For the second cycle in a row, the Thurston County Democrats is holding pre-caucus forums ahead of the precinct caucuses. This is basically an exercise to get people revved up for the process of writing the county platform, something that had been the domain of a party executive committee picked platform committee and the delegates that bother to come out to the county convention.

When they did this in Seattle, they called it “An experiment in open platform building.” There were a handful of areas that did this two years ago, I’m not sure if anyone else is doing it this year.

We held our first event last night at Olympia High School and will hold additional events in Yelm and Tenino.

I was surprised by the turnout, it seemed like just about 200 folks crammed into the high school commons to listen to David Domke talk about translating our beliefs into values. Domke is an interesting guy to hear, you can watch him here.

Then folks spread out into seven issue areas, crowding around lunch tables to participate in moderated open forums about what they think should be in the next platform. The topics were split by the topic headings of our last platform, so I feel very bad for Harmon Eaton, a great guy, but who moderated the “Foreign and Domestic Policy” table. Lots of people there.

Adam Wilson from the Olympian was there too, he has a report on his blog here.