As posted on my page at the Barack Obama site:
Another opportunity for our local Dem leadership to leave a sour taste in my mouth, and the mouths of thousands of others.
From the get-go, with the mismanaged registration lines (thankfully Leslie and I registered last night when it was far less chaotic), the extension of the registration times (shady), the turning away of delegates and alternates (by the Bally casino staff), and the litany of speeches by pro-Clinton politicians, by the time noon ran around it was bad.
Look, you can be for a candidate, but don't rub it in at a party convention. Capische?
Then the rumors and whispers came in. The free-floating ballot boxes (which were really just banker's boxes with the lids taped shut) were not in plain sight. Some went into the restrooms. Four were just plain missing.
Then the leadership, with very little tact and very little coordination, plainly admitted that, though they should have been expecting 7,100 delegates, they booked a room that couldn't hold even 3,000 by my estimate. They then tried to cram a motion to move the convention a month down the road or so.
I don't know, maybe they didn't want to lose their deposit and move the convention to a bigger place. Maybe they saw that the majority of the alternates were Obama supporters and freaked out (as I said, there is definitely a bias, and give what I saw at my caucus site, a not-so-subtle one either). Maybe there is no conspiracy and John Hunt needs to step down and let someone competent take over in the next month.
It took another couple hours but finally we were divided by campaigns and took back for a quick Q&A caucus. There, our leadership told us what we didn't want to hear. The motion to move the convention to further down the road was coming back on the table. They explained, quite well I think, how at that point (it was about 4pm and WAY past any timetable) we were in danger of disenfranchising half the delegates and in danger of being punished like Florida and Michigan by the DNC for not having our act together.
Honestly, we needed that in-house discussion far earlier in the day. It was a bitter pill and we were pretty much forced to swallow it, lest we be accused of pulling a corrupt convention.
So we went back into the hall and sucked it up. The motion passed on the second try. The convention is delayed, nothing was accomplished, the party failed us, and we may have collectively made a deal that benefits the Clinton campaign.
Seriously, ashes in my mouth from all of this. What pack of incompetent doofuses did this to us? They definitely turned off a lot of people who woke up this morning excited about the process. They should have seen this coming and absolutely did not plan accordingly.
If you have any of your own comments/experiences/rumors/etc. please let me know.
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