As pledged Obama delegates to the Missouri State Democratic Convention, on Thursday night, my husband and I attended our Congressional District Caucus Meeting, where seven delegates from our congressional district—two for Clinton, and five for Obama, numbers based on local popular vote totals from the Democratic primary held in Missouri on Super Tuesday— were to be selected to attend the Democratic National Convention. The other eight Missouri congressional districts also held meetings Thursday night to select pledged delegates. A total of 47 pledged delegates were supposed to be elected at Thursday’s district meetings, with 18 more to be chosen at the Missouri State Convention itself in May.
Neither one of us ever having been a state convention delegate before, my husband and I weren’t really sure what to expect at our Congressional District Meeting.
Given the impressive turnout at Missouri’s Democratic primary, and this year’s record turnouts at Democratic primaries and caucuses nationwide, I guessed the meeting would probably be crowded. And given the incredible enthusiasm generated by this year’s historic primary race, and the growing animosity between the Clinton and Obama campaigns, I also guessed the meeting might be raucous.
But what I failed to anticipate was the stunning disorganization I witnessed at the Obama caucus.
I suppose that, given the many reports I’ve read of problems at other states’ caucuses, such as the utter chaos many caucus-goers experienced recently in Texas, I ought to have anticipated some level of official disarray. Despite the fact that state primaries and caucuses have been showing record turnout everywhere since January, it seems state Democratic Party officials are still managing to be caught off guard by the enthusiastic crowds of political newcomers that have been showing up to party events.
This Congressional District Meeting wasn't nearly a Texas-sized mess. But, seriously folks, it was a bit of a circus.
There was some serious confusion on the part of party officials over the number of official pledged Obama delegates at the meeting, which led to our first round of votes for national delegate positions being totally tossed out, because the ballots counted failed to match the number of official delegates thought to be in the room. No one in charge of the meeting seemed to be able to figure out a way to accurately count the delegates, or to separate delegates, who were allowed to vote, from alternates, who were not, despite the fact that an official roll had been called at the beginning of the caucus meeting, and despite the fact that party officials in the room had that official roll call list at hand.
There was also widespread confusion regarding which
state-level delegates had filed proper paperwork to be declared eligible to run
for a national-level position; the state party officials present claimed to
have a list of eligible candidates, but refused to read the list aloud inside
the caucus, and several delegates claimed they had never been given access to the proper paperwork in the first place.
And the party leaders in charge of the meeting appeared absolutely, utterly shocked at the number of people, and most especially the number of caucus newcomers, who wanted to run for national level delegate positions (in the Obama caucus, a total of 23 women and 20 men ran for a total of five delegate spots in separate elections; because of party affirmative action rules, three spots were reserved for women delegates, and two for men).
Rather than congratulating the crowd on their enthusiasm and welcoming the new members of the party, the self-nominated caucus chair actually actively tried to discourage candidates from running, complaining that if too many candidates ran, the meeting might run late—this despite the fact that no official end time had been announced for the caucus.
As a declared candidate for a national delegate position myself, I had filled out paperwork which implied that each candidate would be allowed at least one minute to give a speech. But all candidates were forced by the meeting chair to limit their speeches at the meeting to ten seconds (as estimated by the chair, not as counted by a clock). Which basically meant newcomers— like me, and my husband, and most of the other national-level hopefuls— had no real chance to introduce themselves to the crowd.
The delegates who were elected were all well-known party officials, former politicians, or upper-level campaign volunteers.
Please don’t think that I am not suffering here from a case
of sour grapes—even though I ran for a national-level delegate position, I certainly
didn’t expect to be elected, especially considering that so
many passionate candidates ran. And at the end of the day, I think the Obama
caucus for my district elected good, qualified delegates, who will represent
the party, the state, and my chosen candidate well at the Democratic National
Convention. In particular I was pleased to see that Jennifer Haro, who has done a lot of work in St. Louis and elsewhere to organize volunteers for Obama, would be going to Denver.
But I think my local caucus process revealed in microcosm just how overwhelmed the Democratic Party has been by the current resurgence of popular participation in politics by the most passionate members of its own base.
People were angry and confused at this meeting. People were shouting. Some even walked out in frustration before they’d had a chance to vote.
For years, the Democratic Party has been begging disillusioned die-hard liberals, disinterested young people, disenfranchised minorities and disaffected independents to come into the big party tent, stand up, and demand that their voices be heard.
And it’s finally happening now.
Are old-guard Democratic leaders really ready to hand over the reins?
This is Jaelithe's inaugural post at Momocrats. When she's not obsessively checking this site for new posts by her favorite political geniuses, you can find her at The State of Discontent.
Jaelithe,
Great to hear from you and yeah, what the heck is up with the Democratic Party machinery? It's really too bad to hear that it's ill-equipped to take all this energy and enthusiasm and RUN WITH IT.
I haven't been all that impressed with Howard Dean's leadership on the national level either. Everything seems to require way too much drama to happen.
Hopefully the folks who were confused and upset about the process still feel excited about their candidate.
Posted by: cynematic | March 29, 2008 at 09:46 AM
I'm sure the vast majority who were there still do feel excited about their candidate. There was an amazing, electric level of enthusiasm in that room for Obama when the meeting started. It's a shame that spirit was dampened somewhat by serious organizational snafus and the culture clash between fire-up first-time caucus goers who wanted to hold a friendly, spirited debate and old-time party regulars, who appeared totally unprepared for the crowd and really just seemed to want to get the whole thing over with.
Posted by: jaelithe | March 29, 2008 at 09:54 AM
Oh also I should add that the meeting leaders really SHOULD have known in advance how many people were running for national-level delegate positions, because as I mentioned, everyone who wanted to run had been required to turn in paperwork days earlier officially declaring their candidacy, and the party officials in the room claimed to have a list of the people who had done so.
So I don't know why they hadn't budgeted enough time for everyone to give a one minute speech. Forty-three one-minute speeches would have taken 45 or 50 minutes to present (counting time between speeches), and I really don't think it should have been out of the question to ask people to sit through less than an hour's worth of introduction to the candidates.
And now I will stop commenting on my own post ;)
Posted by: jaelithe | March 29, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Alright, Jaelithe, spill it: what's your gut telling you as to why the level of disorganization, especially given the potential for preparedness on the part of the organizers, the potential for comprehension of just what was going to go down? why do you suppose there was such a feeling of what I read as curmudgeonly behavior on the part of the people who've been participating regularly for awhile? or should I be reading much more deeply into your closing sentence? as in, that's EXACTLY what your gut feeling is - that the old guard doesn't really *want* to let go, that this whole new, excited group showing up is not what they *really* wanted? that they're so used to complaining about how no one participates that they just can't adjust to the idea that they no longer need complain about that? (breath)
it seems to me that they suddenly finding themselves (the old-schoolers) in the strange position of being snobbish and guarding the keys to the henhouse, because they don't want to share; they have that whole indie-rock attitude of "we were here first, and it's ours, go away!, *stomp*" -- which is just really effing DUMB.
?
also, awesome first post, and thanks for presenting the information in the manner you did. I feel like I was there.
Posted by: debbie - i obsess | March 29, 2008 at 10:34 AM
Jaelithe,
I'm SO happy to see you writing here! It's a perfect fit.
And I'd be happy having you represent me on pretty much anything, anywhere. You rock, my friend.
Posted by: Rebecca | March 29, 2008 at 09:42 PM
Great first post, Jaelithe. Welcome aboard! I had that feeling at our convention, too, that there was a tension between the old guard and the new, but ours ran much more smoothly. I'm going to the election of our local delegates in two weeks, and will have to see if that is as well run as the state convention.
Posted by: Glennia | March 30, 2008 at 07:23 PM