« Young Democrats Announce 2007 Logo Contest | Main | Bush smackdown, finally »
February 04, 2007
Back from the DNC - Part 1
What a great weekend of events Chairman Dean and his staff put on. This was my first DNC meeting and I must say that I'm already packing my bags to attend the DNC's Summer meeting.
Before I go on, I would like to send crazy shoutouts to the Young Democrats of Georgia. What an amazing Georgia delegation. You guys made me feel young at heart and aged with wisdom at the same time. Not sure how I'm going to sleep tonight without the nightly laughing rituals with Nikema and Melissa and our unofficial roommate, Rahsheim. I believe the Democratic Party of Georgia definetely has a strong bench with the wonderful YD's, especially with Melissa, Nikema, and Rahsheim at the helm. Muchos Gracias.
Thursday night was way cool. I was the guest of our newly elected Chair, Jane Kidd, at the Barack Obama reception. Sweeeettt!! He is definitely all that and a bag of chips. Here's the photo.
Obama congratulated Jane on winning the Chair's race. She did a plug for this year's JJ dinner and he replied that he hope his scheduled would allow him to participate as the speaker. Then Jane tried to get Obama's "Yes We Can" crew to start chanting - they were too shy.
After hanging with Obama, I met a YD Presidential candidate - David Hardt, nice guy and I really enjoyed his regional plan to connect YD's and DNC members.
Friday morning was just fantastic. Hearing the candidates speak and looking them in their eyes definitely changed my perspective on the 2008 Prez race. The lineup for Friday Presidential hopefuls was Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, Wesley Clark, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Hillary Clinton.
I *heart* White Men - i.e. those with a Democratic Yankee swagger. This was my first time hearing Chris Dodd speak and he had my attention when he came out blaring a Temptations song. Good song selection to rev the crowd up if you are first to speak. This guy has some serious passion for being a Democrat. The funniest line was when he said that he receives monthly publications of AARP and Parenthood because he has a 2 year old and 5 year old. I had the pleasure of speaking with him later and discovered that Dodd has some serious Georgia Democratic connections.
Both John Edwards and Barack Obama's speeches started off very somber and then they both did the "stand up" (Edwards) and "rise up" (Obama) theme. Neither speech really moved me. I guess it was because I was surrounded by so many Democrats that I wanted to hear the "hope" message a lot sooner than having to hear the long tirades on "woe is America". Yup, I get it...got it...we can do better.
Wesley Clark is well Wesley Clark. Nice tie though.
Dennis Kucinich, well...just not my flavor. I think we all needed a little anti-depressant after his very sad speech.
Hillary Clinton completely surprised me. She brought all her guns to the show and walked in blazing. After hearing her speak, now I "get the Hillary" thing. She was the only candidate on Friday that talked about improving the middle class, ending genocide in Darfur, and ending America's dependence on cheap (my word) China crap. She was the only candidate, on Friday, to really outline her credentials for becoming the Dem nominee and the next President. I mentioned my amazement to a few key Hillary staff and supporters but cautioned them that "if people don't get her until they actually see her then it's going to be a very long and busy campaign season".
I took a DNC break and tagged along with Juliana to the Human Rights Campaign. Now that was way cool. Very cool people working on the behalf of others, especially Donna. We had a great lunch and tour of the national office. Learned a whole lot.
Went back to the DNC meetings just in time to attend the Caucus meetings. We, Juliana, Jane Kidd, and I, attended the Black Caucus and the LGBT Caucus meetings. Saw Mayor Franklin and Michael Thurmond at the Black Caucus meeting. Howard Dean dropped by the BC and spoke to the group. Both meetings were very lively and informative.
On Friday night, I did a brief drop in to the YD Founder's Day dinner. It was brief because my extrovert level was running low after attending the Stonewall Democrats reception (our very own Kyle Bailey is running for a national seat - way cool buttons), so I had to excuse myself and head back to the hotel room for a refueling (I then overslept on the napping). Jane Kidd, Juliana, and Juliana's husband represented for the over YD age limit folks. From what I heard, the event was well attended. I did get to hear Christine Vilsack speak on behalf of her husband. If you went to last year's JJ dinner, then imagine the same talk and tone coming from a woman.
Ended the evening with another nightly round of laughing with my 3 amigos.
My one disappointment was the lack of racial diversity in the DNC attendees. Not much diversity in the audience nor sitting at the candidates' tables. Those that received "DNC Bloggers" credentials were 100% White - wouldn't have mind seeing Andre over in the bloggers' pit. Vilsack had the only racially balanced table 50/50.
Posted by Bernita at February 4, 2007 11:55 PM
Comments
Bernita: Great to read your delightful recap of the Big DNC Meet Up. Wish I could have tagged along. Maybe next time?!
I once used your same words, "cheap crap from China" on my neighborhood discussion board, here in my NW coridor of the ATL, to describe my neighborhood's glowing frenzy over our new Wal-Mart (traffic & crime hotspot is what it's turned out to be) here on Howell Mill Road at 75. (And yes, I too was all for the damn thing, at the time, but it's not like I wanted to go worship Sam Walton at the entrance.)Half the neighborhood no longer speaks to me. Seriously!
You go Hills. Tear it up, hon. You too Bernita! You look fabulous, BTW.
Posted by: Grayson ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blogfordemocracy.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 5, 2007 10:52 AM
I was a member of the audience in DC, and I actually gasped out loud when HRC was slamming the PRC that I wished I could have checked the labels on all the people clapping wildly for Hil to see exactly where their clothes/shoes/cameras/cell phones/watches/ties/suits were made. Whatever honey, I guess hypocracy is just standard fare these days...
Here here to Bernita on this great re-cap. I was sick with a nasty head cold, so I was moving kind of slowly and missed Obama's speech, and the saturday part of the meeting.
I caught Gov. Richardson on CSPAN, and I just want to point out I thought his speech was great and he was the only one, I think, to mentioned anything about equality under the law for LBGT members of our nation.
Also another member of our "delegation" was right o point out very little mentioned about women is the cattle call of speeches... very disapointing too.
Posted by: Jules at February 5, 2007 11:18 AM
grayson, i live near that wal mart and didnt know its become a crime hot spot...is there any info you could provide? Kinda curious now. ive never liked wal mart...
Posted by: indie_rock_elitist at February 5, 2007 12:20 PM
Here is the transcript of Gov. Richardson's speech.
http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/newsroom
Posted by: Jules at February 5, 2007 12:23 PM
Jules: The best way to see what the crime situation is like over at that Wal-Mart is to get on the Underwood Hills neighborhood discussion board/email list:
http://www.underwoodhills.org/
The Crime Watch person for the Underwood Hills Neighborhood Association sends-out a weekly crime stats notice via this discussion board. It is ALWAYS chockfull of Wal-Mart-related crimes. I’d like to get all the stats since the Wal-Mart has opened from the zone police contact and see just how many of the overall crimes in the area really ARE related to that particular Wal-Mart. Plenty of 'em, I’d venture to say. Just did say, as a matter of fact! But hey, this is the kinda neighborhood reporting folks at, for instance, the AJC are paid real money to go do. Wish they would.
Posted by: Grayson at February 5, 2007 01:12 PM
Big props to Bernita for the update; YDs are supposed to be the future of the party but I can find scarcely a report on the meeting in the ol' blogosphere. How are we supposed to make all your base belong to us if we can't quasi-live-blog the damn thing?
Posted by: shelby at February 5, 2007 01:22 PM
Shelby,
The YDs didn't distribute any "Blogger" credentials only the DNC. In fairness, the core YD Georgia delegation were doing about 50 things at once - Billy was campaigning on behalf of 2 YD candidates, he set up a huge meet & greet for his candidates that Melissa worked the room, Jason was doing his national YD stuff, Rahsheim, Nikema, Melissa, and Benson were busy providing team support, and Kyle and Robin were assisting with the LGBT stuff.
In order to get live blogging, the YDs are going to have to assign one or more people solely to this task. They should pay for the bloggers' travel and hotel expenses. Too many things were going on at the same time.
Posted by: Smitty at February 5, 2007 01:35 PM
Shelby, part of my problem with the "technology" was that the hotel had almost no/zero/nadda reception signal..
Plus certain smaller caucus stuff just wasn't that condusive to bloging or in fact text or e-mail.
The YD Founders Day reception was a big cocktail party, but not as fun as the Stonewall reception which was packed and loud... so all in all not really a great environment to try and whip out a chatty and interesting post, which would have died in cyberspace anyway...
Sorry, still have a ways to go on "live".. more like a realtime delay for sleeping and eating..
Posted by: Jules at February 5, 2007 01:37 PM
Oh I'm not talking about you, Jules - there isn't a peep over on the YDA site itself, but the DNC blog managed to be updated quite regularly. Haven't seen much from attendees, either. So much for living vicariously....
Posted by: shelby at February 5, 2007 01:44 PM
Poor Benson dragged around his laptop, I'm sure with all the intentions in the world of using it... just not sure what happened there.
Yeah, as Smitty says, you would really need to be dedicated to doing just that, cause it was really hard to process everything seen and heard..
Heck I saw Maureen Dowd wandering around with a glazed over expression on her face. Man is she ever tiny.. like 4 feet high and a size 00.
Posted by: Jules at February 5, 2007 02:20 PM
I had a great time in DC this weekend. Although next winter meeting needs to be in South Flordia or Southern California. Why be freezing cold when you could be getting a nice tan? I got to meet General Clark and I even have the picture to prove it. Although, I can't figure out to upload onto the website.
Posted by: Buffy at February 5, 2007 03:57 PM
Here you go Buffy. It's in this slideshow:
Posted by: MelGX at February 5, 2007 04:03 PM
YAAAAAY someone was listening! :-D I'm'a die of warmfuzzies now!
Posted by: shelby at February 5, 2007 05:09 PM
Shelby, I'm always listening (for one). Settle down.
Posted by: MelGX at February 5, 2007 05:40 PM
On Saturday February 10, the most compelling American leader to emerge in a generation will announce his intention to run for President of the United States. To us, that sounds like a good reason to celebrate!
The gathering is 6 p.m. at JCT Kitchen & Bar in Atlanta. We will watch a video of the Senator's announcement and share ideas about how to support Obama in the coming months. If you want to volunteer for the Obama campaign, or just meet others who are excited about Obama as we are, then you won't want to miss this!
Please RSVP at http://GeorgiaForObama.net/
Posted by: Earl Daniels at February 6, 2007 02:14 PM
Very cool Earl! Great to hear from you again. Let's hope Obama doesn't go the way of Dean.
Posted by: MelGX at February 6, 2007 02:29 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in. Now you can comment. (sign out)
(Just hit the Post button once and be patient. If you have problem commenting, email: mel[at]georgiafordemocracy.org.)