Live-blogging the state convention

Friday - 9:30pm - So we're driving into Colorado Springs on I-25 and there's a sign that says "El Paso County" and then 10' further one that says "Ronald Reagan Highway." Sort of sums it up - huh? Checked in to the hotel (some people take their wife to weekend getaways at lousy places like San Francisco - I go all out with a romantic weekend in Colorado Springs at the convention).

Checked in and was talking to the person at the front desk about the convention. I asked her if Democrats are allowed in Colorado Springs and her answer was, I quote "I think so." Also discovered this is not a terribly green convention - no shuttle buses to the convention. So everyone will be driving their own car.

Did get a chance to look up at Pike's Peak earlier. I don't care what Bob Schaffer says, I don't think it looks anything like Mt Denali.

More tomorrow live blogging all day at the convention.

Note: first part written offline while the DNC press person tried to get us wireless (I forgot my cellular modem).

9:30 – This is amazing. We’re talking rock concert levels of people, Hannah Montana levels of craziness in the crowds, and all kinds of candidate crap for sale from t-shirts to a life size cut out of Obama.
The Clinton team has not given up. I shared a cab over with 2 Clinton supporters and they are still in this to win. The signs outside are all for Hillary. And walking the outer ring hallway there are more Obama t-shirt booths but more people carrying Hillary signs on sticks.

The other large presence out there is for Udall. There are Udall supporters everywhere wearing blue Wal-Mart type vests with UDALL on the back of them. They’re handing out credential strings with a Udall flier attached. It looks like the Udall campaign is starting to move.

Jared Polis has a booth here but I did not see one for either Joan Fitz-Gerald or Will Shafroth. I did see some Fitz-Gerald signs taped up, but not a lot. It looks like they are taking a pass on the CD-2 campaign today. Curious since the people here are voters in the primary.

9:55 – The Hillary team has a major chant going on the floor. They are here to win. It is nice to see that the still have the enthusiasm.  Obama is so correct in handling the end of the primary gently.

10:06 – I just talked to Taylor West of the Udall campaign and they did not get their greeter jackets from Wal-Mart. They also made sure they were made in the U.S. and not in the Marianas Islands (sorry Bob).

10:09 – Mike Mayfield just lead the pledge of allegiance. He has a really good voice.

10:15 – Pat Waak is calling us to order – standard stuff.

10:18 – Bill Ritter is in the house! Listing off the people to applaud for, nice cheer for Romanoff. Another big cheer for Udall winning the Senate. Ritter is a forceful speaker, but he’s not inspirational. It’s a good speech and he makes his points well, but it’s not one that lifts the audience up.

Now we’re getting the laundry list of issues we need to address here. They’re all real problems and saying we must address each gets the correct cheer.  Maybe I just spend too much time following politics but this actually gets boring hearing it all again. The crowd liked it – he got a standing ovation at the end.

10:32 – I see a cowboy hat – it must be Ken Salazar. The crowd is on it’s feet welcoming him. Now Salazar is getting them charged up. Short, sweet, and to the point – about how we’re going to take back the country and undo the damage inflicted on us by 8 years of Republican mis-rule.

10:38 – Dianna DiGette is up. More of a professorial listing of what we need and why we are going to win. It’s interesting how each has a very distinct way of speaking. And then a zinger – “we are going to mop the floor with John McCain” – crowd loved it.

She’s now listing out what McCain stands for and is getting giant boos from the crowd as she lists each of McCain's points. It’s interesting, with our primary not officially decided (although anyone good at math realizes it is over), it’s an anti-McCain speech rather than a pro-Clinton/Obama speech. Good approach. Same for CD-2, that we need to send “a Democrat” to Washington.

Interesting, she just started a “Yes We Can” cheer about sending all our Dems to Washington. I don’t think that was a spur of the moment item. We’ll see Dianna switching to Obama soon.

10:47 – Hey, we have a Lt. Governor! Starting off with a girl-power speech. A couple of anti-McCain points. Back to when women vote Dems win and so women - go vote.

10:52 – Cary Kennedy is up. Not a great speaker. You know you’re not carrying the crowd when the speaker has to start the clapping herself. Nothing new from her.

10:57 – Apparently the cowboy hat store had a 2 for 1 sale. John Salazar is up and has a cowboy hat on too. Apparently that is required to win the rural districts. I can’t wait to see if Betsy Markey wears one when she speaks. John is giving a good talk. It’s all about all of us coming together, working together, to take back our government. Good job on this being about all of us.

11:04 – Ed Perlmutter appears to be a rockstar. Got about half the audience on it’s feet when he walked up on stage. He’s doing a really good job. About how the change started in ’06 (it definitely did for him) and we need to continue with it on ’08. Very inspirational speech. Not so much the content as the delivery – very good job.

Bill Ritter was just up in the press box asking if anyone had news about Ted Kennedy's condition. Speaks well of him that his prime concern is the well being of another over talking up the press.

11:28 - Udall is being nominated. Apparently he's climbed every 14er in Colorado (unlike Schaffer who doesn't even recognize the one he proposed to his wife on). Joe Rice is seconding him. Joe gives a good speech - I think we'll continue to see him climb.

11:39 - Udall is still being nominated, now by Salazar who keeps saying Udall is a "true Son of the West" - I'm guessing as opposed to someone from Ohio who doesn't recognize Pike's Peak. The interesting thing was Salazar said we needed another vote to get us out of Iraq. Neither Salazar or Udall have been pushing that recently but he was talking the talk at least just now.

Note to my daughters if you're reading - Hi Girls!

11:46 - Finally! Mark is coming up. They have the lights low and Mark is walking the length of the floor with a crowd around him and a spotlight on him. He's getting a standing ovation.

11:52 almost to the stage walking up. It looks like a Wal-mart rugby scrum with all the campaign staffers (wearing the blue greeter vests) around him moving him through the crowd.  He definitely has the crowd behind him. The contingent that's mad at him for not pushing to leave Iraq yesterday is nowhere to be seen (and this is the Democratic party - there's no control on who's where here).

11:56 - Really Finally! Ok, Mark is on stage, the others have left the stage, and he's starting to talk. Only 28 minutes to nominate him.

First 10 minutes is about how we have to get it right on energy, with an emphasis on how it hurts us to be sending money to the oil countries and where the money goes on to. Then going through the economic mess the present policies inflict on families.

He's getting an occasional heckler now. He started talking about Iraq and that started. It's an occasional lone voice among the background crowd noise and Udall is just continuing through it. At the applause points in his talk he is getting strong applause. You have the core of the base her and he has all except a very few behind him.

The speech is good. Hits all the right points, covers all the key issues with great applause points. Find moments of humor, and moments of serious commitment. But it's not great. It's not as good as Ritter or Salazar. Udall has to win this on what he will do rather than how he speaks. I think that is how all campaigns should be. But to win, I wish Udall could lift up the audience.

BREAKING NEWS - 12:17 - Udall was just won the primary by acclimation.

12:21 Jared Polis is in the house! Short & sweet speaking mostly of the economy. He did not get much of a response.

Joan is not here - she is out walking precincts today. That's interesting that she did not show - I'm not sure what it means.

12:26 - Terry McAulife is up to speak for Hillary. Lots of cheering for him. He starts off saying "Colorado is the greatest state in the United States." What a dick - we're supposed to believe that? Full disclosure - I think McAuliffe was a horrible DNC chairman so I don't like the guy.

So he's up there talking about how we are going to put "a Democrat" in the White House. Now he's listing out the vote totals for each (using the Florida & Michigan numbers too) and he turned a come together moment into a very divisive one. The entire audience is on it's feet, 1/3 cheering and 2/3s booing.

Now saying we need to continue the primary to not upset the voters in the remaining states (I agree with that). Getting a giant chant of "Yes We Can" in response to shut him up.

Ok, now he's brining them back together. "when this process ends, and I believe it will end in early June, then we have to come together." And he's talking more about how we have to come together in the general. If McAuliffe sees it as "over in early June" then he knows Obama has won.

Ok, now he's talking the positive points to Hillary. Getting a good response to that. Interesting, brought up Bill Clinton for an applause line, and got almost nothing. Bill seems to have worn out his welcome with the Dem party, at least here in Colorado.

Closed with we have 2 great candidates, but we need to elect Hillary because she has a uterus. Repeated again that the primary will be over in 2 weeks. And once again that Colorado is the greatest state in the country.

I don't know how this guy every got to be chair of the DNC. It definitely was not for his speech-writing or presentation skills. Thank god it's over. Wellington Webb was much much better.

1:15 - during the platform presentation I walked around outside and met someone interesting. Here's a picture of the two of us (I'm the one on the right). He had some very thoughtful ideas - I'm hoping he decides to run for office someday.

We now have the presentation of the candidates running for the state Senate. They all just got to wave from the stage as each was introduced. The only thing of interest was that Rollie Heath was there, but Cindy Carlisle was not.

Now Andrew Romanoff is introducing the house candidates.

At the end one of the other legislators spoke about Romanoff and that got a giant round of applause and some people standing. He clearly is liked & respected by the other legislators and is very well respected by the base. If Ritter's 2nd term ended in 2 years, Romanoff would be it. I hope he finds a way to stay this visible for the next 6 years. Maybe Secretary of State?

1:32 - Betsy Markey is now speaking. I think she is trying to channel JFK. The speech she is giving is superb. But it isn't grabbing the audience. They are paying attention but it's not sucking them in. I'm guessing that people are getting very tired and it is hard to be speaking at the very end of the assembly part.

Ok, she's starting to carry them along. Oh wow - she's good. This is my favorite speech of the day. She is taking it to Marilyn Musgrave ending with a direct attack on the disaster that is MM. For those of us worried that Betsy won't be getting in MM's face and won't get aggressive - she's starting to do it.

1:41 - Hank Eng up now. Taking on Mike Coffman is tough and Hank doesn't have a political base. He is giving a nice professional speech celebrating our immigrant heritage and our diverse demographics. I think he'll be a candidate that we can be proud of.

But he is not a captivating speaker. Granted he sees the same problem Betsy did - we all want to go home. But to beat Mike Coffman in that district, he's got to be superb, and with an existing political base.

That's too bad as he is clearly a thoughtful and eloquent person.

1:53 - Hal Bidlack up now. Another sacrificial lamb, but again he sounds thoughtful and reasonable. Both Hal and Hank give us a good alternative if the Republican candidate in either race is found to have any of the issues that dog so many Republicans, well then we have someone very good to then win that race.

2:05 - We're now hearing speeches from candidates for our rep to the Democratic National Committee. The thing is, how much do we really learn about each in a 3 minute speech? I won't vote as I have no idea who any of them are.

Debbie Marquiez (GreenChileDem) is one of the candidates - vote for her!

2:59 - I was just walking the outer hallway again. They are trying to seat the alternates. Of course, as we are the Democratic Party, it is a total cluster-fuck. So I guess we need all these DNC member speeches to use up time while they get everyone their credentials.

From the AP wire, two people were arrested for trespassing here.

3:08 - Just passed by acclimation, we are not going to let the delegate candidates speak - thank god! I'm a delegate and I don't want to sit here for 3 days as they all get 2 minutes.

How are they going to get ballots to all of us? There are 5,000 people here to vote and we have no ballots yet. They have tables up at the front of the floor of the arena. They will call people up by section and give them their ballot. This is going to take a bit of time.

When you get your ballot, remember to put a check mark next to the name "David Thielen." That is the most critical part of voting.

Someone was yelling from the audience when the guy on the stage was giving instructions. The guy on the stage told that person to shut up and we all cheered - major round of applause.

The guy explaining the voting must be a 3rd grade teacher, he is explaining this perfectly for this crowd.

3:20 - I think the way this works is that the Obama ballot will have the 2 delegates they want on the ballot, and only those 7. I'll write for sure on this once I see the ballot - this strikes me as very questionable if true. Update: read below - this is the PLEO candidates (junior super delegates).

3:24 - Lecture from the El Paso County chair - we need to all go home and work locally to take back not just the country, the state, the county, the towns. Well received and very good advice. I will ignore it as I live in Boulder and we already own the County and City offices - to a degree that is bad for us. But very good advice for all of you - get to work :)

3:36 - Walked through the outer hallway - JeffCo is still seating alternates. Every other county seems to have this all done. JeffCo did appear to have the longest lines most of the day. I guess one county has to be the most disorganized.

Note: All ballot problems listed from here down are only for Obama delegates. For Hillary there is no line and they have full ballots.

3:51 - Getting in a looooong line to vote

4:06 - Talking to a major official in one of the county Democratic parties (not next to Boulder). She was talking to Rollie Heath and afterwards I asked her what she thought Rollie's chances were against Cindy Carlisle. Her reply was that the party owed Rollie after he stepped up to be the sacrificial lamb against Bill Owens 4 years ago. That explains a lot of Rollie's support, but that won't be close enough to win - it's a vote, not a dedicated supporter.

4:52 - They just announced that they are out of ballots, but are bringing more down from upstairs and those will be handed out as they come down.

5:21 - No movement and they announced that they are having to get special 1 page ballots printed but they will be here "real soon now." I asked to see one of the full ballots by someone who had it - the 7 candidates only are the PLEO candidates, the 7 super delegates we elect. This is from a group that is restricted to elected officials and top Colo Dem party officials - not the regular delegates. The whole ballot was about 80 pages of people to vote for.

5:39 - They've got the 1 page ballots. The line moves a lot faster for these. They forgot to put a place to print and sign the ballot - but it does have a line to write in each vote.

5:51 - I'm out of there and my wife is picking me up. I would guess in another 25 minutes everyone will have voted.

I was told by 1 Obama person there that Hillary had 100 delegate slots still empty and Obama 182 still empty so all alternates were seated and there were still empty slots. I asked one of the Boulder County people staffing their desk and she said Hillary had 1 empty slot and Obama about 20 in Boulder County.

6:41 - last post in this diary. My wife wants to know - why don't we just take the initial precinct totals and use that for the delegate allocation and skip the County, CD, and state conventions? My reply was "beats the hell out of me" so anyone who knows why, please post a comment. (Not that's what the law requires, but why the law was written to have all these steps.)

As always, long, exhausting, inefficient, and wonderful.

Comments

[Mcshellmc]

I was a volunteer. I worked registering Alternates - it wasn't our fault we didn't get the alternate lists, OK. I was yelled at, glared at, cussed at and disrespected - all damn day. I gave up my personal free time - plus took off 2 days from work to be abused! The Committee Chair was rotten, training ruefully inadequate, equipment was scarce, communication was non existent. I stood for an hour at Will Call to pick up my entry ticket - which never came (someone with an extra gave me one). I had to pay $5 to park, I could not bring in my own WATER. After 6 hours on my feet, when I finally made it to the "Volunteer Room" for a much needed break, some catered food & a seat - I found it had been closed for over an hour.

Staffers (paid or volunteer) from both campaigns were awful - the woman from the Obama campaign who was telling the alternates the reason for the delay was that computers were over-heating was especially ludicrous.

If people don't get involved at a local level - I see why.

I see why.

[Rich]

Yeah Napolitano gave a pretty good speech... not quite as exciting as the rumor of Obama showing up, unfortunately. World Arena was so hot and crowded in the concourses that it made me think of the Superdome around Katrina... Okay it wasn't really too bad once you got inside the arena, but I feel bad for the people who had to wait around in long lines all day to be seated as alternates.

The Obama campaign and the party have done a poor job of informing delegates of what their responsibilities really are. Many people didn't show up because they had people in town, or they had to work that day, or any other number of excuses. Some just didn't want to go through what they had to endure at the CD 2 convention. Gosh in 2008 it's just too much to be inconvenienced for democracy. We've got video games to play and soccer matches to take the kids to. I'll never understand why people let their ordinary lives get in the way of once in a lifetime experiences like this, then complain that the army of volunteers didn't make it efficient enough for them.

I hope everyone from both camps gets together this summer and fall and gets Obama, Udall and all of the great congressional candidates elected. Hillary people please don't spend too long licking your wounds, because this is about the Party, the War, ending the Bush regime, and not about a single candidate.

[COPotter]

What? No love for Gov. Napolitano?

I thought she did an excellent job and tops my list for qualified Veep candidates in the uterus division.

And I'll 2nd that McAuliffe is a dick.

[Lynnja]

The process does seem confusing, but I believe that each level provides information to the next level about delegates. Plus it makes sure there are delegates to National from all levels. Because we had a (very rarely occurring) contested presidential primary, it was particularly complicated this time.

I've been to a few county/CD/State meetings now and this was the most complicated & lengthy I've been to, which of course leads to lines and snafus. Usually everything is much simpler and quicker because everything's been decided by the time these events usually happen. And for those of us in CD2 we also had contested congressional and CU regent races, which draws out the meetings while everyone has their say!

For those who were discouraged by the disorganization (especially Obama delegates who had really long lines) keep in mind that all of the meetings are primarily planned and run by volunteers, some of whom put in hours of their free time and many of whom have more than full time jobs besides.

From the perspective of the county party organizations, I heard things actually went fairly smoothly, considering the scale of participation. But there are always unhappy people who thought they were delegates but weren't. Misunderstandings happen. And seating alternates is always time consuming because there are lists to reconcile and campaign representatives to work with so it's all done fairly.

Having done this a few times, I got all my ducks in a row and made sure my delegate credentials to all levels were ready and in good standing before the meetings.

So my advice to the first timers is --
Do it again so you can benefit from this hard won experience! There's definitely a learning curve.

Patience is helpful, and an IPod, a blog to keep you busy, or a book to read, not to mention frequent trips around the arena are helpful when lines and boredom can't be avoided!

Volunteer at your county party, so you can see what it takes to organize one of these meetings, and see how it runs from an insider's perspective.

Try to have a little forgiveness for the hardworking volunteers -- my county party secretary was called names, and someone had to step in when an unhappy alternate tried to physically intimidate her to get seated before the process had been completed in a fair manner.

Having a sense of humor helps! Will Rogers said in the '30s "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."

Dave, thank you for this wonderful summary! I was there too, and you were spot on in all your comments on the various speakers and candidates. While I appreciate Clinton's supporters' claim that it's a woman's turn, I'm finding that having men tell me that is a bit patronizing, like "There, there, dear, we want you to have your turn now." (Wellington Webb did the same at CD2). There were much better reasons why Clinton's delegates supported her.

And Go Betsy Markey! She's going to Marilyn Musgrave quite a run, and might have a chance if presidential voters stick to the "D" column on their ballots. . .

See you in 2010 at the mid-term county, CD, and state assemblies!

[peter]

I saw that Ronal Reagan Highway sign too. You forgot to mention the trickle down economic condition of that highway. It sucked. It's rough and constantly falling apart because the CDOT keeps contracting out to the Republican owned asphalt company that puts...

sandstone in their asphalt. Have you ever noticed how sandstone can dissolve in water? Neither have they. Duh!

@John Wren: those people who didn't show isn't the issue. It's the number of alternates who didn't show as well. It started at the County level: the county dems (at least in Jefferson) didn't inform the participants just how important their presence was. My wife found out afterwards just how important being an alternate is. And the Obama campaign sent out a notice explaining the Colorado process to alternates and how they are everybit as important as delegates. Long story made short: My wife became a delegate at both the Congressional District and State because so many delegates and alternates didn't have info about it. To be fair, some had prior commitments or other circumstances.

[Jacob Stewart]

"Closed with we have 2 great candidates, but we need to elect Hillary because she has a uterus."

Hell No. Obama cause he's got the black pride!

[John Wren]

The state and county conventions have the potential to strengthen the grassroots. Clearly this potential is not being realized. But even at their worst, and yesterday, the District 1 last Saturday (see my rant about it at http://denver.yourhub.com/Denver/Stories/Goings-on/General/Story~469482.aspx) and the Denver county were terrible, it is still a wonderful exercise, in my opinion.

There are powerful forces that would like to control the common person. These forces would like to do research, formulate policy, and then impose it on us with massive advertising and promotion. We'd be allowed to vote, creating the illusion of choice.

If those who attended yesterday are inspired to get involved with our Colorado Caucus, to go back to their local precincts and connect with their neighbors, the next two years can see a rebirth of the grassroots across Colorado.

But if the poor leadership that created yesterday’s chaos results in disillusioned citizens who just can’t see the reason for going through all this, then yesterday may have marked the highwater mark of the grassroots in Colorado, and the start of a pulling back of the tide that started in 1912 when we were given the Colorado Caucus, what has been the full flowering of what was envisioned by the founders of this country.

So at this critical moment we are given a choice. Will we become isolated cynics, despairing over the sad state of the nation, or will we be messengers of hope, connecting with our neighbors, looking forward to the process that will bring us all back together again in two years? Will we just complain about yesterday, or will we get involved and help change our county and state conventions for the better? Today we are given a choice: Choose hope!

Let each of us who care about the voice of the common person become good stewards of our good system: the neighborhood caucus, the county and district assemblies, and the state assembly and convention.

See my post today on www.JohnWren.com about Frank Capra. Maybe what we need is a movie, Mr. Smith goes to his Neighborhood Caucus. What do you think? Would you take a minute and post your comment on my blog about Frank Capra with a link to this site? If we get an online discussion started, I have some ideas about how they could have used technology yesterday to make the convention a really incredible experience for all the delegates and alternates.

[Nicole]

Thanks so much for posting this!
I agree with your assessments of the day.

I'm a bit concerned about the final numbers. It really p...annoys me that people would commit to be delegates and not show up.

[Tara K]

Hiyeee!
Reading along here from Cambridge, Mass... thanks for the updates.