Rory Reid, right, Hillary Clinton’s Nevada campaign chairman, is besieged by supporters who don’t want the vote on delegates to the Democratic state convention delayed. Sam Morris
Posted on 02/24/2008 4:39:15 PM PST by Libloather
Convention ends in chaos, so Dems need a do-over
By J. Patrick Coolican, Michael Mishak
Sun, Feb 24, 2008 (2 a.m.)
Rory Reid, right, Hillary Clinton’s Nevada campaign chairman, is besieged by supporters who don’t want the vote on delegates to the Democratic state convention delayed. Sam Morris
The Clark County Democratic Convention turned into a fiasco Saturday, with a host of problems that were entirely predictable but blithely ignored by county party leadership.
The convention was supposed to elect delegates to this spring’s state convention in Reno, where delegates will be selected for the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Instead, county party leaders, with the annoyed assent of the campaigns of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, suspended voting and moved to reconvene at some future date to vote on state delegates, who will ultimately determine whether Obama or Clinton wins a majority of Nevada’s 25 pledged delegates at the national convention.
Clark County Democratic Party Chairman John Hunt pleads for calm Saturday with a hallway packed with delegates and alternates trying to get in to the Clark County Democratic Convention at Bally’s. Photo by Sam Morris
Although more than 7,000 delegates to the county convention had been elected at the Jan. 19 caucuses, the county party booked a room at Bally’s with a capacity of 5,000.
Few people expected the 7,000 elected delegates to show, but it was entirely unsurprising that the Clinton and Obama campaigns, locked in a tight delegate battle that could go all the way to the national convention, would call their supporters and tell them to show up at Bally’s so they could be alternates to replace the no-shows.
Sure enough, that’s what happened. There were 6,000 people in the hall when the fire marshal intervened, and Bally’s management estimated 4,000 people in the hallway outside.
The problem was that there wasn’t a clean and credible process for seating alternates. Rules said they should be from the same precinct and support the same presidential candidate as the no-show, and barring that, should at least support the same presidential candidate as a given no-show, but the county party was overwhelmed trying to track this information and ultimately shut down registration.
Also, though there were supposed to be more than 7,000 delegates elected at the Jan. 19 caucuses, the county party list had only 6,000 names, according to the campaigns.
The county party didn’t have enough stations or volunteers to help delegates get checked in, or to get alternates seated as delegates. Indeed, throughout the morning the registration line snaked from Bally’s lobby through the casino floor and into the ballroom where the convention was being held. At one point a party volunteer worked the crowd with a case of bottled water — cold comfort for many elected delegates who were demoted to alternate status and denied access to the convention hall.
Ballot boxes were not secured, which was one of many reasons both campaigns said unless voting was suspended and a new and credible process created later, they would challenge the vote.
This is the second recent flawed event organized by the county party. November’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner was also beset with organizational snafus.
Erin Bilbray-Kohn, a spokeswoman for the county party, tried to put a good face on the event, marveling at the massive turnout. She said the was organized by volunteers who’d worked their hearts out and didn’t deserve to be castigated with mean-spirited attacks.
Still, state party officials fumed, having tried to persuade Clark County Democratic Chairman John Hunt to postpone the county convention to ensure it was well organized. He refused.
The Democratic National Committee, monitoring Saturday’s convention, called state party officials and told them to get county leadership to clean up the process or risk losing delegates to the national convention.
The campaigns and influential Democrats not affiliated with the county party were furious.
“This is a disgrace,” said D. Taylor, head of the Culinary Union, which endorsed Obama and had a few hundred delegates at the convention. Taylor said many Culinary shift workers had to leave and so didn’t get their votes counted.
“There should not be a disconnect between the Democratic Party and competency,” Taylor said.
State Sen. Dina Titus, a co-chairwoman of Clinton’s Nevada campaign, fielded complaints outside the convention ballroom, which she said reinforced the need for legislation she has introduced to switch the state to a primary nominating contest. That would preclude the need for using conventions to select delegates because delegates would be chosen simply and automatically based on a proportion of votes won in the election.
Delegates were irate.
Marguerita Flowers, an Obama precinct captain at Precinct 2480, was elected as an Obama delegate on caucus day but was inexplicably demoted to alternate status Saturday.
Marisa Calderon, a Clinton precinct captain at Precinct 1163, told a similar story.
She and her husband, Christopher, both elected delegates on caucus day, pre-registered with the party. But only Christopher’s name was on the party’s list. So Marisa was demoted to an alternate.
When convention Chairman Bill Stanley moved to suspend voting, the assembled delegates revolted and voted the motion down. The campaigns then met with supporters in separate rooms to explain why suspending the vote was necessary.
Each campaign believed it had good motivation to suspend voting. The Clintons feared that the convention had been swamped with Obama supporters, which could cut into Clinton’s 11-percentage-point victory in Clark County on caucus day.
The Obama forces, meanwhile, feared many supporters had been turned away when registration closed and knew any continuation of the voting would be challenged.
At about 4 p.m. the convention passed the motion to suspend voting, the lights came up, and everyone filed out, an air of bitterness hanging heavily.
The only thing that went off without a hitch was keynote speaker Al Franken, who tried to make light of Saturday’s problems:
“I know it’s been a tough day for you,” Franken said. “I flew in from a county convention in Minnesota. I just want you to know that none of this is my fault. It’s your fault for caring.”
And these people, who are not able to run a credible county convention, tell us they will be able to run the country. Pathetic.
I love this statement “There should not be a disconnect between the Democratic Party and competency,” Taylor said.
Well, well, what have we here?
Oh they’re just practicing for the real riot this summer.
> “There should not be a disconnect between the
> Democratic Party and competency,” Taylor said.
The disconnect is between the Democrat Party and
democracy, which as far as I can tell, have never
been closely related.
But only a naive (i.e. typical) Democrat could think
that Democrat incompetence is unusual.
______
Not that I endorse democracy,
but at least I don’t pretend to.
“I am not a member of an organized political party...I am a Democrat.” — Will Rogers
Heil Hillary !! Heil Hillary !!
I wonder if there is a catalog of this sort of election procedure/fraud in-fighting by the dems during this campaign. I have not heard of any such issues on the GOP side, and the differences between candidates there are well-documented. I am aware of:
— precincts in New York where Obamas was said to havereceived ZERO votes, which are now being reconsidered
— lack of voting equipment or ballots in the LA area during the California primary
— others???
We've been saying that for decades. Looks like that's just the way it's going to be, though.
If Hillary wins due to super delegates I really expect the Obama supporters to go off the deep end.
I have to admit, though, I’ve been to a county Republican Convention that was the exact same thing.
FYI: Rory Reid just happens to be the son of Harry Reid.
People should never fight over such trivial things as who their next overlords will be: the candidate overlords should. Bring on the Obama-Hillary Death match.
Sweet reading.
And then this little gem: ““There should not be a disconnect between the Democratic Party and competency,” Taylor said.”
Jim must have planted a Freeper in the hall!
If Hillary wins the nomination, she will have to pick Obama as the running mate or there will be MUTINY in the black community regarding the dem vote.
Snicker.
These are the charlatans that think they can run the entire federal govt.
These are the ninnies that think they should dictate to the entire free world.
These are the bozos that think the Bush admin. should be blamed for everything from Hurricane Katrina to “Global Warming”
These are the pathetic loons that think everything about Bush/Cheney is eviiillll, but that if only Demagogues could “take back our country” then THEY would know how to properly run it (into the toilet)
These are the drooling moonbats who can’t run a county election process in Nevada OR Florida but can smugly assert their complete superiority to everyone else in the world.
My heavens, the Demagogues are truly contemptible.
They need more dead people voting.
Demorats can’t run anything successfully. There were no idea and resource rich Conservatives to steal from at this silly event.
DUmmies love do-overs
What's he doing at the convention? He should be tending to the family real estate bidness.
Rove, you magnificent bastard!
How DARE you try to hold us accountable for results. We tried. I have a whole box of participation trophies I've won [sic] to prove that's good enough, Erin probably thought.
“There should not be a disconnect between the Democratic Party and competency,” Taylor [head of the Culinary Union] said.
Hey, Taylor, who are you trying to kid? The disconnect is a permanent RAT platform plank.
At this rate, there won't be anything for us FReepers to FReep about. The posts just write themselves.
.....He should be tending to the family real estate bidness......
He was, the realestate is Nevada
“FYI: Rory Reid just happens to be the son of Harry Reid.”
No way. You’re kidding. Guess you would have to live in Nevada to have that inside information.
Buddy, you obviously don't know the half of it...!
This article reminds me of two sayings I often use:
“Like watching two monkeys trying to f%%k a football.”
T”hey couldn’t organize a one car funeral.”
For some reason, both fit.
We don't need names. If we come up short of names, we can make them up. Identification? Waste of time. Photo Id's? Waste of money and discriminatory. Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. How can we count votes? Ha! Counting is for losers. Numbers? 6,000 7,000. Who cares.
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