Bloggers wanted for the Bloggers Roundtable at the workshop in Lowell. Whether or not you are a delegate, if you are an experienced blogger, please come to the Bloggers session and take part in the Round Table. Doug Rubin, Chief of Staff for Governor Deval Patrick, will be one of the presenters. BMG’s Charley sent in an MP3. If you are attending the convention have just been reading blogs and want to get involved, please come by. We will be in the Lowell High School Cafeteria, right across from the Tsongas Arena. For more information contact me at 508-404-8531. I’m heading to Lowell in a few minutes and will not have access to e-mail.
Please share widely!
John Kerry
See more on BelowBoston.com
See more on BelowBoston.com
if anyone’s keen on learning more about “the tech stuff.” Lynne’ll be there too, as will a whole host of awesome people (jamie eldridge, michael wilcox… the list goes on).
— depending on what the rest of my delegation is doing. I dont fall in the experienced blogger category however.
I truly enjoyed putting faces and online names together. Cadmium – you don’t do yourself justice. Your honest feedback is always welcome.
am glad I decided to go to the blogger forum. Meeting people was one of the reasons—Health care forum would have felt too much like work and the other fora sounded unexciting.
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p>I read your diaries — just cant always respond because I am at work.
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p>BTW I did learn something–blockquotes on Kates convention thread
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p>I use this site to upload my pictures. There are several but I have never used them. People at work like Flickr better.
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p>http://photobucket.com/
Can we just walk in or must one be participating in the greater convention to attend the roundtable?
I’m not a particularly experienced blogger, but I am at the convention with a nice strong wifi signal and a laptop (and a blackberry if the laptop battery dies), so I can check in off and on.
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p>Joe DeNucci started things off (after the flag and anthem and stuff) by calling for unity, joining in support of Barack Obama. Right now, Niki Tsongas is speaking, promoting Lowell and John Kerry.
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p>The Ed O’Reilly people have a strong presence, with lots of people (self included) wearing blue O’Reilly T Shirts. We’ll see whether he achieves the 15% threshold. The only thing I’ve found to eat today were free Munchkins from the O’Reilly table. There wasn’t any food to be found at the Kerry / AFL-CIO “breakfast”, at least not between 9 – 9:30 AM when I was there.
I’m not clear whether the district tellers are merely functioning to count the delegates in a district, or if they are partisans collecting votes for Kerry or O’Reilly. I hope I didn’t just vote for Kerry. Apparently I’ve just signed in, which is what I was trying to do, but it was odd that those same sign-in sheets had Kerry and O’Reilly checkboxes beside the delegate names.
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p>The governor is speaking now that we have finished singing “Happy Birthday” to Tim Murray. Governor Patrick sort of pledged support to Kerry but also said good things about O’Reilly. Interesting.
My district’s Kerry Whip was checking people in only because we weren’t sure our official Teller was going to arrive on time. Then the teller officially checked us in, and will be doing two voice roll calls soon (officially was supposed to be at 11).
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p>The governor has been giving a fine speech, calling out the “false choices” between national security and personal privacy, between affordable health care and universal coverage, between smart investment and protecting the planet.
O’Reilly’s theme was that we need a “one – two punch”, that Senator Kennedy stands for progressive values and doesn’t get support from Kerry. O’Reilly highlighted the issues on which Kerry differs from both O’Reilly and Kennedy. He also deliciously played the class card, having grown up in a housing project and working in a factory to support his UMass Lowell education.
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p>Martha Coakley nominated Kerry. Now he is being introduced by RFK Jr.
Ed O’Reilly pointed out during his speech that he only had 12 minutes, and he proceeded to hit that time on the button. He was just a bit rushed at the end.
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p>RFKennedyJr took most of 12 minutes to introduce Kerry. Kerry proceeded to speak for about 25 minutes. The speech was not interrupted by extended applause and appeared to be planned for that amount of time. After, the moderator (the party chair) apologized the he was busy backstage and hadn’t kept an eye on the time. He allegedly offered additional time to O’Reilly, but we were behind schedule and (obviously) O’Reilly had nothing else planned to say.
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p>The difference in the tone and scope of the speeches was remarkable. Kerry’s was a national speech with hardly any acknowledgment that he was even in his home state.
We’ll see shortly what the outcome of the roll-call vote was. The Kerry people are very well organized and flooded the arena with signs, but I’m not sure how solid his support is. In our district, the vote was 60% Kerry, 40% O’Reilly, not breaking down along any particular ideological or demographic lines. Of course, this is one of the more progressive districts, but between the blatant timing unfairness and O’Reilly’s excellent firebreathing speech (“Party leaders have said my campaign is a nuisance. Well, Democracy is a nuisance!”) I wouldn’t be surprised if people otherwise inclined to support Kerry will at least want to see O’Reilly on the ballot. Regardless, if O’Reilly gets 15% and ends up on the ballot, I’d say it’ll be a huge victory for him today.
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p>Now we’re waiting to find out what the vote totals were and what the mysterious resolutions, submitted during the convention as new business, will turn out to be…
Van Jones, from “Green for All.” is giving an excellent speech on how to build a strong economy through green development, and other progressive themes, like CORI reform, tying it all together…
I hope that was recorded somewhere.
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Oddly, Jake is sitting immediately behind me and we seem to be the only bloggers here. Currently students are receiving scholarships and being awarded internships.
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p>In the districts around 2nd Middlesex, O’Reilly seems to be pulling in 25 – 45%, so depending how heavily we are offset by more rural districts, it looks like there may be a senate race in September, even with only one Republican on the ballot.
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p>Battery died in laptop, now on. The crackberry… Not in yet. Currently we are resolving to open-source vote tabulatig equipment. Passed despite a few loud objections. Brief standing ovation for Jim Roosevelt.
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p>My ride is leaving so I do not have the big answer;
Just before 3 pm they finally announced the vote totals: 1994 (77.47%) for Kerry, 580 (22.53%) for O’Reilly,
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p>The resolution which passed reads in full:
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p>”Massachusetts Democratic Party do all in its power to CHANGE the ELECTORAL BALLOT COUNTING METHODS in Massachusetts (and share our information with all othre states) BY BUYING NOT-FOR-PROFIT COMPANY(ies) EQUIPMENT WHICH CANNOT BE ELECTRONICALLY MANIPULATED AND HAS A PAPER TRAIL.” Submitted by Mike Ferriter. Capitalization shown here as in original.
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p>The number of delegates present was greatly depleted by the time this issue came up for a voice vote. The chair determined that it had passed, though I’m not sure how.
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p>We were then asked whether we wanted to suspend the rules to take up a resolution concerning “shared parenting”. By voice vote, the delegates voted NO, before the text of the resolution was distributed. Therefore, the following resolution was NOT brought to the floor:
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p>”RESOLVED: The Massachusetts Democratic Party supports shared parenting legislation, so that in child custody disputes there will be an initial rebuttable presumption that there should be joint physical and legal custody, which may be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence that one parent is unfit, or that shared parenting is unworkable through no fault of the parents. It is further resolved that when both parents are fit, the child should have equal access to both parents, the child should spend equal time with both parrents as much as is practical, and both parents should share equally parenting responsibilities.”
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p>I do not know who introduced this resolution. The paper copy that was distributed had no author.