Warning: 30 seconds

After spending yesterday holding down the fort at the WRC tasting room, I went to the Lyle, WA Candidates Night at the Lions Club. I stayed away from doing any tasting myself, it's half an hour drive to Lyle. I haven't had so much fun since I crashed a GOP candidates night in the land of sugar, when I signed in under an alias.

Some of my Fort Bend Dem friends will not be surprised to learn that last night, I was also a poser. I did use my real name to sign in, but my mission was to make a 3 minute statement on behalf of Governor Chris Gregoire, who obviously was not going to make the 4 hour journey to Lyle. The good news was, I didn't have to go first. That honor went to Bob, who was stand in for Obama. He ran out of time to say anything of substance really fast. Then came a stand in for McCain. He didn't have too much to say either, so it was good he stopped after 3 minutes.

Finally, George Fearing, who is running against Doc Hastings for Congress, was the first REAL candidate. Doc was a no show (no surprise there), so George had his 3 minutes. Not enough time to say much of anything, but George was good. There was supposed to be Q and A, but for some reason the moderator 'forgot' to have George take questions. Following George was the McCain guy, also the stand in for Dino Rossi, who is running against Gregoire.

Then me. I wasn't nervous. I'd spent time at WRC when there were no customers working on the speech. It's easy to talk in front of a room full of people when you don't know most of them. Besides, I just pretended they were wine barrels. We stand ins didn't have to take questions. THANK GOD. The way it was going, I'd have run screaming from the room. By the end of the night, my friend wanted to combine many questions and comments into one glorious query:

If the White Salmon River is 38 degrees and if Obama is a Muslim and if polar bears lived in sustainable forest trees and presidential candidates debates were on melting ice flows with spotted owls that conflicted with local candidates nights, would good common sense be on the endangered species list?

By the time the guys running for state legislature came up, the moderator was allowing Q and A. Then he realized, or someone reminded him, that George Fearing had not been allowed to answer any questions, which could be answered with another 3 minutes. Crucial time if you're trying to get out your message and show you know your stuff. So they called George back up for questions, a little awkward.

Lea did a great job, fielding many more tough questions than her opponent for County Commissioner. And poor Jerry had the last spot, so he didn't get a lot of question time to get his message out. Everyone was in a hurry to either leave or go badger their favorite pol. My carpool buddy and I fled, hoping to find a place to have a burger and a beer, but alas, we were in Lyle. The only thing open at 9 pm was the Lions' Club. No nourishment there!

Bingen was pretty much dark; besides the only burger joint left is McD's and they don't serve beer. I don't want to break my record of never having eaten there (I did use the restroom once, though). And White Salmon was tucked in for the night. The brew pub isn't open on Monday nights yet. So my buddy went home for at least a beer from her fridge, and I got home for my well deserved glass of wine. After being around lots of vino all day, I was more than ready!