[Politics] 2006 Minnesota State DFL Convention

Well, I'm back from my three days or so down in lovely Rochester. Thanks to GeistX and Nerdwife for letting me crash in their guest room. I'll be picking cat hair off my suits for a week, but friends and food and a feeling of homey-ness is far better than hotel life.

Day 1 started Friday morning. I was exhausted to say the least, having been up late Thursday night. It was going to be a long day. I'd also assumed that it was going to be a boring day for me, since I was only an alternate, but an individual who was the delegate was not going to make it to the convention at all, so I was upgraded to a full delegate status and I suddenly had something to do all weekend. The credentials committee really pooched the process for alternates. We couldn't get onto the floor to tell our delegation chairs we were there to be upgraded, and we couldn't get onto the floor without the badges the delegation chairs had. Delegates who arrived late had to wait in a similar fashion, some up to an hour.

The major business of day 1 was to vote on platform resolutions (important to me, since I like the party to stand for something and also because I had served on the State Platform Commission for a couple years a while back) and to endorse the candidate for U.S. Senate. Since it was a cakewalk for Amy Klobuchar, this was not too trying a day, aside from my major need of an antacid. It was a good full day of dealing with speeches and such, but not too stressful.

Day 2 was the biggie, the endorsement process for governor. I won't go into the details of the voting, which took 9 hours, but suffice to say I was a Becky Lourey supporter and after her withdrawl, I switched to Steve Kelley in hopes of defeating the endorsement of Mike Hatch. After it was clear that Mike Hatch would get the endorsement, our entire delegation of Kelley/Lourey supporters were looking like they were going to vote "No Endorsement" as a sign of protest, but Kelley withdrew before that vote. I left the hall in disgust, not even waiting to hear Mike Hatch's speech. I plan on voting for Lourey in the primary. I just don't want Mike Hatch in the governor's office, although if he wins the primary (and goodness knows he has a ton of money for the campaign) I'll support him in the general election. For those of you at the convention, I was the young man in the bowtie.

Day 3 was a breeze. Two quick non-contested seats (Rebecca Otto for State Auditor and Matt Entenza for Attorney General), the platform report (about what I expected), and a single vote in a contested election for Secretary of State. I supported Christian Sande, but I also knew he just didn't have the votes on the floor to get the endorsement, and the vote showed that clearly. Mark Ritchie took the endorsement after Sande conceded gracefully. He wasn't my preferred candidate, but he'll make a fine Sec State, and certainly better than Mary Kiffmeyer.

It was a long but neccesary three days of politiking at the 2006 Minnesota State DFL Convention. Overall I was pretty happy with the outcome, with the major exception of the gubernatorial endorsement.

More details of the convention on a by-the-minute basis can be read at Power Liberal, a fellow Democrat who was live blogging the convention.