Platform, Text Messages, and Party!!!!
WOW
what's a weekend I had!!
This weekend was the Democratic Party of NM Pre-Primary Convention.
The deal with this convention is that it has two main purposes, although one extra fringe benefit.
1.) The Party Platform for the next two years is decided at this convention, and that's a fairly big deal.
2.) The candidates who want to run for statewide offices in the primary are voted on for ballot placement.
***3.) The fringe is seeing everyone you love to see from around the state, all your favorite Democrats, and the friends and family who come along to watch the process.
Well The weekend started with a state central committee meeting (the standing body of rule makers and business oversight people in the party) on Friday afternoon. It was tense, intense, and lots of fun to a political a parliamentary procedure nerd like myself.
We started off with many complaints about the way we had written the proposed platform, (as a member of the platform committee I was very happy with that platform) and the processed used to write that proposed platform.
We had complaints about the progressive wing of the party being left out of everything (I consider myself to be a progressive so that's upsetting to me).
But the meeting Friday produced a Native American Caucus, and new rules creating an Affirmative Action Committee to oversee the outreach efforts of the party to include all constituencies in our state.
Friday night was a blur, I did some stupid things, including thinking that if 4 women who are old enough to be grandparents can start drinking tequila at 1 am, then surely a 22 year old college student can do so as well. As a result, I drank probably three times the common sense limit between 5pm Friday afternoon and 4 am Saturday morning.
This led to drunken text messages, for which I'm sorry, and a few political arguments that were like unnecessary, but I was in a bad place emotionally when I started drinking.
Saturday morning came early, and with it lots of work.
Maggie Toulouse has recounted my favorite victory of the day for candidates, Geno Zamora the best man for the job in the Attorney General's primary.
But my biggest victory of the day was our platform. I've always had an interest in the Party's platform, and believe strongly it the way we write it. I believe the platform ought to represent the party's members and activists. But I also think every candidate should run on the party platform, and that means making it appealing to voters in Santa Fe' liberal neighborhoods, while not pushing away the democrats in Southeastern New Mexico.
This platform includes strong statements about families, the war, healthcare, and civil rights, just as the Party position had always done.
The fight began immediately after the platform was put up for discussion. WE amended it, myself included, to reflect positions on impeachment, gays in the military, abortion providers on military bases, and evangelism in the military. We added statements about torture, and military prisoners of war. There were attempts to derail the current platform, and replace it with a ditto copy of the resolutions passed by the party, which would have been disastrous in my opinion.
This is where it got dirty, not wanting to have a ful on floor fight over these resolutions, and the platform, and seeing no end in sight for said debate should it have started at all, I called the question, procedurally blocking more debate and bringing the platform up for a vote.
This was a success in my mind, because we have a great platform, good on the issues, and good for the candidates.
All in all I think the weekend was a success. The backlash has always been equally so, and I don't' doubt it will be this time.
I only feel like I made one mistake all weekend, and it wasn't political. Thank God for that.
Tomorrow, more ont he young democrats unity party... and maybe on my mistake as well...
what's a weekend I had!!
This weekend was the Democratic Party of NM Pre-Primary Convention.
The deal with this convention is that it has two main purposes, although one extra fringe benefit.
1.) The Party Platform for the next two years is decided at this convention, and that's a fairly big deal.
2.) The candidates who want to run for statewide offices in the primary are voted on for ballot placement.
***3.) The fringe is seeing everyone you love to see from around the state, all your favorite Democrats, and the friends and family who come along to watch the process.
Well The weekend started with a state central committee meeting (the standing body of rule makers and business oversight people in the party) on Friday afternoon. It was tense, intense, and lots of fun to a political a parliamentary procedure nerd like myself.
We started off with many complaints about the way we had written the proposed platform, (as a member of the platform committee I was very happy with that platform) and the processed used to write that proposed platform.
We had complaints about the progressive wing of the party being left out of everything (I consider myself to be a progressive so that's upsetting to me).
But the meeting Friday produced a Native American Caucus, and new rules creating an Affirmative Action Committee to oversee the outreach efforts of the party to include all constituencies in our state.
Friday night was a blur, I did some stupid things, including thinking that if 4 women who are old enough to be grandparents can start drinking tequila at 1 am, then surely a 22 year old college student can do so as well. As a result, I drank probably three times the common sense limit between 5pm Friday afternoon and 4 am Saturday morning.
This led to drunken text messages, for which I'm sorry, and a few political arguments that were like unnecessary, but I was in a bad place emotionally when I started drinking.
Saturday morning came early, and with it lots of work.
Maggie Toulouse has recounted my favorite victory of the day for candidates, Geno Zamora the best man for the job in the Attorney General's primary.
But my biggest victory of the day was our platform. I've always had an interest in the Party's platform, and believe strongly it the way we write it. I believe the platform ought to represent the party's members and activists. But I also think every candidate should run on the party platform, and that means making it appealing to voters in Santa Fe' liberal neighborhoods, while not pushing away the democrats in Southeastern New Mexico.
This platform includes strong statements about families, the war, healthcare, and civil rights, just as the Party position had always done.
The fight began immediately after the platform was put up for discussion. WE amended it, myself included, to reflect positions on impeachment, gays in the military, abortion providers on military bases, and evangelism in the military. We added statements about torture, and military prisoners of war. There were attempts to derail the current platform, and replace it with a ditto copy of the resolutions passed by the party, which would have been disastrous in my opinion.
This is where it got dirty, not wanting to have a ful on floor fight over these resolutions, and the platform, and seeing no end in sight for said debate should it have started at all, I called the question, procedurally blocking more debate and bringing the platform up for a vote.
This was a success in my mind, because we have a great platform, good on the issues, and good for the candidates.
All in all I think the weekend was a success. The backlash has always been equally so, and I don't' doubt it will be this time.
I only feel like I made one mistake all weekend, and it wasn't political. Thank God for that.
Tomorrow, more ont he young democrats unity party... and maybe on my mistake as well...
posted by Marshall at 2:06 PM
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