Partying along with their party

A message of change is central to the campaigns of both presidential hopeful Barack Obama and congressional challenger Debbie Cook.

So while Obama gave one of the most widely heralded political speeches in history in front of 70,000 people at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Cook hosted simultaneous house parties across the Southland.

The democratic candidate, who hopes to win the congressional seat held by Dana Rohrabacher for two decades, set a goal of holding 200 concurrent parties and raising enough money to close the funding gap between her and the incumbent. Although the party total didn’t quite reach the 200 mark, campaign spokesman Joe Shaw said Cook was happy with the results.

“We always like to set a higher goal then we might actually achieve. I can assure you it’s more parties than Dana Rohrabacher is going to have,” Shaw said.

At the events, which were held from Palos Verdes to Costa Mesa, attendees were asked to help buy TV advertising space for Cook’s first campaign commercial. Each party was given a DVD copy of the commercial to play.

Costa Mesa resident Elliott Wilson is a Cook supporter who has donated to her campaign before. He attended a party in Fountain Valley where about 50 people got together to watch the Obama speech and the Cook ad.

“Everyone was enthusiastic and excited about Barack Obama’s speech and also the videos we were looking at about Debbie Cook,” Wilson said.

Many who went to the party in Fountain Valley noticed strong correlations between the policies of Cook and those of Obama. Cook herself is a fervent Obama supporter.

During his 42-minute speech Obama criticized McCain’s senate record, drawing parallels between him and George W. Bush. He called for tax cuts for the middle class and talked about decreasing our dependence on foreign oil by investing in alternative energy technologies.

“They both have strong concern for working people, the middle class, sustainability for the future and our need to get off our dependence on oil in other countries,” Wilson said.

It will take the campaign a few weeks to release the amount of money they earned from the event because the funding comes from so many different sources and parties ended up happening in unexpected places at the last minute, Shaw said.

The goal the campaign set at the outset of the effort was $200,000.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.