Standing Up

Today I found myself at the Courthouse and not because I was having trouble with the law. (It is Saturday, after all.) Instead, I was there for the Democratic Party's county delegate nominating convention. In doing so, I entered an entire aspect of the political process I never knew existed.

Here's how it works. Tennessee held it's primary on February 5th, also known as Super Tuesday. After the votes were tallied Hillary Clinton won the state with 54% of the Democratic vote, compared to Barack Obama's 41%. Tennessee then assigns delegates to represent the primary results at the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in August. Those delegates will then vote in order to select the Democratic candidate for President of the United States.* However, the Democrats have decided not to utilize a winner-takes-all system, and instead selects delegates based on percentage. Broken down, this means that Hillary receives 38 delegates from Tennessee while Barack gets 26.

I want to be one of those 26 Obama delegates.

So at noon today I was at the Courthouse for the second part of that process. (The first simply involved filling out an application to be considered.) In my county, 5 candidates could continue on to the district-level nominating process. We were in luck, because there were exactly five people who had applied to be delegates at the national level. All five of us were quickly voted through and so now we will move on to part three, delegate selection at the district-level.

I'm not expecting to make it past that level, because there should be 57 candidates there and only one delegate can be selected from that group. (Senator Obama didn't fare very well in my county or district.) However, I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to experience this part of the nominating process I never knew existed. It's all very exciting!

There are also six open at-large delegate positions to be filled, where candidates can live anywhere in the state and still be considered for appointments as delegates as well. Those chances are even more slim, but I can hope.

Regardless, this is a very exciting election year. The youth vote is turning out in powerful numbers. It feels as though my generation is standing up and making ourselves heard at last. The Democrats are making history with our two remaining candidates. I had previously decided that I'd wait til we had a nominee to get involved with any sort of campaigning but then Barack Obama won me over with his message of hope and change.

I'm more involved than I ever have been. Last month I traveled to South Carolina to be involved with the grassroots campaigning on the day of their primary. We watched the results come in and celebrated heavily. I've canvassed and phone-banked, studied up on issues and voted my heart in the Tennessee primary.

And above all, I've dared to hope.

It's going to be an interesting ride.

*This is not necessarily true. A good portion of the Democratic nominating process involves the votes of super-delegates. This practice is becoming increasingly controversial as it becomes possible that Barack Obama may end up with more delegates selected by the voters, but Hillary Clinton could still win the nomination due to super-delegates. More information on super-delegates is available here.