You will refer to me as "delegate dday," sirs and madames.

Short answer: I won.

We had our CDP (California Democratic Party) elections this morning, and I am proud to report that I and all 12 members of our Progressive Slate were overwhelmingly victorious. In what was a relatively high turnout for elections of this type, I garnered 88 votes out of 134 ballots, or 65.7%. I am now going to do a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of voting... OK, no, but I do want to tell you about what was a tremendous experience. I also have video which I'll get up on YouTube later.

The caucus was scheduled for 10:00 this morning at the Malibu Public Library, which is about the midway point in the district between Santa Monica and Oxnard (actually, it's probably a little closer to Santa Monica). I got there a little early and stayed in my car until the library opened up (it was literally the coldest morning of the winter). All the members of our slate were armed with flyers and ready to greet the voters. I was fairly confident, because our slate included Marcy Winograd, progressive champion and former Congressional primary candidate against Jane Harman in 2006. But there was also a competing slate, composed of a grassroots group from the San Fernando Valley. This included the convener of the meeting and 2005-06 Executive Board representative for the AD. So this wasn't going to be easy.
People had about an hour to come in and register themselves for the election, pay the fee (or poll tax, whatever you want to call it), and get their ballot. This was basically an hour of full politicking, handing out flyers, talking to people, making your case. Retail politics at its finest.

I want to tell anyone reading this who is running tomorrow to look for a few pitfalls that really impacted my meeting, which was far more of a free-for-all than it needed to be.

• Make sure the person running the meeting has control over the ballot distribution. There were people handing out ballots all over the place. In the end, this wasn't a major factor, but there ended up being 134 ballots and only 133 people who registered for the caucus. In my view, this could have been far worse but for the honesty of the people in the room.

Ballots should at the very least have a number on them which corresponds to each voter, or something. This was a nightmare waiting to happen.

• Please note that registration CLOSES one hour from the scheduled time of the meeting. If voters are in line for registration at that time, they can participate. If not, they're out of luck. This was a MAJOR point of contention in our meeting because it was not really information that was distributed to anyone prior. There were a couple people who were a couple minutes late who they tried to turn away, and the room just erupted, the voter started yelling the he was disenfranchised, people were walking out of the room in protest, it was CHAOS. You know, just another Democratic meeting.

I would say that all candidates should make very clear that their voters must be there within an hour of the meeting schedule.

• The rules for counting the votes are at the complete discretion of the organizer of the meeting. We ended up with a process where supporters of the two competing slates (not candidates) could observe the counting, and people unaffiliated with the slates were the counters. But this should be worked out beforehand, or it could descend into more squabbling (especially if there are competing slates).

OK, that procedural stuff's out of the way, so let me tell you how it went. I spent an hour talking to people, meeting with my fellow slate members, and watching the craziness that surrounded the caucus. There were friends of mine who came out to vote for me. There were people I met at MoveOn meetings and people who read about me online. It was an inspiring hour where I got to tell my story to people, and have them understand why I should be sent to the CDP convention. Eventually, we got around to candidate statements. You had one minute to give a speech about your candidacy. Being that they went by alphabetical order, I actually was second. I have video of this speech which I'll be putting up on YouTube later. I didn't go off notes, but here's a paraphrase:

"My name is David Dayen. I am a proud progressive. I come from the grassroots, and I'm a blogger, so i come from the netroots. The reason I am running is that I think we have a tremendous opportunity in California. The Republican brand is shot, they can't get elected unless they act like Democrats for six months. But we're not going to get anywhere without a strong and vibrant party of our own. As your delegate, I will work to make the CDP more responsive to the grassroots and to the concerns of everyday Californians, more effective, by reaching out to every Assembly District, to every county, and more relevant, not just for 2 weeks every two years, but every day, every week, telling voters who we are and what we stand for. That's why I'm here, that's why I'm asking for your vote, because I want everyone in this state to be as excited about participating in their democracy as everyone in this room is. Thank you."

0 minutes, 59 seconds. It felt good, I haven't looked at the video yet.

Anyway, everybody got through their statements (there were about 35-40 candidates), and then final balloting was completed. (that's another thing, candidates, you can vote at any time during the meeting, before anyone makes their statement even. Quite a few people voted and left. I don't know who that benefits, but it should be known.

Vote-counting took TWO HOURS. They counted the number of ballots, made sure every ballot counted no more than 12 people (a few people over-voted, and their votes were then discarded), counted once, and I think counted twice before arriving at a decision. My friend ended up getting chosen to help count, so what he probably thought would be a five-minute ordeal turned into 4 hours!

So we all waited on pins and needles for the results. And finally, they finished. The organizer put up the entire results for all candidates, and circled the winners. And sure enough, our ENTIRE slate, 6 men and 6 women, was elected. We all turned out our voters, and defeated the other slate by a wide margin. Marcy Winograd was then elected by unanimous consent as our executive board representative.

It was exhilirating to really participate and get involved in the political process at the local level. I was really inspired by seeing some of the other candidates there. There was a mother-daughter tandem, with the daughter in her early 20s. There was a Hispanic lady from Oxnard who was only naturalized as a citizen a couple years ago. She spoke about the importance of getting involved. Seeing the energy at the local level bodes extremely well for my party. And now I can truly say that it's MY party: I'm an elected official!

GET INVOLVED in your state parties. It's so rewarding and vital. Movements like this start from the bottom up. It's the only way real change ever happens in America.

Thanks to everyone who gave me their support and good wishes this week. I also have a word for Robert Salladay of the LA Times, who attacked me, and the very notion of participatory democracy earlier this week... this "sallow depressive" is an elected sallow depressive, sir.