Yes, last night, I slept with The Stranger’s Annie Wagner. And so did Darryl.
I’m not sure if Annie slept much, what with us two old men snoring away (especially Darryl), but that’s the price she pays for begging a spot on our floor last night so that she could be up and alert bright and early this morning at the Washington State Clinton delegate caucus here at the hotel.
Annie and I are now at the delegate caucus, witnessing the fireworks first hand. You can tell the Clinton delegates are angry and irreconcilable, threatening to be “respectful” and “pragmatic,” and warning that they might even “play by the rules,” or even worse, “honor the decision of the majority of Democrats.”
Okay, there’s still a bit of grieving going on, with the main topic of conversation surrounding whether to vote for Clinton or Obama on the first ballot, and whether Clinton has actually “released” her delegates, and if so, what exactly that means? Most of the folks here want to cast their vote for Clinton… but there’s also a lot of talk about respecting her wishes, even if that means voting for Obama.
There’s also a little push back to the “disunity” theme that has dominated recent media coverage. As one delegate put it:
“Why is it disunity for us to do our job voting for the candidate we were sent here to vote for?”
I’m not sure it is. This is, after all, the Democratic Party, which as we know implies a degree of creative chaos. It takes a lot of passion and effort to get to a national covention as a delegate (as opposed to getting here as a blogger, which apparently only takes a firm grasp of four-letter words), so you’d expect the Clinton delegates to be passionate supporters of their candidate. But they’re also Democrats, and while I plan to talk with as many delegates one on one as I can, it seems clear that the number one concern of the folks in this room is to get a Democrat into the White House.
So if my colleagues in the press are looking for a good “disunity” story, I don’t think they’ll find one in the WA delegation. No doubt there are some unhappy folks in the room, but there is also a concerted effort to get everybody in line behind “the second best Democrat.”
UPDATE:
The conversation has moved on to the illicit topic of “credential swapping,” where Paul Berendt is teaching the newbies the fine art of deceit. As for me, my act of disunity for the day will be to smuggle a piece of fruit into the Pepsi Center, one of the many banned items.
UPDATE, UPDATE:
Well, the caucus goes on, and we’re in the middle of a passionate speech by a delegate clearly fearful that there will be a push for a vote by acclamation, and angry at efforts to get him to change his vote. As another delegate just put it, there’s nothing to be gained from “forced unity.” So while I don’t think there is much of a disunity story here, don’t expect anywhere near a unanimous vote from the WA delegation. But I haven’t heard anybody say they’ll be voting for McCain in November. (Well… one delegate said it, but it was a slip, and she quickly corrected herself.)
Team Players?
Hillary’s Villagers seem to me to be more loyal to her gender than to progressive ideals.
I once respected her highly, believing that she was the idealist at the Clinton table. Now, she strikes me as more Nixonian than any dem in my memory.
My hope is that I am wronng and she is an idealist able to work on a team led by another good person. So far, the evidence says no.
Sooner or later the truth comes out…
“where Paul Berendt is teaching the newbies the fine art of deceit. ”
What better teacher than Paul….great.
Outside of Seattle’s Only Newspaper, Are there any traditional media members from Washington? Will HA be covering the convention better than anyone else in the state?
Great coverage of the convention in HA. Thanks.
Did you guys deal cards off her back as you were pulling a train?
@2 A Republican complaining about deceit is like Gary Ridgeway complaining about crime.
@5 Whatsamatter, jealous? The ol’ knothole rubbing you raw? Your blowup doll lose her air? The raw liver give you clap?
Democratic “disunity?” Not so much:
Democrats are fired up and ready to elect a Democratic president. How many Republicans will be holding their noses at best or staying home at worst in 2008? Are religious Republicans fool enough to think that John McCain gives a damn about their issues?
Let’s see, we had a Republican majority in the Congress from 1994-2006 and a Republican president for half of that time. What did Republicans give the religious right on abortion during that time? Nothing. You’d think if they all think it’s heinous, bloody murder they would, you know, do something about it. Answer: They don’t think it is, and they know that the country does not want to abandon reproductive choice for women.
Convention security by Monty Python:
what the hell is credential swapping? details please!
Delegate swapping. Seriously, this explains it:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/29/84419/3672
ah. damn, if i’d known about THAT, i would be hanging around every door in the joint!! sheesh….
thanks for the info!
What’s all the ruckus about food or lack there of?
Gee, the credentials don’t have photo ID? Hundreds of thousands (millions?) of us have to wear a Photo ID card daily in our workplace, even if everybody there has known each other for at least ten years. I also carry a “customer badge” with photo ID which I have to renew every year to go onto our major vendor’s property.
You would think that it wouldn’t be that hard for them to make a photo ID – you could ask delegates to send in a passport-style picture along with their advance application (easy to get for under $10.00). To avoid any cost issues they could make a deal with Kinko’s whereby the pictures could be taken and the costs would be billed to the Party – or waived entirely in return for “promotional consideration”.
The last time I remember swapping ID’s was back when I was a college student. We had photo ID’s, but for football games we got really cheap tickets ($2.00 each) but we had to show our student ID card to get into the gate of the student section at the stadium. Since lots of us had friends (including girlfriends/boyfriends) who would visit from home or from other colleges, there was an active exchange market going on the morning before the games. They key wasn’t to get an ID that looked exactly like the person you wanted to get in, but to at least meat the major characteristics (gender/race/hair color & general age). The gate people didn’t have time to look at it any more closely than that.
Anyway, with photo ID they could do a sweep of the floors and hustle out anybody who didn’t have a credential that at least passibly looked like the person who was holding it. That at least prevents the problem of having to close entrance to legitimate delegates and workers because of the unauthorized people who are there.
Of course, an interim solution is to take advantage of the first break and require everybody to leave the building, do a quick security sweep, and then let them back in but only after showing their credentials AND a photo ID (making sure they match). Do that a couple of times, and the credential-swapping would stop.
Of course, for all those who want to complain about Democrats being opposed to photo-ID rules, I’d point out that if the delegate doesn’t have a photo ID, you just have them step aside and confirm their ID through other means. I doubt credential-swapping would include giving somebody a billfold full of credit cards, library cards, airline ticket reciepts, etc. which could provide a backup ID. At the worst, you could have the chair of the state delegation vouche for them. There’s no reason to make it a cost issue – unless that’s your intent.
Why does this bother me? Well, security is indeed an issue, and metal detectors aren not foolproof against all forms of terrorist attack.
But I think the more likely problem would be Republicans gaining entry to pretend to be Democrats, causing a disruption (as an “outraged Hillary supporter”?) which Fox News would conveniently film, along with the person being ejected. Or they would try to pretend to be a delegate and say outragious things about McCain, veterans in general, or something else which could be repeatedly broadcast as a “typical Democratic convention delegate”. These types of things are squarely within the range of Karl Rove’s “dirty tricks book”.