Nevada Democratic Convention Report Part 2
Okay, on to the meat of the convention. Most of this will be under the cut, because its very image heavy. I'm going to split this into several parts. The convention was supposed to start around 9 AM...it instead started closer to 10 AM, and fell farther and farther behind schedule during the day. For those of us working on 4 1/2 hours of sleep, this was not great news.
These first few are people filing into the convention center. They had over 2,500 delegates. With staff and volunteers and vendors, probably close to 3,000 people were there. Unlike Bally's, there was actually room to seat all of them.
This is Sam Lieberman, chair of the Nevada Democratic Party. He has some sort of disability, and wasn't able to leave his chair, however he was active the entire day.
This is a rear view of the color guard. It was too crowded near the stage for me to get a better shot.
Things started off with an invocation.
The next couple of shots are of former Senator Richard Bryan who was the temporary convention chair. The first couple are direct shots of the stage, then on the giant screens that made seeing what was going on much easier.
I'll take this one out of the cut, because I thought it was the best sign I saw at the convention. Some people will support anyone!
Okay, back to hiding things.
A quick sample of the signs for both candidates in the hall.
I support Obama, but there's only so many times I can hear people shout "Fired Up! Ready to Go!" I was ready to strangle a few fanatics.
Alas, Hilary may have been the smart choice, but she actually lost a delegate at the convention (preliminarily it was 13 Obama/12 Clinton, it ended up 14 Obama/11 Clinton).
This was a really huge sign that was carried around repeatedly...and these guys kept cutting off peoples line of sight.
There were lots of these Clark County signs around. I have a bunch of Obama ones. My friend Adrienne got a few of the yellow Clinton ones, but was frustrated getting a blue Clinton one. She had one, but someone stole it from her. I found her a new one towards the end of Saturday. See, I'm a uniter, not a divider.
Back to the speeches. There was a bunch of complaining about convention procedure, and a lot of anger. Much complaining about whether Robert's Rules were being followed. I think most of these just wanted to hear themselves talk. One guy stood out...I called him "the Rural Rabbi." He even has an ad in the convention program saying "Help me bring Rural Nevada's voices to Denver. Rabbi Jon Freirich for Rural Delegate." I have no idea if he got elected. I also had no idea there were Jews in rural Nevada.
At this point, the convention is an hour and a half behind schedule...but when a former president wants to talk, you let him talk. Bill Clinton showed up, clearly the highlight of the convention for most of the Hilary supporters, and for people like me, who are just big Bill Clinton fanboys. He gave what I thought was a great speech, talking about unifying and how ultimately, defeating McCain was more important than who was the candidate, although of course he preferred if you voted for Hilary. A bunch of Obama supporters walked out, and a bunch more were very skeptical about him preaching unity. That was pretty sad. Here's some shots of him from his speech.
Okay, that's enough for now...I hope all you Bill fans got your money's worth. More to come in Part 3, including a star of the TV show House
These first few are people filing into the convention center. They had over 2,500 delegates. With staff and volunteers and vendors, probably close to 3,000 people were there. Unlike Bally's, there was actually room to seat all of them.
This is Sam Lieberman, chair of the Nevada Democratic Party. He has some sort of disability, and wasn't able to leave his chair, however he was active the entire day.
This is a rear view of the color guard. It was too crowded near the stage for me to get a better shot.
Things started off with an invocation.
The next couple of shots are of former Senator Richard Bryan who was the temporary convention chair. The first couple are direct shots of the stage, then on the giant screens that made seeing what was going on much easier.
I'll take this one out of the cut, because I thought it was the best sign I saw at the convention. Some people will support anyone!
Okay, back to hiding things.
A quick sample of the signs for both candidates in the hall.
I support Obama, but there's only so many times I can hear people shout "Fired Up! Ready to Go!" I was ready to strangle a few fanatics.
Alas, Hilary may have been the smart choice, but she actually lost a delegate at the convention (preliminarily it was 13 Obama/12 Clinton, it ended up 14 Obama/11 Clinton).
This was a really huge sign that was carried around repeatedly...and these guys kept cutting off peoples line of sight.
There were lots of these Clark County signs around. I have a bunch of Obama ones. My friend Adrienne got a few of the yellow Clinton ones, but was frustrated getting a blue Clinton one. She had one, but someone stole it from her. I found her a new one towards the end of Saturday. See, I'm a uniter, not a divider.
Back to the speeches. There was a bunch of complaining about convention procedure, and a lot of anger. Much complaining about whether Robert's Rules were being followed. I think most of these just wanted to hear themselves talk. One guy stood out...I called him "the Rural Rabbi." He even has an ad in the convention program saying "Help me bring Rural Nevada's voices to Denver. Rabbi Jon Freirich for Rural Delegate." I have no idea if he got elected. I also had no idea there were Jews in rural Nevada.
At this point, the convention is an hour and a half behind schedule...but when a former president wants to talk, you let him talk. Bill Clinton showed up, clearly the highlight of the convention for most of the Hilary supporters, and for people like me, who are just big Bill Clinton fanboys. He gave what I thought was a great speech, talking about unifying and how ultimately, defeating McCain was more important than who was the candidate, although of course he preferred if you voted for Hilary. A bunch of Obama supporters walked out, and a bunch more were very skeptical about him preaching unity. That was pretty sad. Here's some shots of him from his speech.
Okay, that's enough for now...I hope all you Bill fans got your money's worth. More to come in Part 3, including a star of the TV show House