I’ve been posting for quite some time now of the large gap in West Virginia in the grassroots support and county level Democratic activists for Sen. Barack Obama well out of proportion to the polls that showed Sen. Hillary Clinton ahead in West Virginia by a large margin.
Today in Berkeley County, one of the largest counties in the state, 50 of the 52 delegates elected at the county convention today to the state convention in Charleston were Sen. Barack Obama supporters.
Check out Clem’s explanation of West Virginia’s convoluted primary process. Basically we elected delegates at the county level who’ll be electing delegates at the state level. However, the delegates will be selected to the national convention proportional to the votes their candidates received. The primary vote still matters (voting runs from April 23 to May 13 in West Virginia since we have early voting). What this shows is the enthusiasm gap in the state and also could very well signal turnout for the primary. Telephone polls are not the same as going to the ballot box.
West Virginia Blue is getting comments and emails from other counties showing other high support for Obama.
- Morgan County, 30 out of 32 delegates for Obama.
- Ohio County, 75 percent of the crowd were estimated to be Obama supporters. No delegate count included.
- Pocahontas County, 100 percent of delegates for Obama.
- Greenbrier County, 25 out of 28 delegates for Obama. Three uncommitted.
- Kanawha County sounded more chaotic and I haven’t got a report on numbers there yet.
Most of my afternoon was tied up in the Valley district of Berkeley County.
There was a line to get in to the Berkeley County Democratic headquarters. It took a while to get in, but the local Democrats ran it very smoothly, asking the people their names and precinct to know which district to put them in. There are six districts in the county. I’m in the Valley district. There, of 24 people who attended, one woman said she was for Clinton although she was adamant she would vote for Obama in November since it appeared to her he’d be the nominee. The other 23 were all Obama supporters.
Ken Collinson was elected to chair the county convention. Ken was the only one to raise his hand up to vote against him doing it.
Under the rules, we had to pick four women and four men to serve as delegates to the state convention in Charleston on June 13 and 14 (fixed where I left XX in rough draft. Carnacki). We had four women who said they could attend and all were Obama supporters so we elected them as a slate for our district. We had seven men who were nominated for the four delegate positions and so we had each of them tell a little about themselves. All said they were absolutely committed to Obama. One of the men has volunteered for the Obama campaign in other states and is going to Pennsylvania next weekend to canvass. Another began the veterans Camp Kerry that drew many veterans to volunteer for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. Another was our local Democrat of the year and an active volunteer. The fourth man has been active with the Obama campaign. We also had a diverse slate demographically of older and younger Democrats. Two of the women and one of the men are African Americans.
The meeting hall had been jammed packed with bodies. I estimated the crowd at one point to have been about 150 people and in the narrow long space of a former clothing shop that was a tight squeeze, particularly on a warm day.
After most of the delegates had been selected, the crowd fortunately thinned considerably, which was fortunate because I don’t think the air conditioning was working.
One of the six districts had four women delegates but did not have any men who could commit to the state convention. So those seats and two at large seats were put up for a county wide vote as well as two at large seats for women delegates. Interestingly, two women who have long been active in local Democratic activities were not selected over two enthusiastic Obama supporters. In the past, attending the state convention has been seen as an award for party participation. We were able to get one more of our men on one of the six remaining slots for male delegates.
I was told one of the men, a long time Democrat and active volunteer in campaign after campaign, one of those older gentlemen there every weekend rain or shine, was a Clinton supporter. I do not know if that is true. He’s on a county executive committee and under the county rules are not supposed to publicly say one way or the other. However, if he were supporting his dog for president I would have still voted for him to go. Others apparently felt the same way and he was elected. Would I have felt the same way if it wasn’t so overwhelming Obama? I don’t know.
But it was.
Here’s a photo taken by one of our local Democrats, Ryan Frankenberry as we elected at large seats for the women. This is nearly two hours after it began, iirc, and most of the crowd has left.
More on the county and state convention process here at the West Virginia Democrats site pdf.