by Dave Inbody
After a long day of rule-breaking and forced “party unity” courtesy of low-level staffers and a few zealots from the Kerry Kamp, the Dean delegation to the Iowa Democratic State Convention emerged angry, frustrated, disgusted and yet somewhat victorious.
In an up-and-down day, mostly down, a small group of devoted, mainly Des Moines-area Dean delegates stayed and caucused until almost 3am to help push two of our own to victory.
We were successful in securing the GLBT (Kerry) spot for Christina Butts and the Hispanic (Kerry) spot for Araceli Goode. Our congratulations to these two hard-working and deserving Dean supporters.
We were also able to get a progressive platform passed. Whereas it is true that progressives are a minority in the Iowa Democratic Party, we are a very large minority, according to Platform Committee member and DFIA Founding Member, Phil Specht of McGregor.
But, in a year when party unity is, in reality, spelled “hold your nose and vote for Kerry,” in a year when so many of the most energetic party activists support Howard Dean because of his common sense, his straight talk and his unassailable integrity, it is a real shame that some in the Kerry Kamp were responsible for so many dirty convention tricks or so much just plain incompetence. This behavior did much more than serve up a heaping helping of ill will amongst the Dean crowd, a motivated, hard-working group of activists that the Kerry Kamp still can’t seem to understand is worthy of reaching out to, a group that absolutely and without question is incapable of automatically falling in line behind a candidate they do not respect.
Here is just a sampling of what went on:
1) Several Dean delegates to the State Convention never received their convention booklets, thereby blocking their participation;
2) The announcement for the “unviable” Dean, Kucinich, and uncommitted groups to realign came at the lunch break and while the other caucuses (GLBT, Asian, Hispanic, Youth, etc.) were meeting;
3) The rules for realignment were misstated. According to Specht, who helped write these rules that were intended to protect minority delegations from this very thing, the basic rule is that you have time to caucus while the convention is doing non-voting business and an additional re-alignment period to become viable if you are not. But, according to other Dean delegates at the convention, Edwards released his delegates and he told them to go to Kerry. That was interpreted as you HAVE to go to Kerry. Some were angered about him releasing the delegates, and wanted to switch to another candidate – like Dean – but weren’t allowed to change from the Kerry Kamp they had been railroaded into (because Kerry was the only viable group, and after the first realignment you can’t switch out of a viable group). Even after this mistake was exposed by consulting the rules, the situation was not remedied. The misstatement of the rules for realignment was a huge breach of protocol being as the Dean group was so very close to being viable and a shift of just 15 or so delegates out of over 1200, if it had been permitted as should have been allowed and as was written in the rules, would have garnered the Dean group another delegate;
4) In that huge crowd of over 1200 people, delegates were never called to caucus separately for their candidates, creating chaos and calling into question actual delegate totals. This worked to the advantage of the Democratic party leaders who were insisting on “unity”;
5) Delegates who protested the breach in the rules of alignment were told that following the rules of alignment was a waste of time;
6) Objections were overruled when rules were broken by the people in charge of the process of realignment;
7) According to one Dean delegate, approximately 39% of convention attendees were disenfranchised. Delegates were denied extensions of time after more mistakes were made by the people in charge and then the chair announced, because 400 people were downstairs trying to resolve the problems though time was out, that it was acceptable and of no concern whatsoever that those people didn’t have the right to voice their vote for an extension. Then, after being denied an
extension of time to straighten things out, delegates were granted another 10 minutes to change their votes to Kerry (but not to any other candidate). At this point, another woman came down with a taped recording of the floor vote that said delegates were to be allowed time to realign for ANYONE they wanted, but again delegates were denied this right by those in charge;
8) While those hundreds of progressives were being disenfranchised downstairs, one of our own came just a few votes short of being elected to the DNC.
As one Dean delegate put it after the convention, the “Dean people fought valiantly against a stacked deck.”
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I was so disheartened after we failed to be viable, that I left at about 5PM. Sorry I wasn't there to help with the fight until the end. Congratulations to our delegates who won the right to go to Boston.
I think unity is a valuable goal, but I think the Kerry delegation adopted a way of getting it that promoted the opposite. People are likely to come on board with an approach if they feel they have been heard, and that the “majority” has made some changes to accommodate the “minority.” The Kerry delegation didn't do that.
I understand that the Kerry delegation created a “balanced” slate that included union representation and also some folks who supported Dean at the caucus. But, in asking us to accept their slate, they were saying that we could not ourselves choose those who would represent us. The standard practice is for there to be negotiation and compromise at conventions, and for the Democratic Party to have a big tent. I think what happened at the Iowa Convention is a regrettable move away from these time-honored practices.
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I was at the convention until after its bitter end. When I walked out it was nearly 4 am. In my opinion, what started the disintegration of this convention was that after the quorum had been officially reached, some business ought to have occurred. Namely, debating and deciding on the proposed Iowa Democratic Party constitutional changes because that business needed to be done before breaking into the special caucuses at noon as required by the IDP constitution. So if that meant that some of the speakers would have to wait, then so be it. But apparently the leadership of the convention was more worried about the personal schedules of the speakers than moving the convention along as it should have. What ended up happening is that people went off to their various caucuses before the convention officially recessed for lunch and as a result some confusion began that started to snowball. The chair should have used his authority and officially broke the convention into preference groups. I believe that would have helped eliminate the confusion that was happening and gotten the convention back on track.
But this is now past us, we must look forward. One thing that we can all do is become involved on the various convention committees in two years. That means going to the
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I couldn't make it to the State Convention. I could however make it to the District Convention for the 2nd District. It does not surprise me what happened at the State Convention. I was royally screwed. I was given 2 different kinds of voting ballots. I used one type of ballot and was told later on that every vote I had cast did not count. The district ballots were conveniently “hid” inside of a letter that was in my convention kit. I'm all for party unity. However when people “must” be screwed over for that goal, that to me speaks of party dis-unity. After reading about the state convention I am more than pissed-off. Hopefully it won't be like this at national. However I am pessimistic.
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You confuse the typical IDP lack of coordination and intelligence with a conspiracy against Deaniacs. I walked out of the '96 convention at 7 PM – and I had been eleceted a national delegate! It's too bad one of your folks didin't get their packet – the better question is: why didin't all delegates get their packets? Ususally it's because the nice volunteers that run the district conventions don't fill in the forms correctly, or inadvertantly miss a name when they submit them to Des Moines. Lets face it – it's far more likely that a Kerry delegate was left out than a Dean deleate – there were lots more of them!
In my 30+ years experience, the good folks running the various conventions are all grass-roots volunteers who want EVERYONE to participate. Some are brand-new to the process and don't always get everthing right.
Whether you or I like the winning Democrat, we have a viable alternative to Bush. Suck it up and get with the program.
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Then, let us start by taking a deep breath and reevaluating what transpired so that no one is excluded in the future by either not receiving a booklet, or by not obtaining the correct ballots. Those who were called to caucus at 12:30 pm such as GLTB and others were unable to be part of the “unviable” DEAN, Kucinich, or uncommitted groups which were left to their own devices and not “technically” called to caucus, but had to fend for themselves by congregating in the south hallway by room “H”. So we in the DEAN group and other “unviable” sectors were not allowed to go to a specificed room to “realign” or select a representative as is stated in the rules…Instead, as we were trying to sort thing out, someone named polly came from the keri group to tell us we should show unity…The first question to her was whether she was the “official” spokesperson from her group…She replied she was not….Let me tell you, this will not happen again…Change will occur from the inside…Remember GOVEROR HOWARD DEAN'S message of HOPE and that we can continue to DARE TO DREAM.
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I have been out of state so I am a bit behind of all this. I had heard last week about the “slate”. So how many of the people on the national delegate slate are members of the the State Central Committee? I suspect there is where you may find your answers as to why and what went on. I don't believe this was a battle of Kerry supporters v. Dean Supporters….I would guess its much like what occurred in District 4…..party insiders who have ran the show for years v. new blood/outsiders.
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BTW, congrats Christina!! So are you and I the only GLBT delegates from Iowa?
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Rmullin – I have to agree with you. I was part of the Edwards delegation, which probably created most of the confusion in the first place since John Edwards himself told the chairs to “Realign with Kerry”, which caused a near-riot.
But, the confusion was not some grand conspiracy to disenfranchise people, it was the result of a convention being largely run by volunteers who don't always have a firm grip on “who's in charge” – and that's true for any one of the delegation groups.
This convention also highlighted why I will never, never, never, eeeeeever volunteer to be part of the rules or credentials committee. Those folks were unfairly catching a lot of flak from folks that were more determined to protest than be helpful.
The odd part is that I completely lost interest in the presidential race long before the convention – I was there to get geared up for the Iowa congressional delegation and Iowa Legislature races. The IDP has put together a fantastic slate of candidates for the U.S. Congress and the local legislature. I'm actually far more excited about these folks (in particular Johnson, Schulte and now, Art Small) that I was with the “premier” speakers.
My advice to everyone involved – stick around. With a little experience, a little volunteering and some patience, these things will get better. You also have to remember – this was the first caucus that the majority of delegates attended where there were actually candidates to position for delegates. From my own experience (not at state level, I suppose), 92 was Harkin, 96 was Clinton, and I missed out on 2000. (I was in Minnesota). This time, there were probably three groups that had a shot at viability, had the Edwards group not dissolved into chaos. (Likely a result of Edwards himself being there, unfortunately.)
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I don't know, but it seems awfully like a conspiracy when the minority (“unviable” Dean/Kucinich/uncommitted) group is in another room while the rest of the convention (Kerry/Edwards) votes to not allow us to realign.
People, perception is key in communication and interpersonal relations and, sadly, the perception that 15% of convention goers have from Saturday is very negative against the Kerry group, the state party and possibly the candidate (Kerry) himself.
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I did catch some flak for being on the rules committee, but overall it was a good experience. I had never been on a rules committee for any convention before this year and I learned some very valuable lessons from it. The only way to get the rules changed is to become involved in helping make and write the rules.
I will volunteer again in two years to be on the rules committee, and I encourage everyone who reads this blog to get involved so we can effect change.
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Kevin – thanks for your efforts. The Rules and Credentials folks, from what I observed, seemed to take a lot more heat than they fairly deserved.
Actually, your comments apply to the platform committee as well – the best way to get involved in writing the platform is to be part of the platform committee. At the State Convention, there isn't a lot to be debated. (Or at least that's the way we voted, although I think a lot of people simply marked 'yes' on everything – which was somewhat funny, considering the plank we had to discuss that was an 'either-or' proposition…)
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All of the committees are important to running the convention as well as the party. Whether it be arrangements, platform, rules, or credentials, we need them all to make the convention work. Serving on any of them is a way to help out and learn alot about how the Democratic party operates.
I agree that it was somewhat humorous that people marked those two planks yes, if they would have actually read the planks they would have realized that they couldn't possibly have both planks in the platform. But I think quite a few people gave up reading the platform after the first few planks and decided that they would agree with everything.
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