state convention

Friends,

Well, here we are. Republicans have taken the gavel, and it’s just as bleak as we predicted. On the campaign trail in 2010, we heard over and over that job creation and the state’s economy were priority number one for Republicans. Instead, they have spent no time creating jobs, and all their time on efforts to take away economic development monies, to increase heath insurance costs for North Carolina families by exempting us from national HCR, threatening our watersheds by emptying out the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, and advancing veiled and baseless reasoning to infringe the voting rights of college students, minorities, seniors, the homeless and many others.

The Young Democrats of North Carolina have had enough, and so have you.

Young Democrats of North Carolina

I wanted to give you all a brief overview of what happened this weekend at the YDs of NC convention. First, there were two informative sessions that all those who did not attend should kick themselves for missing. The first session was entitled “Internet Campaigning and Communication,” and the presenters were Ed Cone and Chris Bowers. These two presenters were both interesting and informative. Also, BlueNC should know they got some love from both men; BlueNC was held up as an example as a well-run blog, so don’t be surprised if some new readers begin hanging around. While some in the crowd were obviously new to political blogging, I saw that as a good thing. I could see light bulbs clicking on as Cone and Bowers described how blogs can encourage and even push stories into the mainstream media. Both bloggers agreed that blogging by itself is great but there have to be live events to encourage and increase enthusiasm among readers.

I posted this on the calendar, but I also wanted to tell you all that the Young Democrats of NC will be having our state convention on Saturday, March 24 in Greensboro. We are expecting about 300 guests (from what I've heard), and promises to be a great event. One session will even relate well to the online community: Internet Campaigning and Communication w/ speaker Matt Gross (Joe Trippi and Howard Dean's online architect in 2004) and Ed Cone (Greensboro blogger, Tech Journalist, and columnist for the Greensboro News and Record).