Love hurts. That was the lesson delivered in the spring of 2008 to several dozen Alabama Democrats who had filed, campaigned and been notarized as pledged delegate candidates for Barack Obama, only to learn that their names would not appear on any ballot.
The Obama campaign, moving to secure the Alabama delegation it would take to the Democratic National Convention in Denver that August, dusted off a party rule that had not been used in more than twenty years. Rather than let the State Democratic Executive Committee elect the at-large Obama delegates, the campaign installed them. About 40 candidates for those slots were removed from consideration.
The rationale, and the resentment
The reasoning circulating among Democrats was straightforward, if awkward to say aloud. An election conducted by the full SDEC would have allowed Hillary Clinton’s supporters to help choose Obama’s delegates, and the campaign wanted delegates who would be less susceptible to pressure from Joe Reed, the longtime chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference and a leading Clinton backer.
Reed rejected any suggestion that he or the ADC would have tampered with Obama’s delegates. The campaign, he said, simply preferred to play favorites at the expense of rank and file Democrats. Others intimated a longer game: that more influential Democrats were being seated to lay groundwork for a 2010 run for governor by Obama’s Alabama campaign leader, U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, who did in fact run for governor that year and lost the primary.
The delegates installed for Obama included Ginger Avery, Amy Burks, Giles Perkins and state Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma. Alternates included Roger Bedford III, Janet Y. Buskey, Doris Dozier Crenshaw, Tammy Knight Fleming, Patricia Bozeman Henderson and Frank D. McPhillips.
State Party Chairman Joe Turnham was careful to place the decision outside the party’s hands. “That was up to the (Obama) campaign committee,” he said.
In their own words
For the Democrats left behind, the episode moved through excitement, anger, disappointment and resignation, and for most of them arrived, eventually, at a degree of understanding.
Carrie Spurling of Decatur remained upset. “They disenfranchised many people that day,” she said. “I feel like Obama has been given the right to run in front of the people and those of us wishing to be delegates should have been afforded the same right.” Not believing in delegates who had already signed and notarized pledges of support, she said, was insulting. It would not change her vote, but it made her question it. “What happened in Montgomery is politics within politics and it is very discouraging.”
Bill Dawson of Birmingham accepted the logic even as he faulted the execution. “The matter could have been handled better by ‘the suits’ making the decision,” he said. “We should have been notified earlier and given the rationale, which I accept.” He acknowledged the legitimate risk that Clinton supporters voting on Obama delegates could yield delegates not fully committed, particularly with the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations still unresolved.
Joe Webb of Huntsville, a supporter since high school, said his first reaction was hurt. “Senator Obama claims ‘a new kind of politics,’ but what his campaign did last Saturday was certainly something out of an old school political playbook.” He did not believe Obama himself had anything to do with it. He remained a strong supporter.
Barbara Howard of Tuskegee, an SDEC member, had two grievances. She had already been passed over as a Third Congressional District delegate in favor of gender equity, and she challenged the practice from the floor. After she spoke, DNC member Dr. Yvonne Kennedy of Mobile successfully moved that the national party review the delegate selection plan’s gender equity provisions. Then Howard was cut from the at-large ballot as well. “Nevertheless,” she said, “I am a proud and loyal Democrat, who pledged my support early and will continue to work tirelessly for Senator Obama.”
Pam Miles of Madison said what stung was not losing but being blindsided. Ted Hosp, a Birmingham attorney assisting the campaign, conceded to her that the matter had been handled badly and that each candidate should have been telephoned personally. “I took the loyalty thing personally,” Miles said. “I have remained loyal to the party through thick and thin.” She was going to Denver anyway, planning to stay with the Wisconsin delegation. “It’ll fade with time. I feel better already. Ted came to me with a sincere apology. I have a forgiving spirit. These are my friends. They may have made blunders, made mistakes in trying to change the system. But they did use the rules to change it. A rule is a rule.”
Why it mattered
The dispute looks small at this distance, a procedural fight over a few dozen seats in a hall in Denver. It was not small to the people in it. Delegate slots are the currency of party loyalty, the tangible reward for years of unglamorous work, and the campaign that promised a new kind of politics reached for an old rule to protect its count.
Obama carried Alabama’s Democratic primary that February and went on to win the nomination and the presidency, losing Alabama itself in November. The state party’s delegate selection procedures, and the tension between its established power brokers and its insurgent enthusiasts, remained a live argument long after Denver.