The Clark County Democratic Convention: News not fit for print

Let's dissect the baloney the came from the Clark County Democratic Party via the Associated Press, and insert some more facts:

Las Vegas - The hectic scramble for delegates between presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton played out at Nevada Democrats' county conventions Saturday, where a surge of turnout overwhelmed southern Nevada party leaders and forced them to shut down the convention before completing the vote. TRUE

An estimated 10,000 people showed up at Bally's Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas for Clark County Convention, the largest of the 17 county meetings held Saturday, according to casino staff. That's roughly 2,000 more than party officials expected.

Baloney. The ballroom has a max capacity of 5000, and only 2500-3000 chairs were placed, enough only to hold those elected as delegates to the state convention. Despite planning for 3000 and only being able to fit 5000, over 7000 delegates were supposedly elected on January 19th. The party only had a list of 6000, showing how messed up the caucuses were, in that 1000 delegates were never even elected or properly reported in various precincts across the county. The party wasn't expecting the full 7000, let alone the 9-10 thousand that actually turned out.

County conventions are the second step toward divvying up Nevada's 25 pledged delegates to the National Democratic Convention between Clinton and Obama. Yes, and we will get a do-over for this second step. Call it step 2.5.

In past years, the county convention meetings have been little more than rallies for the party's likely nominee. But with the presidential race so closely divided, campaigns encouraged large numbers of supporters to attend as part of a strategy to defend the delegates won at Jan. 19 precinct caucuses. If the county party was living in this world, they would have seen this coming and gotten a space large enough to handle the massive capacity, such as...the convention center?

Rowdy crowds quickly filled the Las Vegas ballroom to capacity and forced casino staff to close the doors early, leaving hundreds of delegates outside, party leaders said. (Insert invective here), party leaders. The crowd was not rowdy until you started telling them about how grossly incompetent you are in not planning for a large turnout after we blew away expectations at the caucuses. Then you try to explain the situation in vague political gibberish that at some points even I didn't understand, start acting like authoritarian elitists, and suggest that everyone go home and take care of business another day, making us feel like we've wasted our time. Also, fire marshals didn't shut out hundreds. They shut out THOUSANDS. As they should have; they last thing Bally's wants is an overcrowded facility catching fire and hundreds of people dying, considering that happened when their property was the MGM in the 80's.

"Unfortunately, all those who are eligible ... there is no physical way in this room to allow those delegates in," convention chairman Bill Stanley told the crowd as he asked them to agree to close the convention and hold the presidential vote at a later date. I could have handled the crowd better than Bill Stanley. Armed with the facts, he bumbled in his delivery, keeping people from understanding the gravity of the situation and causing the resolution to be shut down for two hours before being brought up again and passed. I fervently believe that Steven Horsford, despite his affiliation with the Obama campaign, would have gotten the entire crowd under control.

The crowd initially greeted the notion with a chorus of "boos," but eventually was persuaded after entreaties from both campaigns. What isn't mentioned is that in between the boos and the persuasion was almost two hours of down time, during which boring candidates made boring speeches that interested almost none of the participants. Al Franken gave a great speech, however.

No date for the new vote was set immediately. Clark County delegates account for 72 percent of the state convention delegation. State delegates will meet in May in Reno. One thing not taken into consideration is people from places like Searchlight or Laughlin must be really upset about having to come back to Las Vegas on another day.

The confusion left the results of any Saturday voting vulnerable to a court challenge. Both campaigns told the state party they likely would raise the issue in court if the vote wasn't redone, according to a state party official who was not authorized to discuss the negotiations.

Saturday's cries of disenfranchisement echoed those heard after the January precinct caucuses, in which Clinton won more precinct delegates but left Obama poised to pick up one more national delegate. These cries should be heard, it's not just campaign whining. In the caucuses, both campaigns, but mainly Clinton's, had agents acting to change results. Also, the mismanagement of almost every caucus led to problems in registration and reporting that make those results almost worthless. Now, at one point I'd heard strong rumors about moving, poorly secured ballot boxes being compromised (in fewer words, ballot dumping or voter fraud), but it seems those were indeed just rumors. The fact of the matter is that questionable voting procedures had the possibility for disenfranchisement and the turning away of people by the fire marshals was definite disenfranchisement.

The Obama campaign complained that many of its supporters were shut out of those precinct meetings last month after the Clinton campaign distributed bad information about the caucus process. Yes, having precincts close a half hour early shuts out people from both campaigns and is just a general bad practice.

The Nevada Democratic Party has appointed a committee to review the entire caucus process. Follow Sen. Dina Titus' proposed legislation and switch to a primary. No need for a committee to come to a common sense conclusion: Caucuses, while more effective party building tools, create confusion, exclude more people, and allow for vote tampering far more than primaries.

Both candidates had hoped to use the Saturday meetings court new support. Under party rules, delegates can switch alliances at each stage in the process. Nearly 440 delegates assigned to former candidates John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich were up for grabs statewide. Hence why they turned out thousands of people to cover no-show delegates. Once again, foresight is something county party officials need to work on.

Early results from rural counties that were able to vote Saturday showed a slight shift in delegates toward Obama. In Washoe County, home to the Reno-Sparks area, Obama nearly doubled his share of the delegates heading to the state convention.