These are some late notes on the events that happened Monday, August 19, 2024 at the Democratic National Convention.
The California Delegation gets breakfast and speakers each morning when we pick up our floor credentials. On Monday morning, the speakers included US Senator Laphonza Butler and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
At the credentials desk, we received a SWAG bag that included some Chicago specific items. A transit card and some Garrett’s popcorn.
After that we headed out to the morning’s caucus meetings and that’s where we first encountered the horrendous shuttle situation.
Because the convention is being held over three distinct sites (hotels, convention center, and the United Center for the televised events) we are taking shuttles from place to place. The challenges are that you have so many people trying to get on these buses and that it takes a long time to go to/back from the hotels. It takes an hour to get to and from each convention site but at least we don’t have to run the gauntlet of ave any potential protesters (I haven’t seen any protesters yet).
The security at these venues is tremendous. Both the McCormick Place convention center, and at the United Center, there is TSA level security in place. Literally TSA. They’re very thorough! They confiscated all of the water bottles that were part of a welcome package because it did not meet standards. That’s a major oops!
At the convention center I attended the Hispanic Council. We discussed several topics focusing on the Latino, or Hispanic, population. Topics included business, gun safety, and strategy / messaging as they apply to Latinos in the USA. They were excellent presentations, but because they ran longer than expected many of the delegates had left by the time we got down to the messaging topic (which may have been the most important topic).
Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz stopped by to address the caucus.
I’d wanted to get back to the hotel to take a lunch break but unfortunately the shuttle situation reared it’s ugly head again. Because the lines were so long and so few buses were available, by the time I got to the hotel I was not able to grab a quick lunch and head back to the convention center. I spent the rest of the afternoon offline so to speak.
I then got into line to get back to the to go to the Union Center and to get on with the evening’s business. It was there that I ran into my delegation cohorts Jackie Smith and Rebecca chenoweth.
The entire delegation did do some business Monday evening. We adopted the rules of the convention and the approved the national platform, and finally, we accepted the nomination of Tim Walz and that of vice President Kamala Harris.
Then we got on to the business of hearing speeches.
Here is just a quick, random recap from memory of moments that stuck with me.
- The pledge of allegiance recited by DNC chair Jamie Harrison’s children (an endearing moment)
- We heard speeches from AOC (very well received)
- Hillary Clinton (the energy was THROUGH THE ROOF)
- Rep Jasmine Crockett (her tears touched all)
- and of course from the president himself Joe Biden.
Monday’s selfies
I spent the day with some wonderful delegates from across the state and the nation.
