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.