Liveblogging Convention Sunday

OK, so apparently the two battles for endorsements will happen first, before anything else. Mark Leno is greeting members at the door as they walk into the hall. You're going to have a low-information electorate here doing the voting on these endorsements: I don't know if someone in Fresno has ever heard of Mark Leno or Carole Migden. So the speeches they'll give should be interesting. The same with AD 40 (Blumenfield-Waldman-Healey). Bill Clinton's speech will apparently take place after the endorsement fight. I'll update....

My sense of what's happening on the floor is that people are very turned off by this endorsement process as a whole and will be voting against endorsing Democrats over other Democrats. We'll see if the Progressive caucus has enough juice to pull off that message, along with the Leno supporters on the floor, versus the establishment.

Regarding the Clinton speech, the first several rows of the convention floor are all superdelegates, you if you want to read the tea leaves, look to them. I expect Clinton to be well-received, but he's had foot-in-mouth disease on the campaign trail, so we'll see...

According to hekebolos Ted Kennedy might be making a surprise appearance in support of Barack Obama. I cannot speak to its truth.

...the Hillary visibility extras are massing on the floor. Incidentally, I heard that Phil Donahue's movie, which screened here last night, is uncompromising on Hillary's war vote, and during the time when she talks about it in the film she was booed. The reaction from the audience here to the Big Dog should be interesting.

Right now the volunteers of the year for all the various regions are being announced. And now we have the credentials report. There are 2,018 registered for the convention, which could be important for quorum purposes.

...Christine Pelosi is talking about the party platform. Marriage equality is in there, which is awesome, as well as the party's commitment to a safe and orderly withdrawal from Iraq and single payer healthcare. That's a good platform. And it passed without any incident. Fantastic.

...Inola Henry on the Resolutions Committee reports that the party endorses a no vote on 98 and yes on 99 for the June election, and endorses the recall of Jeff Denham in SD-12. That's great. Prop. 98 would end rent control throughout the state, and it must be stopped. Art Torres says "that's the easiest resolutions report we've ever had."

...SF DA Kamala Harris is about to speak on behalf of Sen. Obama. There's a good amount of Obama visibility. Harris is talking about how her speech up against Bill Clinton is "what this campaign has been about... the audacity of what seems impossible." She continues, "As we celebrate the fact that we are the most diverse, most vibrant and most inclusive party in America, we know that this November we will elect a Democrat as the next President of the United States." DA Harris talks about her family's history in the civil rights movement and how "this is a place that offers us a chance to rise again," and her improbable rise in public service as the first female black district attorney in the state of California. Now she goes into a version of Obama's stump speech. "The next President must be more than simply an improvement on the incumbent... we'll need more than plans... we'll need what former President John Quincy Adams called 'leadership.'" Apparently John Quincy Adams is the only American who's ever used the word "leadership."

...Harris mentions how Obama will appoint judges that will bring balance back to our courts and protect a woman's right to choose. That doesn't usually show up in stump speeches, but it should. Now she's on to talking about ending a culture of fear. She's doing well in the room... also talking about being smart on crime. "We will no longer have to accept the false choice between being tough on crime and vigilant in the protection of justice."

...Harris "Change has only ever come out of crisis." Interesting finishing thought. A lot of Obama supporters are here. There's an Obama chant happening now. Could this be a hostile audience for Bill Clinton?

Day 2 quick thoughts

• I truly think that the governor's mansion is Jerry Brown's if he wants it. I always aprreciate a guy who's been marginalized and demonized by the right for so long, and just keeps going, shoving it right back in their faces. Brown's speech at the convention, delivered without a teleprompter, was great for red meat but also reflected an agile mind that has been right about so many issues for so long. I like a guy who takes "Governor Moonbeam" as a compliment. I really think that if he wants to be Governor again the seat is his. Outside of President I don't believe he's ever lost a political race. (Plus I still remember that Joe Trippi ran his campaign against Bill Clinton in 1992.)

• I don't have a connection to the Leno-Migden fight outside of what I read on Calitics and what I hear from my friends on the site. But I have to say that, looking at it from the outside, this is the biggest waste of resources I've ever seen in my life. What would happen if these hundreds of volunteers walked precincts in the district, instead of providing "visibility" while fighting for an endorsement in a high-information area that won't ultimately matter much? The battle is swamping the entire convention, and it's clearly become a giant pissing contest between the Assembly and the Senate, with each side taking up for their colleague. As you've read here, Migden is nuts, and I have pretty strong opinions about who should serve, and in particular the principle of the unbalanced endorsement process, where an incumbent needs a lower threshold to get the party endorsement than a challenger. That's ridiculous, and in fact Joye Swan of the Progressive Caucus is leading an effort for a bylaw change to address just that. But this is a waste.

• Relevant to that, I think Bill Clinton has NO IDEA what he's about to step into on Sunday. The Leno-Migden thing is sucking up most of the oxygen out of this convention. Clinton and San Francisco DA Kamala Harris are speaking for Hillary and Barack Obama tomorrow, but there's going to be less focus on that than he'd expect.

• We are doing several interviews with Congressional and legislative candidates. So far we had a good chat with Bill Durston, a candidate in the rapidly purpling area of CA-03. We have interviews with Charlie Brown (CA-04), Hannah-Beth Jackson (SD-19) and Russ Warner (CA-26) later on. We will be posting the audio as we get it in. We also had a nice chat between bloggers and Mayor Gavin Newsom. His effort to sue for restoration of Medi-Cal reimbursements is a very strong stand.