Political Junkie: looking for a party

Watching the 2008 presidential race has been fascinating.

Last Thursday, I got to thinking that it might be fun to watch the Iowa returns with some other political junkies in a bar or coffee shop. Mind you, I'm not so addicted to politics that I thought up this idea myself. I read about a caucus watching party at SLOG, the blog of Seattle's alt weekly, The Stranger.

Could I find a caucus watching party in the Twin Cities?

I took a look at the City Pages blog, The Blotter, but there was no mention of any caucus watching party. Heck, there wasn't a single mention of the Iowa caucus. Meanwhile, on SLOG, the Stranger was offering regular updates from the reporter they dispatched to Iowa and the former intern who was now attending college there.

So I Googled the following: Minneapolis Iowa caucus watching party.

I found one -- from four years ago.

A few similar searches (Twin Cites, St. Paul, etc.) yielded nothing.

Okay, so maybe this stuff doesn't get to Google. I tried Seattle Iowa caucus watching party. Four decent hits, including the SLOG post.

Damn. I'm living in the wrong city.

Or else the local alt media is failing to live up to its potential.

I made my way around the Twin Cities web-based media, hoping that maybe someone would have word on a gathering (or rehab) for people like me. Nope. The Daily Mole, Daily Planet, and Moderate Left had little or no news about Iowa, and not a peep about any meet-ups.

I overlooked MinnPost. Poking through their archives, I see that they had three posts about Iowa on caucus day.

My quick search through a bunch of TC blogs yielded no info on parties, but I noticed that Mark Gisleson at Norwegianity was posting up a storm -- far more than any of the web-based media I surveyed.

Maybe I'm being unfair comparing the Stranger's Blog to the Twin Cities web-based media outlets, but c'mon, how are you going to grow your audience unless you interact with them and provide lots of content?