Back in the mists of time I was Angie in WA State on the Dean for America blog.
Someone there said I should go check out this blog called Daily Kos, so I did.
This was 2003, sometime in the mid-summer, when the Howard Dean campaign was in full swing, riding a 747 around the country and stopping at cities for a couple of rallies. The campaign manager, Joe Trippi dreamed up that action. It got a lot of press. I attended one of those rallies in Portland, OR at a college campus (I can’t remember which one) with my late mother.
The only problem (okay the big problem) with that Sleepless Summer Tour was the cost — it was reported to have cost over $50 Million. You can see images and read about one stop at Fall Church, Virginia on August 23, 2003 here > https://p2004.org/dean/dean082303.html
Dean could have used that cash in late December when he was struggling just prior to the primaries starting.
But on the Blog, people had created user names which reflected where they were from — it was a way for volunteers to find other locals to get together with to plan local actions. So like many others I went with just my first name and where I was from: Angie in WA State.
When I first arrived at Daily Kos, the Scoop system had not yet been installed, and each time you came to the site, you could put any name you choose in each comment you left. By the time Scoop was installed Oct 14 or 15, 2003 (my user ID begins as of the 15th, but Scoop might have loaded on the 14th in the evening. kos probably know which date it was without checking records), and Users were notified that to register they had to pick a User name and to be careful because once you chose a name, you were stuck with it.
I had my name already (Angie in WA State) and used it for about 12 years — until 2015 when I lost my mind and thought I should try running for Congress.
So that’s my story.
What’s yours?
