Kos on his visit to Salt Lake

Markos says:

Sans Jerome (who owes Utah a visit), I went straight from Salt Lake City airport (admiring the glorious scenery) to hang with the crew over at the Salt Lake City Weekly. I had lunch at a great little vegan joint with the lovely Jamie Gadette who penned this great profile of Senate Democratic candidate Pete Ashdown. I was hoping to talk to her more about Pete's race, but I was rushed for time. Alas, that seems to be the norm on this tour.

After some additional media work, including an interview with the motivated counterculture warriors at Slug Magazine, I headed out to an event sponsored by SLC's Drinking Liberally crew. Democracy for Utah had a strong contingent present, and several bloggers from Utah's growing ranks in the local progressive blogosphere were present. OneUtah.org had a recap of the event with several flattering pictures [link]. All Kossack readers from Utah should really start participating in your local blog scene. And that goes for everyone everywhere — support your local bloggers. All change needs to start at the local level.

I had an early flight out of SLC Wednesday, but was able to squeeze in a really early (for me) breakfast with Pete Ashdown, who is running the most technologically savvy race in the country today. He's not getting a lot of respect, given the uphill nature of taking on Orin Hatch in this reddest of Red states (55% percent still approve of Bush in SUSA's latest 50-state poll). But he's committed to the long term rebuilding of the state's Democratic Party, and is a fervent believer in the power of technology to transform politics.