This is my story of what happened at my precinct at the TCD Convention yesterday. I think it may be very representative of many precinct experiences. I was a Hillary precinct captain (not chair of the precinct) whose job it was to organize the Hillary delegates signed up from the precinct convention. After FINALLY receiving the list of delegates (that is a whole other story) which was inaccurate and lacking in contact info - (necessitating detective work and door to door contact) and missing an alternate's name altogether, our 18 out of 19 delegates gathered at the Convention, starting very early: 7:30 AM. The parking lot lines stretched for miles on the roads leading to the entrances, and inside, more long lines to sign in. That done, we found our place and settled in for a long day. 9000 were there according to the paper.
All in our group got to sign in, since they extended the sign-in time from 10AM to about 12:00 I think. That put us two hours behind at that time. We waited all day for various steps in the process to occur, which I will not go into. The Obama group of our precinct outnumbered us originally about 3/2. Luckily for us they had a smaller proportion showing up yesterday. Starting from 30, with 6 alternative delegates, they had from 22 to 27 there; their captain kept telling us different numbers, either because they could not get all of their group on the floor at once, or deliberately misleading us to throw off our strategy for voting on our delegates. (I will not go into the method of choosing the delegates - another story.) Finally, about 5:00, the convention officials announced that we could vote our delegate nomination and election process to go to the State Convention. By that time, we had lost one of our delegates, as had the Obama group, and another one of our Clinton delegates had to be begged to stay. We needed every delegate in order to get the maximum number of delegates for Clinton. We were all mightily weary, but still determined.
Just as the Precinct chair got up to begin the voting process, (AT LAST) one of the Obama delegates objected to the NUMBER of delegates to be elected to State from our precinct and METHOD of calculating the election of those delegates, and very vociferously insisted that she had been told by an official that another method was proper. Now, we had been caucusing and plotting our voting strategy for nearly 10 hours, and the number of delegates was set in stone - printed out on our instructions - and there was absolutely no reason to even be discussing that. That number was established for our precinct even before the primaries occurred and had nothing to do with that vote, or the caucus vote.
She could NOT be dissuaded otherwise, all the Clinton delegates were outraged, but one of us agreed to go down with her to an Convention Official and get another opinion before we voted. (The formula she came up with would have benefited Obama , of course.) Fortunately, they came back with information that her theory was wrong, we proceeded to vote, and even though we were outnumbered, 17-23, we got two delegates and two alternates, and Obama got two delegates and two alternates. Yeahhhhhh!
The reason I am relating this perhaps boring tedious story is that some of us have discussed this last minute attempt by an Obama delegate to hijack the process. Those of you who read this blog and support Obama need to know that this kind of hijinx goes on ALL THE TIME in Texas and other states. (Not the exact same maneuver, but in numerous ways.) Some of them are being contested by various Hillary supporters, some not. This woman was African-American, and a lawyer. Apparently she had not brought up her theory of the process all day during the Obama strategy discussions, because the Obama captain (and precinct chair) was as startled and dismayed as all of us. This was a deliberate attempt to change the dynamic at the last minute, when everyone was exhausted and ready to go, to take advantage of that fact and hope the Hillary supporters were just uninformed and ready to quit. But we weren't. Perhaps in other instances they were, who knows.
I want to know how far up the Obama campaign this type of breaking the rules strategy is endorsed, and is it endorsed by Obama himself. This all reflects very badly on him. Many, many Democrats had a hard time deciding who to vote for, and I, personally, started out with a fairly positive opinion of the man; I supported Hillary for other strong reasons. But I think, as time goes on, those charitable feelings for Barack Obama are disappearing. And he has NO ONE but his campaigners to blame.
When I hear pundits and personalities and even public office holders talk about "Hillary is toast, she's done, she should get out, quit," I just SEETHE. Millions of people have not even voted yet. They deserve to have the same type of experience, which we have NEVER had before, to get together and have the opportunity to work and vote for their candidates. (Many places I have gone during the last two weeks, discussions would come up about Obama and Clinton between strangers, such as at the UPS store!) People in Texas are excited to be able to count. We have never counted in the past in the primaries( at least as far I can remember), as have dozens of other states. THIS TIME, at least, they will count, BECAUSE HILLARY IS NOT QUITTING. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Obama people. I ask of you, to decide in your heart, do you think winning at any cost is "American"? Would you support a candidate who got where he did by illegal means? Be honest with yourselves. Find out if Obama knows what is going on, and if he endorses it, and encourages it. If he does and you do, then the Democratic Party is in real trouble. NOT because Hillary refuses to quit, but because your candidate is not playing the game in an honest, above board, fashion. Why is he fighting to NOT resolve the Michigan and Florida situation????
We have a President now who got where he is by nefarious means; this happened twice; and history will say that the American people allowed it to happen; it did not have to end that way. I'll be damned if it will happen again. Our democracy is too important. Now perhaps McCain is plotting illegal strategies; that DOES NOT LEGITIMIZE Obama OR Clinton doing the same thing. We can be tough and stand up for the law. What else do we have in the end???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
All the reports of yesterday's results are not in. Some counties went on longer than ours. Obama will likely win more delegates than Hillary, but the results ARE NOT FINAL until after the STATE convention in June. At each step of the process, his total gets narrower, because Hillary won in the popular vote, and numbers in the caucus system work against him.
http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/15145#comment-294273
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
