Politics and Dharma

After arriving home a couple of hours earlier than expected this afternoon, I showered and relaxed into my office chair to catch up on the world. Fifteen minutes later, when I stood up again, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. Every muscle is sore from tip to tail. Even those little muscles that blink my eyelids and gyrate my eyeballs are tired.

Now that I’ve had a nap and a sandwich, I am beginning to remember how to string words together. Time to blog!

The morning shift was a rather relaxed stint signing up the occasional VIP and otherwise directing delegates to breakfasts and caucuses from a comfortable chair under the four-story escalators. I got to meet Luci Johnson, daughter of that famed Texan, LBJ, and former US Rep, State Senator, State Attorney General, and State Supreme Court Justice Jack Hightower. My VIP booth partner was a former State Senate staffer who knew everyone. Her former boss, former Speaker Pete Laney, sat with us for an hour, regaling us with stories and gladhanding folks that stopped by.

After a glorious chopped beef sandwich from Iron Works (yum!), I returned to nap in the volunteer pit for an hour before taking over on door duty like the night before. Today, the rules were relaxed for kids, who were allowed in with their appropriately credentialed parents. That made me feel a lot better. Since everyone had been up until 3 in the morning electing national delegates, cranky moods were the norm. This made me feel a lot worse. When we were finally released from “door duty”, I numbly collected my things and shuffled the three blocks to my bus in the steam room afternoon.

The concession speech was what everyone there wanted to see. It was so important that they actually delayed the start of the second general session so that the delegates could watch it on the jumbo-trons. Early speculation that she wouldn’t release her delegates turned out to be correct.

The Texas Muslim Democratic Caucus was well represented: some 80% of Muslims voted Democratic in the last election, and the occasional hajib, khimar, or shayla mixed easily with the baseball caps, kufis and stetsons on the convention floor. One lady had a blue khimar and dress, both trimmed with a foot of white material with the word ‘Democrat’ printed on in in various fonts and sizes — naturally separated by a strip of wavy red trim!

Overall, the most amazing thing to note about this convention was the population of sincere, committed democrats who came out. Many, many first-timers, naturally: many folks who wondered three hours into the general session when the politicians would stop talking so the voting could begin. Many complete families turned out to see history in the making. There were some bare spots and miscommunications, but given the enormity of the event, I’m really impressed that the party was able to pull it off as well as it did.

One lady asked me while I was guarding a door if I would consider volunteering for the national convention. My quick “Hell no!” took her aback at first, and I was quick to explain that the state convention was all of the crazy that I could handle. She laughed and agreed that “Hell no” was probably a really good answer to that question.