The Fighting 16th

So Saturday was a day of Democratic Conventions all over the state of Texas. Mine, Senatorial District 16, was held at SMU, in Moody Coliseum. I hear over 6,000 people were there. We were organized by precinct and spent most of the day waiting and waiting and waiting. And then we caucused. And then we waited some more.

And then we tried to vote on the Credentials Committee's reports on various rogue delegates, but utter chaos ensued. Verbal votes (imagine the VAST DIFFERENCE between AYE! coming from 3,200 people versus 2,800 people) weren't working, so we took to doing visual votes by standing, and then people got frustrated and went down to the floor and fought with the people in charge for a while in a supposedly very organized and respectful manner (uh, no), and then we decided to just pass all the damn majority reports of the damn committee, because, my God, democracy is great and all, but it sure takes up a lot of time. Also, were hungry.

I got hit on; I got made fun of for reading Madame Bovary during down times; I ate a hot dog. I voted on things I didn't understand; I learned about patience. But I also made a couple friends in my precinct (e.g. just down the street from me), and I even got a few pictures before my camera died. All in the name of democracy. Hallelujah.

Oh, and also, Obama is the official delegate winner of Texas.

This is the crowd outside Moody Coliseum. I'm not sure why I expected the county convention to be more organized than the caucus on March 4 was, but I did. And I was wrong.

These are the columns of Moody Coliseum. My precinct was there at 8 a.m. and didn't make it inside the building until about 11 a.m. Oh, and that arm sticking up, holding the piece of yellow legal paper? That's Ryan, holding the makeshift sign for his Hillary precinct pals.

And that's what a real precinct sign looks like. Same precinct, very different voters. And by "different," I mean OBAMA VOTERS.

This guy scared me a little bit, but all the higher-up volunteers wore these silly hats. And once he began leading a cheer of "O-BA-MA!" I, of course, liked him immediately.

This is what the floor looked like before all the action. Of course, I didn't get a shot of it during the action, because my camera sucks. But you're all good readers. Use your imaginations. Yeah?

My precinct, ready to get this show on the road. Also, bored. (The green alligator bag in the chair is mine, woot.)

Ben, Gillian, and me. Ben and Gillian are our precinct delegates going to state. And there's a good chance that at least one of them will get to go to the national convention. My nametag reads "Spring Hussein Weaver." Gillian and Ben made them for all of us. We each had a little bit of Barack in us that day.