House Caucus Event

Last weekend I attended the House Caucus Event in Danville. Unfortunately, Susan already had an event scheduled in Johnson and could not make it. I really did not know what I was getting into beforehand, aside from the knowledge that it was a fundraiser, and that the Speakers of the House from Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine were all going to be there. When I got there, it was already packed, and was clearly very well prepared and organized under a giant tent with people serving very fancy food.

As a kid growing up in a middle class family in Barre I can honestly say I felt a bit out of place there. Clearly it was a high class event for the state party in which they hoped to raise a great of money. Generally I am pretty good at going around and introducing myself to people, but as a college student with twenty-thousand dollars of debt, finding things in common with people who are having lobster and steak served to them is not easy. My idea of fancy food is still from working at Cabot Cheese the last two summers when we would package the extra sharp instead of the sharp cheddar.

I was surprised that the speakers themselves did not speak very long. Vermont's Speaker of the House Shap Smith talked for probably about 10 minutes, and introduced the Speaker of the New Hampshire House, Terie Norelli and Speaker of the Maine House, Hannah Pingre. Neither of the two women spoke as long as Shap did, probably about 25 minutes total. The entire event was 2 hours long, and I got to talk to some great people there including Representative Kitty Toll whose home was the site of the event, and whose family helped put everything together. She seemed like a very nice woman, although understandably a bit rushed. I talked to several people and had a few good laughs. I was happy to find strong support for Susan's experience and vision for Vermont's future.

What else I thought was interesting was the fact that they had several vendors who were there showing off products. It wasn't Coke or Pepsi or anything, but they had someone with a small tent showing off his cheese, and others who were giving away Maple products and what seemed to be Apple wine. I tried a little of each at the end, all were very good.

At around 6 things slowed down, and I headed back home to join friends and see the movie Inception, which was great. Hanging out with bigwigs is something that something I guess I am going to have to get used to in politics, and as long as they keep bringing lobster, I look forward to it.

Andrew Desmarais