Cost

One common misunderstanding about these conventions is that we as delegates have to cover the costs ourself. For someone working politics right now, that could easily be a steep figure - flying across the country and spending five nights. Fortunately the party does have the ability to help cover some of the cost - but I'm choosing not to go that route unless I have to.

I think I've been quite fortunate. They sent us information that the hotel would be at least $199 a night plus tax if staying alone... that would easily come out over $1,000! So I immediately hopped on the phone and tried to find some other young delegates.

It turns out that my good friend Tony McEwen, who I called to get names from, is a delegate also. He's just a few years older than me and is serving as the Chair of NC's 10th District Democratic Party. His district borders mine. He got elected as one of their two Obama delegates (they have the same breakdown as mine).

So, since his wife isn't going, we decided to room together. We also found out that a friend of a friend, William Styles from the 11th District also won, as a Hillary delegate. He also agreed to join us, as he is just finishing up his last year of college at Western Carolina.

So, we should have a much cheaper room plus plenty of fun. It's nice to know that not only is the cost going to be cut by 2/3, but I'll also have some folks to hang around while out there. Western North Carolina Young Democrats are well represented in our room!

As for the flight, I knew it would be best to go ahead and book it. My parents live in Raleigh, so I knew I could fly from there and leave my car with them. Being in Boone, I have to travel 2 hours at least to get to any decent-sized airport; Raleigh is 3 hours. They sent us an email saying that United was the official carrier and would give a small discount. Well, that still turned out to be ridiculously expensive!

I found my flight on one of those travel sites (I checked them all, but I think I went with Orbitz). I'm flying round-trip, with one stop and in economy class, from Raleigh to Denver on American Airlines for about $260 - about half of what United would have charged from there. And I don't have to pay for parking!

So you see - going to one of these things, especially 2008, is going to be a ton of fun. Fortunately, I've also found a way to make it (relatively) cheap.

Watauga Democrat Article

http://www.wataugademocrat.com/2008/0609/0616Wataugadelegate.php

So I'm famous now, woo!

The Start

Hey folks - I'm back, a year later, to chronicle another big summer adventure. Last year, it was biking across Iowa in RAGBRAI (I will be back in 2009!). This time, it's about heading to Denver for the 2008 Democratic National Convention as a delegate from North Carolina's Fifth District.

I wish I could find the picture to show you, but I'm also glad I can't. You see, I have this picture of me as a kid in 1992 pretending to be at the 1992 Democratic Convention. I'm not kidding. I've tried to cover-up some of my nerdness since then, but its quite hard. I've wanted to go to a convention every election year since but never ran.

To go to a national convention, the most common way, in North Carolina, is to be elected at your Congressional District Convention, usually held in mid-May. You have to sign up to run and pledge to a candidate. At the District Convention, those delegates decide which candidate they are for and then vote for delegates to represent them nationally, based on the popular vote in the primary for that district.

In our case, I was running as delegate pledged (to vote for) Hillary Clinton. She won the 5th on May 6. Of the five delegates allotted to NC-05, Hillary received three and Obama received two. Of those three Hillary delegates, two had to be men and one had to be a woman (based on the population also, I guess).

So, I signed up to run and knew there would be some campaigning involved. I was unsure whether I could even make it to the convention, since I was (am) still job searching. But, what the heck, this was shaping up to be the biggest year in my lifetime for Democrats and this could easily be the biggest convention. But, I still debated on how much campaigning to do. I pretty much decided that since I didn't have the money to send mailers, I'd do an email to convention delegates. Aside from the nearly 30 bounce-backs, I think that went well, haha. My other big campaign strategy: show up. Thats right. I had no idea, but there six total men running for two spots. And since only two of us showed up at the convention, guess who won! I won on the first ballot with over 50%, the other delegate was voted on by acclamation after that.

So here it is - we're off to Denver. What all does this mean? What do we have to do? What about my pledged vote now that Hillary is out? All of these are things I want to blog about throughout the summer. And of course, I'll do my absolute best to write about the convention itself while there. I've got more stuff already, but since I'm just starting, I'll spread it out over a few posts.

I look forward to hearing from anybody that has questions. This should be an awesome time and hopefully some folks will find this, read it, and decide that they'll go for it in 2012.