Democrats across Michigan gathered on Saturday to
elect the Kerry and Dean delegates. The Michigan
7th, which stretches from where they grow the cereal (Battle Creek), to where they eat the cereal (the Hash Bash was in Ann Arbor on the same day), was no exception.
While manufacturing jobs are in decline here, the UAW machine was in fine form, manuevering district delegates to plug the holes and ensure that their Unity Slate
was selected. Got a problem with that?
I ran for the sole Dean delegate slot along with 4 others.
Despite 3 weeks of painful wrangling by former Dean officials, we all wanted to keep the vote open until the convention. In my view this was to breath some life into the process and
let all Dean Dems make the decision instead of deciding in secret. It was a risky strategy and ultimately failed. But one thing that it did do is expose how the machine works
and where the weak spots are.
Briefly, in Michigan, each county has a proportioned number of votes (Calhoun has 33, Branch has 7). If one person shows for that county, they get to vote the entire number in their candidate caucus (ie 33 for Dean delegate A). No one shows,
the votes get dropped. More than one, you vote within your county and winner takes all (on a 3-2 vote Dean delegate B
gets 33 votes). Only people who had registered with the Party by March 3 or office holders could participate- so you had to be thinking ahead.
Registration was an hour from 9-10. As you came in, you signed in showing party id and recording your county and candidate. And you could pick up your Unity Slate paper which listed the Kerry delegates, alternates and the Dean delegate (say what?!). I had a UAW brother try to get a hold of this the day before and his local denied its very existence. It was also interesting because it had no reference to the Union on it, but when you asked, people told you that it was the UAW slate.
Every so often during registration, the nice UAW registration folks would take the sign-in clipboard into a side room. Undoubtably they were checking to see where we needed to focus our Party building efforts and which Dems needed
better alarm clocks. But while they were at it, they were also monitoring the county and candidate distribution of the attendees.
As it got closer to closing the door, we started to notice that select Kerry folks from counties that didn't have Dean representatives suddenly got religion, realized the long-standing errors of their ways and switched their registration to Dean (and to think they could have actually voted for him...last February). Remember, depending on the county, one person can apply 33 votes.
Things started off with a roar. We pledge under God, paused to remember our troops and were introduced to three Dems ready to fight the good fight for Nick "you can't bribe me on the floor of the house" Smith's soon to be old seat. Shortly after, the room broke up into county caucuses which wasn't exactly what the rules tated but who's side are you on anyway. Technically, you're supposed to go to candidate caucus first, but turns out the Kerry folks had their Unity Slate and that's all they needed.
Clark folks, Edwards folks didn't you guys get the memo; this is about Unity.
But the Dean folks did have some business. The Chair reversed and gave us a corner to figure it out. One of the delegates dropped out, ran for caucus chair and was duly elected. Two other delegates were kind enough to throw their support to me; leaving me running against the Unity pick.
A brief word about the Unity pick. He was a vice-chair in the county party and friendly with the local pols (who were strong Kerry). We were told he worked for Dean in our county, but he never seemed to be with the rest of us stiffs when we logged through snow & cold to canvas neighborhoods or make calls. And our county isn't
big enough that our efforts were split. Never-the-less, he told folks at convention that he organized our county. With grassroots like that, who needs Roundup?
So two counties within the Dean caucus had to group to make a choice. As one county did, I leaned over to a sole county rep and asked if
they had any questions. "Nope, made up my mind," they said, as I saw the AFL-CIO badge. So I pressed a bit and they admitted that they were UAW, had their orders and thus had made up their mind. A friend of mine asked two other sole county reps whether they had even voted Dean in the primary. Let's just say the only Dean they'd recognize is the guy that makes sausage.
As the tornado warning sirens went off (just a test), we brought another exciting chapter of Democracy in action to a close. Unity prevailed
like a sledgehammer on a misplaced hand.
Reports from all over say the Dems need us!, they want us!. I'm not so sure that's true in Michigan. In a State where this morning's polls show that Nader's becoming a spoiler awfully fast, you think one of these geniuses would
figure out its a hell of a lot better to get battle-hardened Deaniacs in the fold.
But we'll save that story for another day.