First of all, if you ever get a chance to go to the District or State level convention,or wonder if you should run, do it. This was tons of fun, as would be any event filled with Democrats. I had never been before so experienced convention goers will probably find some of this a little dull.
I left home and drove off on terrible roads headed East to Andover. It took longer than expected, so I got there about 9:10. I walked in, the door was flanked with 5 people (at least) on each side supporting the various candidates. The people from the Tinklenberg and Nelson-Pallmeyer campaigns quickly identified me as a supporter and gave me the requisite stickers and buttons. I was directed to the Tinklenberg breakfast which was great and featured 6th district raised and prepared dishes.
I also got my Tinklenberg T-shirt.
The convention started right on time. There were speeches. Al Franken was there early and gave a good speech. Then he was off to the other 2 conventions which were being held today. (I had been told earlier that Nelson-Pallmeyer would be at the other conventions first and our's last.) Lots more speeches from folks. Elected people to the various committees and other posts with little controversey.
Finally, we got to the election of our congressional candidate. Each candidate got 10 minutes which had to be split between supporters and the candidate. Olson lost the coin toss and had to go first. He had one supporter speak. Then he spoke, which made some sense to me as I thought Olson might need to introduce himself more than Tinklenberg who had run last year. Olson gave a nice speech. Tinklenberg had about 5 people, maybe six, speak to support him. First was Tarryl Clark, assistant majority leader in the MN Senate, then State Auditor Otto spoke, a labor person, a regular person, can't remember who else. Then Tinklenberg who also gave a nice speech. Then question and answer. I thought Tink did better, I wasn't impressed with Olson's response to a question about the "F" in "DFL" in which the first thing he said was that "f" also stands for feminist. I'm a feminist whose grandparents were all farmers, and the "f" does not stand for feminist. He also didn't do well on the question about youth involvement in elections and the governmental process where he ended his answer saying he'd been a coach and knew how to encourage and discipline kids. He may have lost 10 votes or more from the college kids with that answer.
Then on to the voting, and the counting of the votes. During the counting of the votes Jack Nelson Pallmeyer spoke. He was good, but I liked his SD convention speech better.
The votes came back 39 (26.2%) for Olson and 107.5 (72.4%) for Tinklenberg. Olson immediately got up and made a motion for a unanimous ballot. He was very gracious and promised to work hard to defeat Bachmann. Olson got several standing ovations during this process. Tinklenberg gave a great speech.
Then on to selecting delegates to Denver. The Clinton folks could elect two delegates, I have no idea who they elected because I was in the Obama camp. We had 2 men, 1 woman, and one woman alternate delegate. After a lengthy run off voting procedure we elected a veteran of the Iraq war, a black professor (I think that is what he did.) A black woman minister from St. Cloud. These three are the delegates. The alternate is a college student from CSB who is the chair of College Democrats at CSB/SJU. All were great selections.
Now on to electing Jack and defeating Bachmann. Don't forget to donate to Tinklenberg.
http://www.tinklenberg08.com/ 
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