June 12/13 Dems Central Committee meeting

Just got back from Williamsburg and the VA Dems central committee meeting. 85 degrees, 85% humidity. Yuck. Lots of primary wrap-up news, mostly good-to-excellent. The unexpected highlight of the event was Joe Abbey's talk at the steering committee meeting Friday night. He's Creigh Deed's campaign manager ( who started last December), and told the backstory of the decision in the winter to lay off campaign staffers because Deeds was in 3rd place in the polls, money was drying up, etc. What wasn't generally known is that most of those people stayed on for free (they've all been hired back now, heh) and some of the remaining staffers accepted a salary cut, funds which were diverted to the "laid off" staffers still there. There are echos of the same devotion to Creigh that many felt towards Obama duirng the fall campaign. The tone of the meeting was so incredibly different from that after the Webb/Miller Senate primary 2006. Lots of hurt feelings then, which didn't get resolved till October, some I suspect never did really heal. The primary is done, over, and the talk was about defeating McDonnell, Bolling and Cooch. Loyalty is a lovely thing to behold.

The Central committee meeting ended about 11AM Saturday, with Dick Cranwell re-elected as chair. The Flat Hat News, William and Mary's campus newspaper covered the noon rally, which was cut short because of rain. More stories here, here, and here.