The following post was not written by Miriam or me, but by a mutual friend of ours named Greg Friedman. It’s not really science, technology, or a mollusk gone wild  (Though he is a math professor. Does that count?), but it was too good to not try and bring it to a wider audience. What is it? It’s a diary of Greg’s foray into caucus politics in the great state of Texas. He spent 19 hours in Will Rogers coliseum while the Democrats tried to get organized. By the end, they were doing conga lines in the stands. No joke.

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My Adventures as an Obama Delegate, or A Fitting Tribute to Will Rogers

by Greg Friedman

Will Rogers famously quipped, “I’m not a member of any organized political party - I’m a Democrat.” It was fitting, then, that the Democratic State Senate Precinct 10 convention was held at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth. Honestly, I had that opening line in my head before I even got there, but little did I know how true it would be.

On March 4, I’d been elected by my local precinct caucus to be an Obama delegate to the Senate District Convention. This was no great distinction, as the process was mostly, “Who wants to be a delegate?…Okay, you all are delegates.” The State Senate District convention is the second stage of the process, feeding into “State”, where they’d elect the national delegates. The Senate District convention took place on March 29 (mostly). I received instructions in advance by e-mail from our precinct Obama delegation chair, from a prerecorded phone call, and by a phone call from an actual human. These must have all come from the Obama camp, because some of our Clinton delegates had to figure out for themselves where to go. The convention would be at the Coliseum, registration would start at 8 AM, and business would start at 9:30. I planned to show up around 8:45, figuring it wasn’t going to take an hour and a half to register each of us individually, just all of us as a whole. Heh.
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