Just got back from convention.
Adjournment at 12:58 AM.
When using a new technology, make sure you have enough of it to avoid bottlenecks.
80% of our time was waiting for the vote counter to count.
In 2nd District, the seven National delegates went four Obama, two Clinton, one Edwards. Obama got the Alternate. Apparently Obama swept all district alternates statewide. It could be important; but for most contingencies, let's hope for good fortune and karma that it's moot.
Great stories after the Jump (but for now I may have to wait until morning to update).
It is believed that the 2nd District of Iowa sent its first Latino delegate to nationals, ever. And Angel Gonzalez-Irizarry Has a hell of a journey.
He came out of his precinct caucus as a Clinton alternate to county convention. The day before the county convention, where procedures had been arranged to seat alternates matching the preference group of absent delegates, he has a letter to the editor in the Iowa City Press-Citizen published, that blasts the Clinton campaign for racial undertones (remember, this is March 14), and declaring his open support for Barack Obama. He gets seated at county as an Obama delegate, goes on to district/state and on about the fifth ballot today, he is selected as a national delegate for Obama.
Some of you might think it's all an elaborate trick, but I guarantee it is not. I have his permission to document his story here, and he's looking forward to reading it. Given that level of publicity, if he were pulling one over, he'd be banished from his long-time home town. He was also the reigning nd district Affirmative Action chair (since replaced by agonizingly slow vote today). Clinton will never turn this one back.
On a more conciliatory note, it seems there are a sizable number of Clinton supporters (at the high level of support, where you spend seventeen hours on a Saturday (and early Sunday) cramped in a reverberating gymnasium arguing whether an aye vote on a platform committee recommendation to strike an amendment on an opposition plank means you support the amendment, the described action, or the recommendation by the Platform committee. When the voice vote is too close to call, it becomes extra humorous when the chair declares (as is the rule of order when calling for standing vote), "the chair is confused."
Update 1: Things can get weird when you are on your tenth hour of swordswallower heartburn and ambiguous language pops up in a proposed platform amendment.
It was the committee's recommendation to add the amended language to support "Assaul weapons ban." Well, in the more rural counties in Iowa (and even in parts of te great liberal fortress of Johnson County), there are those with arms that they feel they are compelled to protect the right to keep and bear, and who could blame them with all the lily-munchin' wabbits about (they will feel the Wrath of Cayenne this year). When feling besieged, the thought of trebuchets can come to mind.
Now, Trebuchets are weapons, and there's no doubt they are designed for assalt, so technically the Iowa 2nd District Democratic party is now on the warpath against trebuchets and the poor castle-hunters who own them. Now try to say, "They'll get my trebuchet when they pry it from my cold dead hands," without laughing. Now sit in one room for twenty hours with four blaring televisions, and try it. Or, "When trebuchets are outlawed, only outlaws will have trebuchets." But it really puts a little absurdity to the arguments by the gun extremists (not the reasonable wabbit-denyers, who just want to protect the defenseless lilies).
Updae 2: Also, it can be pretty nutty trying to decide what two men should represent on six networks, based on one-minute speeches from all thirty-five delegate candidates (and that's after a dozen or so of us magnanimously called off our bids). And I regretted my decision just a little wen our SuperD state party vice-chair gave me the sad-eye and said she thought I'd bea great delegae (she's a super, and having bakd Edwards, then Clinton, then Obama, made Keith about eight weeks back). So I better have a little karma waiting in D.M. in seven weeks.
Update 3: Four SuperD's spoke from the podium today. Sen. Tom Harkin led off the morning with a great speech, Congressman Dave Loebsack had a mover after lunch, Sarah Swisher (the state party vice chair who I think wants to adopt me) was co-chair for the district convention, and state party chair Scott Brennan also gave a good short speech.