You know you're dedicated when...

Your alarm goes off at 7:15am on a Saturday morning and it's not a tragic misunderstanding. You get up get dressed and you head out the door to drive two hours in the rain behind what I told myself were just big coolers but on closer inspection were actually burial vaults. Heavenly Homes indeed.



To sit in a ball room just so you can say Yay or Nay for three or four or five hours.

But before you do that, you have to get signed in



And after you get signed in you get your offical bag



And then you see all the stuff you can buy to fill your official bag up. If there was an election realted thing or more specifically, if they could get Obamas' name or image on it, they had it. You want a hat? They had hats, you want an item of clothing? They had your size.




But the real reason we were all there was to buy buttons.





But before we could get to the heady business of electing delegates, we had to be called to order, sit through a very, very, very long invocation, because like the GOP, Democrats worship God too! and pledge allegiance - New for 2008, we brought a Flag! No pledging our allegiance to some guys tie for us this year, this year we brought our own flag, because like the GOP, we love 'Murica almost as much as we love God!



You are saying Yay or Nay for three hours so you can send fellow Democrats to Denver to the convention. I think we sent everyone but me and one man who approached the woman sitting next to me, to announce he was "done with this party" and then flounced off, he did the straight man flounce, but he flounced. I don't know how he managed to not get elected, we elected about 45,000 people go. It did help if your name was printed in bold on the list, because those people got elected. I guess the guy was not a bold faced name. He flounced, hardly how a bold face name would conduct themselves at a party convention. After he flounced off, the woman sitting behind me said "Well, there goes another McCain voter".

This year in an attempted to get more members of the Young Democrats into the big league, each section was assigned it's own YD member to act as a lobbyist for their delegates. Our lobbyist was the most obnoxious young woman I have ever met. I really didn't like her and I on purpose voted against the YD she was braying at us about, Vote for himmmmmmmm! You have to vote for Braaaaaadllyy! He's a YYYYYDDDDDDDDD, You Haaaavvvvveeee to voooottee for himmmmmmm! Noooooooooo, yoouuu cooowwwwww, I dooooonnnn't haaavvvvveeee tooooooo!. I think he was the only Bold Face Name who was not elected. I blame her.

It was to our benefit to vote with the majority for a candidate. If the voice vote was too close, we were forced to do it by poll, this stopped the proceedings cold. Each of the 94 counties had to poll itself individually, and then the county chair had to go stand in line to turn in their ballots. This stopped the proceedings cold for about 35 minutes. Fortunately, this only happened twice. Some of us are slow learners.

Once this was done, we were onto the Platform and the vote to just approve it and move on so we could go home. First we had to debate it. A ballroom full of people do not engage in "debate" in an efficient manner. For every resolution, a line of people who arrange themselves behind the microphones to plead their cases. There were 73 resolutions, lucky for us the moderator moonlights as a auctioneer. and those resolutions were those that the resolution committee viewed as "noncontroversial" resolutions that could be voted on without discussion. HA.

These were the resolutions praising our troops, ecology, mass transit and election reform. Resolutions for improved health care access, Habeas Corpus rights for detainees at Gitmo. Resolutions concerning the removal of mercenary forces overseas AKA The Blackwater resoultion, and one outlawing military recruitment of minors.

So that you don't get the impression wwere hate everything, there was one in praise of NASA. We then condemned "plan Columbia" which in reading sounds like what we were doing in Nicaragua. There were two resolutions about instant run offs on for and one against.

And finally, you really know you are a Democrat when up for recommendation for discussion under Miscellaneous Concerns is the following:

Resolution 82, Urging the NC Democratic Party to Support Creation of a Federal Department of Peace and Non-Violence.

Whereas the proposed legislation to create a United States Department of Peace and Non-Violence department that will be headed by a Secretary of Peace and Non-Violence. who will advise the President on issues both domestic and international in scope, giving peace building a chance, a voice and a budget at the highest levels of government... Long resolution short? see the text of House Bill 808

I don't know know how that one got voted on. This wasn't my first convention, I left before the real debates over resolutions started. I'm dedicated, I'm not demented.