Okay, the state convention is over, and my ... errr ... donkey ... is seriously dragging. What a day! I got to the Sheraton about 12:00 on Sunday, and talked to one of the delegates from my district, Lindsay Scola, for about ten minutes. I then went over to the hotel itself to get some coffee, and on the way, heard a guy calling for an immediate sub-caucus of all National Kerry delegates and alternates. I ran back and collected Lindsay, and we joined the caucus.
Holy crap. I wasn't expecting down-and-dirty politics, but that's what I got. First, on the way into the room, the people milling in the antechamber all turned out to be candidates for the at-large delegate positions, and they ATTACKED us, pushing campaign literature at us, begging us to nominate them, trying to buttonhole us. The Kucinich people also tried to grab us: they're trying to inveigle some of the Kerry delegates into switching allegiance, as they don't have the 15% they need for a full delegation. I've never been so happy to say the words, "I'm just an alternate!" in my life - they all lost interest in me when I said that. (One big surprise, once in the sub-caucus of National Kerry delegates was that Harvey Brooks, the head fellow from the wonderful R&B band last night, is one of the delegates. His wife, Jean Brooks, is the mayor of University Place, and was the host of last night's party at the Emerald Queen - she's also one of the candidates for a delegate slot.)
Once in the room, the yelling and screaming began almost immediately. There was much dissension among the delegation about the party's chosen slate of delegates, how few open slots would be left for all the desperate people outside, and whether the party's choices met everyone's various criteria for diversity. I'm not sure we ever reached any kind of consensus, but we ran past 1:00, at which time we HAD to be in the main caucus with the other delegates, so we left and headed back to the main meeting room. It was like running a gauntlet to get there - what a madhouse! Hundreds of people, desperately campaigning for what they did not realize was only three open slots - they thought it was 17 plus alternates, but the party had picked most of the delegates they wanted to see elected. Now, the caucus didn't HAVE to vote for the party's slate, but most would, of course, which is what the horrible fight in the other room had been about. At every break in the proceedings, nine thousand candidates would rush up to the delegates and start handing them literature and begging for a nomination (only candidates nominated by a National delegate could be considered for election). Again, the magic words, "I'm just an alternate!" saved me!
They didn't save any chairs for the alternates, which I thought was kind of silly. At the first break, I and a couple of the other alternates went up to the caucus chair and protested, and pointed out that we had to be able to hear the proceedings, as we could be seated at any time if a delegate needed to leave, and the room was so large and so full that there's no way we could hear, standing in the back. He assented and had the sergeant-at-arms clear out one front row for us. There were only about six of the nine alternates there (I have no idea where the others were), and two got seated pretty quickly as delegates left (I think one had been seated immediately). The other four of us kind of kicked our heels for awhile. Finally, someone proposed that, rather than have the tally committee be chosen from the seated delegates (which meant that no other business could be conducted while votes were tallied), they have the four of us be the tally committee. We also occupied ourselves as the timekeepers for the candidate speeches, and rounding up the candidates whose turn it was to speak, so we were kept pretty busy during all 15,000 speeches.
We got our housing forms today, but my eyes bugged out when I saw the room rate - $179 per night, not including taxes and fees. Gack. I was hoping for some kind of a discount, but that looks like the hotel actually ratcheted up their rack rate. I changed my mind about having a room to myself, and went over and offered to share with Lindsay. She accepted immediately, as she'd panicked when she saw the rate. I feel really sorry for Nicole, one of the other alternates, as she wants to go with her boyfriend, but they still can't afford the room rate, even splitting it between the two of them, and it'll be very awkward for anyone else to split a room with the two of them. A couple of the other delegates also took a deep breath when they saw the rates. (I ended up fussing most of the night over whether or not I could stand to share a room for a week, and then Lindsay emailed me Monday to say that she'd found a much cheaper room sharing with 4 other Young Democrats, and was that okay, so I'll get my room to myself after all.)
The candidate speeches didn't even START until 5:30, after the election of the Party Leaders and Elected Officials. The poor candidates had been waiting since early morning, many of them, and now we were looking at probably 100-150 2-minute speeches. For three open positions and one alternate. God. I am so glad I didn't run at this level - what a nightmare for them! There was a push by some of the delegation to cut the speech time to 1 minute, but Harvey made the point that these people had been waiting a long time and the least we could do was give them the courtesy of being heard.
We finished the first round of speeches and balloting about 10:30 or so. Foolishly, I thought that meant we were nearly done. Ha. We had several persons elected by a clear majority, and those people could then be seated as at-large delegates (this was for the 17 total at-large positions, most of which had been chosen by the party already). The party's slate of candidates was mostly winning, but there were a few upsets. About this time, all four of us were seated as delegates, as we were starting to have delegates drop out to go home. The chair had to point out to people that they could not give proxies if there were available alternates from their delegation unseated. We still ended up with a couple of proxies besides. We then had to do the first runoff ballots, between the remaining top-finishing candidates. Those didn't finish with clear majorities either, so again, we had to reballot with only the top-finishing candidates. We finished about 12:00, and then the hardiest of the Dean delegates rejoined us to elect the committee members (the Dean and Kucinich people had finished their at-large elections HOURS before - some of the Dean folks stuck around anyway, but I think all the Kucinich delegation had long since gone home). That thankfully went pretty quickly.
I got home after 1:00, half-dead. I still can't believe the stamina of some of those people who waited from morning until midnight to see if they'd made it, didn't make it, and still stayed to watch the rest of the proceedings. Had I known people took being elected as National delegate this seriously, I never in a million years would have had the courage to run. It really brings home to me what a big deal my election as an unknown really is.
Now I understand why people who've been through this process a number of times bring a bag full of food and soda with them. You're lucky if you get potty breaks, let alone food breaks. Had we stopped for a dinner break, we'd still be listening to speeches. Thank heavens for the Young Democrats, who brought us pizza and water and soda and snacks at odd intervals throughout the long, long day! I truly hope we don't have any marathon sessions like that at National - I'm not sure I could take a week of that.
Thus endeth my first state convention, and thus beginneth my political education. ;-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment