Just about 5:30 on April 5, the day of the 46th legislative district caucus, as we were heading home, I looked at Stu and said “Honey? In a few years time, if I tell you I’m considering going to another district caucus, would you remind me that I told you ‘Okay, that’s it. Never again.’? I’d really appreciate it if you remind me that I so do NOT want to do this EVER again.”

Mind you, it was not all awful. It was intermittently awful and there was lots of groovy stuff in the other parts. But oh GODS. It was at times more frustrating than a bad convention, more tiresome than the neighbor’s slide show of their last road trip and more badly organized than, um, Condiego. Granted, much of the problem of organization has to do with the issue of “surprise! There are ten times the numbers of enthusiastic people than we had four years ago!” but it seems as if no one took any of that into account. The assumption that everything could get accomplished in six hours, when it would seriously take at least two days to do much of what they wanted done, and they kept being optimistic right until 10 minutes before we had to leave the building. Twenty-two hours later, they were still not done counting ballots. No kidding.

It’s really understandable in light of the differences between the 2004 and 2008 races, however, it doesn’t take a lot of analysis to figure out that a meeting involving upward of 900 people, a 14 page document with parts a, b, c, d, and e at times and well over 200 people wanting to get one of 50 or so positions (as delegates/alternates) would take more than six hours, especially given that 1) there were two different districts to deal with and two different candidates and 1, sub a) there were rules for gender parity involved and that 2) this is politics. What, like we’re not going to have opinions? I mean it’s clear that the platform folks worked immensely hard on the platform that was proposed but when have you ever in this country of ours, known anyone to accept a given political statement without wanting to change, edit, add, delete, improve or otherwise mess with it? It’s the nature of the beast. We want things to be good, or better, we want to leave our mark and we’re just plain ornery enough so that even after we had time to read the damn thing and accept it, we couldn’t accept it.

We came up against problems IMMEDIATELY too because one of the huge issues regarding the location of this event which took place in a public school w(hich of course means they are required to be ADA compliant) is that they were not ADA complaint. I know that had I been one of the organizers, I would have assumed they WERE. They’re a fucking HIGH SCHOOL for godssake! And it’s not like ADA is new law. They’ve had gobs of time to get into legal compliance with access laws. But while I was not checking for lots of details, the damn building was not compliant from the gitgo, that is to say BEFORE WE EVEN ENTERED THE BUILDING. Because we could not FIND the entrance that would serve disabled people. Because there was no sign showing us where to go.

The paperwork said we’d start at 10 AM and be out by 4 PM. Everything took a long time and it was fairly orderly chaos but when you have hundreds and hundreds of people whose only reason for being there was that they’d put their hands up (ok, not necessarily. In some caucuses maybe they argued, voted, discussed. In ours it was the five people who raised their hands, essentially. And then the other five who agreed to be alternates.) We had no special training, characteristics or knowledge. We’d just gone to the caucus in February and ended up in this high school gym. Alas, what that meant was that there were hundreds and HUNDREDS of people with a) their own agendas b) an inability to follow directions c) a need to talk even when it wasn’t the appropriate time d) understandable confusion over rules e) headaches, babies, nerves, personality disorders and impatience. The idea for example for the platform was that section by section, we would note WHICH item should be discussed. WE WOULD NOT DISCUSS IT, we would only mark it down as something we had an issue with – to add to, amend, delete. And only about 20% of those who got up GOT that. Constantly someone would start EXPLAINING WHY they wanted part 14 discussed. NO. You were to say “Part 14, please mark it for discussion. Thank you.” And get the hell away from the mike. Why people could NOT do this appalled me. We did not have time for everyone’s little ego trip, speech, reason. It was ONLY for putting out for later. I did not want to know that the woman who had been Catholic and now attended a mosque wanted the gay marriage section deleted. It was NOT THE APPROPRIATE TIME for that but she had to say it. A(ctually, what she had to say was that her churches held that view. This actually creeped me out more because it seemed well, you know. She might not have felt it but apparently felt obligated to say something because her religion’s hierarchy said to. I don’t want to hear that, but I especially take issue when it takes time and it’s not the right time.)

That was a lot of the awful. It was the job of one very polite man to try to shut people up, while hundreds of us sat. And sat and sat. We were waiting for a) first for the something committee responsible for ensuring everyone was legit or something to do their job. Then b) after that happened and everyone who wanted to run for delegate was named or whatever, the ballot had to be made up and sent to the printer and returned. And collated because apparently the printer was unable to collate 4 pages. Or whatever. Who knows. But it was at least 2 pm before we got the ballot back into the gym. And then we had the hundreds of would-be delegates. The rules gave them each 30 seconds, which would have resulted in 3 ½ hours of short half-minute speeches. The chair entertained a motion to cut it to 20 seconds and it passed which still meant 90 minutes. But how else do yu decide which 41 delegates to vote for – and not just that but which 20 women and 21 men since equal representations was required.

That was the part that kept the day from sinking into the boredom and mismanagement tar pits. The 20 seconds of “who I am” which wasn’t always interesting but often was. The fire, the enthusiasm (remember, this was, by now all supporters of Barack Obama; the Clinton delegate would-bes were meeting in a separate room to choose their representatives) the voices of immigrants, of 20 year olds, of old hippies, and young punks. The woman who sat behind us and wore a dress and a pearl necklace because she didn’t know what to expect but wanted to respect the process. The guy from the village where the Peace Corps had made a difference. The “guy with the funny name” who supported the candidate with the funny name. The totally crushed out woman who spke of how Obama gleamed and shined (ok, she scared me.) The new voters, the new citizens. And the party types who really really really bugged me by taking 20 seconds to say “vote for me and these people who have worked hard on the campaign” because a) no one forced yu to do that and you don’t get rewarded in that fashion b) it told me nothing about why u were and why you were doing this c) it reminded me of why I dislike party politics.

Because of various things I saw, I made sure the chair of the group got a card with my phone and email on it with a note that said “we MUST TALK ABOUT THIS EVENT” and the next day, I emailed him. The event was the entire meeting was not even remotely aware of issues of disability, from that front door issue to the fact that I could not reach the microphone when I wanted it. To the lack of seating down front for wheelchair users in a gym crowded to the rafters and the lack of wide enough aisles to go down to the mike, to get through the crowd in back. To the fact that nowhere in any written materials was there the offer of large print, interpreters or other ADA concerns.

It didn’t get better. The person I spoke with assured me he would get back to me then did not. The next attempt I made I basically got “go away, I’m busy and I’m a volunteer here.” In May they take the next step and if that meeting doesn’t do better regarding disability awareness, they could face a lawsuit, or worse. Worse, to steal from Aaron Sorkin’s The American President”, the party MUST pay attention to this stuff because if they don’t, to quite Sydney Ellen Wade, when Andrew Shepherd plays politics “you've got bigger problems than losing me. You just lost my vote.”

Of course the Dems haven’t lost my vote. But they don’t seem to get that they lost me when I was considering coming back. Because they are too busy running around “doorbelling” to get some basic understanding that stuff like ADA matters. Because the woman with total laryngitis just HAD TO read all those names because it was her moment in the sun. She couldn’t give it to someone else whose voice was intact and take her damn applause and stop showboating. Which is what that is, sorry. “Look at me, look how hard I worked.”

They failed because this was more important and it had to matter. That the law of the fucking land aside, that you CHECK TO BE SURE that when you use a building, you use one where the accessible entrance is clearly marked. You THINK like a disabled person. You THINK like a mom with a baby in a stroller who needs to know where the bathrooms are, and how to get the stroller in without using the stairs. You THINK how someone will sign the list if they can’t reach the table. You PLAN for some volunteer who desperately wants to DO something to stand by the fricking microphone and be sure to hand it to the person who can’t reach it. You don’t wait for someone else to do it. You show that you are the goddam Democratic party that pays attention to people with disabilities. And you don’t lecture someone a week later that you are too busy to deal with it but you’ll bring it up at a meeting. That’s what I got. Oh yeah, I’m a volunteer too, you know. We all are. All the delegates, alternates, all my friends who did their bit, my friend Tamara who’s going on to the next level – wow. It’s all volunteer work bub.

So I pursued this. After getting the brush-off email which infuriated me, I made some phone calls. First I called the state senator I’d seen at the meeting (who in fact put Obama’s name into nomination and told a very good joke) and asked who to talk with. His assistant called back with a number. I called that one and he was away for a few days but I got two phone numbers. I called one and got an immediate response. I called the second and got a delayed but informed response.

Next week, I’ll be meeting with two concerned and interested members of the local Democratic party both of whom helped plan that event. And they screwed up and they know it. And they want to know how NOT TO SCREW up again. Good. It’s probably too late to get anything ito writing for the next step, alas, because everything took too damn long. Big surprise.

I won’t be going on in the process. For one thing, six hours in the scooter in the damn gym exhausted me. Trying not to scream when people took it on themselves to ignore the process over and over and over made me crazy. I’m not patient enough for this. It makes me crazy and I want to hit people with sticks (I’m such a BAD pacifist.) I also refuse to attend another event where no one, NO ONE can promise me that things will be better. And no one can. There’s no time and there’s little support from the top. I hope to hell someone other than me gives a damn about this issue because otherwise, the Democratic Party can, can, well I originally typed “go fuck itself” but I don’t know what to say. It can damn well do without me, and continue in its sorry way to disappoint me as it has for 40 years since the debacle of ’68, the failure to respond to Reagan and 2001 and to be cowardly and indecisive and fearful at being called horrible things like “liberal” and accepting that it was unpatriotic to stand up against war. (I’m the one with the WWWD button out here. “What would Wellstone do?”)

Sorr,y but it’s 2008 and I should not be pointing out to the Washington State Democrats that they need to follow federal law when they hold a meeting. And “we thought we were” is not good enough and “I’m an volunteer” is definitely note good enough and “we’ll do better next time” is oh-so-totally not good enough.