I Become a Gravel Delegate

Ultimately all these primaries are about electing delegates to the party conventions. Where do they come from? How do you get to be one?

I'm not sure how those questions get answered in the big campaigns where everything runs smoothly. But on December 1 Elliott Jacobson, the manager of the Mike Gravel campaign, sent an email asking if I wanted to be a Gravel delegate in New Hampshire. Each candidate needed to have a slate of delegates registered with the party by December 5, and the Gravel people were scrambling to get theirs together. I didn't notice the deadline until December 3, so I quickly had to go to the NH Democratic Party web site, download their delegate registration form, and race it to the post office (you can't email it) to get it in on time.

I feel obligated to point out that it was unethical for me to do this.

I had written a column on Gravel for UU World. He's a Unitarian Universalist and I have a bimonthly column for the UU World web site. Arranging the interview was how I met Elliott, and journalists should not be delegates for candidates they cover. They shouldn't have asked me and I shouldn't have accepted. I know how I'd feel if I found out that a Washington Post reporter was, say, a Clinton delegate. (It would explain a lot, actually.)

But the column had been finished without any expectation of becoming a delegate, and the odds of any of Gravel's delegates making it to the convention is vanishingly small. He would need to get 15% of the vote and he's polling around 1%. The temptation to see more of the process from the inside was overwhelming. So I rationalized that the actual (as opposed to apparent) conflict of interest was minuscule: I haven't even taken the Edwards sticker off my car. I wrote an explanation to my editor, who put a disclosure notice at the end of my Gravel column. (I've delayed blogging about this until the notice was posted.)

I thought that was that. But around 9:30 one Saturday morning (December 15) I got a call from Elliott: The caucus of 2nd district Gravel delegates was happening that morning at 10 at Franklin Pierce University, about an hour's drive away. Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley had even sent me an announcement -- using exactly the same envelopes in which the Party sends their frequent pleas for money. It was sitting unopened in my stack of good-cause mail. I quickly read the instructions, found directions to Pierce on the internet, and hopped in the car.

When you read Ray's letter, it's obvious that the delegate caucus process is designed for candidates for whom lots and lots of people want to be delegates. "Don't make the mistake of assuming that you can simply show up to the caucus and get elected. ... Most likely, everyone there was brought there to support someone. In order to be successful, you should reach out to your friends, family members, co-workers, and neighbors and bring them to caucus with you. In addition, you should produce signs, fliers, buttons or lapel stickers to promote your candidacy."

My wife was still in her pajamas. I didn't ask her to go.

Franklin Pierce University turns out to be a beautiful place. It sits across from Mount Monadnock on a small lake, which was frozen. Somebody was trying to ice-fish.

I arrived 45 minutes late. The local Gravel campaign leader and one other Pierce student were there. We chatted about a Gravel campaign video the other would-be delegate was planning to make for YouTube. Eventually two other folks showed up, at least one of whom was also a Pierce student. There were (if I remember right) seven delegate positions, and the rules say you have to be present to be elected. We had no signs, fliers, buttons, family members, or other campaign accessories. We skipped over the place on the agenda where the delegate wannabees give speeches, and went straight to the part where we all vote for each other. Our paper ballots were stuffed into a small cardboard box, which the guy from the campaign collected so that he could send the official vote tallies to party headquarters in Concord.

I didn't see the count, but I feel fairly certain I was elected. It's possible that (somewhere in my stack of good-cause mail) a notice from the New Hampshire Democratic Party has already arrived. I should look.

Now all I have to do is hope that Gravel gets at least 15% of the vote. Maybe I should take the Edwards sticker off my car. Or not.