It is true that membership has its privileges.
Elected officials scored big Thursday night in the selection of Democratic delegates in Congressional district caucuses held in St. Louis.
In the First Congressional district caucus, four of the five members of a slate backed by Congressman Lacy Clay won spots to represent Barack Obama at the National Democratic Convention in August.
First Ward Committeewoman Yaphett El-Amin, 5th Ward Alderman April Ford-Griffin, Creve Coeur Committeeman Burton Boxerman, and Clay’s own chief of staff, Darryl Piggee all won delegate spots. But the final spot went to one of Obama’s most dedicated St. Louis volunteers.
Jennifer Haro calls 2008 “the best year of her life.” She was was so inspired by Senator Barack Obama that she quit her job as a marketing analyst to volunteer full-time with campaign. If you ever inquired about volunteering with the Obama campaign before the Missouri primary, you probably got a call from Jennifer.
Jennifer’s donation of countless hours of her time and energy (not to mention more than $4,000 in cash) was rewarded Thursday when she was elected to be one of five people — and arguably the only “regular person” — to represent the 1st Congressional District at the Convention in Denver.
Haro beat out several elected officials for the coveted spot, including State Rep. Robin Wright-Jones, Committeewoman Mattie Moore, and County Council-member Hazel Erby.
In the 3rd Congressional District caucus, in south St. Louis, things were a little different. Youthful energy won the day.
Sixth Ward Alderman Kacie Starr Triplett, the city’s youngest elected official, and college student Matt Adler beat out Democratic Chairman Brian Wahby and former Clayton Mayor Ben Uchitelle.
Jefferson County Committeewoman Tammy Vent was elected as the third delegate.
Perhaps we’ll report more on the chaotic and very long (3 and a half hours) 1st District meeting Friday after we get some rest. But if you attended, feel free to share your stories in the comments section.
I was there. I wrote about it here:
http://momocrats.typepad.com/momocrats/2008/03/democracy-inact.html
Really I could have written a lot more about the organizational issues at this meeting (and probably will at some point).
For instance, I know it’s a fact that some of the people there who said they hadn’t been given the F form paperwork at their ward/township meetings were telling the truth, because there were no F forms at my township meeting. I happened to figure out I needed to file that paperwork by talking to some other delegates who had attended other meetings. And I give props to Matt Robinson, my township meeting chair, because he actually went to the delegates’ houses after discovering the proper paperwork hadn’t been given to him at our township meeting, to drop said paperwork off before the deadline (this was after I had already secured a copy of the form myself, though). But even he didn’t know at our original meeting that the F forms were necessary. And in fact, when I emailed Kris Stock to ask about the forms, she told me I wouldn’t have to fill them out beforehand but could get them at the Congressional District meeting. I ignored her advice to wait until the meeting and filled them out before the deadline anyway, which turned out to be the right thing to do.
By the by, my husband John was going to nominate Matt Robinson for a national-level spot, but the meeting chair refused to let him speak. Because I had nominated John, the chair said he thought John was planning to nominate me, and refused to let him make a nomination. But that makes so sense since it wasn’t even time to nominate the women yet. John was going to nominate Matt Robinson because Matt impressed him by coming by our house with that paperwork to make sure we could run. Matt was helping out his own competition for the national spots by making sure we got those forms on time.
If other meeting chairs weren’t as on the ball as Matt was, I am sure a lot of people never even knew they had to file form F to run for a national-level position.
Posted by jaelithe | 31. Mar, 2008, 1:42 PM