Virginia's Jeff-Jack - a look back the morning after

This is a personal rumination at what I saw and heard during the time I arrived in Richmond shortly before 9 AM yesterday until I finally left my last event well after midnight.  This was not my first Jeff-Jack, and I had the opportunity to spend time with a wide range of people, and to observe even more.  Virginia is now a state where the Democrats are increasingly confident about their ability to win at all levels of government, and are showing a willingness to do a Commonwealth equivalent of Howard Dean's 5- state strategy - even Republicans in what appear to be "safe" seats are increasingly finding themselve with Democrat challengers.

I invite you to read along.  If you watched the speeches at the dinner, you will already have some sense of the evening's culmination, with the crowd almost berserk in its support of Barack Obama.  I hope what I offer will give some of the background for what you might have viewed.
I went to the Siegel Center to get my ticket upon my arrival in Richmond.  I had not been able to purchase a seat for being on the floor and eating as they had sold out in the first day they were available, although later I would be able to find someone I knew who had an extra.  While some people were willing to limit themselves to $35 to sit upstairs on the sides during the speechifying, there were quite a few people besides myself who were looking for the odd ticket or two.  While we were on line staffers and volunteers were circulating petitions to get Mark Warner on the ballot:  inf Virginia, even if you have no opponent for the position for which you are running you still cannot qualify for the ballot without obtaining sufficient signatures.  The beauty is that if there are 5 candidates filing for the primary, you can sign for all 5 provided you are eligible to vote for that office.  Warner would not be the only candidate circulating petitions at the various venues.

The state party people were a bit slow getting people checked in for their tickets, but by 9:15 I was in my car heading for the Richmond Marriott from where I write this.  I was able to get checked in immediately, dumped my bag and went back to the lobby to see people and observe what was happening.

The first impression was something I found borne out during the rest of the day.   There were more Obama stickers and button being worn than Clinton stickers and buttons, I would say by better than a 3-2 margin.   And of those wearing Clinton insignia, the ratio was better than 3-1 female to male.  People of different persuasions were cordial to one other:  the events of the day and evening were intended to build the state and local democratic efforts.  It was also an opportunity for candidates to make themselves visible.

The state party has a number of panel sessions during the day, beginning with a meeting of the state committee to which I did not go  I sat in part of one event talkin about the upcoming campaign season that had been organized by Delegate Steve Shannon of Fairfax, who will be the party's nominee for Attorney General next year.  I had not previously met him, although I know his wife - she handles educational policy for Rep. Nick Lampson of TX-22.  Nick is a friend, so I have also met with Abby on educational matters. For those wanting to go to such events it was one way to network.  For many, the primary places of networking were in the hotel lobby and during the dinner by wandering among the several hundred tables (with ten people each) on the floor of what is normally the basketball arena for Virginia Commonwealth University.  

One thing that gave me a sense of the situation in Richmond was a particularly conversation with someone whose position I have to respect and thus will not identify.  This is one of the most important supporters of Hillary Clinton in Virginia, who flat out said that s/he wanted to wear sticker or buttons for both Clinton and Obama, who really hoped there would be a joint ticket, and who acknowledged that Clinton did not have that much hope of even doing well in Virginia on Tuesday, despite all three Clintons doing events in the state.  Oh, and word quickly spread on two things.  First, Bill Clinton was going to do a town hall event at the convention center adjacent to the hotel in early afternoon.   And both candidates would be late in arriving because of campaigning in Maine - with Obama not arriving until after 10 PM.

Most Clinton supporters seemed less enthusiastic about Tuesday than did Obama supporters.  That was apparent in watching people look at the insignia worn by others they encountered, with Obama supporters smiling at one another.  One person from Arlington had a bag of buttons which he was giving to people who only had stickers for Obama.  The Clinton people sort of nodded at one another, usually without visible smiles.

One frustration for a number of us is that the Richmond Marriott is not really ready for the computer age.  Oh, there are ethernet connections in the rooms, and their is wireless access for which you have to pay in the lobby (I use my cell-phone wireless card).  But there are no outlets in the lobby or in the breakout rooms.  I did bring two batteries, but finally decided I would limit myself to the information I could get on my Blackberry except when I would hop up to my 11th floor room to do a more thorough check.  And because of security, once I knew I was going to get a seat for the food, I simply left my computer in my room when I headed over to VCU shortly before 4 PM.  

I did not attend the Bill Clinton event.  Even many Clinton supporters who had heard him on previous occasions chose to pass on the event in order to connect with other Democrats.  Those who attended with whom I spoke said he was typical Bill C - an effective speaker, more so than his wife.  But the sense I got from talking to people is that he was unlikely to have changed many minds.

As for the speeches last night - some of our public official are not that effective at speaking to large audiences.  I would put my own Congressman Jim Moran in that category.  Some are quite effective  Current Governor Tim Kaine may have actually been the best speaker of the evening, although of course he was building the crowd for the appearance of Obama to end the evening, and that got the audience enthusiasm building, which always heps the one making the speech.

Hillary Clinton's speech was, to put it mildly, pedestrian.  I'm not sure she yet knows how to give a speech in this kind of venue.  It seems as if the only way she knows how to raise the crowd is to raise her voice, and when she does so the pitch also goes up.   It does not generate real audience response.  And it seems to come at the end of some laundry list, so that whatever response is invoked seems more than a little artificial, almost forced.  in fairness, she was clearly tired, and had to know by the time she was speaking how badly she was being beaten around the country.  She received a warm response upon her arrival, with most on the floor standing to greet her  I stayed on the floor for her speech, and thus experienced what I consider a lack of electricity in the response to her words.

I went upstairs before Tim Kaine spoke:  I wanted to get a sense of how the audience as a whole was reacting when Obama spoke, and I also hoped to beat the crowds out at the end, although that proved not to be possible, as the secret service kept up in the building until Obama was in his vehicle and secure.  The Governor was on fire.  He genuinely likes Obama, having gone to Iowa on his behalf.  He told the story of when Obama came in to campaign for him in his gubernatorial run how they discovered they had grandparents from the same small Kansas town.  His enthusiasm was contagious, and he had the crowd built to a fever pitch before he introduced Obama, whose entrance took on the proportions of a rock star, or a championship boxer walking through the crowd on his way to the ring.

Obama began with the appropriate words of acknowledgement for the setting, although he made a small blip in mispronouncing the last name of our state party chairman.    The rest of his speech was largely a stump speech, with the elements you could have heard as I have) in several other venues recently.  But here's the thing - it did not come across as a stump speech.  Periodically Obama would look down as if he were reading from notes (maybe he was, although i have seen him give what is effectively the same speech on several occasions, and had never previously seen this).  Of more importance, his timing and his interplay with the crowd response was superb.  At times the crowd was laughing, at other times the crowd was roaring so loudly you could not hear what he was saying even though he almost yelling into the microphone.

During the speech I saw a number of Clinton supporter quietly leave.  And those Clinton supporter I encountered afterwards back in the hotel seemed quite subdued.  By contrast, the Obama supporters were still wound up, filled with enthusiasm.  It was palpable in the one formal event I attended afterwards, a reception Creigh Deeds put on for Tom Periello, the very interesting man who will be the Democratic candidate against Virgil Goode in the 5th CD.

From all I heard and saw, even though Virginia may be Clinton's target for Tuesday, she will lose by a substantial margin.  She will probably not be totally crushed, although in places lie Bobby Scott's 3rd CD, Obama might reach 70% of the vote.  The Clintons are targeting the more Republican-leaning exurbs of DC, even though many of the key Democrats there are leaning Obama:  quite a few were Edwards supporters who have moved on to Barack.  And after the massive defeat of last night I did not detect a strong sense that people were committed to trying to go all out on behalf of Hillary: it s as if whatever life they had coming into yesterday was taking out of them during Obama's speech.

Those are some of my thoughts looking back.  I am now at 7:20 going to get dressed and wander on down to the lobby for a while.  I will have my computer with me, and in about 10 minutes should be able to respond to any comments needing or inviting my attention.  It is possible I will encounter our next president: as I got off the elevator late last night some young girls said they had ridden up with Obama earlier and he had gotten off on my floor, although I saw no visible secret service protection on the corridor.

I have only had 5 hours sleep.  I have an event at 10, and then will drive home, and I need to get the process of being recaffeinated started.

Peace.

UPDATE just spoke with Jim Turpin of Arlington, who runs the finances for Virginia Dem Party.  Last night they served 3,000 dinners, had a total of 5,500 in attendance, and raised $750,000.  In other words, a smash.   The national head of Young Dems was here last night and told his Virginia equivalent that he not seen any JJ event elsewhere that could match this one in enthusiasm.  

About to head on home.

Again, Peace.

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Another photo (Lowell - 2/10/2008 11:37:16 AM)