Students of Dean
Josh Koenig and I are headed for Burlington Vermont for the
week. We're the first installment in the IT Nirvana program, under which
a pair of geek volunteers spends a week with the campaign to help out with
whatever the campaign's support staff needs to do but which they're too busy
for.
All this week, Josh and I will be co-blogging on our
own sites and on correspondences.org and greaterdemocracy.org. If there
are particular issues IT and Web/Blog issues, let us know.
A little background's in order.
Josh and I met in May when we noticed each other's passion
for the Dean phenomenon. That's when I learned about the DeanSpace
project that Zack Rosen and Neil Drumm and Josh were brainstorming.
Driving While Aware
After Josh and I first spoke last May, I checked out his blog,
OutlandishJosh, where I discovered
an open and honest young man dealing with being aware
and involved and without much of an outlet for his political sensibilities
and energy. It made me realize that there are many life situations that set
you
up for,
well,
more than the usual challenges, and awareness is as great a barrier to
a peaceful and happy life as the one
that so many people face: Driving While Black.
Fast-forward 4 months and Zack is working full time at Dean
HQ in Burlington, Josh is working full time for Music for America and I'm
being
drawn into
the Dean campaign gravity well.
And the Sun Shone Third Forth
We had a great drive up to Burlington, Vermont, which is in
the far north of the state. It was cloudy all
the way up with occasionally heavy rain. But as we drove down the west spine
of the Green Mountains into Burlington, the skies brightened dramatically
with lemon light flooding the Champlain valley, Jesus rays everywhere. It's
easy to see how a doctor who'd spent his career caring for people in
this valley would see answers where others see problems. It's a place that
seems to encourage optimism.
Josh and I have great conversations, riffing on each other's
points and finding themes in stories that sound merely reportorial. We stopped
for a while in Middletown, CT, where I attended college at Wesleyan
University.
I described to Josh what it was like to be in that place in
the early 60's, before all the institutional structures were de-organized.
Like Burlington in 2003, Wesleyan forty years ago was a place where all things
seemed possible, where issues were taken seriously but not too solemnly.
It seemed a contrast to his experience at NYU in the late 90's.
On the Champlain Trail
We stopped by campaign headquarters about 8:30 and found it
easily in a four story office building notable for its collection of employee
cars and bikes after dark on a Sunday night, and the pizza truck heading
back for more rations.
Zephyr and Zack joined us for dinner at a quite good Italian
restaurant with outdoor seating on the pedestrian mall. The food was great,
the conversation geekily stimulating and the weather perfect. I expected
to hear Sinatra warbling Autumn in Vermont, which seems to have the same
tune as Moonlight in New York.
Afterward we went to one of the campaign's several Staff flop
houses to watch Howard Dean appear on the first K Street episode.
This crowd would have loved him if he'd sat on a whoopie cushion, but he
actually was entertaining and impressive.
And so the odd couple's wonky Adventure Camp begins.
1:08:04 AM 
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