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Anti Climax
By CaraBayles on Thu, Aug 28, 2008 2:27 am
del.ico.us
reddit!
Rooooll call!So, the roll call vote feels more like a game show than a
democratic process. It basically goes like this:
Secretary Alice Germond (the host in our little metaphor), says the name of the state, and the giant screen behind her sports the state's name, and how many votes it's been afforded.
"State," says Germond.
The state's delegation starts screaming.
"State, you have this number of votes. How do you cast them?"
"Madame Secretary," says the state delegation's chair. "We are the great state of State. We are great for cultural, geographic, or historical reasons that we are proud of. And we are also proud to cast # votes for Sen. Barack Obama, and this many for Sen. Hilary Clinton."
"Thank you state," says Germond. "State casts what they just told us."
Here's Senate President Therese Murray's shtick from last night:
"I'm Therese Murray the first woman Senate President of Massachusetts. This is my cochair, our first African American governor, Deval Patrick. We are the home of Sen. Ted Kennedy. The home of the Boston Red Sox. The home of the Boston Celtics. A pioneer in universal healthcare. The birth place of education. And we are the first to equalize marriage in the United States."
Damn, we're pretty cool.
Massachusetts is allotted 121 votes, and Obama won 65, while Clinton, who won the Massachusetts, got only 52. Yeah, that's right, four slackers never voted. But apparently, you didn't even need to show up to the convention tonight to vote … there was also the option to vote at the delegates' hotels, just checking the box on a piece of paper, since the roll call was so early in today's schedule.
Germond played out this script for a while, with California, the largest state, which would probably have rendered the pageantry too short and sweet for Democratic standards, passing on a vote. When she got to New York, Clinton took the mic, and said, "I move that the convention suspend the procedural rules and suspend the further conduct of the roll-call vote. All votes cast by the delegates will be counted. And I move that Senator Barack Obama of Illinois be selected by this convention by acclamation as the nominee of the Democratic Party for president of the United States."
Certainly not spontaneous, the moment still electrified the crowd, and powered them through some awkward dancing to "Love Train." It was a pleasant ending to a nail-biting narrative, with Clinton's concession as a citizen and servant of New York, tying it all off in a pleasant bow.
If you didn't watch Joe Biden's speech, you should watch it, but if you didn't watch Beau Biden's speech, you should really watch it.
So, I'm going down the escalator in the convention center and I suddenly hear this woman screeching in the bar. I run back up to see what's going on, and Barack Obama has taken the stage. Everyone is SCREAMING HYSTERICALLY. I swear.
