- I ran for Judicial Committee, coming in 8th of 21 candidates for seven seats. THANK YOU to those who voted for me, and those who didn't. I'm gratified to have enjoyed the trust and confidence of the former, and thankful that the latter saved me from a situation in which I would have had to STFU at times (had I been elected, I wouldn't have wanted to publicly comment on internal party controversies that might end up before the Committee.
- Going into this convention, I had a bad feeling. I didn't publicly air that feeling, but everything had a "Portland II" air about it for me. There were numerous opportunities for the party to damage itself with poor decisions and I had a gut instinct that it would take full advantage of all those opportunities. Instead, it seems (I have to go over minutes, etc. to check later) to have avoided all of them.
- Three caucuses, two of which I am a member, made their mark in a big way this time. The Audacious Caucus and the Povertarians (I'm with both) at least partially broke the stranglehold of Respectability Politics on the party's internal work (including but not limited to advancing James Weeks to a second ballot for vice chair), and I think will have an impact externally vis a vis the 2020 presidential nomination. The Libertarian Socialist Caucus (I am not a member) managed to put an avowed communist on the debate stage as a candidate for chair. If that sounds like a bad thing to you, think again. I'll be talking more extensively about that as time goes on.
- It's always great to see old friends, and to make new ones, and even to be friendly with old opponents.
As usual with national conventions, I over-estimated both the technological environment and my available time when it came to doing blog and/or podcast coverage FROM the convention.
The convention wifi was horrible -- NOT the fault of LPHQ staff, btw, Ken Moellman is both tireless and competent, but he can't make a giant hotel get its own shit together; if you're going to host events with thousands of participants for the love of God build a decent network! -- so podcasting was out of the question unless I bought and brought my own hot spot, which would have been another $100-$200 including the bandwidth to do that. By the time I got back to MY hotel and MY room connection each night, I was worn out and so I just did quick updates.
I don't party like I used to -- as late as 2010 it wasn't unusual for me to be hobnobbing straight through from the end of one business session to the beginning of the next. I must be getting old. Tamara and I spent an hour or two each night walking around and finding dinner (walked down Bourbon Street, etc.), but frankly I was just glad to get something like a full night's sleep each night.
More later. Time to get back to the "real" work that has gone waiting while I was out "partying."
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