{"id":231945,"date":"2010-01-25T13:11:14","date_gmt":"2010-01-25T18:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.70370"},"modified":"2010-01-25T13:39:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T18:39:13","slug":"pass-the-nachos-and-make-room-on-the-couch-ofa-is-hosting-state-of-the-union-parties-in-connecticut-and-around-the-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/231945","title":{"rendered":"Pass the nachos and make room on the couch: OFA is hosting State of the Union parties in Connecticut and around the nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;ve heard of Super Bowl parties and Oscar night parties. What about a party to watch the president&#8217;s State of the Union address?<\/p>\n<p>Organizing for America, the grassroots arm of the Democratic party, is hosting just such a thing in living rooms across the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'\"><font color=\"#000000\">On Wednesday evening, President Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address. It comes at a critical moment,&#8221; states an email sent by Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to OFA volunteers. &#8220;We must regroup, refocus, and re-engage on the vital work ahead.&#8221;<\/font><\/span>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There are at least six SOTU parties within 45 miles of Hartford, according to the OFA <a href=\"http:\/\/my.barackobama.com\/page\/event\/search_results?event_type%5B%5D=269&amp;zip_radius%5B1%5D=45&amp;type=advanced&amp;orderby=zip_radius&amp;zip_radius%5B0%5D=06115&amp;limit=15&amp;x=20&amp;y=15\">website<\/a>. Among them is a gathering in Bristol where participants can &#8220;watch, absorb and pray&#8221; as well as participate in a national conference call with Plouffe.<\/p>\n<p>The speech is Obama&#8217;s first SOTU address and the stakes couldn&#8217;t be higher &#8212;&nbsp;especially in the wake of the Democratic defeat in Massachusetts. That might explain why party activists are&nbsp;turning to&nbsp;the same grassroots&nbsp;approach that helped them win the presidency in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA\"><font color=\"#000000\">We&#8217;ve hit some serious bumps in the road recently in our march toward change. We always knew it would be difficult, but this past week has definitely been a hard one, for all of us,&#8221; Plouffe wrote. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But this movement didn&#8217;t come so far without making it through some challenging times. It&#8217;s at moments like these when we need you most. People are hurting. Our country is at a crossroads, and in communities like yours all across America we must all fight for the progress our families and businesses need to thrive.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The President&#8217;s resolve has never been stronger to keep fighting for health insurance reform, for lasting job creation, and to rein in the big banks and fight the undue influence of lobbyists. <span style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'\">Wednesday&#8217;s speech will be a pivotal moment for us all to get on the same page and continue the fight together,&#8221; Plouffe wrote.<\/span><\/font><br \/><br style=\"mso-special-character: line-break\" \/><br style=\"mso-special-character: line-break\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;ve heard of Super Bowl parties and Oscar night parties. What about a party to watch the president&#8217;s State of the Union address? Organizing for America, the grassroots arm of the Democratic party, is hosting just such a thing in living rooms across the country. &#8220;On Wednesday evening, President Obama will deliver his first State [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4000,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4000"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}