This morning, I journied into Boulder, where the farmer's market was being held. My mission: Find the other Howard Dean supporters who were also supposedly going to be there, and help raise awareness about the Howard Dean presidential campaign by handing out informative flyers.

I wandered up and down the block, where busy vendors were showing off their wares, and stopped by the KGNU booth to tell them they're a cool station. But initially, I saw no sign of the Howard Dean contingent. Then I spotted a good sign: A guy wearing a Dean 2004 shirt, who was indeed handing out flyers.

I introduced myself, said I had signed up for this event on the web form, asked who was in charge (answer: he was), and asked if there was anything I could do to help. He handed me a stack of small slips of paper. On them were printed the name Howard Dean, the url of the web site, and a brief list of 5 issues Dean supports. (Among them: universal health care, a balanced budget, protecting the environment, reproductive choice.)

While 2 of the people stood at the end of the market handing out information, 3 of us walked gradually to the other end, handing out the flyers as we went.

Common reactions:

• "Yes, we like Howard Dean too!"
• "Who's Howard Dean?" (an excellent opportunity to give a 10 second explanation)
• "No thanks."
• "I'll vote for just about anybody if it means getting rid of Bush." (me too!)

Although I personally didn't get any flames, one of my colleagues said that one of the people looked at her as if she was a Nazi. lol.

We ran out of flyers way too quickly. The guy organizing it suggested that if possible, next time some of us should print and bring our own, since he couldn't really afford to single-handedly fund the whole thing. He suggested we all get on the Boulder Dean supporters Yahoo group, where information and materials pertaining to the local campaign are dispersed. (Neither me nor the other helper knew anything about the yahoo group, which seemed to suprise him, even though it hadn't been mentioned anywhere on the main Dean campaign signup page, or the automated confirmation email that followed.)

It became obvious that this particular local effort had gotten absolutely zero support from the Boulder Democratic party. (Do they even know about it? I'm doubtful.) This was just a small batch of random people who had apparently all found out about it, one way or another, through online sources. The leader of the local effort was "just another guy", who had the distinction of 1) being the first Boulderite to get involved, 2) registered his plans on the Dean web site where people could find them, and 3) printed out flyers to pass out. (Maybe even designed them himself? Not sure.)

To me, the fact that it wasn't sanctioned by the party was encouraging, but also has its drawbacks. The drawback is obviously that we're underfunded, and not terribly well organized. But at the same time, not being a monolithic top-down effort is what makes it fun.

The Howard Dean campaign in Boulder is like the buildmeasite of presidential politics. A few little people with big dreams, who are just delusional enough to think that they might have a chance to make something big happen.

The way I figure it, if one person in that crowd who I talked to or handed a piece of paper gets the name "Howard Dean" in their brain, and then remembers that name when they find themselves in the voting booth, then I have doubled my vote, and my effort has been worthwhile.

Next meetup: Wednesday, August 5, 7pm. I have a feeling I'm going to be there.