see a Democrat elected in 2008

When the Clark County Democratic Convention reconvened on April 12, I was upgraded from alternate to delegate. I’m not particularly happy with the tone and manner of the Obama and Clinton campaigns as they’ve headed into the home stretch. I’ll still work to get either one of the Democratic candidates elected in the fall, but when it came time to cast my vote, I chose the third option: undecided. Let’s quickly sort out who our candidate is so we can stop slinging mud at ourselves and take on the real threat: John McCain and the GOP.

Pretty cool music video based on Barack Obama’s speeches: http://www.youtube.com/v/2fZHou18Cdk

We blew it. The Clark County Democratic Convention on Saturday 2/23 was a complete mess. (News article here.) The room the organizers had booked was far too small to hold all the 10,000 delegates, alternates and guests who showed up. The fire marshall threatened to shut the whole thing down. In an attempt to avoid that, the county officials tried to conduct early voting to move delegates in/out of the main convention hall, which had a capacity of only 5,000. Fights broke out. Metro police and additional security guards were called in. The DNC threatened to reduce Nevada’s delegates to the national convention if the process was found to be unfair. The convention chair, Bill Stanley (pictured above), called for a recess and to reconvene for voting at a later date. The motion was strongly voted down by the delegates, who had given up work and other obligations and traveled long distances, enduring long waits in line, to attend.

So the party leaders came up with a divide and conquer strategy. They split the attendees into two separate caucuses for Obama and Clinton, whose candidate representatives convinced their delegates to vote for a recess. The argument: some of their delegates were being left out of the voting process and they wanted every vote to count. The strategy worked. In a voice vote, the second motion to suspend the convention carried and everyone went home. No state delegates elected. No platform ratified. No business accomplished. It was a waste of time, money and goodwill.

My role during all this was as a staff volunteer. I worked in registration with the Credentials Committee from 7am till 10am. I collected first alignment ballots from the convention floor with the Voting Committee between 10:30am and 1pm. When it became clear that the whole convention was going south, I just went back to the hall to listen to the remaining speeches and talk to other volunteers and delegates. The only really positive aspect was Al Franken’s keynote address, which was funny, to the point, and a bit inspiring. Too bad he’s not running for office here.

By 4pm, most of the delegates had left, but I stayed around to talk to party officials and get their take on what had happened and what might happen next. The troubling fact is that they misplanned and booked a facility far too small. They didn’t recruit enough volunteers, either. Looks like we will be having a do-over in April sometime.

This fiasco could have been avoided if representatives of the Clinton and Obama camps had been in on the planning process from the very start, but the county party leaders tried to do it all themselves. Many are saying they should be held responsible for the chaos and step down or else be impeached. That would be a shame, since many of them are really good leaders, otherwise. But there are some bad eggs, too, and a complete house cleaning might do us good. As I’ve written before, a flood of change is coming. We can either ride it or get swallowed in its wake. On Saturday, the local organization virtually drowned. There is a lot of work ahead to set this right, and I intend to be part of the solution.

This afternoon I attended a meeting of the Clark County Democratic Party’s Platform Committee in preparation for our County Convention coming up next Saturday. In three hours of deliberation, we only managed to finalize the wording for the planks on one of eight sections of the county platform. An additional session is being held on Tuesday evening, but before that I’m attending a training for convention volunteers on Monday and will need to read through all the proposed planks on the other seven sections. On Wednesday, there’s a rally for the congressional candidate I’m working for. On Thursday, there’s a meeting of the Credentials Committee that I’m supposed to attend. Then, registration begins late Friday afternoon. On Saturday, I’ll be at the convention all day, followed by a reception for Senator Reid. Whew!

I think most people believe Democracy is all about one person, one vote. In reality, it’s about the person putting in the most hours having the greatest effect. It’s all well and good to talk about “change,” but unless someone steps up to volunteer and do the work, inertia wins.

Today I received all the necessary information and forms to register for our county’s Democratic Party Convention on 2/23. I’ve been recommended as a member of the Credentials Committee for Clark County, and I’ve volunteered to help at registration. We are expecting nearly 8,000 precinct delegates, alternates and guests to attend, followed by a gala tribute to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV).

The main purpose of the county conventions is to elect delegates to the State Convention in Reno in April, and also to review resolutions to recommend as part of the state platform. This is an important step in the process of getting delegates to the National Convention in Denver in August, and toward electing a Democrat to the presidency in November. It’s a slow, complicated process, but very inclusive. Lots of politicking ahead.

So I just gave $10 each to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

The caucus is over, and what a wild ride it was. The final tally showed 51% for Hillary and 45% for Barack, which was closer than the polls had suggested. In fact, the way state delegates are allotted, the results actually favor Obama 13 to 12. So in a way, both candidates can claim a victory here. The real loser was Edwards, who got only 4%.

I’ve described my personal experience of the caucus in greater detail on my Blog from Sin City, but the bottomline is that Nevada Democrats turned out in much greater numbers than expected – 116,000 of us compared to the Republicans 45,000 – continuing the trend set in Iowa and New Hampshire. We have set the stage to turn this state from purple to blue in November, and the goal of putting a Democrat in the White House is seeming more and more achievable.

was a bit of a dud. Nothing really new. I volunteered all day at Democratic Party HQ, answering phones. they rang non-stop from 9:30am till 3:30pm, when I finally called it quits. At 5pm, I joined the organizers of Nevada for Healthcare for a debate-watch party at Applebee’s. We got photographed and interviewed for an article in this morning’s Las Vegas Sun. The bottomline was that those who were undecided pre-debate were still undecided post-debate. After that, I had to drive out to the east side of town to deliver caucus materials to a last-minute temporary chair and give him a quick orientation on the caucus process. It’s all coming together – just three more days till Nevada expresses its preference.

On Thursday I was doing outbound calls for the party, soliciting volunteers for the caucus. I got three commitments in two hours. It’s not easy at all. Then on Friday, I was handling inbound calls, which was more fun because you never know who will be calling for what. Most of the calls were from voters wanted caucus information (location, duration, etc.). Several were from caucus chairs about picking up materials. Others were from media, including C-SPAN in Washington regarding the upcoming debate on 1/15.

One lady called just to vent. She went on and on for a full ten minutes. Most of her bile was for Hillary, so I gave her the number for the local Clinton campaign HQ, but I hope she was tired enough after talking -to- at me to give it rest and not call them. I’m pretty good about listening patiently to such rants. After all, it’s not about me, and I figure if someone gives her a sympathetic ear, maybe she’ll get over it faster.

I must say, I absolutely love the volunteers at party headquarters. Helpful, committed, upbeat. Some have come in from Iowa to help. Most are locals, and younger than me, but a few are older, retirees. We’ve got such diversity, including a couple of folks in wheel chairs. Very inclusive. There’s a buzz of excitement that’s hard to describe. We know we are doing something important. When people call in, they can feel the energy in our voices. We are on to something and it makes others want to be part of it.

This morning, Kathy is at a Clinton gathering for precinct volunteers. Hillary will be there to thank them personally and get them fired up for the week ahead. This afternoon, I’m participating in a test of the caucus results call-in system. Tomorrow, I’ll be calling voters in my own precinct to get a couple more volunteers to help at registration. I’m leading a Democratic meetup in Henderson (just south of Las Vegas) on Monday to discuss the caucus, and volunteering on the phones again Tuesday. It’s hard for me to understand why more people don’t jump in. There’s lots to do, and lots of fun doing it.

_{Photo borrowed from Dave Zimmerman}

Now that Iowa and New Hampshire have had their say, it’s Nevada’s turn. And thanks to the tight contest between Clinton and Obama, the outcome of our caucus on Jan. 19 has become even more important to the nation. The Democratic candidates will be here for the MSNBC sponsored debate on Jan. 15, which should get a huge viewership (9pmEST/8pmCST/6pmPST). The campaigns are really going all out now.

This Thursday and Friday, I’ll be volunteering at Democratic Caucus HQ to answer the phones. Lots of voters are still confused about how and where to caucus. There’s plenty to be done in the week ahead.

One thing I did this morning was write a letter to the editor of our local newspaper correcting some misunderstandings about the caucus. Many people do not understand that the caucuses are run by the state parties, NOT the government. No tax dollars are used. And in our state, independents must declare as either Democrats or Republicans in order to participate.

_{The editor called me a few minutes ago to confirm that my letter will be printed tomorrow. Woohoo.}