Random Thoughts On The TDP Convention

Sadly, I wasn’t able to blog much of the TDP convention on Saturday. Unlike last year when I blogged non-stop, pressing business as one of the seemingly 9.5 million delegates roaming around the Austin Convention Center (motto: “Function in no way inhibits form!”) kept me from the laptop on Saturday from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. when I was serving as one of the convention chair’s three appointees to the Resolutions Committee. Except for a few brief breaks and a recess to vote for state party chair, we were busy. When we finally adjourned around six, the thought of bringing out the laptop and blogging the remainder of the convention simply was not an inviting one.

With hindsight being 20/20, I do wish I had blogged–especially when word hit the convention floor that the caucuses of the At-Large Delegate Nominations Committee were meeting behind closed–nay, locked–doors. I did, media pass in hand, along with a reporter from the MSM, follow State Rep. Terri Hodge to where the locked-door meeting was. It had allegedly adjourned although I personally witnessed people leaving the locked-door room after this small group tried to gain access to it. There was something very un-kosher about locked-door meetings of the candidate caucuses of this committee we’ll no doubt hear more about in coming days.

I was also one of the at least 1,000 people crammed into the “well” of the convention center in front of the stage and around the microphones when the battle royal erupted about rejecting the committee’s report. And, for the record, there were a number of Clinton supporters–myself included–down there. Oddly enough, I found myself standing next to former Dallas City Councilman Al Lipscomb. In spite of Mr. Lipscomb’s legal troubles in the last decade, he is still a revered civil rights legend in Dallas. I introduced myself to him, which was interesting, given that for most of my life–even not living in Dallas–Al Lipscomb is always someone I’ve read about in the newspaper or seen on Dallas TV stations.

Additional ‘random thoughts:’ [With lots of tongue in cheek]

• Kirk Watson announcing that someone’s driver’s license had been found and was at the podium was quite possibly one of the funniest moments of the entire convention. Kudos to him, too, for hanging around the podium during “at ease” times to meet & greet and sign autographs. There were good-sized lines for that.
• Nobody–and I mean nobody–says the phrase, “Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry” quite like State Rep. Terri Hodge.
• How was it that the fire alarm was going off for almost 10 minutes before the people in the general session realized it was going off? Were the flashing strobe lights not a clue, or did the delegates just think that “Random Disco Inferno” had been added to the convention schedule? And why did almost no one actually evacuate the convention center who wasn’t in the main hall until the main hall evacuated? Is that hilarious or sad? I don’t know which.
• Walking up the escalators was faster than riding them. Slowest. Escalators. In. The. World.
• There were people wearing Sherrie Matula shirts everywhere.
• The six dollar sandwiches were the most awful food products I’ve ever consumed in my life. In. My. Life.
• A certain blogger was not rebuffed by Chelsea Clinton’s handlers while taking photos, but other bloggers were….not to those bloggers (they know who they are), it was the Clinton tee-shirt.
• I never did find that VIP room with the $10,000 worth of booze people were complaining about after an SDEC meeting some months ago (although I was later told where it was). I wanted to find it because I don’t think I’ve ever seen $10,000 worth of booze outside a liquor store.
• Lyndon LaRouche’s supporters were not as aggressive as they were in 2004 or 2006.
• There were less “random encounters” with VIP’s walking the convention halls than in years past. In ‘04, I seem to remember running into or walking very near the likes of everyone from Dennis Kucinich to Tony Sanchez. This year, the convention center layout was so bizarre there weren’t too many VIP run-ins, or so it seems.
• I had forgotten how tall Molly Beth Malcom was.
• The beach balls were a nice touch. Random, but a nice touch.
• Where did everyone go? On Friday night, there was a mass of people as far as the eye could see from the front of the room. On Saturday, it had decreased by well more than half. I guess those “guest passes” really went down in stock.
• Caucusing in the catacombs. I actually participated in a caucus held in the “catacombs”/service area of the convention center.
• How did a bunch of elderly ladies get press passes? On Friday night sitting in the press area, one minute it is, well, press, and the next minute there are at least a dozen elderly ladies (and a few elderly gentlemen) sitting with us wearing green press credentials. What was up with that? AARP Magazine must have been covering the convention in full force.
• Carolyn Barta is cool. The former op-ed columnist (and editor at large of some variety, if I remember correctly) of the Dallas Morning News was covering the convention for Dallas Blog; she came to the Blogger’s Caucus. I read Carolyn’s work in high school and college and it was great fun to meet her (of course, I also read her at Dallas Blog).
• All of the “rumors” of fights, near fights, and one actual fight I am aware of was unprecedented.
• Half of the convention, at any one moment, was in the bar at the Hilton. Another quarter was outside smoking.
• There was seriously a resolution before the Resolutions Committee to allow the party to “discipline” elected officials for various actions, including taking money and voting for Tom Craddick. Anticipating the floor fight that would have caused, it was tabled.
• The entire Resolutions Committee being called “sons a’ bitches” (and more) by a man who was in the audience supporting an impeachment resolution (twice).
• Whatever came of the remaining 20 challenges to SD and county delegations that were supposed to go before the Credentials Committee? Did the Credentials Fairy magically fix those, because I heard not a word.
• How long did the Blogger’s Caucus last? I left well after midnight and it was still going strong….
• Oh, and, before I forget, “McBlogger is a Douchebag.” I and another blogger (who shall remain nameless) decided that should be blogged somewhere because McBlogger wasn’t in the convention hall being tortured with the rest of us at 8 p.m. on Saturday night as we waited for the Nominations Committee (Secret) Meeting (Behind Locked Doors) That Never Ends to adjourn and return from Narnia through the Magical Wardrobe across the Yellow Brick Road by way of east Nebraska riding very slow and lethargic donkeys. Since she didn’t blog it, I will. Of course, McBlogger had the nerve to call me a “whore” in a text message because I evidently walked passed him somewhere without even noticing he was there, which is the ultimate sin in the Blogosphere. Sorry, McB! I didn’t see you and was probably looking for someone else.
• What ever happened to the “super secret Clinton Delegates Luncheon?” There was a lot of pre-convention buzz about this, but it never materialized, as far as I know. How sad. I really wanted to eat rubber chicken in a hotel ballroom listening to Garry Mauro and Sheila Jackson Lee. I know those bean and cheese burritos under a tent weren’t the extent of what all this was about….or were they? Conspiracy! As soon as I heard rumors of this Wednesday, I texted everyone I knew and now they think I am an idiot. But I read about it in an email forward, so I know it was TRUE.
• “No, you cannot amend the Platform from the floor.” You can’t amend anything from the floor! What do you think this is, a deliberative body? The Texas Legislature? A Women’s Quilting Circle?
• People running for Platform, Resolutions, and Credentials Committees and having not a clue about what those committees really do. “Platform, I wanna be on Platform! I nominate myself to be on Platform!” Did they think the Platform Committee was a bunch of people who get to sit on the physical platform of the convention? Do that many people want to ogle our state representatives from behind? And, in one senate district that shall remain nameless, a longtime Libertarian (gasp!) was elected to Credentials. Ron Paul, having failed to create a “revolution” in the Republican Party, has infiltrated ours! Nooooooooooooooooooo!
• Why did no one at the mics think of attempting to use a “motion to recommit” on the At-Large Nominations Committee Report to send back to the committee? And, failing that, a motion to suspend all necessary rules to make way for a motion to recommit the report….wonder if that would have worked? Any parliamentarians out there want to take a crack at that? I was really hoping someone would get to the mics and make a bunch of bizarre motions just to confuse the poor parliamentarian, who had probably been up there since 11 a.m. “Mr. Chairman, I move that we do now suspend all necessary rules to rescind the ratification of the report that named the officers of the convention.” Or, how about, “Mr. Chairman, I move we reconsider the resolution we passed five hours ago on student loans.”
• Did anyone walk less than 14.5 miles inside the convention center? Just to find a bathroom and elevator?
• By 2:30, the only flavor of potato chips left anywhere in the Austin Convention Center were “Salt and Vinegar.” Kind of like the tears most people wanted to shed because their feet hurt so damned bad from trying to find Ballroom D-9.281, Level IV, Catacomb 9, just past Stairwell 298-C, behind the only elevator in the damned place next to Exhibit Hall 5-C(f)(9)(vii) where the Suburban Caucus Of Lawn Nome Owning Non-GLBT Democrats was held, which was immediately adjacent to a stairwell to take you to the same room one floor down where the Suburban Caucus of Lawn Nome Owning GLBT Democrats was being held, none of which were farther away from anything except the media room and the room where–get this–the caucus for Democrats with Disabilities was held. Irony of ironies that the DwD caucus was held farther away from the “action” than anything else. Seriously, did people think, “hell, those people are in wheelchairs, it’ll be easier for them to get to?”
• I never want to see a red, white, and blue curtain in MY LIFE.
• Why did NO ONE blog about the fact that part of the “set” (i.e. the black curtains) collapsed during the Friday night program?
• Thank God whoever drove Chelsea Clinton into the convention center was sober. Seriously, a caravan of vehicles was parked right on the other side of the stage past the curtain. One too many martinis for some driver and the media area would have been blogging on (or under) a Lincoln Town Car.
• The “I Love Pro Choice Girls/Boys” buttons handed out by Planned Parenthood were the best buttons of the entire convention, although I saw several Democrats giving that booth a disapproving look every time someone yanked up a big bunch of colored condoms to hand out. I was so totally waiting for some nearsighted individual to come over and ask for a handful of LifeSavers.
• Centerpoint Energy had a booth at the TDP convention. Seriously, the people behind the booth totally convinced me that gas hot water heaters are better.
• The Texas Association of Realtors had a sign to the side of the convention stage. I laughed.
• Why was it that every other blogger who took photos of the Jumbotrons had better photos of the Jumbotrons than I did? My Jumbotron photos sucked. Also, does no one realize that nobody looks good on a Jumbotron? Even if you only have one chin, you look like you have nine.

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