After a long day of workshops, classes, meetings and presentations, college democrats from all over Ohio hustled into First Church on Sunday evening. They were early. The church slowly but steadily became packed with Oberlin College students and residents of the town. Co-chairs of the Oberlin Democrats, college juniors Charlie Sohne and Brendan Kelley, introduced the keynote speaker to the Turn Left ’06 conference — Dennis Kucinich.

“Your presence here today speaks to a belief that you have; that you have the ability to change the world,” said Kucinich. “It’s not a fantastic notion.” Kucinich, representative for the Cleveland district, drew an excited crowd to First Church, where he eschewed the pulpit in favor of walking the aisles with his portable microphone and speaking directly to audience members. Focusing less on specific issues and more on the general message that it is up to young people to change the world for the better and “sweep down the mightiest walls of injustice.”

Kucinich’s speech was the culmination of a day-long event that included workshops on campaign strategy and public speaking, strategy-sharing sessions between college democrat groups and a stand-up comedy performance. It drew college democrats from three other area colleges, which thrilled organizer Charlie Sohne.

“It’s very exciting for us because we got [Ashland University, Case Western Reserve University and Baldwin Wallace College] to attend,” said Sohne. “But it’s just the beginning of something very big.”

Media consultant for People for the American Way, Joel Silberman, taught a workshop on media and messaging. When participants arrived, he was engrossed in drawing on a whiteboard a complex diagram of the conservative power structure.

“They go out and deliver the message like obedient soldiers,” he said, commenting on the political right’s ability to present a unified message through all of its front organizations.

“We have to discipline our message,” he said.The fieldwork workshop was lead by Karen Gasper and Josiette White, organizers for America Votes. They broke down the process of running a grassroots campaign.

“It can take up to seven contacts to make a voter remember your candidate,” White said. “Door-to-door canvassing is the most effective form of voter contact.”

Scott Remley, OC ’99, was the Research Director for Colorado Senator Ken Salazar’s 2004 campaign. He came to Oberlin to lead a workshop about running successful political campaigns from a candidate researcher’s point of view. In particular, Remley emphasized the importance of playing both the defense and offense in getting the message out about a given candidate’s strengths and his or her opponent’s weaknesses.

Later in the day, students filed into First United Church’s Fellowship Hall to hear “two New York Jews perform in a church” – a source of irony comedian Jeff Kreisler from “Comedy against Evil” illuminated proudly. According to the show’s website, the Princeton alumnus is the headliner for the “forward thinking, progressive” tour that performs at colleges and Democratic fundraisers across the country.

The two comedians, who claimed to normally perform for mixed audiences at night, made light of the crowd’s demographics.

“It’s great just to see democrats without anybody being arrested,” said Barry Weintrob, the show’s other performer.

The show lurched from topic to topic: from political solutions, to saving the world, to the dichotomy of Gore and Bush’s drug preferences. Though the proportion of jokes on Republicans was undoubtedly highest, the two democrats were also self-deprecating.

“The Republicans have the White House and the Supreme Court and Congress, but we have Fellowship Hall and we’re making changes,” said Weintrob.

Oberlin’s representative Marcy Kaptur made an unscheduled appearance at the summit, stopping by for lunch although she was really on campus to judge the 9th Congressional District Art Competition.

Peter Dibiase, a sophomore at Baldwin Wallace College said he came “to learn something.”

“It’s all stuff that can be applied to our school locally,” he said.

His fellow Baldwin Wallace sophomore, Christine Spencer, called the programming “definitely intense.” When asked why the Baldwin Wallace College Democrats had made the trip to Oberlin she responded simply, “inspiration.”