A young guy from Belgium (one of the locals) shouted: Small Countries in the corner! All the people from Holland, Sweden, Macedonia, Lebanon, Israel, Switzerland, Turkey, Denmark, Luxemburg, Belgium, Norway, etc. gathered in one corner of the room. Even the woman I had been sitting next to all day from Strasburg France started walking over, “But you’re from France” I said “I’ve started a Strasburg chapter because the Parisians are a total Mafia!” One of the guys from Lebanon I met the night before came over to me and said “Come on, we’re having a small country coalition meeting “But I’m from Germany”, “Doesn’t matter, you’re cool, come on”
The group of around 40-50 people were standing in a circle. “Okay, so why are we doing this, why should we build a coalition?” A man from Denmark asked. “Because, this is exactly what happened last time during Kerry-Bush in Edinburgh, the big countries mopped the floor with us!” the guy from Belgium heatedly responded “So,...because you're pissed off!?!” responded Mr. Denmark “No, piped in the woman who had earlier put forward the motion for the conversation period, “this is supposed to be a representation of Democrats abroad EMEA, not just UK, France and Germany – not only are those big countries, it’s totally Western-European centric, What about South Africa?, the middle-east? or some of the eastern European countries? Americans, Democrats are living there – this is the face we should be bringing to the convention” She had a point.
I also noticed that all the women who had been chosen were at least 40+ years old. What about some of the younger people in their twenties? Isn’t that what this campaign had been all about? “Okay, this is brutal, but all of our top 10 women line up and we’ll caucus (take a vote of hands). The women lined up, one by one, people were asked to raise their hands to narrow it down to two women. The woman from South Africa I had sat next too the night before, and the woman from Sweden were chosen. These were going to be the women the group would block vote for.
I wandered over to the where the Germans and Brits were huddling. “They are going to want to send some of their people” “That’s great, but what have they done?, Sally here has been busting her ass this whole year to make sure the online global primary went off without a hitch, she is GOING to the convention” “Well, we have to have at least two qualified candidates, Carol has pulled countless all-nighters and raised thousands all on her own for this campaign....” This was all true too I thought.
So this is what it was about. It was a struggle between rewarding people who had truly given time and energy to the effort or presenting the diversity of the group at the convention. As I was wandering between the two groups I overheard the super-delegate lady saying to someone “The small countries do this every four-years, whining about the big countries, so I told ‘em, build a coalition, it’s great, they’re doing it now – it’s democracy in action” I admit, I had to agree. As I walked back and forth between groups I heard smart, passionate people, discussing, arguing, bargaining and coming to agreements, and I had absolutely no problem with it. Democracy in action, indeed.
After the ‘conversation period’ the second round of votes took place. Women who came in eighth and below were politely asked to consider withdrawing. I was chatting with someone (that was what was so wonderful about this whole event, it was sooo easy to strike up with conversation with anyone, there was an instant bond of being not only an Obama supporter, but an expat) when one of the ‘officials’ came up to me, with a semi-sheepish look on his face. I broke off my conversation mid-sentence “Oh, I withdraw, I withdraw” He smiled, congratulated me on getting any votes at all and moved on to conduct the rest of his business for the second round voting.
The second round of votes were announced. Apparently some more horse trading had gone on because the next round of women looked different, but people who had formerly been in 6th place were now in 1st, and people in 1st place were now totally out of the running. The situation had obviously been very, very fluid.
It was time to break for lunch, and then it would be the men’s turn.
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