From Poker to Politics

PART 3: I BECOME A DELEGATE

In December of 2006, Barack Obama’s book The Audacity Of Hope became the number one best-seller on the NY Times non-fiction list. I read the book and loved it. I was already an Obama fan from watching his keynote address at the Democratic Convention in 2004 and reading a number of his speeches that were posted on his website. I was particularly an admirer of how he addressed matters of faith when talking to a group of Protestant ministers. (We got another example of his ability in this area in 2009 when he went to Notre Dame and gave the commencement speech.)

When Obama announced his candidacy early in 2007, I went and bought a large quantity of bumper stickers that said “Obama in 08.” I also bought the domain name “obama08mi.org” and put up a website with this theme. In February of 2007, we had the MDP Democratic Convention in Detroit. Part of the convention time was used for caucusing within our Congressional District. Our caucus was visited by US Representative Sander Levin (Senator Carl Levin’s brother), who gave us a talk pumping John Edwards for president. His being pro-Edwards was not surprising, as Edwards was the biggest union supporter among the candidates, and John’s campaign manager was David Bonior of Michigan. After Sander left, I asked for equal time and got it, passing out Obama bumper stickers and explaining that I had

supported Edwards in 2004 but had now switched to Obama.

Fast forward to 2008. You may remember that the Michigan primary had been disqualified by the Democratic National Committee because we moved up our primary date. All the major candidates had removed their name from the Michigan ballot except for Hillary Clinton. If you wanted to vote for Obama, Edwards, or Richardson, the best you could do was vote for “uncommitted.” In the primary, the only two “candidates” who got enough votes to be given delegates were Hillary and “uncommitted.” When Michigan picked its delegates in April of 2008, each of the two remaining presidential candidates in the 4th Congressional District was assigned one male delegate and one female candidate. The people who voted for the Hillary candidates went into one room and the people who voted for the “Uncommitted” candidates went into another room. The Hillary delegates were vetted by her campaign people after being elected, but “uncommitted” was not a real candidate, and whoever the elected delegates were would not be given any scrutiny afterwards.

As you might guess, the people in the “uncommitted” room were concerned that someone who was actually going to vote for Hillary might get elected. There was a grassroots Obama organization in Michigan called “Obama for America” that had no formal ties to the regular Obama campaign, and they did the best they could to make sure throughout the state that only Obama loyalists became delegates in the “uncommitted” category. I received their endorsement for the 4th District male delegate, since everyone knew that I was a loyal Obama supporter. In fact, I told the voters that even though we delegates were formally pledged to Obama only for the first ballot, that I would vote for Obama on every ballot at the national convention until either he withdrew his name or I was waterboarded! In a three-person race, I was elected on the first ballot, getting a tiny fraction over half the votes.