I skipped the housewarming party on Monday but showed up the next day at Larry LaRocco's senatorial campaign headquarters after Den Mother beseeched me for some data entry. I guess everyone else was too hung over, heh. I was introduced to all and sundry as the super-volunteer of the Idaho for Obama campaign, to which I encomium I demurred "All I did was shovel snow and make coffee...!"

Essentially we Obama alumni are hoping that national parachutes a contingent into town by, say, September, but as a practical matter national could rent a broom closet and we'd be all over it like stupid on Britney Spears.

Showed Den Mother the third-party application which graphs out how often per day by month any given page has been viewed on Wikipedia, as it would probably be a useful metric for the media people...

Met an old Mensan again, a blast from the past in more ways than one...

Began parsing LaRocco supporters from the Obama supporters after much head-scratching amongst the databasen, which are cobbled together from pure kludge and should be sworn at in German and Klingon... Perhaps they should be sworn in at Perl, as it looks like a cartoon character swearing to begin with...

Pondered the mysteries of derby and synchronicity...

And generally admired the body politic. It's good to be back in the swim of things!

Kassie is no longer working for Idaho for Obama, but LaRocco's senatorial campaign. I don't know the backstory, and I took a rain check on the house warming of his campaign office Monday. The IFO web site has been stagnant since April. As usual, you get the real news by word-of-mouth.

I had the opportunity to chat with Idaho state senator Kate Kelly a few days ago; she was canvassing my neighborhood. The Ada County caucus was a lot of fun, but unwieldy; the local Democratic apparatus was overwhelmed. Wiki: "Statewide, 28,000 people caucused, an order of magnitude increase over the 5,000 who had caucused throughout Idaho in 2004." I'd attended the previous caucus in 2004; it was held in the Student Union at BSU. My 2008 caucus (I was an Obama volunteer) was held at Qwest Arena, and the place was packed; 8,290 votes were cast at that one venue, the largest single caucus in the Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_caucus

Despite technically being the captain of precinct 103, I haven't heard jack from Democratic Party of Idaho about what that entails. I heard from them when they put out a desperate call out for more laptops the night before the caucus (!), and I heard from them prior to the state Democratic convention, which unfortunately I couldn't attend, and again when they needed bags of candy to toss from the Independence Day float in the parade, but the local party machinery isn't dispositive.

Basically the Obama campaign in Idaho is mothballed until national rolls back in for the national campaign and sets up office space & has buttons and bumper stickers and signs to sell. All things grassroots and coat tail shall be funneled through said office; Obama won Idaho by the largest margin of any primary/caucus state, but not because of the local party machinery. Heck, my flash drive had to be borrowed...!

If the Idaho Democrats run their caucuses on the precinct level in 2012, I'll be there and I'll be doing my bit, but frankly I haven't heard.

In other news, my dentist tells me that my teeth are in good shape... Work's been a grind because of all of the concrete-cutting for the new mezzanine, so concrete dust is everywhere... And summer is balmy.

Had a very pleasant Mother's Day eating a pastrami sandwich and bonding with the family units. Now that my nephews are both past five, they seem more like real people with real personalities, and not just wailing, pleading, disruptive bundles of Id. Later I took a few orienting photographs in the light industrial area just south of the condo, uphill and past the New York Canal. By then it was a dusty, windy day, but what the heck. Flickr is my new crack.

Bicycled down to our rally on a chilly, blustery day amongst the blossoms. Former governor Cecil Andrus was there, as well as the usual suspects & some of the signs I'd made. Andrus spoke of our caucus being "overwhelemed by youth." Someone who lost their political virginity at a caucus this year shall be president some day... We faced the flag on the capitol, synchronized by cell phone, and said the Pledge of Allegience.