This post isn't to catch up with the last month and a half. I've been incredibly busy with work and life (a few weddings, lots of nights spent overseeing phone banks, etc), and just haven't had the energy to post.
But this past weekend was different. I was a convention at this year's state Democratic Convention.
A bit of explanation: The state democratic party has a convention during an election year for the following reason: In order to be a democratic candidate for any statewide office (governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, senator, treasurer, attorney general) a candidate has to collect a certain number of signatures from registered voters (the number varies depending on the position) and at least 15% of the delegates' votes at the convention. Additionally, whichever candidate in each race gets over 50% of the delegates' votes is "endorsed" by the party. (Which is basically meaningless since they still have to run against the other candidates in September.)
To be a delegate one has to either a) be an elected official, b) be elected at the caucuses, or c) get chosen as an add-on delegate. I didn't get elected at the caucuses so I applied to be an add-on and was chosen. The final delegate count is between 4000 and 5000.
So that's the purpose of the caucus. This year there were three contested offices: governer, LG, and secretary of state. Going into the convention the big question was whether or not one of the Gubernatorial candidates would get his 15% and make it onto the ballot.
This is getting a bit long-winded, so I'll get to the good stuff. The convention was a blast. Ted Kennedy (running for re-election, has no democratic primary opponent) gave a great speech on Friday night and then there were a lot of parties. I stayed in Worcester overnight (crashed on a friend's couch) and was up bright and early for the main event on Saturday.
The LG race is interesting. Basically, all three of the candidates would be good, so having to choose one was a good dilemma to have. I was pretty confident going into the convention that all three would get their 15% and they did, so that will be a fun race to watch.
But like I said, the big event was governor. There are three candidates: Chris Gabrieli (who was the LG nominee in 2002), Deval Patrick (worked in the justice department under Clinton), and Tom Reilly (the current AG). I have been a big Deval Patrick fan for a while, and his campaign ran a great effort at the caucuses so he was a favorite going into the convention.
His speech was phenomenal. And what's more, the crowd was already packed with his supporters so the energy was amazing. There's a video of the speech if you go here and click on the link to his speech halfway down the page. Seriously, inspirational to the level of West Wing. And this guy's real!
In the end, all three Gubernatorial candidates got their 15% and will all be on the primary ballot in September, so this race should be very interesting over the next three months. And maybe, just maybe, I'll actually have a few minutes to write about it every now and then.
Oh, and I posted some photos from the convention. It was dark, so not many of them came out. I put up the least blurry ones.