The first impression that his campaign made on me was that all of his people were truly excited to be there and happy about it. Ash gave a fantastic convention speech. His primary focus throughout the speech was on optimism and the overall potential that we have. This is really the brand of politics that I like and believe that most voters respond positively to. He also brought up the issue of civil liberties and the patriot act and how he supports the constitution. Issues like this aren't always very politically salient at best voters don't get it and at worst you get beat up for it.

The convention itself also had a lot more drama than was expected. Going into it Joe Bodel had the delegate count at Ash 4 votes away from winning on the first ballot. The first ballot came in at 82.5 to 70 a sizable lead but a ways from the 60 percent threshold. The two sides kept up their support through the first 6 ballots and it wasn't until the seventh that Ash got any movement. Under this pressure the campaign was fine everyone was still confident and in control. No body panicked or resorted to cheap negative attacks.

So now the democrats have a candidate in the third that can really do something amazing. Dwight Eisenhower was president the last time a democrat represented the third and now we are going to send a 30 year old ex marine with one of the sharpest minds in the state to Washington. I'm going to go out on a limb here and perdict that we're going to be seeing a lot more of this man down the line.