A Day in the Trenches
Mar. 1st, 2008 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkToday was swallowed up by my second-time-ever DFL Senate District Convention at Washburn High. DFL conventions are fascinating, in an incredibly boring way. There's a lot of sitting around, and a lot of deadpan silliness (like setting up EIGHTY SUBCAUCUSES in a convention that was electing THIRTY delegates. I'm not making this up!) But you get to see (and sometimes meet) your local council member, State Senator, State Representative and numerous other DFL office holders that stop by to rev up the crowd while the Credentials Committtee does its work backstage. And, of course, whoever's looking for an endorsement is likely to show up: in this case Mike Ciresi, Al Franken and Jack Pallmeyer-Nelson. I guess frequent filer Dick Franson figures everybody knows him by now and he doesn't need to come to the convention. Or maybe the bouncers won't let him in the door. Weirdo.
Anyway, I did the thing I went to do - sat down to be counted in the Ciresi sub caucus. It's called a "walking sub caucus," but once you locomote to the group you want to support, your primary task is to stay put until everyone gets counted once or twice or (in this case) three times. An alarming number of my fellow caucusgoers were not able to master this simple task. After sitting around for 6 hours to get to the climactic moment where their presence actually counted for something, people started leaving right before the final "locked down" count! Admittedly, the folks doing the counting were dithering around when they should have been either counting or explaining why the last attempt to count had been aborted, but still....! Fortunately, we still had enough people left to make it to 3 delegates, even after the controversial delegate swap with the Uncommitted-Obama caucus in the other room, but it was close.
I had no intention of running for delegate to the State Convention. Good thing, since an astonishing number of people in our subcaucus DID have such intention. Out of about 60 people, we had at least a dozen running for delegate. I enjoyed listening to them introduce themselves, and wished I could have voted for ... well, not all of them, but 6 or 8 of them at least. I voted for Christy, the eager young Ciresi campaign worker that I'd met when I first arrived at the convention, and Chip, a lawyer that used to work with Ciresi and thought he was a swell guy. Chip won, Cristy didn't.
I didn't see any of the gay activists from my block, but I ate lunch with a woman I recognized from Barton Open School (another parent) and briefly chatted with a nice young man that I recognized but just couldn't place. As I was leaving the convention an hour or so later I realized who he was - my doctor! The same doctor I saw three times in the last 4 months (and very much liked) but still couldn't recognize so thoroughly out of context. D'oh! I wonder if he had the same problem - he smiled and said hello when he saw me, but didn't greet me by name.
Since I attended the convention primarily to caucus against Al Franken, I was dismayed to see him win 18 out of 30 delegates. I had no idea that he had made such inroads with the party activists. I'm glad I got a chance to see him speak, but it didn't make me like him any better. He does have great stage presence, though. I don't think he'd make a very good senator, but I have to grudgingly admit that he might campaign effectively against Coleman. Oh well. Que sera sera.
Our subcaucus finally wound up its business at about 5:30 and I left. Hardcore party members were still there, of course, appointing each other to committees and cleaning up the piles of pointless printed handouts lying around the auditorium. I stopped by the Minnstf meeting at the home of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sraun and ireneink for a delicious supper of barbequed pork and those irresistible little frozen cream puffs that look like puffball mushrooms. kaustin listened with remarkable patience as I burbled on about the workings of the convention until I had it out of my system.
Now I'm home, and nobody is here. I guess Richard andthorintatge are at Marscon.
Anyway, I did the thing I went to do - sat down to be counted in the Ciresi sub caucus. It's called a "walking sub caucus," but once you locomote to the group you want to support, your primary task is to stay put until everyone gets counted once or twice or (in this case) three times. An alarming number of my fellow caucusgoers were not able to master this simple task. After sitting around for 6 hours to get to the climactic moment where their presence actually counted for something, people started leaving right before the final "locked down" count! Admittedly, the folks doing the counting were dithering around when they should have been either counting or explaining why the last attempt to count had been aborted, but still....! Fortunately, we still had enough people left to make it to 3 delegates, even after the controversial delegate swap with the Uncommitted-Obama caucus in the other room, but it was close.
I had no intention of running for delegate to the State Convention. Good thing, since an astonishing number of people in our subcaucus DID have such intention. Out of about 60 people, we had at least a dozen running for delegate. I enjoyed listening to them introduce themselves, and wished I could have voted for ... well, not all of them, but 6 or 8 of them at least. I voted for Christy, the eager young Ciresi campaign worker that I'd met when I first arrived at the convention, and Chip, a lawyer that used to work with Ciresi and thought he was a swell guy. Chip won, Cristy didn't.
I didn't see any of the gay activists from my block, but I ate lunch with a woman I recognized from Barton Open School (another parent) and briefly chatted with a nice young man that I recognized but just couldn't place. As I was leaving the convention an hour or so later I realized who he was - my doctor! The same doctor I saw three times in the last 4 months (and very much liked) but still couldn't recognize so thoroughly out of context. D'oh! I wonder if he had the same problem - he smiled and said hello when he saw me, but didn't greet me by name.
Since I attended the convention primarily to caucus against Al Franken, I was dismayed to see him win 18 out of 30 delegates. I had no idea that he had made such inroads with the party activists. I'm glad I got a chance to see him speak, but it didn't make me like him any better. He does have great stage presence, though. I don't think he'd make a very good senator, but I have to grudgingly admit that he might campaign effectively against Coleman. Oh well. Que sera sera.
Our subcaucus finally wound up its business at about 5:30 and I left. Hardcore party members were still there, of course, appointing each other to committees and cleaning up the piles of pointless printed handouts lying around the auditorium. I stopped by the Minnstf meeting at the home of
sraun and ireneink for a delicious supper of barbequed pork and those irresistible little frozen cream puffs that look like puffball mushrooms. kaustin listened with remarkable patience as I burbled on about the workings of the convention until I had it out of my system. Now I'm home, and nobody is here. I guess Richard and
thorintatge are at Marscon.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-02 05:32 am (UTC)Demonstrating the fannish trait of correcting someone to be polite, I think you meant
no subject
Date: 2008-03-02 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-03 12:05 am (UTC)When I taught shiatsu the ethics surrounding our client's confidentiality included this: if you see a client out in public space, do not acknowledge them unless they acknowledge you first. Then do not indicate aloud where you know them from, inquire after their issues you've been helping them with, etc. All that is their privilege to divulge or not.