What an exciting day!  We are continuing on our path as Delegates to the Democratic National Convention. We held our Listening to America Platform Meeting today in our home. The experience literally brought some of us to tears.

The purpose of the Listening to America Platform Meeting is to set the platform that will be presented at the Democratic National Convention.  Usually, political parties write the platform and present it to the American people. This year, the Obama campaign is effecting change.  The party is opening its platform process to all of us to participate in.  Our meeting had local political representation by Dan Blue, Democratic member of the North Carolina House of Representatives.  Mr. Blue is also a member of the Democratic Platform Committee that will assist in drafting the statements from all the Listening to America Platform Meetings that will be held.  We had a moderator from the Obama campaign to assist us in keeping our meeting productive, as well as, local Obama campaign field organizers Joshua Vincent and Jeff Mallare.

The meeting was opened by my husband, Gary Hooker with a warm welcome and remarks. Mr. Blue, as well as the Obama campaign staff, gave us an update on the importance of the State of North Carolina in the general election and the progress being made to turn NC Blue..(no pun intended, Mr. Blue).

We proceeded to take a consensus of the policies and issues we wanted to address as a group.  Among the top concerns, were the economy, energy, education and healthcare.  No surprises there.  What was surprising was the impromptu discussion and comments on the process of the Listening to America Platform Meeting.  We ended up having a conversation on race, as Barack Obama encourages us to do. Appreciation was vocalized and expressed for the diversity of races, cultures and ethnicities that  attended.  It speaks to the movement that is spreading across our county of inclusion, education, and empowerment.  We all spoke to the need to respect each other and that the respect must be at the foundation of all we do in order turn ideas into action that will benefit all Americans. All participants were vocal, energized and optimistic about the work to be done. 

We then broke into smaller groups to formulate policy statements that will be forwarded to the platform committee. Afterwards, statements for policy were reviewed and sent to the Barack Obama policy committee.

In closing, I just want to say that it’s time to get involved.  No matter where you are, you can host or attend a Listening to America Platform Meeting.  Take action now….as Nike says.."Just do it".

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