On the road promoting the power of the people and his latest book that praises it, author Jim Hightower stopped in Connecticut during a trip through the Northeast for a couple of appearances.
The first event was the public event at West Hartford Town Hall, which drew by our count close to 125 people. Jim's speech was fantastic, and he gave Connecticut credit for its new public financing law, which he said was absolutely necessary to make meaningful change. He spent roughly 30 minutes on Q&A from the audience, ranging from questions on immigration to whether he was planning on running for president (evidently, he's not.) Throughout it all, Jim gave thoughtful, intelligent and of course witty answers. He spent the remainder of time signing books and chatting with folks.
Then, it was off to Darien, about an hour away. On the way down, I think I talked Jim's ear off, talking about, among other things, baseball, America and his swing through the Northeast. He asked a lot of questions on how we passed our campaign finance reform law, and I gave him a couple of anecdotes from our 2005-06 reform campaign.
The event was being held in the home of a family that had a beautiful view of Long Island Sound and was quintessentially New England. Wooden beams, colonial antiques, beautiful fireplace... it was perfect. Jim sat down by the fireplace and did his thing. The small crowd was engaging and eager with questions. Afterwards, everyone had their books signed and chatted it up with Jim. Kim Hynes, CTCC senior organizer, and her husband then whisked Jim away for some fried oysters and beer, and then got him to his hotel by 10 p.m. Kim's husband Aldon wrote a great post on the event here: http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/2860
All-in-all, a great day. Thanks to the help of our state board, volunteers, Kim Hynes and some key people in Washington and Austin, Texas, everything worked according to plan. Given the enthusiastic response, we hope to hold more events like this in the future.
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