Centerfield

Texas County Convention HELL, Part II

We walked up to the collected, tired-looking, credentials committee, squishing between two tables set up to separate from them. I let the two Clinton women go first, because they'd been there first. They pleaded their case. A silver-haired woman, who turned out to be Ann Kitchen, a Clinton supporter and former Lege rep, asked if they had the Clinton campaign's version of their delegates for our precinct. One of them produced a sheet, and Kitchen tiredly but happily moved for the rest of the credentials committee to accept it, which they did. Then, after some havering, they asked to fill an additional alternate not on the list. Everybody agreed. Then Ann Kitchen asked to close my precinct's business, completely ignoring the man almost in front of her and right in sight.

"HEY! I'M NOT DONE! There's still an Obama side!" I yelled. She didn't even look at me, but at least she stopped trying to make the precinct go away. A little later, a Clinton credential guy ran a special meeting about it. They agreed to do what they'd already decided to do for our Clinton delegates, then another woman, another rooked Obama supporter from my precinct, showed up. The guy running our case felt the Obama side in our precinct should've submitted a formal delegate list of its own, but our chair hadn't known about that. I asked if the Obama delegate pool was full, and on being told it was, asked to become an alternate. After more consideration, it was decided to ask to make the woman an alternate, too, since there was plenty of space in the alternates.

We took our case back to the committee. Both Kitchen and the other Clinton credentials woman acted like we were lawbreakers brought up before them as judges, and looked unhappy. The guy who'd run our special meeting said he didn't see how this could work, since our chair hadn't submitted a change list the night before. At that point, an amazingly patient Obama-side voice pointed out that we'd been seeing messes all morning, and he thought some consideration was called for. After a pause, we were allowed as alternates to join our families.

Can somebody explain what's the REAL difference between having a formal delegate form and changing it later vs not having one? Looks like just excuses to treat your side better to me. All in all, I felt badly treated by the Clinton side of the delegate committee, though at least they were willing to listen in the end, the bottom line, I guess. The Obaman side of the credentials committee raised no objection to anybody while I was there, and just were tracking what was going on. They understood the score.

We Obamans chose to bring somebody new in to run our caucus, a janitor in the school were the elections were held who stood up to run. He ended up with an extra Obama delegate vote, because he got the strategy of making THEM go first, so he did great in the important bit of his job. He didn't know about sending said piece of paper with our ideas of the delegates in beforehand, though. And that says it all to me about such small-minded requirement

A screen showing the convention said "Let's hear it for the Travis Democratic PARTY!" I wanted to boo. Yes, Tully, Rogers had it right in one. Most days I like it that way, but a little GOP organization might've been better here.

Our (Obama-side) precinct chair said he thought the Travis County Democratic Party's first goal in getting delegates had been speed in filling the numbers, and the results spoke for themselves to agree with that. Our precinct, alone, had five delegates with problems.

The credentialling was FAR too random and, above all, slow. Given the appearance of so many messed-up cases, IMHO they should've quickly accepted anybody in my situation as an alternate whom other caucusers from that precinct remembered as long as slots hold out (which they always did, no doubt because the actual delegates were more like those who showed up than the official choices, and either not needed a formal check or stated them in loud voices and only taken them back in the case of objections. This is not a place for Robert's Rules.

When I FINALLY got back together with the Profesora and the kid, I was too tired to make us get lunch. I was almost too tired to find them atall.

My precinct was one of the last credentials cases. Not much later, they started upgrading alternate delegates to replace absent permanent ones. The moment of truth: would I get to vote? They started handing missing credentials out to alternates, one by one. They were still going on Obamas when I came up. Then we had to take them to a window somewhere for upgrade. Somebody clueful led us. There were just a few precinct signs up, but I figured they had to be left from the morning, and stood in the shortest-looking line. It was in no danger of being the fastest line I've ever stood in. They were taking either five or ten minutes per case, and it was a LONG line. An ex-military man compared it to the military - hurry and wait. I was nearish the front, but it was still going to take 45-60 minutes. Then they opened two more lines, and started putting up precinct numbers. Even with the new lines, my precinct was nowhere to be found.

Will I be stuck forever in this line? Will my family and I starve? Come back tomorrow for the horrifying conclusion!