seldom happens, because qualified people for any responsible job are scarce as hens’ teeth. Any restaurant drive-thru demonstrates that.
Why kvetch from the sidelines?
Comment by Suzanne on 11 November 2009 at 12:36 pm:
Brooke, quite frankly – I went back to school in my mid-thirties to enter into the Human/Social Services field – that’s where my heart is. I want to work with abused women and children, families in trouble, people that are at a cross road and need assistance along whatever path they chose to walk on. 4 years of college have to be good for something – I didn’t do it just for fun but for a purpose.
And — grassroots work is not sideline work – it is as much or even more important. Personally, I am more of a grassroot person. Anything other than that and I would have to actually behave.
Comment by Brooke on 11 November 2009 at 12:58 pm:
Well, I completely sympathize with you on that.
Comment by Rebecca on 11 November 2009 at 1:04 pm:
If you want to hear the gist of what former President Clinton said last night about the health care reform bills, you can read what he said to the Democratic Senate Caucus at lunch yesterday over on Politico . . .
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1109/clinton_we_are_winning_c3243bd1-33d6-42a7-ab70-5bae329fdc6e.html