As I recounted here, in January I was elected as member of the California State Democratic Central Committee. Specifically, I’m a member of the Assembly District 43 delegation. This two-year position makes me a delegate to the state convention this and next year. And that’s where I was just over a week ago: at the convention in San Diego.

While there, I got a close look at all the major Democratic presidential candidates except one, Joe Biden, who didn’t come — although he did have people working a table in the exhibit area. These people seemed abashed that he wasn’t there and gave queasy explanations having to do with the sudden change of the California primary (it’s now much, much earlier), making this convention more important but only after Biden had already planned to stay in South Carolina. (Also the site of a convention in the same timeframe, and also a state with an early primary.) We already have a “president” (please note the quote marks) who doesn’t adapt quickly to change and we don’t need another, so I won’t be supporting Biden.

Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson all made it. In fact, even former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel made it — and his last campaign statement showed net assets of only $458, so I’m not  even sure how he swung airfare. So again, why not Biden?

Over the next few days I’m going to upload some photos and share some thoughts about these candidates, as well as overall impressions of the convention. In fact, I’m going to start with the very next post.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.