Bloggers at the 2010 Texas Democratic Convention

I counted at least twenty-one progressive bloggers at the Texas Democratic Party State Convention in Corpus this past Thursday-Friday. The highlight for me was the very well attended blogger party Friday night. The $10 per person cover was coming in as fast as we could grab it out of folks' hands,  and was then handed over to the bartenders just as fast, to keep our tab going. If anyone has a guess as to the total attendance, let me know. Definitely hundreds. We paid for around 850 drinks, if that gives you any idea.

Many elected officials and candidates were in attendance, including Bill White, Barbara Radnofsky, Senator Kirk Watson, Council Member Melissa Noriega, Congress Member Gene Green, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, Senator Leticia Van de Putte, Representative Aaron Pena and Representative Ryan Guillen. Thank you to the sponsors, guests and organizers for making the event so successful!

Bloggers were at the convention doing much more than blogging. I was on the Temporary Platform Committee, mostly contributing to the education plank, Brian Hamon was on the Temporary Rules Committee, Phillip Martin was helping to run the convention in his roles with the TDP and the Texas Democratic Trust, Matt Glazer was working with his GNI clients, as well as being a panelist at a social media workshop, Rachel Farris organized a successful tweet-up, Vince Leibowitz and McBlogger represented Agriculture Commissioner candidate Hank Gilbert (who was not in attendance due to the death of his mother), TexBlog PAC board members organized the blogger party (all money raised in excess of the bar tab goes to House Democratic challengers), and then, of course, many bloggers were delegates to the Convention, participating in their Senate District caucuses.

Some highlights from Convention blog posts:

George Nassar with The Texas Blue does the best job I've seen anywhere describing the pros and cons of the Texas Two-Step - and the near brawl at the Convention over it. I agree with him that if we can get "to the point where we can cast aside the system that causes so much strife within the party and smacks of unfairness to so many people, all the better."

As mentioned above, Brian Hamon from Eye on Williamson served on the Temporary Rules Committee, which addressed the Two-Step. His opinion of that is definitely worth a read.

Dos Centavos reported on what I thought was the best speech of the convention - from Lt. Governor candidate Linda Chavez Thompson.

John Coby blogged the race for Party Chair, and was critical of the effort of the challenger.

McBlogger talked about the most talked about thing at the Convention - the heat and humidity in Corpus. I see he finally agrees with me - that Boyd Richie has been doing a great job as Chair of the TDP! He hints at some dysfunction in the Senate District 23 caucus.

PDiddie updated the Convention goings-on and brought up something I wondered about - why so few seats for media in the arena?

David Ortez liveblogged his Senate District Caucus - all 45 minutes of it.

Rachel Farris has a great post recapping the tweet up she organized, along with Twitter tips for candidates, photos and a link to all the tweets with hashtag #tdpsc.

And Harold Cook of Letters from Texas summed up the convention with one photo and one sentence. He got it right!

Other bloggers at the convention included writers from: Texas Cloverleaf, jobsanger, Asian American Action Fund Blog, Lubbock Left and Burnt Orange Report.

Bloggers, if I left you off this post - let me know - it was an oversight and I'll add you in!

I enjoyed seeing so many of my friends and readers - including finally meeting some folks face to face who I had only known through social media. The people who attend and participate and provide leadership to our biannual conventions are the Texas Democratic Party and each and everyone of them deserves a round of applause for being in Corpus and doing the work. I'm looking forward to 2012 in Houston!