A couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Tom Hughes at Democracy for America, calling on DFA members to become delegates for the Democratic National Convention, to be held next August 25-28 in Denver, CO. From the email:
Delegates participate in developing the national platform, and help chart a new direction for America and the Democratic Party. Let’s make sure our progressive voices are heard.[…] Want another reason to go? This is going to be one heck of a party. This is our chance to thank Governor Dean for his leadership. Our chance to make sure the Democratic nominee never forgets the success of the 50 State Strategy, grassroots organizing, and people-powered campaigns. This is our chance to keep moving the party forward.
Prompted by the same e-mail, a diarist at Blue Mass Group suggests organizing a bloggers contingent for the Missouri delegation. Sound like a good idea in Missouri?
More below the fold.
Who’s that guy in the picture?
So why become a delegate? Isn’t the convention a tightly scripted TV show starring a select few prominent politicians and several thousand extras wearing funny hats? True, but aside from the ritual that the nomination portion of the convention has become, delegates also participate in developing the party’s platform AND get to network with other activists from around the country. Not to mention that on the (admittedly remote) chance that there is a brokered convention, delegates would help make history by deciding the nominee.
I don’t believe it necessarily makes sense to organize a bloggers contingent per se here in Missouri. We have quite a few political bloggers around the state, but we aren’t as tightly knit as the folks in Massachusetts, and I don’t really see a lot of ideological cohesiveness, either. What interests me more is opening up the delegate selection process. In one of my first posts on this site, I quoted internet activist Matt Stoller:
Civic participation is a key tenet of how we built our media and political apparatus. We are demanding low barriers to entry in the political system, a way for everyone to participate, and more open cultural structures, including business, agriculture, and government.
I don’t have any firsthand experience with the delegate selection process, and I’ve only heard a few accounts from friends and acquaintances about their own. You don’t see newspaper accounts or reports on the local news about the caucuses that select the delegates, either. The best way to cover it is to do it yourself. So for the next several months, I’ll be familiarizing myself with the Missouri delegate selection rules in preparation for the county conventions next spring. I’ll be blogging about it to ask for your support and report what I found. I hope that more than a few of you will join me.
project you are starting. I don’t know anything about how the delegates are selected, but I’m going to start asking around.
Just be careful and try not to trip when you try crashing the gate.
In 2000 I was a Gore delegate – elected from the allocation in the 4th Congressional District.
In 2000 there were three major delegate slection venues in the Missouri Democratic Party delegate selection plan. In addition, the sitting Democratic governor, any Democratic U.S. senators, and any Democratic U.S. representatives are automatically “super delegates”. Delegates and alternates were allocated to congressional districts (by formula) to be selected at a district convention, at-large delegates and alternates to be selected at the state convention, and “Party Leader/Elected Official” [PLEO] delegates and alternates to be selected by a vote of the members of the state Democratic Committee.
If there’s a “presidential primary” vote (as in 2004) the allocation of delegates begins above a 15% threshold. I believe this threshold is standard operating procedure from the Democratic National Committee. If a particular candidate gets above 15% of the vote then delegates at the congressional district, state at-large, and PLEO levels are allocated in rough proportion to their percentage.
Make no mistake county/township caucus or primary vote system to start, the real path to getting selected as a delegate means running a campaign and getting your supporters to show up. Individuals selected at the county level caucus (either initially for a caucus, or in the second step in the case of an actual presidential primary vote) are running a mini election campaign. You get selected by getting your supporters there and having them vote for you. The process is a little more complicated in the Kansas City and St. Louis urban areas because of the added township meeting process. I don’t have any direct experience with such.
If you have a significant record of showing up to do the grunt work of campaigning in your local area chances are a fair number of people in the process will support your quest to become a delegate. The odds become increasingly difficult the further along you go in the process – people with the votes will vote for the person they know with a record rather than a relative “newcomer” who makes a big deal about “crashing the gate.” Though, I have seen lightning strike in these processes. The first thing you’ve got to do is show up.
That would be Jeff Harris and his wife I believe.
Thanks for putting a picture of a real Democrat on your website instead of a johnny come lately who has voted across the board with Blunt.