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Tammy Duckworth was a major with the Illinois Army National Guard. Injured in Iraq, she lost both legs and the partial use of one arm. She spoke today at the Women’s Caucus. These images and her attached speech say more than I could ever write.
-Rich Stromberg, Denver, Colo. 2 p.m.
Tammy Duckworth DNC Women\’s Caucus Speech
Morning starts early when the Alaska Delegation breakfast begins at 7 a.m. and you have to ride the bus from near downtown to their hotel near the Tech Center. The 5 a.m. alarm was made easier by the adrenaline of little sleep and anticipation for the long day to come.
The 6:12 #40 bus gets you to the Four Points hotel by 6:38 and it’s already warmer than most Alaskan’s have seen all summer. Barbara Zipkin’s smiling face is greeting delegates as they show up for breakfast. Some are new to the convention scene. Some are seasoned veterans. And still others, like Cal Williams of Anchorage come with a reputation.
As fortune would have it, I ran into Al Franken in the Men’s room. The Minnesota delegation is staying at the same hotel, but Franken isn’t one to joke these days. The election is serious.
The first speaker for the AK delegation was Stewart Acuff, assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO. Acuff is a very impassioned speaker who talked about unions’ role in developing the middle class in this country and the common goal of universal health care. He pounds and thumps the podium when he speaks, which is a bit annoying and distrating. His voice alone is enough to get your attention.
While the delegation stayed for more speakers, I was off to the catch the light rail downtown for the 9:15 press briefing with the DNCC and the Obama campaign. The big news was the the credentials committee had approved seating of all delegates from Florida and Michigan in a unanimous vote.
The breakdown of 4,440 delegates and 617 alternates were 50% female, 24.5% African American, 16.6% Asian/Pacific Islander, 11.8% Hispanic, 2.5% Native American with 14.5% 36 years old or younger and 3.7% with disabilities. The words “unity” and “unified” were used only once during the briefing as was the word “alacrity” which I had to look up.
One issue I questioned them about was that they described one of tonight’s speakers, Mike Fisher, as someone who “might” be laid off from Amtrak. They weren’t exactly sure, but they said his division at Amtrak has announced pending layoffs. Okay, I can buy that.
They treat my level of press pretty well around here with a press center at the convention center that includes wireless Internet, beverages and muffins and banana nut bread. You notice quickly that the upper tier of journalists are nowhere to be found. Albuquerque Journal? They’re here. New York Times? They probably have a suite some place else. Corpus Christi television? Yep, she’s sitting right next to me. CNN? No Wolf Blitzer in this room. I made friends with two gals from WBRU in Rhode Island and we’ve helped each other out through the day.
On my way to the First American’s caucus, I run into Colo. Sen. Ken Salazar. I stop to say “hello” and ask how his sister is doing. No, he doesn’t punch me. I worked with his sister years ago when we were both at Intel.
There was a strong showing for the First American’s caucus where the emphasis was on getting out the vote both in registration and then using the poll lists against voter registration lists to encourage everyone to get to the poll on election day. Several elections in Indian Country over the past several elections have been decided by 300 votes and 3,000 votes – all swingable by the Native American vote in these states. Currently, Native Americans lag the general population by 10-20 points. There is also strong support for Obama’s promise to create aa Native American affairs White House staff position.
The other emphasis in the caucus was for tribal leaders to start donating money to Native American candidates as opposed to just sitting politicians in order to grow the ranks of Native Americans in government at all levels.
More about Monday will be posted in the morning.
-Rich
I’m checked in. I have my press credentials and have just picked up my complimentary gift bag. Some items are useful like the media pocket guide and a very nice hard-bound spiral from Staples(TM), but some of the items are just taking up weight, space and a few are downright scary.
La Veta, Colo. Aug. 23, 2008 – I made it to the ranch. Tumbleweeds and sunflowers are thick up my drive because the new drive was put in just a few months before I moved back up to Alaska. The local gravel company is terrible for having weed seeds mixed in with their rock, but the local officials grandfathered them in when it came time to require all suppliers to be weed free. Now I have a full day of pulling what I can, but then having to use 2-4-D heavy duty ranch weed killer to make sure the tumbleweeds don’t reseed. Don’t bother using Roundup (TM), that is just like watering the plants.
Last night I dropped by the house of some people I know in the area. Four of the five were staunch Hillary Clinton supporters. All were 65 or older, which immediately reminded my of the exit poll data indicating Clinton’s base was the 65-and-older crowd. Their “love” of Hillary has not abated and their disdain for Obama was obvious, but their reasoning was a bit week. I had announced myself as a journalist, but since the setting was not obviously a formal interview, I’ll leave their names out of this. Two of the people are born and raised and still live back east and the other two are transplants. All four people are white (I object to the term Caucasian, because it literally implies someone descended from the people who settled in the Caucasus Mountains near southwest Russia. My most dominant heritage is Swedish. Thus, I am white too.)
Here are some comments from the table with my opinions in parentheses:
“Obama won’t win Pennsylvania.”
“I’ll vote for McCain instead of voting for Obama.” (How does voting for McCain further the programs and causes of the Democratic Party?)
“Obama has done nothing for the current situation in Georgia.” (True, but what real progress has been made by the current administration? I replied to the table. Also, Obama said earlier in the year that foreign relations were the responsibility of the sitting president and candidates for the 2008 election should not be sending mixed signals from the WhiteHouse and State Department. Sen. Joe Biden, however, did address the issue this week as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.)
“Hillary is from this area.”
“Obama had to win the nomination, otherwise towns would have burned. If O.J. had been convicted, LA would have burned.” (True, there were riots over the Rodney King incident and people were hurt, but 1) the riots stopped and 2) the violence was, unfortunately, directed back on the same demographic that was protesting and up in arms – a nice way of saying black-on-black violence and white people really had no reason to fear for their personal safety.)
“Hillary was expected to bow out of the race gracefully and just walk away. White candidates were expected to just walk away, but a colored man wasn’t held to the same standard.” (Okay, now I’m starting to see the generational thing when they use the term “colored”. To me, this term labels these people as being from a different era who for some reason have a problem with the word “black”. It also shows an emphasis on the distinction of race in these people’s minds. Another thing is that Hillary did not bow out gracefully. Either she or her campaign team put up a good fight, but they also were slow to acknowledge the writing on the wall and played little games when the delegates were firmly in Obama’s favor. )
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Okay, so that pretty much spells out the tone at the table. While not the only factor, these people clearly have some degree of race entering their thought process. Not all old people have these issues and I wouldn’t call what was being said out-and-out racism, but it is a stage where we are aware of and label people by the race. Let me repeat that these four people are not necessarily speaking for all senior citizens in this country.
I personally don’t see Barack as a black man. I forget his race at times. I really do. I see him as a man. Granted, I was happy to see that this year’s election will be different from the same old choosing between two old white guys. Let’s change up the lineup for a change. Whether it was having a woman or an African-American or a Hispanic candidate, change can be good for introduction of new perspectives and fresh ideas. It can also be good simply for change’s sake. I felt very proud of our country when we finally had a woman sworn in as Speaker of the House.
Race may always be with us. Things have improved – more for some than for others. Part of my extended family is a black woman in Louisiana with two children, a husband and her sister’s two children. Life is very difficult for them. The economic recovery did not come to their neighborhood. Is it because of their race? I’m not a social scientist, but part of me has to think that on the average, white people in this country come into this world with more and are given more advantages. We don’t know what it’s like to be of a different race or ethnicity.
So maybe Obama is a great thing for this country – especially because he is black (or half black or 25 percent or however you want to do the genetic math) or because he is not 100 percent white. In time, maybe all people will have the same opportunities in life even if they don’t start out on an equal footing. And if we help the disadvantaged to be less so, isn’t that good for an entire society?
I think so.
Aug. 22 12:08a.m. – Nearly seven months after I first submitted my application for press credentials to the DNC I am through check-in and security and waiting to board my flight. So much has happened since then. A semester has passed (more if you count summer sessions), the primary season is finished and my summer job was wrapped up last Friday.
I use the term “summer” loosely as most Alaskans are aware this year. If you thought there was no summer in Anchorage, you should have joined me in Cordova – a land where people run their heater almost every day in the “summer.” This is a place where the low, summer rates for electricity are about 23 cents per kilowatt hour – still more than double the rate in Anchorage. In the winter, the rates climb as high as 75 cents. After power cost equalization credits, electricity still costs 50 cents per kilowatt hour. Heating oil is currentlyrunning about $5.60 per gallon. If I sound preoccupied with energy costs, it’s because everyone in Cordova is. The problem is unavoidable.
Back in Anchorage for less than a week, I realize I could have used two weeks to get ready for the trip to Denver. My two-and-a-half year old Compaq laptop has physically died and I received a new Dell less than 48 hours ago. So in addition to working at the radio station, I’ve had to install all my software on a new system and transfer as many files as possible. This on top of moving into a new place for the fall semester. Also at the last minute, I offered to inspect a friend’s car. She’s driving the AlCan down to California early next week. The fluids, belts, hoses, tires all checked out. Then I remembered to check the air in the spare and found one main problem. No spare. To make a long story short, I ended up tracking down a new doughnut spare tire at a junk yard in Chugiak (those guys are tops on my list this week) and having to rig a lug wrench for an odd-size wheel on the right front tire. If all that weren’t enough, I’ve been dealing with a recently-diagnosed terminally ill dog.
All this would not be possible with my good friend Barry who is watching my dog Taiya (the famous kayaking dog of Cordova) and my cat Minx. Also key in making this trip work are my station manager Paul Flahive, TNL editor Gretchen Weiss, plus Kerry O’Steen Davis and Annie Route in Student Life who ran the bureaucracy gauntlet to get my travel approved.
During the course of 10 days, my head will sleep in six different locations: the ski patrol office in Cordova, my travel trailer, my room at the new house in Anchorage, seat 35B on Delta 1138 (if anyone can actually sleep in a middle seat), my own bed in my own house at my ranch in southern Colorado and at the house of my Denver host, Sra. Ines Peschiera.
And my parents worry that I try and do too much.
Wait till this time next week. Gotta go. Plane is boarding.
Back to the semantics of summer, Denver’s high today was 84 degrees, so it felt odd to be packing short-sleeve shirts for the trip. I was also faced with the decisions of which shirts to pack with respect to any message or image displayed. I packed a few of my blue firefighter shirts from the two departments I served with in Colorado. I also packed some UAA and other Alaska related shirts. For Native American Caucus Day, I packed my “Homeland Security” shirt – the one with Geronimo and his gang holding rifles where the caption reads “Fighting terrorism since 1492.” I also packed a few music shirts like my Bob Marley t-shirt and The Waybacks with an image of a Paleolithic man carrying a guitar instead of a club. Sadly, my Bushwood Country Club t-shirt had to stay back in Anchorage.
Ahhh, circulation. They’ve kicked on the auxiliary power unit and we have ventilation in the cabin.
One thing I’m excited about is seeing stars again. Between the long days and extensive precipitation in Cordova, I literally saw three or four stars the entire summer. In Colorado at 7,200 feet I should be able to see the Milky Way and maybe some meteors.
SLC – After very limited head-bobbing middle-seat sleep the sun is shining in Salt Lake City and it feels warm. The big story on CNN monitors in the terminal is a non-story. Yesterday Barack Obama announced that he has picked his running mate, but isn’t saying who it is till Saturday (tomorrow). So basically, we have the announcement to tell us about the soon-to-come announcement. This happens a lot in election years. So why is this still a big story? Stop reporting on this non event until something real happens.
SLC hasn’t changed much since I used to fly here at least once a week when I worked for Intel. I don’t miss any of that travel. In fact, the whole concept of air travel seems a bit foreign after a summer (there I go throwing that word around again) where my only terminal was a ferry terminal and you drove on the boat with all your stuff in the back of the pickup instead of having to find 4-ounce bottles for all your liquid. I’m used to taking my dog along and letting her sleep in the back seat of the truck. Passengers are free to walk around the deck throughout the trip. This whole concept of cramming more than a hundred people into a thin metal tube is practically barbaric as far as travel aesthetics go. Clearly there is a trade off between speed and comfort.
Time to board the final leg. Next stop, Denver.
Democrats from around the world will gather in Denver Colorado to participate in the Democratic National Convention.
The Northern Light, collaborating with KRUA 88.1 FM, will be reporting from the Caucus starting August 24. Check back for blogs from reporter Rich Stromberg as well as photos and on site interviews.
Democratic National Caucus 