I will share some of my tales of Convention inside, and I hope you will share yours, too.
Discuss your favorite moments, or just bask in the awesomeness which is Maine politics!
I'll hit my own personal highlights:
1) I am now serving my first elected term as a member of the Democratic State Committee. My last term was an appointment because the elected member quit. So this was my very first election for an office, and my first victory!
2) The big one: My second "first" victory came during the debate on platform (that is, the document that outlines what Maine Democrats stand for). After much fighting, because the establishment didn't want it (but the progressives did), Maine has taken a stance in favor of investigating, and impeaching the President if he did in fact break laws (no duh he broke laws).
I've fought some small battles before and won, but this was something I helped lead from start to finish. Hearing the delegation, 400 strong at this point (many had left after the keynote address), pass the resolution by what must have been a 99% vote in favor, blew me away. I was running around hugging everyone, because it took all of us to beat the establishment and make it happen.
What's really funny is that a few of us didn't know if we had merely amended the language, or if we actually passed it. So there I am on the floor of the convention, there's been people leaving in droves since Feingold spoke, and we're desperate for a quorum. There's people arguing many points, and many of them minute. Typically I don't mind, that's democracy at work! But we've been working for months, and I'm seeing it all going down the drain as each person leaves. So I'm dashing from microphone to microphone, and I'm telling everyone, "If you can survive with this amendment, sit down! If you don't, we'll lose the quorum and we have nothing!" Thankfully, many listened, and soon after that we had language and a resolution- which is one of (if not the) first passed by a fully assembled State Convention.
However, at the time, I still didn't actually know it had passed, and neither did my county chair- so I'm shouting down the Chair, demanding my motion be heard, dammit! And I'm pushing to suspend the rules, to make sure voting proceeds with or without a quorum, and I demanded it like three times not knowing what the hell was going on. Then, finally, someone says, "We already PASSED it!", at which point I'm rather sheepish, and saying "Oh!... okay." to the assembled delegation and walking off with my (still victorious) tail between my legs.
Much love to my home county of Kennebec for getting this going, and to Waldo County and the City of South Portland for constructing such a wonderful resolution at Convention. Much love to those who backed me through this process, and especially to those of you at Convention who thought what we did was wicked awesome, even if I did make myself look like a complete (albeit highly confused) idiot at the end there. ;)
3) The parties! Drinking, chatting, schmoozing! Being the first person to shake hands with Russ Feingold before he even entered the building! Seeing Jean Hay Bright deliver a speech that could make even a few of her opponent's supporters cheer wildly! Being asked to be a union Steward as soon as I have a state job (too cool)! So much to talk about, but I'm still half drunk (working on fully!) and my fingers are lazy.
Let's hear it for Maine!