I

am absolutely dead tonight. I was at the state Democratic convention held at the Grand Sierra Resort. For the first few hours of the day, I was downstairs in the ballroom where the alternates were, so I didn't actually see Bill Clinton and Kal Penn face to face but instead on the big screen. What was nice about the convention is there was no animosity between the Clinton and Obama groups, and they were both respectful of Clinton and Penn.

However, the beginning of the convention was sort of rocky because some people have little better to do than to get anal about the rules. God damn, it drives me stinking crazy when people hold up a convention over minutiae that doesn't mean shit in the long run. A couple of damned fools were upset with the platform or whatever the hell it was and wanted to tie up the goddamned convention with this silliness. Thank God that stuff was going to be delayed until tomorrow. Former president Clinton had to wait before he could say anything because of this contentious stupidity.

I, along with all of the other alternates, ended up being seated as delegates. About 75 percent of those delegates who were selected for the state convention showed. There were around 300 of us who were alternates, so we were seated. But goddamn it, it took forever to get stuff done, and I went home at about 10 p.m., and the convention STILL wasn't done with their selection of the six at-large delegates. At that point my brain was fried. I was ready to bag it after about 12 hours of this silliness.

I had applied to be a national delegate, but my name wasn't on the list because some fool supposedly forgot to write my name on the slip of paper. I put my stuff out in the car, so I was too late to challenge the printed list and get my name on it. It would have been all for naught, for the one Clinton delegate from Washoe County who was selected was an elected official, Kate Marshall, Nevada state treasurer. She's a very nice person, but in a way it would be nice if there was a different way to select delegates so that elected officials wouldn't have a built-in advantage* (perhaps be superdelegates or at-large delegates) and more ordinary people would have a shot at it. Obama had two delegates, and both of them are party regulars who have devoted a lot of time to the local Democratic party. In short, it is almost impossible to be elected a delegate to the national convention. You almost have a better shot at being elected or appointed president of the United States than you have being a delegate.

I would like to go to Denver, but at this point, I don't have any money to go there and volunteer time. I heard there was already a waiting list at the convention.

I spent money, money I shouldn't spend, on political buttons and other memorabilia of both Clinton and Obama. I also picked up an autographed copy of Harry Reid's new book.

I'll probably go in tomorrow for the second day, supposedly a half day.
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*--(Edit) If I am not mistaken the creation of the so-called "PLEO" (political leaders/elected official) delegates was to help ameliorate that disadvantage. Since I was half asleep last night when I wrote this post, I didn't think of the PLEOs.