Published: April 01, 2008 02:39 am            

Anderson County residents get ready to party

Democratic delegates

PALESTINE — The excitement generated by the battle between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president is being reflected in the Anderson County Democratic Party.

Saturday morning, approximately 250 people packed the second floor courtroom of the Anderson County Courthouse to attend the county’s Democratic convention to elect delegates to represent the county at the Texas Democratic Party State Convention in Austin June 5-7.

“There was a lot of excitement there,” Anderson County Democratic Party chairman Larry Davis said. “A lot of people volunteered to sign up for campaigns. It was a fired up group, especially those who stayed till the end.”

A process that normally takes about two hours to complete, from registration to final voting, lasted over four hours this year due to the much larger number of people, Davis said. Of the 250 attendees, 157 were delegates elected from the county’s precincts, with the remainder there as either alternates or onlookers.

“It took about two hours to get everybody signed in,” Davis said.

Precinct delegates signed in separately from the alternates and were issued blue voting cards, while alternates received white cards, to be used during convention voting on issues later in the morning.

Explaining the greater than normal turnout was easy, Davis said.

“Women and minorities. It’s the diversity of the ticket,” he said. “It’s giving people a choice they haven’t had before.

“Most of these are first-time people, who’ve never been to a convention before.”

Anderson County may send 14 people as delegates to the state convention, so part of the day’s business included going through the information provided by each delegate to put together a county delegation representative of its voters, he said, not skewed toward a particular age, sex or race.

The county’s Democratic precincts had voted roughly 2-1 in favor of Obama during the March 4 primary, he said, so the delegation needed to mimic that preference.

“Ideally, we’d like to elect a ratio of 2-1 to go to the state convention,” Davis said. “We ended up 9-5, Obama to Clinton, which is about as close to 2-1 as you can get.”

Those elected as delegates to the state convention were Rosemary Biel, Elkhart; Eric Gooch, Palestine; Robert Leslie, Palestine; Heidi Fridinger, Frankston; Nicole Sandifer, Palestine; Shelia Davis, Tennessee Colony; Edwina Miller, Palestine; Fred Brandt, Palestine; Betty Wardell, Montalba; Dr. Carolyn Salter, Palestine; James Hudson, Palestine; Pam Knight, Palestine; and Susan Swift, Palestine. Chosen as an at-large delegate was Dick Swift, Palestine.

Alternates to the state convention include Frances Delehanty, Elkhart; Rozena Leslie, Palestine; LaDeanne Smith, Palestine; Janet Mitchell, Frankston; Brenda Brown, Palestine; Charlene Hutchinson, Palestine; Melvin Shead Sr., Tennessee Colony; Sheryle Dean, Palestine; Anna Edwards, Palestine; Glen Sellers, Palestine; Versalean Logans, Palestine; Sharon Davis, Palestine; Lawrence Hutchinson, Palestine; and John M. Hobbie, Palestine.

For first-time delegate Eric Gooch, Saturday’s proceedings were an interesting experience. Gooch, a licensed professional counselor and former Boy Scout troop leader, said he was glad to have the opportunity to take part in the democratic process.

“My experience in Scouting and my long-held belief is that you must be the change you wish to see in the world,” he said, quoting Mahatma Gandhi. “It’s something I believe very strongly.”

While he had been politically aware during previous years, becoming involved hadn’t been possible until now.

“In previous campaigns, I really wasn’t in a position to get involved, whether I was in school or busy with work,” Gooch said. “The timing worked out very well.

“This is the first time in a long time that the Democratic Party has had such excitement in the primaries,” he added. “There’s a lot of excitement around it.”

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Beth Foley may be contacted via e-mail at bfoley@palestineherald.com

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On the Net:

Texas Democratic Party, http://www.txdemocrats.org

        

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