Tuesday's Gone

Today started earlier than yesterday! At breakfast this morning we heard from the President of the Idaho Education Association and we talked about the importance of working for quality education for all children in Idaho and in the country. I had to sneak out for part o the morning’s presentation in order to do a live radio interview with KBOI! Part of our jobs here as delegates is to make sure folks back home get to keep up with our goings on here by giving interviews with local papers, radio stations, and even some television stations.

After we all received our Tuesday credentials and put them in our lanyards, people split up to attend several caucuses. The Idaho delegation had representatives at the Women’s, Youth, Veteran’s and Military Families, and the Rural Caucues’ this morning. I went to the Women’s Caucus and it was inspiring to see so many women Democrats in one place. Today marked the 88th anniversary of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. It is amazing to think how far we have come in that span of time and how far we still have to go. An often quoted remark during the morning was that Sen. Hillary Clinton put 18,000 cracks in the glass ceiling by being the first serious woman candidate fro President of the United State, but the point is that the ceiling is still there. Donna Brazil from CNN, Rosario Dawson, Fran Drescher, Rev. Lea Doughtrey, Christine Richardson the CEO of Planned Parenthood….many, many strong women leaders spoke to the importance of women’s rights being human rights that we must work to protect.

On my way to the shuttles, I walked through a very interesting protest. Veterans Against the War in Iraq and Afghanistan were protesting by staging a mock patrol through downtown Denver. They were dressed in full camo and demonstrating what the patrols they took part in while over there looked like. After talking to a few of the veterans, I headed to the shuttles to the Pepsi Center and napped all the way to our first security checkpoint! Because I knew what to expect, it was much easier to get through the security checkpoints and find our way to the Convention Hall.

The line-up for speakers today was incredible! The Congressional Black Caucus paid tribute to Stephanie Jones Tubbs in a moving set of speeches, the Congressional Women’s Caucus spoke to the importance of women’s rights and how important it is we elect Sen. Obama because Sen. McCain has repeatedly not supported women’s rights in any shape. Governor Warner gave the keynote address but Governor Schweitzer from Montana gave an amazing speech about energy and social reform. The entire Convention hall was on their feet doing call and response cheers with him! It was wonderful to see such a great representation of the leaders we have here in the West in Governor Schweitzer.

And finally, the speech I was really looking forward to was Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech. As a Clinton delegate, I was hoping she would deliver a speech that brought Obama and Clinton folks together by unequivocally showing support for Sen. Obama. And boy, did she. I was so impressed, particularly towards the end of the speech when she said that this race is about all the people pushed to the fringes by the Bush Administration and we owe it to our country to elect Sen. Obama. While it was hard to see her not become the nominee, I was so thrilled to see her unify the party in such and elegant way. In this election we are battling for the future of our families, America, and the world. If we loose this election, we may well loose more than just the chance to see Sen. Obama in the White House, we may loose our future.