Polls, etc.

A few weeks ago I got contacted by both the Charlotte Observer and CBS/New York Times. They wanted to poll convention delegates, which is cool for me since I've never done a poll before (how much of a political nerd do you have to be to want to do a poll?)

The Charlotte Observer was pretty simple - a few short questions mostly about whether this was my first convention, who I was, where I was from, etc.

The CBS/NYT was conducted by phone and took about a half hour to complete. They must have asked me about everything - the primary process, issues, Obama, and so on. Yes and No questions, scaled answers, open-ended. I've been meaning to post about this for a few weeks, but things have been pretty hectic and I forgot, so I don't really remember enough of questions or answers.

I forgot to post the link to an article in The Appalachian, the student newspaper at ASU, about me going to Denver, so here it is: http://theapp.appstate.edu/content/view/3701/42/.

A while back I posted about the potential lack of fun, i.e., parties, at the convention. Well from what I've read there are going to be plenty.

There was an article in CQ Politics not too long ago listing some of the parties, hosted by Denver lawyers, national lobbyists, the Democratic Governors Association, etc. I even got an invite from Sheriff Hagaman to go to the NaCO party for local elected officials since he won't be there. So, despite my previous whining, there should be plenty going on.

We're less than a month away and I'm very excited! One thing I am interested in that I haven't seen anything about is the delegation seating chart for the Pepsi Center... hopefully it's better than our hotel location (10 miles Southeast of Downtown!).

Convention Extras - Service and Going Green

We recently got an email from the Secretary of the DNC telling us about some of the "extras" at the convention. From what all I have gathered about past conventions, most of the activity is in the afternoon and at night, so there is plenty of time to be a tourist, party, and do community service.

This year, the Delegate Service Day is on Wednesday, August 27. For a few hours in the morning, delegates can sign up to participate in a number of projects. Apparently they assigned each state delegate at least one project based on proximity to your host hotel. We're at the Doubletree along with Kansas, and thus we are also working with them (and Mississippi) on our project, which is helping Project CURE (www.projectcure.org) sort medical supplies that are sent overseas to developing countries. I randomly clicked on another state to see they at they are hosting a neighborhood cleanup and block party, so it seems like a well-rounded list.

There are also two events on the Sunday before the convention - an Interfaith Service at 2pm and an event in recognition of groups helping with Katrina aftermath (the three-year anniversary is that week). I'm not sure if I can make it to those because of my flight schedule, but I definitely plan on doing as much as I can while there - who knows when I'll get to go back!

Another interesting this year is the "Green Delegate Challenge." There is a competition among the states to see which can be the "greenest" by purchasing carbon offsets at a discounted price. This is a new concept to me, but it seems that they take our purchases and make investments in projects that produce sustainable energy. The "DNCC Special Blend" goes to four projects that involve wind power and methane extraction; they are located in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Minnesota. I'm not sure how many you're supposed to get, so I went ahead and purchased two. Maybe I'll buy enough and they'll start calling it Wynned Power instead. Heh heh heh.

As always, information about all of this can be found at www.demconvention.com (including official lists and other information about the actual delegates). Information about the energy projects can be found at www.nativeenergy.com/dncc.

We're Being Mocked!

And I like it!

http://blogs.westword.com/demver/2008/03/delegating_denver_37_of_56_nor.php

Except I've never heard that our official nickname is "Land of the Sky."

PS - Looks like we will have a special section for the massive Obama speech.

Links for the post below

Delays and Rising Costs for Convention Raise Worries for Democrats (NYT)

Convention Watch: Moving Obama's Speech and McCain's Bush Dilemma

I didn't do them properly in the last post, but here they are.

What Happened to All of the Fun?

When I first got elected, I spoke to David Parker, one of the DNC members from North Carolina and a fellow Fifth District resident. He said this would be an incredible event, full of fun with tons of events and parties to supplement the normal convention proceedings that you see on TV. Well, apparently some of that is not going to happen:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/us/politics/06convention.html?ex=1373083200&en=15c15e696e4eaee8&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

So, the first part of this post is to be greedy and whiny: I want to have fun! I'm sure I will, of course, but it sounds like there has been some major cost-cutting because of mismanagement of the convention.

That is disappointing not only because now I wonder what some our time will be filled with if most of these parties have been cancelled; I'm sure there will be plenty to do, including general tourist things in Denver, which I still would love to do.

This is also disappointing because it is feeding the perception that Democrats are not good at managing money. The article states briefly that the GOP convention is not disorganized at all and is on target and smoothly run. Not us. We are apparently requiring absurd things for the catering (NO FRIED FOOD!!! What will I eat?), getting ridiculous office space, and not making solid decisions. We need to be very concerned about this presentation to the general public as we ask them to allow our party to once again be the CEO of the nation.

On another note, it appears that Senator Obama wants to move his acceptance speech to the nearby Invesco Field as opposed to the Pepsi Center. I haven't heard anything yet, but I'm sure they'll make sure that those of us who made such a long trip to Denver will not have to fight 75,000 others for a spot to watch. This is also somewhat questionable because of the added cost:

http://campaigndiaries.com/2008/07/07/convention-watch-moving-obamas-speech-and-mccains-bush-dilemma/
(that is an EXCELLENT blog regarding elections, etc.)

So, to sum up, I really hope that not only do I get to have a good time at this convention, but that we as a party learn to really pick our battles and show the public that we can manage money and large projects well... you never know how this could play out come November.