We staged our Alternates' Rebellion after breakfast, and laid down some ground rules for Paul Berendt. We told the other alternates, Paul, and the pages that the alternates would sit in the best seats they could get (section 135), and the guests should sit in section 314, directly above them. The pages could then find us easily in that section to issue credentials, and we would have really good seats for when we weren't on the floor. This is exactly what should have been arranged that first day, instead of the nonsense we did put up with.
Breakfast ran really late, so I barely had time to drop John a quick IM and check my email before changing clothes and running over to the Sheraton for the LGBT caucus. Walked over with Gregg Gallo, Ricardo, and one of the Young Democrats who was on her way to GAIN training. (I feel quite awful about skipping out on so much of that training, but good GAWD, who has time? I don't even have time to eat!)
They delayed us getting into the caucus for almost 45 minutes, with hundreds of LGBT folks and allies crammed into the antechamber, getting irritable. I'm still not sure what the holdup was, but I finally got in and got seats for myself, Gregg, and Greg. At this point, I still didn't know Lawrence was out, and we never did find Ed Murray.
The LGBT caucus had some amazing speakers. I won't try to reproduce the full list, but the best ones were Rob Reiner, Ben Affleck (he's amazingly funny - made several jokes about his "partner" Matt Damon, which just made all of us wonder a little more about their rumored relationship), and a whole raft of Congresspersons. Jerry Nadler had one of the best lines - he was talking to an Australian friend, who was musing about why Americans expend so much time and energy worrying about what other consenting adults do behind closed doors. He said, "You know, I'm really glad we got the convicts and you got the Puritans!"
Then the surprise visit to the LGBT caucus from Teresa, introduced by her sons Chris and Andre, and hardly a soul left that room with dry eyes or a hard heart. She told a story of a young friend of hers, a young man who happened to be gay, who told her, "I wish you were my mother." She said she found that inexpressibly sad, as it implied that he had not found the same level of acceptance from his own parents that he found from her. She then paused, and told us, "When you elect my husband, you will always have a mom in the White House, who will love and respect you just as you are." I think every person in that room burst into tears. I know I did. It was not political talk. She meant it. She told us many of her friends' kids call her Mama T., and we could call her that too. The whole room was on their feet, crying and chanting Mama T! Mama T! The woman has my undying loyalty from this day forward.
Others spoke after her, but who could possibly be expected to remember what they said? ;-)
I went to the convention very early, as I wanted to try to save seats in section 135, and I knew that section would fill quickly. Althea was there before me, saving seats, and between the two of us, we fought tooth and nail to hang onto about ten seats. We started giving them up one by one about five. I don't know what people were thinking, to get to such premium seats so late and expect to be seated! Some of our alternates who'd agreed to sit in that section with us never did show. They were fantastic seats, and the nicest thing about them is that Craig Soucy, one of the firefighters who was coordinating a lot of the credentials swaps, could just walk right up to the glass partition and hand us a credential. I got down on the floor about 5:30 and was down there the rest of the night with an old credential. I didn't dare drink water, as I couldn't leave my seat with that credential. Part of the deal was that I had to get to the floor right away, as the firefighters' union president was going to speak, and they wanted our seats full, with everyone wearing yellow IAFF Firefighters for Kerry T-shirts. They were only giving the shirts to selected folks, and at first, they weren't going to give me one. I wheedled and whined (while a poor reporter from Boston Public Radio was trying to do an interview with me) until Kelly Fox got sick of listening to me whine and gave me one.
Cathi Bailey came over to where I was sitting and offered me a seat in the front row after I'd been down on the floor about half an hour. Governor Locke and Senator Cantwell sat behind me nearly all night. By the time the president of the IAFF spoke, we had most of our delegation in the yellow shirts, cheering our heads off. I got to keep my shirt! The photographers LOVED those yellow shirts - we got in a lot of the official photographs, as well as on TV and in lots of newspaper shots. I managed to hang onto the yellow IAFF sign too.
Harvey Brooks sat next to me fairly early on. There was one great moment when someone - I've forgotten who - was singing (either the Star-Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful) and I was singing along, and Harvey looked down at me and said, "DAY-um!" apparently surprised that I could actually sing. ;-) He then started belting it out with me, and we sang our hearts out together. That was really flattering, as Harvey is a real singer. Then Harvey's wife Jean came down and told him she'd gotten credentials but was going back to the hotel, as she couldn't find a chair. Harvey insisted on giving her his seat. She argued for about ten minutes, but Harvey's stubborn. I tried to get Jean to take my shady credential in return for my chair, as I had no problem standing, but didn't dare do it with an old credential. She didn't want to take my seat. I kept trying to insist, but she just wouldn't take my seat. Then, just as I'd feared would happen, Harvey collapsed. Our firefighters had to rush over to take care of him until the EMTs arrived and took him out on a stretcher. Darn it, why did those two have to be so stubborn about the seats! I'd have gladly given either of them my seat, I just couldn't do it unless they swapped credentials.
Al Sharpton really churched it up, got us all on our feet and ready for John Edwards, who gave the oration of his lifetime. Fantastic. But, from my own perspective, what was truly fantastic was that, for some reason, one of our delegates was nowhere to be found when it was time to register the actual vote. Paul was looking desperately around for an alternate, and I was pointed me out to Paul, "There's an alternate right there, Geni Hawkins." I got to sign the vote for the next President of the United States!
Here's the text of Reverend Al's speech at the convention:
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040728_2202.html
Did quite a bit of jockeying around trying to find a spot where I could actually be seen in the pictures of the delegation when the vote was read. Must have worked - John said that he saw me for a moment on TV and was so proud that he burst into tears.
No partying tonight - too tired. Still didn't get to bed until 2:10 - I had to get some room service food and tell John all my adventures. He seems a little bit better tonight.
pictures of Howard Dean from breakfast:
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