Iowa District Convention Results

The Iowa Democratic Party held their congressional district conventions today. Out of 29 delegates elected today Obama received 16, Clinton 9, and Edwards 4. Another 18 pledged delegates will be awarded at the state convention. I'm not clear whether today's results represent a gain for Obama over the county convention results, but I know that Clinton won a plurality in our part of the state, but she only won one national delegate to Obama's two in the 5th district today.


I was one of three Obama delegates from Wallace County to the district convention. The Obama delegates represented about 49% of the total delegates. Clinton had 36% and Edwards had 14%--four votes from being viable. If Edwards would have remained unviable and all of his votes went to Obama then Obama could have claimed 3 to Clinton's 1 delegate. But if a handful of Edwards' delegates went to Clinton then Clinton and Obama would split the district's four delegates. So our Obama caucus sent 5 delegates over to the Edward's camp to make them viable, robbing Clinton's group of a possible national delegate.


I started the morning with a bit of a laundry problem. My business casual slacks were all in the dirty clothes, so I bit the bullet and put on a suit. When I showed up looking fantastic in my new duds, the other delegates from the county insisted that I run for the national convention. I demurred at first, because I hadn't put together any kind of campaign, sent out letters, made phone calls. But I was up for a new experience. So I got my five signatures and turned in a petition to run. It wasn't until the Obama causes met that I realized that there were fifteen men running for a one male delegate slot in Denver. Seemed like a long shot.


But they also said that we would all have an opportunity to make a two minute speech in front of the entire Obama delegation of 179 people. You probably don't know this about Henry, but Henry gives good speech. Really good.


Back in the convention hall, during the Lieutenant Governor's speech, I wrote out my speech. I'll post it on Sunday or Monday. But suffice to say, that Henry gives good speech. It would have been even better if they wouldn't have called "time" right before my big ending.


I'll make just a couple of observations about the day. First, there is a big difference between the speeches given by the non-politicians and the professionals. Second, there is an even bigger difference between the quality of the speeches given by the local politicians or state legislators and the state-wide office holders. Tom Harkin was masterful. Patty Judge the Lieutenant Governor wasn't quite as good. The challenger to the odious fifth district congressman, Steve King, was excellence. His name is Rob Hubler. And he is great candidate to take on the wretched, bigoted 'representative' from our district.


Third, several party officials referred to our party as the "Democrat Party". What's the deal? I thought that was a Republican thing. Fourth, I watched almost all these people and thought, "I could do better than that." Although his may be more of a comment on my distorted self-image than on the competence of party officials.

Watch for my speech tomorrow after church. And Henrietta's Dance recital. And Henry Jr.'s soccer game. And my usual Sunday afternoon coma (which my coincide with the recital).