Coordinating a State Convention Inside and Out

This weekend at the California State Democratic Convention that was held in San Diego, we had an opportunity to coordinate with several AlGore.org groups from other parts of the state to create a presence of the Al Gore movement that was felt by both the delegates and media.

Weeks before the convention, AGO members who were also delegates, began contacting each other and the AGO group located in the convention city. The convention city AGO team planned to acquire and provide as many buttons and lapel stickers as possible. Delegates brought materials and helped finance the purchase of buttons and lapel stickers. On the morning of the first day of the convention, everyone met. The host city AGO group provided the delegates with clip boards and petitions, along with buttons, lapel stickers and business cards with the AGO web link information.

Throughout the weekend, delegates sold buttons, gathered petition signatures and encouraged people to go on-line and join the AGO movement inside the convention, while the local AGO members did the same outside in the public areas and would also replenish supplies to the delegates when they ran low. On the morning of the second day, one of the AGO delegates put Gore materials on every delegate's seat before the first session began.

The media noticed. Interviews with television, Internet and newspaper journalists ensued. By the morning of the convention's third day, the local newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, ran an article "Eight isn't enough, Gore is missed." CBS is taking a media crew to the next Los Angeles Gore meet-up. We were even interviewed by Los Angeles Fox affiliate.

We heard a clear message from the Democratic faithful: "We want Gore." Whether they were wearing Obama, Richardson, Kucinich, Edwards or Hilary buttons, overwhelmingly they said "if Al comes in to the race, we'll drop what we're doing and get involved in his campaign."

In the end we collected many signatures, collected enough cash to replenish supplies, shared with each other techniques that we've found that help us to be more effective. Most importantly, we made a lot of new (and old) friends.