Mending Party Rifts

Last night I was one of the last people to find a seat in the Pepsi Center before the fire marshals closed the doors at full capacity. From the nose-bleed section, we had a bird’s-eye view of the sea of signs and bodies that filled the stadium.

Although most of the people, like me, were there to see if the party would achieve the closure it needed after the bitter primaries, the drama temporarily took a backseat for a surprisingly invigorating speech by Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. With an Everyman charm, Schweitzer took on the issues and slammed the Republican leadership to the choreography of dancing red “McCain—the same” signs.

Hillary Clinton’s appearance began with a video tribute to her life, focusing on biographical trivia, her long battle for healthcare and the “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” (in reference to the number of primary votes she won)—a phrase echoed by Michelle Obama in her speech the night before.

There was very little ambiguity in Clinton’s speech. She recounted moments from her campaign and stated, “I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to this government… and they are the reason I support Barack Obama.” She scoffed at the Bush-McCain duo soon to meet in the “Twin Cities” (“it makes perfect sense”).

On the anniversary of women’s suffrage, she recounted the struggles of Harriet Tubman and Seneca Falls, dear to the hearts of her feminist followers. And just as we began to wonder if the exhortations to “keep on” didn’t have a sub-text ("we’re not big on quitting,” she said in an under-statement), she quickly turned it around to a plea to support Barack Obama.

Having successfully navigated the Hillary moment with a clear message of unity, the next telling moment came at today’s roll-call vote. Earlier in the day, Hillary Clinton “released her delegates” without telling them what to do with their votes. Many of the delegates from states where Clinton won the primary cast their votes for Obama. As the vote made its way down the alphabet, and Obama racked up votes, hundreds of Clinton delegates cast their votes for Obama, with several states like Arkansas, New Jersey and New Hampshire casting a unanimous group vote for Obama.

So then New Mexico yields in florid terms to Illinois, Illinois yields to New York and Hillary Clinton files onto the floor to suspend the roll call vote and nominate Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate.

The whole process seemed a little contrived to me, but I’m not much on rituals of power.

Anyway, it worked—Clinton was poised and dignified, the delegates accepted the measure to much acclaim, and everybody danced to “Love Train” in the aisles. Of course, all the states with the misfortune of beginning with letters after “n” missed their moment in the limelight and had to pocket their speeches about the beauty and benevolence of their states. But, hey, unity requires sacrifice.

The final important step on the road to post-primary unity was Bill Clinton’s speech tonight. The media reported some jostling between the Clinton and Obama camps on that one, with Clinton reportedly asked to pave the path for Obama’s debut as the unity candidate, and Clinton insisting on a forum to extol some of the accomplishments of his presidency.

President Clinton had one thing he HAD to say: Barack Obama is ready to be president. He said it, textually. He then went on to talk about what the United States should be, restoring work with international institutions and using diplomacy first and military force as a last resort, on this, the foreign policy night. “People abroad are always more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”

The former president made a strong case for Obama, endorsing his qualifications directly in a way his wife avoided. The rest of the evening consolidated the critique of the Bush administration and McCain’s candidacy, adding praise of the Obama candidacy. John Kerry compared the Obama/Biden platform to McCain’s positions with the rhetorical statement “Who can we trust to keep America safe?” Biden followed up, Obama took the stage in an unannounced appearance to cement the fact that it was his party, and some of the citizen participants made really remarkable contributions.

So the Democratic Party now has closure. But closure is an opening. The scripted opening is the path cleared for Barack Obama’s general elections campaign—the bottom line for the Party convention. That was a foregone conclusion but required careful packaging to begin to draw in sectors of the population that weren’t among the hardcore democrats on the floor of the Pepsi Center.

But the real opening is to give content and commitment to all the words heard here. Nobody expects the politicking to end here—in fact in many ways it’s just getting started. But what a united party now has to tell voters what it’s united behind, and how that differs substantially from the Republicans, to meet next week in their own convention.

The first day of the Democratic Convention

The Big Tent, a blogging center set up by the Daily Kos and other groups, is full and buzzing already. It’s an exciting tribute to a new kind of journalism, what Markos Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos, has called bypassing, crushing and influencing the gatekeepers. The people who work here are the critics, and not the sycophants of the mainstream media. So while the mainstream media attempts to impose its own news agenda on the convention process, many of these people look for the stories that aren’t being covered and debunk some of the “news” being fed through the usual channels. They’re wiring back to networks that crisscross regions, sectors, interests in thousands of ways and forms.

The mainstream media has decided that supposed internal bickering is more newsworthy than grassroots organizing and has turned its cameras on the disgruntled Hillary supporters for today. Conflict trumps unity as a headliner and much of the media feels a need to create tempests in teapots to feed the news cycle. But as usual, the story at eye level is more interesting and has more long-term implications than the politicking in the stratospheres of power.

In talking to people, there are many who have become grassroots organizers in this campaign--and electoral campaigns in the U.S. are not known for bringing about that particular type of conversion. Among progressives, some simply switched causes, augmenting a wide range of NGO work with the Obama campaign. But others are looking at organizing for the first time and breaking down the mystique surrounding both elections (usually restricted to vote casting or at best canvassing) and organizing itself.

Sure, it’s still in the context of representative democracy—not a really hands-on brand by nature—and the activism might be ephemeral, the heat of the electoral moment inspiring normally complacent citizens. But there’s always that handful who will come out of it saying, if we did this, maybe we can improve our community or make the democratic party more responsive, or reform foreign policy, or…

Some will shipwreck early on the rocks of disappointment or frustration. The U.S. political system guards its shores with these obstacles. But others--who knows where they’ll sail off to.

The campaign is encouraging, even promoting, this kind of conversion through organizing workshops and new technological tools for multiplying voter registration efforts like this one.

Even the stodgy Democratic Party has adopted a fifty-state strategy that goes beyond the pollsters and pundits to, at least theoretically, validate everybody’s role. In my state of Oregon that’s actually a big change. As a blue state on the last-in West Coast, we were typically downplayed in party politics. The strategy moves away from the exclusive focus on swing states to develop dynamic (and presumably funded) organizing in all states using local organizers rather than party hacks. Part of the idea is to create new structures that go beyond 2008.

The contemporary historical record on real change through the two party system is not encouraging. But seeing more and more people, and especially citizens usually left out on the margins, take part and feel more invested in the process is a step forward.

Mexico's Gold Medal in Kidnappings

The Dutch NGO IKV Pax Christi has come out with a report that Mexico now leads the world in kidnappings, beating out competition from Colombia, which once topped the list, and even Iraq.

In response to some high profile kidnappings recently (especially that of Fernando Marti) there are marches for "security" being organized in Mexico City. The organizers have called for the dealth penalty for kidnappers, which would require modifiying Mexico's long term stance against capital punishment.

The danger of this reaction to the situation, explained Emilio Alvarez Icaza, at a panel organized by the Fundación Heinrich Boell last week, is that "A crisis is the absolute worst time to legislate. Mexico signed two agreements specifically against the death penalty just last year."

Hopefully this knee jerk reaction to the situation, which clearly needs a more comprehensive solution than just radical legislation, won't prevail.

El Universal article: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/161690.html