Monday, February 25, 2008
Another Blow Struck for Nevada Politics
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For those of you who do not live in the Silver State, or Sagebrush State, Battle Born State, or Buy-A-Judge State as we call it, this is about the Clark County Democratic Convention, which was held, sort of, last Saturday in a ballroom at Bally's on Las Vegas Boulevard. This is the sort of thing that most likely would never have occurred when I lived in Ohio. I doubt that it would have occurred when I lived in Colorado. And, nobody in Minnesota would ever tolerate such a situation, don't cha know? What happened is that about 9000 delegates and alternates showed up for a meeting in a room designed for 5000. My wife was one of those delegates. I think I can more or less report what she had to say about it.
She arrived about 9:30 for a ten-o-clock meeting. Three hours later she was still in line to get in. She did get to hear Al Franken, who is running for the Senate from Minnesota ya know, and some other speaker. But even though she voted, she'll be doing another county convention at some future time. Before the State convention, one imagines. Because, you see, the votes never got counted. In fact one box of them got lost in the restroom. (I couldn't make that up.) The Obama people and the Clinton people started accusing each other of treachery. Then Obama and Clinton, through their representatives, suggested that the convention be rescheduled in a more suitable venue. Now both camps started accusing each other of trying to rig the vote in favor of their guy or gal. This even though it was the candidates who suggested it, mind you. But, this is Nevada, somebody must be up to no good, right?
Short story, they did vote to do that very thing at last, and Tami left the convention at about 4:30. She called to tell me about it. At 5:00 she called to tell me that she'd moved one car length in the garage at Paris Las Vegas, and how about I come pick her up? So I did, braving the traffic near the busiest intersection in the country at one of the busiest times for traffic. We picked up her car the next day. Turns out they had parked her in employee parking, which was awfully nice of them when you think about it.
So here is a typical political action in Nevada: an unforeseen surge of voter interest, an undersized meeting room, animosity for no good reason, and a good time was had by all. I never knew politics could be so fascinating, but I must say, between the corrupt county officials, the colorful mayor of the largest city, the judicial election signage that never seems to go away, and the general carnival atmosphere surrounding the process, this is quite the entertaining place to watch the process.
If you want to know more, here's a link for the convention as reported by Google, here's a link to Google's results for that mayor (Oscar), and here's a link to Google's results on those corrupt county officials.
Enjoy!
For those of you who do not live in the Silver State, or Sagebrush State, Battle Born State, or Buy-A-Judge State as we call it, this is about the Clark County Democratic Convention, which was held, sort of, last Saturday in a ballroom at Bally's on Las Vegas Boulevard. This is the sort of thing that most likely would never have occurred when I lived in Ohio. I doubt that it would have occurred when I lived in Colorado. And, nobody in Minnesota would ever tolerate such a situation, don't cha know? What happened is that about 9000 delegates and alternates showed up for a meeting in a room designed for 5000. My wife was one of those delegates. I think I can more or less report what she had to say about it.
She arrived about 9:30 for a ten-o-clock meeting. Three hours later she was still in line to get in. She did get to hear Al Franken, who is running for the Senate from Minnesota ya know, and some other speaker. But even though she voted, she'll be doing another county convention at some future time. Before the State convention, one imagines. Because, you see, the votes never got counted. In fact one box of them got lost in the restroom. (I couldn't make that up.) The Obama people and the Clinton people started accusing each other of treachery. Then Obama and Clinton, through their representatives, suggested that the convention be rescheduled in a more suitable venue. Now both camps started accusing each other of trying to rig the vote in favor of their guy or gal. This even though it was the candidates who suggested it, mind you. But, this is Nevada, somebody must be up to no good, right?
Short story, they did vote to do that very thing at last, and Tami left the convention at about 4:30. She called to tell me about it. At 5:00 she called to tell me that she'd moved one car length in the garage at Paris Las Vegas, and how about I come pick her up? So I did, braving the traffic near the busiest intersection in the country at one of the busiest times for traffic. We picked up her car the next day. Turns out they had parked her in employee parking, which was awfully nice of them when you think about it.
So here is a typical political action in Nevada: an unforeseen surge of voter interest, an undersized meeting room, animosity for no good reason, and a good time was had by all. I never knew politics could be so fascinating, but I must say, between the corrupt county officials, the colorful mayor of the largest city, the judicial election signage that never seems to go away, and the general carnival atmosphere surrounding the process, this is quite the entertaining place to watch the process.
If you want to know more, here's a link for the convention as reported by Google, here's a link to Google's results for that mayor (Oscar), and here's a link to Google's results on those corrupt county officials.
Enjoy!
Labels: Politics, Social Commentary
