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.
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