Monday Morning--
First day of Democatic National convention 04

I stayed out near Boston College with a friend, so my general commute into town was about one hour each way. The Maryland delegation breakfast was from 7:30am-9 am, which meant that I had to wake up at 5:30 am.

Casually dressed, I straggled into the breakfast looking to dig into a buffet, get my credentials (credentials for the day were only given out on the day itself and we had to pick them up by 11 am or we lose them), any generally convention material and then head on to any events. There was an African American caucus meeting that I was interested in. To my surprise, everyone was all dressed up and looking tre chic, except, thankfully, a couple next to me on my table--they had the same idea and rolled out of bed to grab a bite. There was no buffet, it was an actual program and sit down breakfast. That was not a welcome piece of information, but c'est la vie.

The way the breakfasts worked was that Prince George's County, just east of DC sponsored it on Monday, i forget who sponsored on Tuesday, Baltimore County on Wednesday and Montgomery County,just north of DC on Thursday. An unspoken "tension" in the delegation that was a sub-surface issue was that the two men who plan to run against each other in the Democratic primary were both there and clearly needed to make impressions on delegates who are the heart/grassroots of the local party.

The main speaker for that breakfast for Donna Brazille, quite the catch, but not after sitting through dozens of elected officials who all gave "brief" remarks. Tired as I was, I was not in the mood to sit through all those speeches, but they are a necessary evil. It was hard to put down a bite of juicy french toast to clap every two minutes, but clapping and cheering was the appropriate thing to do--it's all part of the ritual. One thing I didn't mind was that everytime someone said anything about "John Kerry" I dropped everything, sausage, scrambled eggs, french toast, fresh fruit and coffee and clapped like there was no tomorrow. As an original Kerry supporter, I feel like I have to defend him to other party activists, many of whom supported other candidates in the primaries. I guess I also got sensitive to the whole deal that people are anti-Bush and not pro-Kerry--well, here's one Kerry worshipper here and I'll be damned if I didn't show it.

Donna Brazile was great. She was plugging her book Cooking with Grease. I'm not sure I can read a book with a cholesterol inducing title like that in all good conscience. The other thing at the breakfast was the rah-rah speeches affirming pride in being Democrats and that "liberal" is not a dirty word. So it was quite funny then when Jack Johnson, Prince George's County Executive, introduced Steny Hoyer a prominent Blue-Dog conservative Democrat, of my quite conservative district, Mr. Johnson felt he had to justify Hoyer's conservatism, saying he always votes with us on things important to us.

Barbara Mikulski also featured prominently. She is running for re-election so the party is in re-elect Mikulski mode. She is a charming, sharp and quick-witted lady. I have to say that I really like Senator Sarbanes, he seems quite out of the mould as far as politicians go. He definitely is not rah-rah. Sarbanes is widely respected and is behind some pretty complicated bills, most recently Sarbanes-Oxley which dealt with corporate fraud and other issues. Steny Hoyer boasted about the strength of the Maryland congressional delegation. He is the minority whip, Dutch Ruppersberger, a freshman, is on the House Intelligence cmttee, Chris Van Hollen is on Gov't reform, etc. He seemed quite proud that for a small delegation, they were as well situated as any other state, save California who has people to spare. Hoyer certainly knows the importance of being well-placed. The Pax river base is a major, major source of employment in Southern Maryland and he has been tirelessly fighting for saving it from Base realignment or closing. He frequently brings Pentagon folks down and they meet with community people, etc.

Anyway, back to Monday at convention. I picked up my credentials and more welcome stuff. By the time breakfast was over, it was well past 9 am and I didn't think I'd make it to the Black caucus meeting. Besides, being full from breakfast, I had had my share of speeches, clapping, cheering, smiling, etc. So I decided to head back to Chestnut Hill--my buddy, a Benedictine brother, and myself were going to hang out anyway.

One interesting thing was that there were free Washington posts, boston globes, and wall street journals and National Journals. For a news junkie it was terrible. I found that after each breakfast, I settled into the hotel lobby and read and read and read (throw in a USA today) and an hour and a half later, I emerged feeling like glutton. I felt like I had done a bad thing, I don't know why.