Back to the future
Kathy Heicher
Posted: 04.08.2008 / 9:28 PM EDT
I lunched an old college roommate for lunch last week. While we were catching up on the news, she mentioned that the day was the 40th anniversary of her first act of civil disobedience.
It took me a few moments to connect the dots. She was referring to the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. My friend was s senior at a small town Colorado high school on that date. After hearing the news about King, the students requested that the school flag be lowered to half-mast. The principal refused. The senior class walked out in protest.
And that was just the start. Two months later, Presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy was killed by an assassin’s bullet. By the time the Class of 1968 got to college, the social turmoil was non-stop. There were peace marches, and protests against the war in Vietnam. The Black Power, Gay Rights, and Feminist movements surfaced. As young, politically aware students we shared the shock and outrage of the student killings at Kent State. We challenged the administration, and rebelled against authority. And most people our age were very politically active.
That’s why this year’s election has been bringing about such a sense of déjà vu. I’ve been active in Eagle County Democratic politics for nearly 36 years. For most of those years the county has been solidly Republican. The standard joke has been that the Democratic county assembly could be held in a phone booth.
Not this year. On precinct caucus night, which in the past has drawn 40-60 people total in good years, well over 400 people jammed their way into the designated meeting space. Party officials were beaming. The resulting chaos had a happy tone to it. In my precinct group alone there were 36 people, ranging in age from a red-haired, 18-year-old high school senior to an 82 year old senior citizen — neither of whom had ever attended a precinct caucus before.
It was the excitement of the Democratic race that was drawing them out. In Eagle County, Obama was the overwhelming favorite. (Still, Hillary Clinton fared well with women my age — the class of ’68.)
The Eagle County Republicans didn’t get the crowd the Democrats did; but the numbers were better than usual, and the citizens were engaged.
The people who turned out at the Democratic precinct caucus were passionate, and engaged. They’re carrying that enthusiasm all the way to the State Democratic Assembly next month. Many are hoping to be named delegates to the national convention in Denver.
The political atmosphere is just as charged as it was in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Like those days, the political movement is being driven by inspiring politicians … and by a war that we probably shouldn’t be involved in.
It’s going to be fun to watch this new generation take its place in the political arena. It’s been a long time coming.
