DAY TWO - LABOR DAY SEPTEMBER 3rd

    Day Two began, as all of the rest of the days will, with our delegation breakfast.  Each day we have to pick up our delegate credentials.  With out this bar coded document, you get to go to no events nor do you get to go on any official transport.   Mind you, this is the latest we will get to sleep.  All of the other ones, the buses will leave at 7:00 AM.

    The breakfast is a chance to get everyone (200+ people)  together (a logistical nightmare that resulted in a group of us having to wait for a second round of buses 15 minutes later), fire us up and share info.  The info sharing comes from Chairman Chris Redfern, CEO Bill Demora (and if you meet him, thank him for all of us, organizing this chaos alone should get him
into Heaven), and an army of staff.

    Being Labor Day, and us being Democrats, our breakfast was a Salute to Labor.  And we had some great labor speakers.  Lee Saunders is the head of AFSCME, and brought down the house.  My favorite line was "We are not a you're on your own nation, we are a we are all in this together nation.  This is our country. This is the America we are fighting for."Then again, he had help, an invisible Clint Eastwood sitting next to him.

    Melissa Cropper, who I met the night before, is a teacher who is now the head of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.  She brought down the house with a great speech on teachers and education.  But she also reminded us all about the health of all women.

    We then had Governor O'Malley of Maryland come and get the crowd fired up about not only re-electing The President but about transforming Congress.  I wonder why, as a staff member of a Congressional Challenger, my friend Angela Zimmann, would find this inspiring and all? (Sarcasm hand in the air)

    Despite being a labor show, with too many great speakers to list, two non-union leaders stole the show.  The concept of early voting in Ohio was an idea, mostly created by Republicans (I give credit where credit is due) in response to the disaster that was the 2004 election in Ohio, especially the long lines.  But now, some of it's creators are trying to curtail it, especially Secretary of State Jon Husted.


    The Montgomery County Board of Elections two Democratic Members,  Thomas Ritchie and Dennis Lieberman stood up for the idea of night & weekend voting.  Now, I know what some are going to say, why can't people vote during working hours?  Well, not everyone is allowed to leave work during normal business hours.  Others can't afford to clock out.  We all supposedly want as many people to vote as possible, right? Right?!?!?!?

    Early  voting was a huge success in 2008.  Nearly 1/3 of early voting was the weekend before the election.  So Boards of Elections, who universally say they have money, they've made the plans, Secretary of State Husted said no.  He ordered boards to not offer it.

    When their board did, he fired them.  They gave up good paying jobs to stand on principal.    Dennis Lieberman said that they we're not heroes.  He spoke of those who fought  WW II, those who fought for collective bargaining rights despite physical attacks,  and those who fought for civil rights as heroes.  He said , that they just stood up for what is right.  He finished with, " I can get another job, I can't get another conscience". Dennis, on behalf of Kurt Young, that is what heroes do, they keep doing their job when others quit.

    After breakfast, I decide to lay low.  So I went back to the hotel, rather than join the fun downtown.   There was a great downtown festival, Carolina Fest going on.  But I decided to catch up on internet work, making sure I had a plan for the rest of the week, etc.

    We had armed security everywhere, especially at the hotels we stayed at.  When I came into the lobby of our hotel, one of the police officers asked me for a political pin.  I gave him a Buckeye state pin Kelly Wicks made for me to trade.  He was grateful to us for standing up for police officers in Ohio with last year’s Issue Two/the overturning of Senate Bill 5.  I thanked him for keeping us safe. Another hero thinking we were heroes for simply doing the right thing, with no personal risk to ourselves. 

    After a few hours of laying low, I went across the six lane street separating our two hotels (hey what’s a forty second jog)  and off to the daily “Lemonade Stand” at our other hotel. Sadly, no form of Lemonade, even Lynchburg, was served.  But I did get to have a creation of theirs called a Charlotteini.  Like the Obamaritas my friends at the Lucas County Young Democrats created at the Attic Bar. 

    On  the way out the door, a small group of young people, working for CNN, got me to download an app for my Iphone.  I’ve never been hit up to download an app, by a group of Evangelical Christians, in a hotel parking lot before.  Sadly, not very impressive app, but it was a first.

    At night, we were off  to the NASCAR Hall of Fame for another welcome party.  In case you don’t know, one of NASCAR’s founders is a huge Democrat and they opened up the Hall of Fame to multiple events during the week.  Mind you, Fox News used it for an HQ as well.  What made me laugh hysterically is that the same stage they used in prime time daily was used during the day for Planned Parenthood rallies and concerts.  I wonder if they had a exorcism performed each day, or what. 

    The event was called Light Up the Night.  We got free run of the HOF including getting to play with all of the exhibits.  I got to do a pit stop, qualify, and wave the checkered flag.  I got to hang out with some great folks, including one of my usual “dates” of the week Sandra Wise and we added Yvette Miller, Cincinnati Councilwoman and her colleague Lauren Seifer, who was originally from Walbridge.   Sandra and I had some fun having a talk with Invisible Clint Eastwood, fresh from his appearance at last week’s Republican National Convention.  We also ran into Invisible Bob Lattta, who was his usual talkative self.

    The entertainment was kicked off by Nick Cannon, and no, he didn’t bring the wife, on DJ duty.  As he was leaving I did get to shake his hand and get a little shout out for Team Angela Zimmann.  Later we were supposed to have a concert by John Legend.  However as the first bus back to the hotel was leaving between 10:45 and 11 and would get me back to the hotel at 11:30 for a 5:30 AM wake-up call, I decided to take up Wade Kapszukiewicz’s advice and go to the bus, abandoning poor Sandra and missing John Legend in the process.  Wade dazzled a group of delegates from our neighboring state, not in geography but at hotels and breakfast, Tennessee.  I managed to get my law fraternity brother Ed Anderson a button from them, by doing a little horse trading (hopefully he’s gotten this by now and I didn’t just spoil the surprise).  And then rescued them from Wade being a numbers geek, a good trait in a treasurer I think, and say that Yes, yes we think we’re going to win this year for the President.  Then it was off to dream land to get ready for the first official day of the Convention. 

DNC Day One - Sunday September 2nd

    The Adventure began Saturday as I ran all over Toledo trying to get ready.  Yes, that’s right, imagine that.  I was not ready to go in advance.  Can’t imagine why?  Oh, wait, Husband, Father, Lawyer, General Counsel to a Congressional Campaign Church Marketing Guy, yadda, yadda, yadda.  After running all over town, I packed up, after first deciding it was a good idea to hurt a toe (Sarcasm hand way up in the air), and headed off to Columbus.   I went down the night before as the bus pickup spot was in suburban Columbus and the departure time was 8 AM at the latest.  

    The experience with the bus was fantastic.  First, understand this was not a school bus.  They got us a great charter bus with a great driver, TV’s and WiFi.  My daughter will be jealous as we got to watch her current favorite movie.  As I went to get onboard, I ran into my fellow delegate and friend Lauren, who is the Communications Director at Equality Ohio and professional blogger, and her partner Shannon.  We left Shannon behind, but I knew I would have one friendly face. 

    Then I ran into multiple ODP staffers I knew, including Lauren Harmon, but started making new friends as well.  The woman sitting behind me was Sandra Wise, a State Central Committeewoman and Member of the Sandusky County Board of Elections, who with her husband, has done some farming.  Across the way was State Central Committeeman Dick Kerns, a former millwright, and his wife from Urbana. As the trip went on, I might more new friends including Lupe Williams from Wooster via Puerto Rico, where I spent a few years of my life in the mid 1970's.   Jake Young, no relation, and Kevin Bloomfield were on the bus as well.  Kevin is the youngest member of our delegation, at age 19 and Jake turned 21 just in time for the fun.

    As Will Rogers said “I am not a member of an organized party, I’m a Democrat”.  Well, we were somewhat organized.  Our bus hit the parking lot at our hotel, followed within 2 minutes by the buses from Cleveland and Dayton.  Luckily I beat the half of our delegation that is staying at my hotel to the front desk and delegate check in and managed to unpack, freshen up and head downstairs to start rounding up our Northwest Ohio People for Angela Zimmann, whose campaign I’m working for.

    After working the room for Angela, we boarded buses that were over an hour late (yes, we are Democrats after all) for a party at the Mint Museum.   I had the good luck to land next to fellow Lucas County Delegate Wade Kapszukiewicz, who is our County Treasurer, the man who led that caucus I was elected at, and more importantly a fellow parent at my son’s school and had a great ride Uptown (the locals call Downtown, Uptown as it is on higher ground) talking the changing demographics of the country and voter suppression.  I’m an expert at countering the later, but only knew a few things our treasurer did not and believe me, I learned much.

    When we got there, and here’s that disorganized thing again, we got horrible directions (just because they have vest and T-Shirt with the right logo on it doesn’t mean they know where they are sending you was the lesson of the day), but we did get to the party eventually.  The Mint Museum is incredible.  It has a great mix of art and they were great hosts.  There was a photo both for us to pose with silly convention type props and I got a great picture with me, Lauren and Sandra, wearing silly hats, glasses (Bootsy Collins has noting on my glasses), etc.   There was great food, fun entertainment and Democrats from about 8 states enjoying each other's company.

    On the way back, we ran into Mayor Mark Mallory of Cincinnati.  Mark is famous not only for being a good mayor, but for throwing a horrible first pitch (didn’t bring that up) and being a guest on “Undercover Boss”.  The group of us asked him about the great dreadlocks wig he wore in part of the episode, but sadly, he doesn’t have it.  Mayor Mallory agreed to pose for the picture (attached) with former State Senator, current City Councilman and fellow CWRU law alum Jeff Johnson acting as cameraman.  I also got to meet Delegate Melissa Cropper who is the new head of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.    

    Mind you, I missed another great experience to get the picture with Mayor Mallory.  I split up from Sandra and Lauren and Lauren ran into MSNBC Host Melissa Harris-Perry at our next stop, the other hotel for our delegation (keeping this vague for security, as they are concerned enough to have armed security with us).  But, my consolation prize was getting to hang out with my friend Mike Zickar who is Wood County Party Chair. There we got to talk to my fellow Methodist "Preacher’s Wife" (Cheri hates that joke), former first lady of Ohio Frances Strickland and of course she brought her husband along for the ride.

    After writing out some notes so I can type this up tomorrow, I was happy to call it a great night on Day One of the adventure.  More tomorrow (these will probably run a day behind as I want to get all of the events of the day and thanks for cyber tuning in.

Final Preparations for Charlotte.

    It’s finally here.  After months of preparations, I’m on the way to Charlotte.  First, thank you to the many people who got me here.  To my family, from my Mother & Mother in Law who’ve given me money to get here and my wife and children who have put up with my absences to get me down here.  Also, to my friends and fellow Democrats who voted for me at the Caucus back at the UAW hall earlier this year, including my friendly competitor Adrienne Hines who drove in from Cattawba Island & Bill Takacs who brought major portions of his firm, and my other friend and Congressional Candidate Angela Zimmann, who against the advice of me and the rest of her team came to campaign and vote for me rather than campaign for herself at her new caucus. 

    For those of you who don’t know, the Delegation selection process is a complicated one.  First, you have to declare your candidacy and pick a Presidential Candidate you want to support.  This year, as a Democrat, the later was an easy decision, we only had one. You then complete a candidate bio and agree to vote for the President if you are elected.  At that point, you wait for the caucus. 

    As you may know, the Constitution calls for us to count our numbers every Ten years in a census and then divide up the representation in Congress by this.  Well, needless to say, the state of Ohio has shrunk, relative to the rest of the country, in numbers.  So, we lost two seats in Congress.  We then had to re-draw the lines for Congress in Ohio.  We’ll talk about that flawed process another day.  But for the purposes of this convention, we used the old lines. 

    So, earlier this year, a group of hopeful men and women assembled together in the old 9th Congressional District.  There were more men’s seats available then women, but we went first.  The objective is simple, you go and get as many votes as you can and the top X vote getters go. 

    Thankfully, I kinda of have a degree in this stuff and also had the resources left over from running, as a sacrificial lamb for state representative (now folks say getting 30% of the vote doesn’t make you a sacrificial lamb, but as the objective was to get as many votes as I could and make my opponent spend six figures pummeling me, rather than winning, I call myself one).  That plus an industrious spouse and daughter meant I was the only caucus candidate with stickers
    So, my merry band, which included my wife, my daughter, her friends, my friends and new allies worked the crowd.  And, what do you know, I made the cut. Now, they didn’t give us the numbers, but they announced the margin was 1 vote for the last one to make it.  They also announced the names with mine last.  Now, it may have been alphabetically, or it may be I was the last one to make it.  Either way, I made it thanks to all of these folks

    From there, we’ve had several meetings to get us organized and trained.  Trained you say?  Well, we’re going to be in buildings that will house, at various times,  ½ the Senate, ½ the House of Representatives, about ½ the Governors, the President and the Vice President.  So logistics and security are a nightmare.  Also, thousands of dollars in costs come next.  No, not a charge from the party, but the costs of getting to Charlotte, staying there, etc.   The airlines, the hotels, etc saw us coming.  The last I checked Priceline, the Motel 6 people would have left the light on for you for the cheap price of $350-500 per night.  The hotel where half our delegation is staying has a breakfast buffet they could feed us, so we could do our required meeting, etc. but they wanted $50 per person. Yes, $50 per person per day.  Yikes. 

    But $1,500 in costs plus later, and months of effort later, I’m headed off to Charlotte.  More from North Carolina. 

Blogger, Begin Again

Alright, I surrender, I'm back on my own blog.  I blog weekly on The Village Church's blog site, but have done NOTHING with this blog in nearly 4 years.  Why?  Because I could not imagine a world where anyone cared what I said on squat.  But, as I get more and more active in politics again and have more and more interesting experiences, I'm back.  For example, right now, I'm down at the Democratic National Convention at Charlotte.  So, hopefully you'll enjoy this one now that it is reborn.  If not, well, . . . I'm back anyway.