Blue Votes for a Red State: A Convention Primer 

          Be prepared. 

          I violated the most basic of Boy Scout tenets last weekend in

 Sheridan, Wyo. I ventured unprepared into my first state political

 convention. Long-time Wyoming Democrats took me to school, taught

 me some valuable lessons about party politics. So here’s a short primer

 for political novices, especially those old enough to know better. 

          Lesson No. 1: T-shirts don’t win delegates.

          I sported the only Dennis Kucinich T-shirt on the convention floor. It’s a nice-looking shirt, red and white and blue all over. Another Kucinich delegate, Nancy Bland from Casper, gave me a Kucinich button, big as a bar coaster, that featured the former Cleveland boy mayor’s smiling face. Official credentials swayed from my neck. In my heart, I knew Dennis was right (or left, depending on your p.o.v.)

          My accoutrements had little impact on convention proceedings. I looked like a conventioneer, but that didn’t seem to conjure delegates. At a reception at King’s Ropes and Saddlery the night before, I met up with a woman from Laramie who was working the crowd for Kucinich. She explained to me that we needed 15 percent of the delegate vote to get one delegate for Mr. K. from Wyoming to the national convention in Boston.

          How tough could that be? I helped her work the crowd for awhile. Delegates from Rock Springs and Jackson and Torrington listened politely but made no commitments. I ran into some Deanies, who supposedly were ripe for the plucking.  Then, famished by the glad-handing, I helped myself to some barbeque and union-made beer. Outside under the azure sky, I ate and listened to a local rock band murder Hendrix and Aerosmith. I realized that there was so much I didn’t know. How many delegates were at the convention? Were they free to switch from one candidate to the other? Why were Democrats blue and Republicans red? Did Republicans eat steak and swill champagne at their convention the previous week in in Cody?

          On Saturday morning, Kucinich called in at 8:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before the start of the day’s proceedings. He delivered a stirring speech to the hall. A half-dozen Kucinichites stood in front, clapping and cheering for universal health care and immediate withdrawal from Iraq and repeal of the Patriot Act.

          That was the high point for Dennis and his delegates. We were not going to get enough votes to ensure a Kucinich delegate to the national convention.

It didn’t have to happen. A few months back, I had turned down an offer to the Wyoming coordinator for Kucinich. The request flattered me, but I recognized it for the time sink it could become. Nobody else stepped up. Looking around the convention hall, there were no blue Kucinich signs hanging next to those for Kerry and statewide candidates. No Kucinich people were in key roles for the convention. It was a Kerry show. The Dennis Kucinich Show was M.I.A.

A few hours later, when voting results were announced, Kerry had 198 votes and Kucinich had 24.5 (some delegates from well-represented counties were on half-votes). This was ten votes short of the 34.5 delegates needed for one delegate to Boston.

I asked our county chair about our vote total. “thirty-eight for Kerry, one for Kucinich.”

“One?” I said, knowing that meant me. I was sure we had come to Sheridan with three Kucinich votes. He checked his records, which showed two. Maybe the other didn’t show? I walked over and talked to veteran Democrat Kathy Karpan. At our county convention in April, she had mentioned becoming a Kucinich delegate. “What happened to the Lithuanian-American voting bloc,” I asked.

She peered at me. “Croatian-American,” she said. “Kucinich and I are of Croatian descent.”

“Sorry,” I said, embarrassed.

“Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire,” she said as delegates swirled around us. She went on to explain Croatian history, the shortened version, all the way up to its recent troubles. She concluded with: “I’m a Kerry delegate.”

Later in the day, she was elected as a Kerry delegate to Boston. I was beginning to learn the ropes. Karpan knew that uncommitted delegates, or those attached to a “minor” candidate, would not be going to Boston. All the non-Kerry delegates had been purged from the rolls. If she had been a Kucinich person, that had changed when his chances looked hopeless. It’s good to be on the winning side.

Lesson learned. By the end of the day, the Kucinich T-shirt with its union label seemed kind of pointless.

Lesson No. 2: Pay your dues.

I have voted in every presidential election since 1972. That year, I was a young college drop-out living in Boston surrounded by a sea of anti-war Democrats. I voted for George McGovern, the peace candidate. He won Massachusetts and D.C., but was walloped by Nixon everywhere else.

I always vote for a Democrat, whether in local, state, or national races. I have handed out flyers for Democrats, written vitriolic op-ed letters, faced off in countless impromptu debates with Republicans. This is as easy as walking down the street in my home of Cheyenne. Republicans outnumber Democrats four-to-one in Wyoming. GOP supporters lurk behind every pine tree. They are ubiquitous as tumbleweeds.

I am a novice to party politics, an outsider. This year marked my first outings to county and state democratic conventions. I never have served as a precinct captain nor as a committee chair. I stuffed some envelopes for Clinton back in 1992, made some signs for his Wyoming visit that year. But I was beginning to see there was a big difference between supporting candidates and actually working within the party to get them elected.

 Why get involved? Politics is a dirty business and politicians a lowly breed. I have volunteered thousands of hours for other causes. I had employed my big Irish mouth and rapier wit for politics. Did I really want to get my hands dirty? 

As in anything else, you have to pay your dues. During the course of the convention, I talked to some of the old-timers, some of them decades younger than me. It became clear they had served the party in one way or another. In the late afternoon, Kathy Sessions from Laramie County signed me up to be a precinct committeeman. I volunteered, not exactly sure what I was signing up for. But it was a way to get involved in a year that was crucial for Democrats, the country, and maybe the world. Madmen are loose upon the land. They needed to be sent back from whence they came which, in the case of Dick Cheney, is just down the road in Casper, or maybe over to a Jackson, where he has a little chateau, or maybe to Texas where he has hoarded his Halliburton pay-offs.

Lesson No. Three: Come early, stay late.

If I had arrived in Sheridan for the day’s proceedings on Friday, I could have attended the all-important platform committee meeting. That’s when the various sub-committees unveil their version of each plank cobbled together from versions submitted from the 23 county conventions. Delegates may attend and offer amendments in an atmosphere that is less frantic than that on the convention floor.

I should have been there to offer my comments on some of the planks. I tried to remedy that Saturday afternoon on the convention floor. I offered an amendment to a paragraph in the “foreign policy” section. I suggested simpler wording that would replace a 10-line paragraph that began by stating that Bush “deceived” us into the Iraq invasion but we should “stay the course” because we had a responsibility to the Iraqi people. My thought was this: we have a responsibility not to kill and maim and torture them. I also wondered how staying was any worse that going, especially for those troops that are in Mesopotamia under false pretenses. The original amendment also called for the U.S. to turn over the Iraq occupation to the U.N. “or other international groups” then turn our resources back to Afghanistan and the real war on terrorism.

My amendment  called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. I thought about John Kerry’s Vietnam-ear remark about being the last man to die for a lost cause.

My amendment didn’t have a prayer. I knew that going in. I wanted to make a point that was also the same point made by Kucinich. My amendment was seconded; a lively debate ensued. The chair of this plank’s committee came to the podium. He is a young student from the state’s only four-year university in Laramie. He insisted that the original language should stay because we can’t “cut and run from Iraq.” This phrase gets used all the time, even by Kerry. “We can’t cut and run.” Instead, our mission dies the death of a thousand cuts.

A delegate rose in opposition to the amendment. He said that withdrawal would make us look weak in the eyes of the world. A woman from Platte County rose to state her support, saying she agreed with immediate withdrawal and that it was the only way to stop the bloodshed and let the Iraqis determine their own fate. Another speaker rose in opposition. Another supporter put in his two cents worth.

It was a fine debate. Finally someone called the question. A few scattered yays. The no votes vibrated off the rafters.

I slunk back to my seat. I studied how other delegates proposed amendments. A Teton County delegate rose to make an amendment. It suggested we call the War on Terrorism a “political ploy invented by Karl Rove to frighten the U.S. populace and keep the Republicans in office.” He suggested me delete any reference for the war on terrorism because you can’t wage war on an idea. I applauded that. Others spoke in opposition. One speaker said that we should be cautious and not put anything in the platform that would inflame and possibly assist the opposition. Another noted that this was already too late as Republicans would use anything and everything against us – and already had blasted Kerry on foreign policy, health care, and a variety of other issues. Finally, a delegate rose and offered a friendly amendment. He suggested inserting the “political ploy” language but make sure we kept in language that supported the war on terrorism. The committee chair spoke again, saying that the war on terrorism was the most important issue to his generation and it had to be treated seriously. The amendment sponsor accepted the friendly amendment and it was voted in.

I listened and learned. It became obvious to me that it helps to compromise. I realized I should have kept in some of the platform’s language that the committee had labored over. I should have been at the platform committee meeting the day before. I should have briefed other Kucinich delegates about my proposed amendment so they would be prepared to speak for it and maybe offer up a friendly amendment or two.

Hard lessons. But this is a year for hard-won lessons. Politics is about power and compromise. It is standing up for what you believe. You can get swatted down but that’s better than just standing around the water cooler and complaining.

You have to come early and stay late. You have to go to meetings. You have to come early to the convention and attend the platform committee meeting so you know what’s going on. You have to work those uncommitted delegates, even if it means less barbeque and beer.

At the end of the day, new faces showed up and began milling about. They were dressed in dressy attire for the night’s banquet where Dave Freudenthal, the Democratic governor, was the keynote speaker. They were here to see and be seen. I watched them wander the hall as we wrangled over the education plank, which featured enough blasts against No Child Left Behind to make me proud to be a Democrat. 

We adjourned after 6 p.m. and delegates rushed to dress for dinner or maybe just partake in the no-host cocktail reception (I bet the Republicans had an open bar).  Information tables lined the halls. One featured a Laramie group, Stand Up for Peace, selling anti-war buttons. I had been tempted earlier to buy some GOP-slamming buttons at another table. Then someone told me the guy staffing the table was a diehard Republican looking to make a few bucks from Bush haters. So I bought my buttons from the peaceniks. I had room on my Kucinich shirt, so I pinned them on. Suitably attired, I waited around for my fuzzy-headed son Kevin, age 19, who was accompanying me to dinner.

He’s my only son. I have a daughter too, who’s 11, and back in Cheyenne with my wife Chris. I would like to say that I get involved for their sakes. I want my kids to have a better life, a non-Bush, non-neocon, non-preemptive-war future. I don’t want a draft to snag my son to fight a lost  cause.

          It’s for me too. I am a curious 53-year-old man from a red state. I want to blue it up a little.

By Michael Shay, 5/21/04