This afternoon I was a delegate to the Jefferson County, WV, Democratic Convention. That may sound like a big deal, but, in fact, any registered Democrat who shows up after the 2:15 opening of the County Courthouse in Charles Town and registers by the 3:00 PM start of the convention is a delegate.
They were expecting about 50 people I am told. Around 145 showed up from 5 districts. Shepherdstown, which is smaller in size than Charles Town and, I think, Harpers Ferry, had the most delegates: 45.
Originally I hadn’t planned on going. With Elly out of town I had the dogs to take care of and there was at least one movie I wanted to see… but I drove to Charles Town at around 1:45 to go grocery shopping at Martin’s and, for the hell of it, took a pass by the Courthouse to find lines of Obama supporters waving posters and encouraging registered Dems who are also Obama supporters to come on in. So I did.
There were more people than there was space for, so plenty of us stood or spread into the hallway outside the main courtroom. Reva N. Mickey, the Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee Chair called the meeting to order.
There was a totally unnecessary invocation (and it was then that I learned I wasn’t the only atheist in the room) followed by a Pledge of Allegiance (where I usually just don’t say “under God”… but the gentleman next to me said, in a loud voice, “under the Constitution”, and received a round of applause from a bunch of us.)
Then, after electing Ms. Mickey as the Convention Chair, we adopted the rules and split up into our districts. The Shepherdstown district moved down the hall to the Family Court courtroom, where we still overloaded the place and many had to stand. It is the purpose of this convention to elect delegates who will go to the State of WV Democratic Convention in Charleston this summer. Jefferson County gets a total of 34 delegates and seven of these are allotted to Shepherdstown. There is a further rule about balancing men and women and our group also wanted a racial mix, etc.
It took a bout a half an hour to select our seven and an alternate (or two) from the 12 nominees. But we did it. After that we returned to the main courtroom for other business.
By 5:00 PM we were done. I went grocery shopping after all.
While I was in the aisles at Martin’s, a guy noticing my Obama ’08 sticker on my shirt pocket asked if I had been to the convention. He is a union rep who didn’t have a chance to get there on time, but wanted to know how it went. He thinks Obama can take Hillary in WV at our May primary. I told him I hoped so. I think close to 100% of the Convention attendees were Obama supporters.
I’m back home with my dogs now. Guess I’ll go to the movies tomorrow afternoon. I had an interesting day and I feel like I’m part of something.