A Little Snow Won’t Stop … Oh. I guess it will.
(Cross-Posted to DemNotes at www.DemNotes.com)
Last night, I headed up to the mountain counties to attend the Eagle and Summit county conventions. The two counties had coordinated to allow folks from outside of the counties to attend both — Eagle was set to start at 6 pm, with Summit an hour later, at 7 pm.
Sunday night, after my last post where I mentioned my plan to head up there, I received several e-mails from folks who warned me that the weather would be bad. I spent Monday monitoring road conditions and weather forecasts, and it seemed like the drive would be passable. I was mostly worried about the two-lane road over Hoosier Pass on Highway 9. I drove up, running into some heavy snow just before getting to Hoosier Pass, in the small town of Alma in Park County. The roads were a little slippery, but I made it over the pass just fine.
As I was almost to Frisco, I tried to call Debbie Marquez in Eagle County to let her know I’d be a few minutes late due to the snow. I left her a message — just as I noticed a lot of traffic and flashing lights ahead. As I got to I-70, it became clear: they’d shut down the interstate going West. I tried the other Frisco exit, but there was no use — nobody was getting through. I had to call Debbie and let her know I would not make it.
On the positive side, I did make it to Summit County’s Convention and Assembly in Frisco plenty early!
In Summit, folks there were grappling with the snow. One delegate told me about his 5-mile, hour and a half ride from Silverthorne. Sen. Dan Gibbs called and said he was going to try to drive south around Dillon Lake to make it to Frisco via a very circuitous route. (He made it with time to spare.) In the end, folks planned well, and nearly every delegate made it to the meeting — I guess they have some experience with snow in Summit County.
Once the meeting started, there had to be some folks in the audience who wondered if they’d stumbled onto the “Dan Slater Show,” because it seemed like I was being called up to the stage to talk for the first half of the meeting. As in Gunnison, I was honored to welcome folks to the meeting on behalf of the Colorado Democratic Party — I think I sure helped in warming things up and getting folks a little more fired up. Then, only a few minutes later, the agenda called for the Presidential campaigns to have their representatives speak, so I gave a brief talk for Senator Obama. Then, shortly after that, they were taking some time seating some remaining alternates, so Chair Sandy Briggs had me just “keep the audience entertained” while they seated the alternates. For the first time in a long time — maybe ever — I ran out of stuff to say.
Once the alternates were seated, they held the Presidential preference vote — neither my speech nor the Clinton campaign’s speech swayed a single vote. The delegates voted the same as they came in: 58 Obama, 38 Clinton. This resulted in 25 delegates for Obama and 13 for Clinton from Summit County. As in prior assemblies, everybody wanted to be a delegate, so it took both camps a while to figure out who would be delegates and alternates. While they were doing this, the caravan from Eagle County arrived: Jared Polis, Joan Fitz-Gerald, DNC Field staffer Kim Phillips, and DNC Training Director Parag Mehta. I greeted everybody and then headed back to my car in the snow — for the two-hour drive home.
In case anybody’s wondering, they did the preference poll for the CD-2 race shortly after I left. Senator Fitz-Gerald won the preference poll, with 56 votes to 17 votes for Jared Polis. This led to a delegate split of 29-9 in favor of Fitz-Gerald.
Debbie Marquez has been kind enough to send me her narrative of what happened in Eagle County to put in place of my absence. Here it is:
Last night was the first assembly elections for our CD2 Congressional candidates. Both Eagle and Summit Counties voted for the CD2 race. We were fortunate to have candidates Jared Polis and Joan Fitz-Gerald address our assembly with passionate speeches. Jared Polis received 62 votes and Joan received 63 and there were about a dozen uncommitted that didn’t achieve viability. They will split the delegates even Steven with 23 each. Both candidates spent a lot of time in the county and phoning delegates, but with our two of our commissioners lending their support to Joan, I thought she would get more votes at assembly. But Jared seems to have attracted undecided voters to vote for him. (For disclosure sake, I [Debbie] am the treasurer for the Jared Polis for Congress campaign.)
Thanks to Debbie for that narrative.
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After about 5 hours of sleep, I got up and headed up to Denver for the Denver 2008 Host Committee meeting this morning. On the way, I ran into about everything imaginable: rain, snow, fog, ice — I even think I may have seen the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse out there! (That’s the only explanation for one of the slow-downs near Castle Rock.)
The meeting this morning at the Colorado Convention Center was for all of the various committee members. While I arrived an hour late, I must say that it was extraordinarily impressive. When I helped kick off the concept of bidding for the Convention, I had dreams — but some of these things that are planned for Denver exceed my wildest dreams.
Throughout Denver during and around the Convention, we’ll see all sorts of artistic expressions of various media — object art, musical art, and performance art will be seen throughout the city. There will be a focus on so much citizen involvement from now through the Convention. For instance, the Denver Film Society is working on a project that will launch on March 1, called Filmocracy. People can submit their 5 minute (or less) videos that focus on democracy and what we’re doing in Denver.
Others are encouraged through another program, called America - Live and In Person, to submit their essays, artistic works, etc. for use surrounding the convention. More details about this will be released as they become available.
We also heard about the amazing work “greening” the Convention. Mayor Hickenlooper has pledged to make this the greenest Convention ever, and the Host Committee and DNCC are working to keep that commitment.
The Pepsi Center had a representative there, too. He spoke about the collaboration between the Pepsi Center staff and the DNCC / Host Committee. He also pointed to the “mojo” they expected from the convention. What mojo? Well, in 1996, the Chicago Convention led to the Chicago Bulls winning the NBA Championship. In 2000, the LA Lakers won the NBA Championship the same year as the LA Convention. And in 2004, the New England Patriots had a Super Bowl-winning year the same year as the Boston Convention. So, maybe Forsberg is just what the Avs need for the “mojo” to happen here!
Finally, we heard from the Downtown Denver Partnership. They spoke about their work to make sure Coloradans know that Downtown will be “open for business” before, during, and after the Convention. There are a lot of different activities planned for downtown, and they are working hard to keep area residents involved in getting out during the Convention and having fun.
Well, that’s all for now. I had planned on heading down to another county assembly tonight, but exhaustion from the driving and lack of sleep is kicking in, so I doubt I’ll make it. I’m off to Colorado Springs tomorrow night for meetings on the planning for the State Convention — I’ll write more about that when I can.