Day 1 Update

Conventions are a whirlwind. You promise to do 50 things and you end up doing 5. You meet 200 hundred people and can't remember their name afterwards. You walk more in a day than you would in a week. But ultimately, that little corner of the convention, that little snapshot, is as illuminating as an omniscient bird's-eye view.

The turnout for the Progressive Caucus was amazing. I would guess about 400 delegates and supporters packed one of the biggest rooms in the convention center. I would say that the Progressive Caucus has arrived. It only started two years ago, and now it's the largest caucus in the Party. Assemblyowman Loni Hancock gave a report on her Clean Money bill, AB 583, which passed the Assembly Elections Committee. Mimi Kennedy talked about election protection. Brad Parker gave a stirring speech about the rise of the progressive movement. It was great stuff.

As I said, the Resolutions Committee folded a lot of the more contentious resolutions into some more mealy-mouthed ones. Of particular concern to me is the resolution to form an Audit Committee, so I'll be heading out to gather signatures to bring that one to the floor.

The blograiser was amazing. Unfortunately I spent so much time getting the liveblog up at Daily Kos that I didn't have a ton of time for interaction. But I did get to talk with Charlie Brown for quite a while about Iraq. His son is over there right now flying planes in the Air Force. He talked about how 40% of the officer corps is walking away from the service, how 30% of the Air Force planes have been grounded for wing cracks, essentially how the military has been broken by this conflict and how it'll take years to get the ship righted. Charlie is a great guy. I can also boast that both Brown and Jerry McNerney commented on the live blog from my laptop!

One great thing that stood out is when Todd Stenhouse, Brown's campaign guy, was talking with a couple of us, and said, "I get calls from reporters all the time asking, 'Who's dday, who's juls, who's Land of Enchantment, and why do they keep scooping me?'" LOL. We're just faster is all because we don't have a paper to meet a deadline for.

After the blograiser we headed out to some hospitality suites at the Convention Center. The Young Democrats event was pretty fun.

Highlight image of the convention so far: Dude at breakfast with no shirt, a leather jacket, and two Yoplaits(?).

OK, gotta go...