Blouin followup and a little Loebsack

Blouin followup and a little Loebsack

Just back home from event 2.

A scrum descended on me very shortly after the Blouin speech and worked on tag team persuading me. Blouin picked up on this and joined in. A nice look me in the eye conversation, he repeated the veto line, I repeated the "I don't want a freeze I want to move forward" line. (Note to Drew in the comments: Sure, let's repeal parental notification. And I'm the dad of a 16 year old girl.)

I asked about Rep. Carmine Boal's comments that he might be persuadable on anti choice bills, he dismissed that saying something to the effect of "let her try, won't happen." I should have walked right over and typed this up as soon as we were done...

I'm still struggling and I'm not on board. But clearly Blouin has struggled with this too. And as I discussed this with folks at the next event I sai "We're going to be having this same conversation - what's perfect vs. what's possible, principle vs. pragmatism, in the Mill for the rest of our lives."

That's politics.

Also worth noting, and this is as close to objective journalism as I will ever get on this site. Maybe I got an unrepresentative sample because the Blouin troups were fired up with their candidate in town. But at the Loebsack event I saw a lot of Blouin stickers, and a fair number of Fallon buttons. But there was no visible Culver presence at all, and even when I asked, those in the know could only point to one known Culver supporter present. Locally, the Fallon camp is assuming issues will win out, and the Culver camp is doing... what? The Blouin camp is working.

All the attempted persuasion made me late to Loebsack's event and I only caught the Dumbledore conclusion of the speech: "As your representative, I will lead when it matters, not when it's safe. I will do what's right, not what is easy." But I did get a lot of good fellowship and music and even a bit of pizza.

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Tomorrow is the last Saturday of the month, and that means liveblogging the legislator's forum. Will we see a Republican legislator this month? Tune in at 9:30 to get the scoop from Emma Harvat Hall...