The California Democratic Party convention.
Two and a half days, six presidential candidates, 2,264 delegates. Fiery rhetoric, sloppy speechifying, backslapping. Cheerleading. Words and words and words. Out of Iraq universal health care choice Darfur education impeachment toll road Katrina. The best Democratic state party anywhere; the best primary slate ever; the great Chairman Art Torres.
Elections have consequences. Not another nickle; not another dime. Not another soldier; not this time. Turn the page.
I signed up to be a delegate to make a difference. I could watch the candidates give their speeches on teevee and I could read about their positions on the internets. It's not the same, certainly doesn't entail anywhere near as much shouting and applause - doesn't energize the base the way an event like this does - but it might make for more objectivism, might result in better choices. The rah-rah doesn't tell me who will be the better president, doesn't tell me how we're going to win the office, doesn't tell me how to make a difference.
Politics is a selective force for people who want attention. Not just at the top of the ticket, but all up and down the line people want to be heard, want thousands of people to attend to their words, want the spotlight. Not everyone, of course - but most of the ones we see. And it's a way to reward people who value that, all the praise and applause and recognition - and there are a lot of people working very hard with very little or nothing in the way of thanks beyond their moment in the spotlight. So maybe I shouldn't complain; this is how it must be.
But I do complain. I wanted something - a lot - of substance to emerge from this event, although I could not say in advance and cannot now say what that could have been. I wanted to be an active participant in changing things - changing the party so it is more responsive to its liberal members, changing the state so it embraces more liberal principals, and change the nation to flush out the sewer that Republicans have made of our federal government. I want not only for that to happen, but for me, myself, to participate in making that happen, and I had hoped that serving as a delegate to the CDP would give me a chance to do that.
Instead, I sat and listened and applauded and sometimes cheered as egomaniacs (any one of whom would of course be a far, far better president than the current occupant of the White House) said things I agreed with and sat on my hands as they said things I didn't. Sat on my hands, too, when they failed to say the things I thought they should have (like "I was wrong to vote for the War Powers Act and the PATRIOT Act and I apologize for those errors"; like "Single Payer"). I talked some to fellow delegates. Had a great time at the Blue House at the Brew House blograiser for Jerry McNerney and Charlie Brown on Friday and a great visit with fellow Kossacks and Caliticians at dinner on Saturday night.
Then came the resolutions. My chance to participate, to contribute to defining our party's values, to help steer it. 13 of them made it out of committee and onto the floor where we mere delegates could amend and vote on them. We quickly worked our way through most of them - including one calling for full investigations of the administration and for "appropriate remedies and punishment, including impeachment".
The final resolution, supporting immediate safe and orderly withdrawal of troops, was the occasion of what felt like some very dirty gameplaying. The resolution itself, submitted by Chairman Art Torres and Senator Don Perata, did not include language to cut funding. Of four proposed amendments, one was to add such language. The person at the podium (Chair of Rules or Resolutions, I think) "suspended the rules" to separate the amendments from the resolution itself. He tried to explain what this meant, although this new delegate certainly didn't understand it and I had the impression that the room as a whole was confused by it, but the suspension was granted assent. We then voted on the resolution and prepared to vote on the amendments - which the guy behind the lectern re-explained now stood alone - and someone called as a point of order that we be counted to determine whether a quorum was present. A quorum was not present, and the meeting was over.
So out of roughly 16 business hours at the Convention, about two were given to participation - and that was cut short by what felt like a very devious, carefully choreographed trick to deprive us of the opportunity to say something that many of us thought was very important to say. Color me disappointed. The one thing it says to me is that these resolutions are important to someone - important enough to be devious about getting the wording they want into them - and I had wondered whether the resolutions actually mattered at all. I guess I still wonder - but they clearly matter to some people.
I see two ways forward here, and I think I know which one I'm likely to follow. One is to say - if I want it to be better, I have to get more involved; study up on parliamentary procedure, join a Committee, grab some of that power for myself and my causes. The other is to throw up my hands, call bullshit on it, and redirect my energies to places where I feel like what I'm doing matters. I got that feeling with MoveOn last year, making calls; I got that feeling raising money on my ActBlue page; I get that feeling knocking on my neighbors' doors and registering voters and collecting impeachment letters and delivering them to my Congressional representative.
These are all things I can do with a minimum of organizational involvement, a minimum of pomp, a minimum of bullshit. Things with concrete, tangible, direct results. Real, retail activism. Far more satisfying things, for me.