Connecticut
Post posts about what is happening in the State of Connecticut.
Selecting Delegates
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 15:41This evening, the pledged district level delegates from Connecticut to the national convention will gather at State Central to select at large delegates. According the Connecticut Delegate Selection Plan, one unpledged add-on delegate will be selected this evening. There needs to be at least two names for the delegates to select from. These candidates need to have submitted their names by last Wednesday.
In addition, six Pledged Party Leader and Elected Official Delegates are to be selected. Candidates for these slots need to have been submitted by last Thursday and the campaigns had until Monday to select which candidates they approved, provided at least two names for each position is selected. There will also be 11 at-large delegates and 3 at-large alternates selected this evening. People wishing to be at-large delegates or alternates needed to have submitted their names by last Wednesday. The candidates have until 7 PM this evening to return a list of approved candidates, again with the requirement of having at least 2 candidates for every position.
Since last Friday, I’ve been trying to get a list of these candidates. Representatives of State Central, the Obama campaign and the Clinton campaign have all said they would get back to me. At this point, it doesn’t look like they will get back to me until after the district level delegates select who becomes delegates. So much for an open process.
For the state conventions, I received an email that the Canterbury delegate selection meeting has been moved forward from 7:00 to 6:30 on April 1st at the Canterbury Town Hall. I also received an email that the Fairfield DTC will hold its special meeting to endorse delegates to State and Multi-Town Conventions at 7:30 on April 1st at the Osborn Hill School All Purpose Room.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Massachusetts, they will select delegates to the National Convention on April 5th. There is a little bit of a discussion about it on Blue Mass Group. Slowly list of possible delegates are starting to emerge. Kim Whittaker of Winchester is running for 7th CD female candidate for Obama delegate. Kate Donaghue is running for to be a Clinton Delegate in the 3rd CD. Their caucus will be at SAC Park, 438 Lake Street, Shrewsbury. Rep. Jamie Eldridge is running as an Obama delegate in the 5th CD. I’ve also heard of two slates for Obama delegates.
In the 1st CD, Ben Schwartz, Nancy Sternberg, andMolly O'Grady are running to become Obama delegates. That caucus will take place at Amherst College Gym, 266 South Pleasant Street, Amherst. In the 2nd CD, Tom Hidalgo and Lisa Baskins are running to be Obama delegates. That caucus will take place at Springfield Technical Community College One Armory Square Suite 1, Springfield, 01102.
One final note. I received an email from an old friend in Missouri who is running to be an Obama delegate in that state. They have a different process where delegates are selected at county meetings who then gather at district level meetings to select national delegates. Check out this diary about Bill’s efforts to become a delegate at the National Convention for Obama.
As I get more information about delegate selections both in Connecticut and beyond, I will be posting them.
Delegate Selection Week
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 03/25/2008 - 09:44Last week, there was a bit of buzz online about the process in Connecticut that Democrats use to select delegates to the National Convention in Denver. This morning, I received an email about Massachusetts’ process for selecting delegates to the national convention. Their caucuses will be April 5th and sound pretty similar to what happens in Connecticut.
However, there are other conventions besides the National Convention. In Connecticut, there are nearly two hundred other conventions. There is a convention for each State Representative seat, each State Senate seat, each Congressional District, and the State Convention. Typically, these conventions don’t get as much attention as the National Convention, which is too bad, because they can be great fun and important events.
This year they may be even more interesting and exciting, due to the new campaign finance laws. The goal of these new laws is to make it easier for people to run, so hopefully there will be more candidates showing up at the conventions.
The State Legislative conventions work differently from the National Convention. For the National Convention, the primary determines how many delegates each candidate gets going into the National Convention. With the State Legislative conventions, the delegates get selected at special caucuses or meetings of Democratic Town Committees. The candidate that gets the most delegates at the convention becomes the nominee, but can be challenged in a primary afterwards.
The rules for the Connecticut Democratic Party, as I understand them, is that delegates to these other conventions need to be selected this week. I’ve been trying to find out when these delegate selection meetings will take place and what rules will be in effect. In Woodbridge, we will be having our meeting Thursday at 8 PM ‘at the center rm 16’. I am new to Woodbridge, but sent a message to the DTC Chair in town and he promptly got back to me with details.
Sophia on MyLeftNutmeg posted information about the Glastonbury Democratic Caucus, which will also take place on Thursday at Democratic Headquarters, 2341 Main Street, Glastonbury, CT.
I sent an email to as many members of State Central as I could find email addresses for, which was at least half of State Central. Brian Anderson forwarded my message on to Chris Pitts on the communications committee of the Canterbury DTC. Chris sent me details about their delegate selection process. They will be meeting 7pm on April 1st at the Canterbury Town Hall. Besides Brian, and my DTC chair, who is also on State Central, only one other member of State Central responded. She noted that their delegate selection would take place during their regularly scheduled DTC meeting, but she forgot to tell me when and where that meeting will be.
So, the amount of information available online about how to get involved in Democratic politics in Connecticut is slowly improving, but it is still significantly lacking. If you know of other delegate selection meetings, please leave a comment here or drop me a note at aldon dot hynes at orient dash lodge dot com. Let’s get people more involved.
The Gigantic Foreclosure
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 03/24/2008 - 14:59It seems like an unlikely movie plot. A Wall Street technology executive, who started on Wall Street writing programs to analyze mortgage backed securities, moves to the suburbs and buys a unique hundred-year-old home. After living there for a few years, his marriage falls apart. His career takes a nasty turn, and he struggles to find a new job on the Street. He remarries and spends his time writing and getting involved with politics. He names his blog after the unique house. He gets credentialed as one of the first bloggers at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He writes a novel for National Novel Writing Month, and as the housing market collapses, he is forced to sell his house in a foreclosure auction.
As he tries to straighten out his financial woes, he gets a call from a movie scout that would like to use the house for a romantic comedy. There isn’t a lot of money in the deal, not enough to bail him out. They want to film just days before the foreclosure auction.
At this point, suggestions on the way the story plays out with the filming and the auction and any humorous twists would be appreciated. I would much rather see this play out as a romantic comedy closer to the style of Woody Allen than a tragicomedy in the style of Zola. However, I can wait. The filming is scheduled for Wednesday and the auction is scheduled for Saturday.
You see, while this sounds like a very unlikely movie plot, it is the current real life twists and turns of my current life.
The movie turns out to be Gigantic, “A comedy centered around a mattress salesman and the young woman whom he meets at his store.” It stars Zooey Deschanel and Paul Dano, with John Goodman, Jane Alexander, Edward Asner and others. One article says that Dano plays “Brian, a depressed mattress salesman whose quest to adopt a Chinese baby is sidetracked when he falls for Happy (Deschanel)”. Another article reports, “Asner will play Dano's pot-smoking, gangsta rap-loving father, and Alexander plays his mother. Goodman plays Deschanel's brilliant but domineering father.”
As best as I can tell, there is a family reunion, which will be filmed at Orient Lodge. The family is going hunting, or something like that. One person said that family is going mushroom hunting together and everyone takes magic mushrooms before hand.
So, if everything goes fine, they will finish filming at the house a couple days before the foreclosure auction. I have no idea what will happen at the foreclosure auction. It would be great if things work out in such a way that covers a large portion of the outstanding debt, but we shall see.
So, Gigantic sounds like a fun movie. The plot might seem a little unlikely, but it probably seems more likely than the plot of my life and we shall see how the two plots intermingle.
The swamp
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 17:48
Upcoming Events
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 12:36As the first quarter of 2008 comes to an end, and hopefully March goes out like a lamb, there are plenty of political events going on that bear highlighting.
On Tuesday, the Shoreline League of Democratic Women will sponsor an Author-Book Event featuring "Chasing Justice" by exonerated death row inmate Kerry Max Cook. It will take place at R.J. Julia Bookstore on 768 Boston Post Rd in Madison.
On Wednesday at 7 PM at State Central Headquarters on 179 Allyn Street in Hartford, Delegates to the Democratic National Convention will gather to elect PLEO delegates and at-large delegates. At the same time at 55 Oak Street in Hartford, volunteers will gather at Common Cause offices to put Citizens Election Program candidate campaign kits. In Stamford, the Himes campaign will hold Pub Quiz III will take place at the same time at Bradford’s at 83 Bedford St.
Thursday, there will be an Art Show at the Ridgefield Community Center, 316 Main Street in Ridgefield. The art of Suzan Waldinger will be displayed and politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties have been invited.
On Saturday, the Woodbury Dems will have their "Reds, Whites, and the Blues!" wine tasting and silent auction. It will take place at the Woodbury Senior/Community Center, on 265 Main Street in South Woodbury starting at 5:30. Also on Saturday, the Bethany Democratic Party will have its Spaghetti Supper where it will present this year’s Citizen of the Year Award to Art Slicer. The dinner starts at 6 PM at the Bethany Town Hall.
Sunday, at 2 PM, there will be a Health Forum sponsored by the Bridgeport Child Advocacy Coalition at The Unitarian Church in Westport at 10 Lyons Plains Road.
Then, to end off the month, on Monday, the 31st the Connecticut Delegation to the Democratic National Convention will meet to elect a chair, pages, and members of the standing committees, Credentials, Platform and Rules.
