Going to Conventions

Over the past few weeks I’ve been busy working to encourage greater democracy by working on my wife’s campaign for State Rep in Connecticut, and I haven’t sat down and written many thoughts about how we do this work. It is a quiet and rainy day, so I thought this might be a good day to look at some of what has gone on recently and the implications for greater democracy.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with Jock Gill and we spoke about the importance of getting people involved in local politics and in particular with town or county committees. Many of the people who have gotten involved in politics over the past year through grassroots political campaigns have not made this move and it is unfortunate.

The move is compounded by a lack of trust on both sides. Grassroots people don’t trust local committee members and vice versa. For democracy to flourish, we must get past this, but how?

I have not been involved with local politics before, so I can only speak for the grassroots side of the equation. My recommendation for grassroots people, which I’ve made on several mailing lists, is keep doing what you are doing. Get people involved and organize them. Keep trying to find out what is going on with local committees and bring new people to the local committees. Publicize what you can about what is going on locally. Use mailing lists. Use websites.

Keep at it. Be helpful and don’t go away.

At least in Connecticut, this is a great time to be involved. Last week, my wife and I went to our first congressional convention. I realize different states have different approaches to nominating candidates. In Connecticut, there are conventions during the month of May. The first convention was the state convention, where Chris Dodd was nominated to be the Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate. There were no surprises there. He is a well-liked incumbent. On May 10th, there were nominating conventions for the U.S. Congress seats. With the exception of one seat, there was only one Democratic Candidate per seat, and these conventions were more of the typical anointing ceremony. In the Second Congressional District, however, there are two Democrats vying for the seat. One received the nomination of the party, and the other will challenge the nominee in a primary in August.

My wife and I went to the nominating convention for Diane Farrell. We had never been to a convention before. We were not delegates and went simply as guests. It was a great convention and a wonderful time. I hope everyone tries to get out to a local nominating convention.

My wife’s nominating convention will be next Tuesday. If any of you are near Greenwich CT, please try to stop by.

Posted by Aldon Hynes at May 20, 2004 8:45 AM | TrackBack