Delaware Democratic Convention Wrap-Up: Delegate’s View

Well, I’m back from the Delaware Democratic convention. It was an interesting time. A little more chaotic than I expected, but really no fireworks. The atmosphere pre-convention was really quite intense, with delegates really getting lobbied on the leadership race. I felt like I wanted to hide for a while, really. Here are the outcomes:

State Party Chair: John Daniello
John Daniello won the state chairmanship pretty decisively, although I didn’t think his disorganized speech helped him any. He also seemed confused on what to do and in what order. Isn’t he supposed to have done this before? There was a really classy nomination speech by Brian McGlinchey. I didn’t really hear any concessions from Daniello on the things he was criticized about, but the feeling of a lot of delegates is that we have gained some leverage over Daniello. I guess only time will tell. I met with McGlinchey before the convention started and I must say he was very impressive. I hope he can have a positive influence on the party moving forward.

Vice Chair (Female): Harriet Smith Windsor
I thought she gave a really good speech. She had a funny story about her son – when a group of kids were asked their religion, he said “Democrat.” Very cute.

Vice Chair (Male): Jim Hussey
He also gave a good speech.

Secretary: Margaret Rose Henry
Treasurer: Helene Keeley
Both gave good speeches

National Committeewoman: Karen Valentine
National Committeeman: Bob Gilligan
I thought Gilligan was excellent in the speechifying department. He told a story about his mother, and how she cried when Eisenhower was elected.

Platform: The platform was adopted with a provision that the committee stay organized and continue working on the document after the end of the legislative session. There was some contention: one of the men who served on the committee said he did not agree with the platform (the platform was adopted by a majority vote of the platform committee), and I’m not clear what he wanted – a convention fight on the platform? It wasn’t clear what his issue with the platform was, but in the meeting he had issues with some of the language around equality, especially relating to GLBT. Two other people spoke about equality, wishing to be recognized fully. They were basically calling to task inaction on the gay rights equality front. I hope these people will participate in the platform committee once it begins meeting again.

Resolutions: Three resolutions were adopted: one on looking at the state rules, one supporting EFCA, and one supporting investigation into torture (written by your humble blogger). There was no discussion of the resolutions, so I’m really not sure what one would do if they don’t support them – I suppose they would have to lobby the resolutions committee before the convention.

Speeches: Markell gave a really good speech. It was very supportive of the party and how far it’s come since he started. He gave a really classy tribute to John Carney, and Carney got a standing ovation. He also gave a nice tribute to Matt Denn and pretty much every elected Democratic official (no mention of KWS, though). Markell mentioned Castle and Wagner by name, and said they must be getting pretty nervous.

Carper tried to be funny, but I found it sort of painful. He got laughs, though. He spoke about a million miles an hour, and pretty much gave the history of Tom Carper. This is the second speech I’ve seen by Tom Carper, and I wasn’t impressed by either one. Carper also talked about the stimulus and the bank bailouts. The taxpayers are going to make all this money out of them (eventually), according to Carper. Has he been getting some heat about them or something? It just seemed a strange time to talk about them. Isn’t he in front of friends? He also implied strongly that Beau Biden would be running for Senate.

Kaufman gave a very warm speech. It sounds like he’s just honored to serve. Senator Kaufman also spoke very movingly about the Lily Ledbetter Act. I was impressed and I would definitely vote for him. Can we convince him to run for the final four years of Biden’s term?

Since I was expecting fireworks, the actual voting was anti-climactic. The tone of the convention was celebration of how far we’ve come but how much more work we need to do. It was fun to be a delegate because of an actual leadership race made you feel like a bit of a mover and shaker. Quite a few people also said they might start checking out the blog, there was some interest in me and my laptop (like I said, it’s hard to be inconspicuous with a laptop). Apparently, I’m not good at camouflage. Oh, and at least a few people think I’m a troublemaker (I helped add some language to the platform about gender identity and expression), but they said it kind of affectionately (here’s hoping, anyway). I also met Ken Matlusky, he’s a DL fan!