Dave Inbody: Our State Convention
Our
Democratic State Convention was one of the most trying political
experiences in which I have ever participated. It really
disturbed me to see those representing our nominee essentially
write-off 15% of the delegates present, until we pointed out the
inconsistencies in procedure, reached a critical mass and refused to
budge. We shouldn’t have had to go to those lengths. A memorable
moment for me occurred soon after we gathered for our spontaneous
caucus during the lunch period. When it became clear that this could be
a potential problem and tempers were beginning to rise, I approached a
Kerry supporter/party staffer, for whom I have great respect. Due
to the chaos during our gathering, I felt that we had not made our
points clearly and felt it necessary to reiterate them. Because I was
familiar with the work of this staffer, I felt I could appeal in the
name of unity in preparation for the fall.
I made the following points:
(1) The expanding mob of disgruntled people represents nearly 15% of the delegates present.
(2) We probably won't get enough people to be viable, since many had left out of frustration.
(3) The energy and dedication of these people will be critical this fall.
(4) Many
of the Dean and Kucinich supporters are first-time convention
attendees. What happens here could affect their opinion of the party
for many years.
(5) There has been bad blood between the Kerry and Dean groups for a long time and this was an opportunity to end it.
(6)
Regardless of the outcome of the recount, I suggested that the Kerry
group offer our "mob" at least one delegate and one alternate as a good
faith gesture.
I was
surprised to hear in response that the rules are the rules. Without 15%
we get no voice. It was time to join the Kerry group. There was
agreement between us that we needed to unify. Unfortunately,
unification meant assimilation to the staffer. To me, it meant
recognizing our differences and focusing on our shared goals. The
expectation was blind allegiance to one ideology.
My
request for a gesture in the name of the party, our success in the
fall, the future of the party, etc… fell flat. This made me feel
embarrassed of my party. I had the same feeling in my stomach as
I did when, in October 2002, I watching our federal officials stand up
in support of the invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act. This is
also the feeling I had when I heard Tom Harkin respond to a tearful
Wellstone staffer two weeks after the 2002 general election indicating
that the Senate Democrats supported the war to get it off the table
before the election. It was a feeling of total abandonment.
I lived
in Georgia for 7 years and experienced disappointment within my party
over and over again during that time. In Iowa it hurts more. It hurts
more because we should know better. I moved to Iowa because politics
here have a reputation for being fair and open. The politicians on both
sides are more civil than most places and the people are more
informed. This was not the Democratic Party I saw on Saturday.
My wife
and I went to see “Fahrenheit 9/11” yesterday to remind us why we need
to keep going. As much as I am disturbed by the actions of the Kerry
campaign, the present administration is still worse. I have not given
up on our party, but I know we have many problems that must be
addressed in order to win this fall. I will continue to give my
time to state legislative candidates in the hope that our future party
leaders will remain true to our party’s ideals.
Dave Inbody is a DFIA Founding Member and the creator and operator of Citizen Whip, a State PAC designed to help fund Democratic races for the Iowa Legislature through small donations over the Internet.
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Monday, June 28
Dave Inbody: Our State Convention
by
Linda Thieman
on Mon 28 Jun 2004 08:25 PM CDT
News & Notes from Das Vaterland
by
Linda Thieman
on Mon 28 Jun 2004 10:20 AM CDT
News & Notes from Das Vaterland
The Anti-Kerry Ad That "Makes Bush Look Like Hitler" There's an anti-Kerry ad up on georgewbush.com that is so odd, you really have to take a look at it. The ad, called "The Faces of John Kerry's Democratic Party," features Adolf Hitler alongside several Democrats, including Howard Dean, Al Gore, Michael Moore and John Kerry. The ad is really more bizarre than anything else. Reaction from the Dean bloggers the other day was mainly along the lines of, "It makes Bush look like Hitler." And it really does. The whole ad features one attack after another on Bush, with cuts from Hitler with his arm raised in the Nazi salute to Bush with his arm raised in a similar fashion. This supposed anti-Kerry ad does make Kerry look bad in one respect: it shows several dynamic and energizing snippets of Democratic speakers next to a clip of Kerry seeming rather bland and whiny. Frankly, I don't think that is quite the effect the Republicans were looking for. I just can't figure how the Bush campaign thinks that showing an entire ad focusing on valid criticisms of George W. Bush and a ridiculous line about optimism and progress at the end can really be that effective. Guess they are sending it out over the web to try to energize their demoralized base. Well, we can always invade Iran to try to cheer up the Bush supporters. View the ad for yourself here: http://www.georgewbush.com/ The Elephant in the Room AlterNet.org By describing various parts -- deregulation, media consolidation, pre-emptive war -- Americans fail to grasp the problem as a whole: failed conservative politics. Americans have been ignoring the elephant in the room. It's that huge thing that's in front of everyone, but that no one mentions by name. Most people can't see it, while others intentionally disregard it, but many people just have a hard time articulating what it is. Even its opponents direct little attention to the elephant itself; at best they tend to describe its various parts. Its ears are deregulation, its trunk trickle-down economics, its mouth media consolidation, its tail a pre-emptive war in Iraq, its legs record deficits, and its feet cutbacks in education, social security, America's safety net, even veterans' benefits. (more) Veep bleep: Cheney curses at Leahy on floor of Senate AZCentral.com I'm sure everyone has heard about this by now, but in case you've been out of the loop working on that monstrosity of a Democratic State Convention, here's the story about Dick Cheney cussing out Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Cursing on the Senate floor is forbidden, but since the Bush junta always seems to find a way around the rules they don't want to follow, they are grinning sheepishly and claiming the rules don't count since the Senate was not officially in session at the time. Heck, why not just do away with the Senate entirely? It would save so much time by bypassing all that messy business of approval for fascist judicial appointments who will gladly continue the gutting of the Constitution. Oh, I forgot. They're already doing that. Click here for the full story. What 'October Surprise' might be in store for Americans this fall? Citizen-Times.com Fast forward to mid-October. Bush continues to trail Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry in the presidential election polls, not so much because Kerry has electrified the American electorate, but because he's not Bush. Then it happens - the "October Surprise." The original "October Surprise" was allegedly carried out in 1980 by officials of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. Iranian militants had stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, taking approximately 66 American hostages. President Jimmy Carter's administration pursued the return of the hostages but had little success. Years later, former Carter administration staffer Gary Sick attributed Carter's setback in this matter to overtures made to the Iranian government by officials of the Reagan campaign. By encouraging the Iranians to continue holding the hostages beyond the November 1980 presidential election, the Reagan supporters believed that their candidate would have a much better opportunity to unseat Carter. Whether or not Reagan's entourage actually convinced the Iranians to withhold the release of the hostages is still rigorously disputed. What is beyond dispute, however, is that Iran released the remaining hostages on Jan. 20, 1981, immediately after Reagan took office. So if you were Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, and your candidate was slipping in the polls, what election strategy would you be cooking up right now? (Click here to read about the vast array of possibilities.)
Screw Thy Neighbor In The Name Of Party Unity: Politics As Usual At the Iowa Democratic State Convention
by
Linda Thieman
on Mon 28 Jun 2004 02:56 AM CDT
Screw Thy Neighbor In The Name Of Party Unity: Politics As Usual At the Iowa Democratic State Convention
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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