~ Ned Lamont Sends WAKE UP call to Joe Lieberman (full report) ~

CT State Democractic Convention Report

Evening, folks.

I just returned from the Connecticut State Democractic Convention, and wanted to drop a report of the events here on DU for your enjoyment.

For those of you who have never been a Delegate to the Party State Convention, I highly recommend it. Ours was a two-day affair in Hartford, beginning yesterday around 4pm, and going until today around 4pm. I secured a hotel room near the convention center to save on driving, and this turned out to be quite a good decision. I then headed over to the CT Expo Center.

Registration was very smooth, and security was very tight and orderly, yet not overbearing. Everyone was very, very pleasent. At least, on the outside. After registering, I went to volunteer for a short while for Ned Lamont, holding a placard sign by the entrance to the convention center. Many cars beeped for us, which was a good sign.

The convention began, we said the Pledge of Alliegence (with many omitting "under God" without complaint!), heard a wonderful singer perform our National Anthem, and an inspiring speech was given from the Mayor of Hartford to open the event. The only piece of business for the first evening was the voting for US Senator. The two candidates, as I'm sure you know, were Joe "I love Bush" Lieberman, and his challenger, Ned Lamont.

The voting procedure was interesting. Each town Democratic Chairperson was responsible to tally the votes for their own town. Then, the Chairpeople were called to the microphone one District at a time (CT has 5 voting districts), alphabetically by town. The Chairperson would read off their totals for each candidate, and the Convention Secretary would repeat them back and record them. After each town in each district cast their votes, the Secretary asked for any corrections to the official vote, again by District. If a town chairperson wished, they could amend their vote at this time. After all corrections were completed, if any, the vote was closed, and the total is generated.

What was nice, is that the Convention Committee provided individualized tally sheets for all attendees, so we could record the vote, AS IT HAPPENED, and find out the winner ourselves. This was very thoughtful and very reassuring.

Needless to say, most of us were on pins and needles as the vote proceeded for Ned vs Joe. But as the Chairpeople reported to the microphone, more and more votes were being cast for Ned. In some cases, Ned won the votes of a small percent of a town or city with many votes. In other cases Ned would outright win all the votes of a small town. His percentage seemed to be hovering around 25% or more. It wasn't until near the end that it really dawned on us (well, those of us without a PDA or laptop) that Ned had actually scored just over 33% of the votes, well over the 15% needed to force a primary.

That night we partied hard at a local restaurant. Upon returning to my hotel, one of the Gubenatorial candidates had paid for an open bar in the hotel. This is what I meant earlier by saying my hotel room turned out to be a "good decision." :D

Today, we reconvened to cast our votes for the State Constitutional Officers : Secretary of State, Comptroller, Treasurer, Attorney General, Governor and Lt. Governor.

The incumbants won back their endorsements for Secretary of State, Comptroller, Treasurer, and Attorney General (Go Dick Blumenthal!!!). Then came the Gubenatorial race.

Oh. My. God.

The matchup was between Mayor John DeStefano of New Haven, and Mayor Dan Malloy of Stamford. Both great men and GREAT Democracts. Both good mayors of their towns, and both 100% loyal to the Democratic Party. Needless to say, the emotions ran high, and we all knew the voting would be close.

But we had no idea just how close it would be.

The first round of voting began, and it was very clear that the two men were running literally neck in neck. On, and on, and on it went, towns splitting their vote in some cases down the middle, and in others overwhelmingly for one man or the other. The tension in the air was so thick you could slice it with a spoon. (I bet you thought I was gonna say "cut it with a knife", didn't you?)

After the initial voting came to an end, the Convention Secretary began the call for corrections. That is when things got interesting.

First one town, then another, and then another began correcting votes. Each candidates campaign team were SCOURING the floor, Wheeling and Dealing to get Delegates to change their votes. And they did. And the vote totals started to fluctuate. Up and down, down and up. Once the towns were done altering their totals, the first Challenges to the totals were placed.

A challenge is something any Delegate can issue if they do not feel that the votes for their town were cast properly. The challenge can only be from a Delegate from the town whose votes are being challenged. There were a few folks who tried to challenge the vote of another town, and they were informed of the rules and the challenges were rejected. However, several valid challenges were received.

Once a challenge is received, the Chairperson of the Convention calls forth the entire Delegation from the challenged town, and manually polls each Delegate to confirm the challenge. In some cases, the challenge was upheld and the vote total was corrected. In some cases, the challenge was denied and the vote remained unchanged.

The challenges took forever. We waited. We wondered. We were chomping at the bit in anticipation for the final, official vote tally. After about 57 years (or possibly an hour and a half if you adjust for my ridiculous exaggeration), the Chairperson of the Convention announced that all challenges were completed, and the final vote was being tallied.

The end result...

Here is where I make myself out to seem like a really important individual. See, my town had 6 Delegates, and in our local town committee, it was decided that we would cast our votes as a block - all for 1 candidate - based on a vote we took back in our last Town Committee Meeting. Being the newest member of my Town's DTC, I was the tiebreaker in the vote for Governor. As a direct result of my presence, all 6 of our votes went to Dan Malloy. Had I not been there, or had we decided to vote individually, either all 6 votes would have went to DeStefano, or 3 votes would have went to DeStefano.

... Dan Malloy won the nomination for Governor by...

... 2 votes, 799 to 795.

If those two had been cast for DeStefano, it would have been 797 to 797 - a tie.

So, after a gruelling experience participating in and observing Democracy in Action, I have to say a hearty congratulations to Ned Lamont and Dan Malloy for their victories. I hope this was informative and inspires you to get involved in your local politics. Because the only thing that matters, is Getting Out The Vote !

First bit of hopeful news (politically-speaking) I've had in ages

We were following the race over here going from blog to blog and watching the stream.

From your story, it is encouraging to see how one person can make a difference. Glad you had fun doing it.