Report on Toronto

I returned from Toronto yesterday, where I had spent five days at the Association of Trial Lawyers of America annual convention. It was amazing. I saw a ton of great speakers, learned a lot about trial law and how trial lawyers see their position and responsibility in society, and drank a lot of Canadian beer, which was awesome.

I also had the opportunity to meet some impressive people, including Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean (the link takes you to Dean's new organization, Democracy for America. I also had the oportunity to meet Delawares Senator (and future Presidential hopeful?)Joe Biden. Senator Biden is an incredible, engaging, common-sense-apealing-to (?) speaker, and an incredibly accomplished man. His most important accomplishment, of course, was growing up in Green Ridge, my awesome neighborhood in Scranton, PA. (For Green Ridge people, Senator Biden lived towards the end of North Washington Ave near Crawly Park.) The word with Washington insiders is that if Senator Biden is ever elected President the Capitol of the US will move, once and for all, to its rightful home, Scranton.

I also had the pleasure of organizing a huge party thrown by O'Malley and Langan at the Fionn MacCool's in downtown Toronto. We had an open bar, an awesome Irish band and some drunken law students. All in all the party was a huge success, and not deplete of relatively heavy hitters in itself. Another Green Ridge native and future Senator, Bob Casey came to our party with his wife Terese. It is easy to see why Casey is leading by 15 points in the extremely early (and, ultimately, extremely useless) election polls. He is the nicest guy in the world. Not to mention he will be replacing the repulsive Rick Santorum - in the words of ATLA speaker Paul Begala "a truly vile creature." The only real downside I can see about Bob Casey is the fact that he graduated from BC rival Holy Cross.

Enough with the shameless name dropping. I'm done. (Vote for Bob Casey.)