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In my Bexar County precinct 3024 in north central San Antonio just inside Loop 410, the Clinton supporters came with a specific agenda to try to take over the convention by voting as a bloc for every convention official and for delegation chair at the end. It wasn't any mystery, it was right out in the open. A couple of friends of mine who signed in for Hillary (I signed in for Obama) told me about the Clinton precinct convention training without any sense that there was anything sinister about it, and I didn't think there was either. Sounded like good community organizing to me, something to be impressed with, not to be resentful about.
The tactic to try to elect Clinton supporters to everything rubbed a few people the wrong way, but there was nothing illegal or cheating about it. They didn't succeed at most of it because the convention was 60% for Obama. It was all done with a minimum of rancor and a maximum of amiable civility.
The precinct chair appointed me Temporary Chair of the convention due to my having a background of a lot of precinct convention experience. Then somebody nominated me Permanent Chair, nobody nominated anybody else, and so there I was as Convention Chair. I was for Obama myself but I bent over backward in every way to keep everything impartial, open, even-handed and fair. To me that is what it's all about in this wonderful exercise of what self-government is supposed to be like.
Some people were naturally a bit on edge about making sure their candidate got all that was his or her due, but no big deal, it should be assumed by human nature that if people have gone out of their way to come to the precinct convention on behalf of their candidate, they are sufficiently invested emotionally to have some anxiety about how the votes will turn out. At a couple of points during the night I perceived some rising potential for someone's emotional edge to disrupt the collective civility, and at those points I simply called for a 60-second group pause so everybody could take a deep breath and calm down.
There were several "observers" present from the out-of-precinct field staff of both campaigns. In retrospect, under the Party Rules I should have excluded them from the precinct convention. It's against the Rules for anybody of voting age to be present who isn't either a qualified signed-in attendee from the precinct, or a representative of the press.
Our Texas precinct conventions are not caucuses, they are conventions. Caucuses are when supporters of a particular candidate meet together to select their delegates to the next level. Our primary election night meetings are not Iowa caucuses, they are precinct conventions. Caucuses take place within and during the precinct conventions when the different presidential preference groups separate to different parts of the room to choose their delegates to the next convention level. Both campaigns did a disservice to all of us by encouraging their supporters to think the sole purpose of our convention process is the presidential nominations, when it isn't.
For the overwhelming majority of precinct conventions and for all of us as a whole, democracy and fair play won out. Despite the isolated reports of irregularities (about a dozen such reports out of nearly 8,500 precincts), all reports suggest that the overwhelming majority of the precinct conventions ran smoothly and amiably.
I love our precinct conventions. They are democracy and self-government in live action at the most grassroots level. Our trouble was that when the heightened interest rose up this year, we had relatively few people who were experienced in the process and prepared to conduct or help conduct the precinct conventions. This is because the interest and participation dropped so low over the last 16 years.
Those of us who have been around for a while and remember the 1970s, can recall that in the 1970s as a result of the brand-new McGovern Commission rules mandating proportional representation throughout the process, back then the precinct conventions had fairly good turnout every time. Not necessarily as big as this year (though in 1972 the conventions were swamped with turnout), but decent regular turnout.
Through the 1980s there was usually decent turnout, in fact it was downright high in 1988 when Texas was part of the first "Super Tuesday" and we had a 3-way race between Michael Dukakis, Jesse Jackson, and Al Gore definitely going on at the time of the Texas primary. Though not at the astounding level of this year. After the 1992 elections, starting in 1994 the precinct convention participation fell way off, and through the rest of the 1990s and 2000s the typical precinct conventions in many precincts had about 3 to 6 attendees. As a party we didn't do much to pump up attendance. In fact our Party leadership pushed it down every year with the repeated refrain that we couldn't carry Texas.
Instead of trashing the process, I hope we will all work to keep up the participation so that the next time there is this kind of tidal wave turnout, it won't be chaotic because we will have a large number of active Democrats who are used to going to the precinct conventions every Democratic primary night and thus know the procedures well. For heaven's sake, as you go about the business of supporting your presidential candidate, DO NOT, please DO NOT make the supporters of the other candidate feel unwelcome. No matter how strongly you feel about your candidate being the best candidate, no matter how strongly you feel about the unacceptable flaws of the other candidate, please welcome and embrace the presence of all of your fellow grassroots Democrats in the fantastic participation that we have this year.
Play it intensely and passionately, but play it fair, clean, and by the rules. Observe a bottom-line fundamental respect for the basic human and civil rights of the opposition candidate's supporters to support the candidate of their choice. Observe every convention-goer's dignity. Be respectful and courteous. Recognize that the supporters of the opposition feel strongly about their candidate, too. Remember that if your candidate wins the nomination, you want and need the other candidate's supporters to be there with you for the general election campaign, but they probably won't be there if they are made to feel trampled on during the nomination process. So while you engage in your efforts to get the most delegates that you can for your candidate democratically and fairly under the Rules, at the same time let the supporters of the opposition know that you respect them and you are glad they are there. We all need to be glad that we're all there. The bigger our upcoming conventions are, and the more positive the participants feel about the experience, the better our November chances.
David Van Os
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