When six thousand people show up for a convention (March 29) to elect state delegates at the Will Rogers Coliseum instead of in the auditorium of a local high school…blame Barack. When people start lining up at 7:00 a.m. for a convention that did not begin until more like 4:00 p.m. and goes until 4:00 a.m.— blame Barack. When people have to wait in shifts and sneak in snacks and babies because they have run out of options… blame Barack.

Yes, Obama must share the blame for bringing out millions of people in a red state to vote blue. Texas is seeking to turn the state blue this time around.

Monday there was a mock convention at a local church and at least a thousand people attended. I volunteered to look up precinct and district numbers online. Later that week, delegates from my precinct held a short meeting chez moi two days before the convention to decide on the delegate we wanted to send to Austin, Texas on June 5-7. The state must allocate the remaining 67 delegates from the March 4 primary.  From our precinct Obama won the (1) delegate and Hillary took the alternate delegate. He is leading in the delegate count at this writing and by all appearances he will win Texas. He won the Texas delegate count. And the only reason he did not win the popular vote is due in part to Republican malicious crossover voting and the Hispanic vote going largely to Clinton.

On Saturday we thought we were ready for the day. We weren’t. It was not easy keeping our one person vote advantage until the vote was taken. We were seated by 9:00 a.m. in comfortable seats overlooking the area where horse shows are held. We were saddled up, fired up, and ready to go. And by late afternoon we were mostly just ready to go!

The bad news: we did not have a main floor to use — only stadium seating and a ramp that went around the coliseum. We chatted for a couple of hours. Listened to music for a while, listened to endless “political commercials” from many of the local and state-elected politicians who ranged from deeply boring to mildly boring.  

As lunchtime came and went, I thought, "I can do this. I don’t normally eat dinner until after 4:00 p.m." Since I was surrounded by other vegans we shared each other’s pain in trying to wait out the day without eating anything substantial. To relieve the pressure on my butt from endless sitting, I stood, I walked, I climbed stairs, stood some more, and then sat down for another three hours. When 4:00 p.m. came and went I thought we needed to do something quick. An older gentleman who got his feathers ruffled said that Dems were spineless for not walking out on the convention chaos. I felt guilty, but I was not going to let Barack down.