Making the front page locally...our Democratic county chairman.

Reminder: Howard Dean will be a guest on The Daily Show tonight.

From 6 of us at Dean meet-ups in early 2003, to chairman of DFA, to chair of county Democrats...and front page....quite a journey. We are so proud of our friend Richard's calm, cool manner in handling things in the county Democratic party. We have the old school Democrats clashing a little against the "brash" newcomers, so to speak. Richard bridges the gap quite well.

This is probably the best write-up the paper has done on Democrats in a long time, especially on local Democrats. We are very proud here.

New Career for retired lawyer

Richard Blank moved from his lifelong home in Miami to Polk County for space -- room to water ski and boat.

But Blank, 65, gave up semi-retirement to focus on two other pursuits -- representing poor people in the court system and practicing politics.

He's an assistant public defender and chairman of the Polk County Democratic Party.

Political Shift

In 2003 in Polk County, Blank and his wife, a nurse and health-care auditor, became interested in politics -- interested enough to get involved, that is.

"When Howard Dean threw his hat in the ring (for the Democratic nomination for president), Caroll and I became interested. I was watching on television and I thought, `Well hell, here is someone who is real.' "

Dean (I think he means Blank) and Franklin began hosting meetups for Dean -- small gatherings for dinner or coffee where a DVD from the Dean campaign was played and wide-ranging discussions took place about the campaign and the type of government the participants wanted to see.

Very pleased with this write-up, as our political editor is usually very enamored of Republicans, almost to the exclusion of Democrats. We have yet to get him to post the announcement of our DFA meetings, though we have written him personally about the issue. Small steps, they do matter.

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