Drinking Liberally

Yesterday's Portland Tribune covered the goings-on at Drinking Liberally Portland - a motley bunch of local lefties that get together once a month for beer and political chit-chat. DL is a national group that's organizing liberals for social activities all over the country. (Portland info here.)

Nicole Vanderhoof founded the happy hour get-together in October, when the tension surrounding the presidential election was at its peak. “I would sit there and read all this news,” she says, and she thought, “there’s got to be other people who want to talk about this.” She was right. Not only that, but nearly a year later, she’s still drawing 20 or more people to her monthly, liberal-leaning gatherings. ...

The Lucky Lab crew seems to be the most laid-back of these groups, but criticism of our president is still very sharp. Someone is complaining about a recent speech; Riddle jokes that Bush may not be the greatest speaker, but now, “He’s really moving on to his forte: He’s going on vacation.”

(Incidentally, there's a sideways reference to Progressive Happy Hour - but the Tribune assumes that it has something to do with BlueOregon, which it doesn't. Unlike PHH, Drinking Liberally is targeted more at folks whose politics comes on the side. PHH seems to attract, as the Tribune reports, "hard-bitten hacks and political wonks.")

People who need to remain somewhat diplomatic at work form the core of this [Drinking Liberally] group: Vanderhoof is a loan closer at Bank of America; Riddle is a quality engineer at Nike Inc. Drinking Liberally is a way for politically like-minded people to get together, not to argue, not to protest, not to convert, but just to hang out.

If you were eavesdropping from the next table, you’d assume this was a party of old friends, mixing, as friends do, discussions of current events with whatever else comes to mind.

At the same time, there is an underlying belief that change can result from the forging of social bonds. As Riddle says, “That’s what grass roots is all about.”

Aug. 13, 2005 Posted in in the news 2005.