Delegates cast their votes for their preferred Democrat on paper ballots this morning, said Anita Earls of Durham.
Whether those votes end up meaning anything come roll-call time is uncertain.
“What they’re going to do for the camera, I don’t know,” she said.
Earls, a civil rights lawyer, went to Denver hoping to find substance in a convention city full of parties and fundraisiers. And she found it.
Among other things, The Nation is holding panel discussions every day, and Barack Obama's campaign sent a surrogate to the North Carolina delegate breakfast to talk about energy policy, she said.
And even the parties can be good for exchanging ideas. Earls met a lawyer from Georgia who does the same kind of work as she does at a party Tuesday night sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus.
“You can go to the parties and just drink, or you can talk to people,” said Earls, 48, an Obama delegate.
Plenty of delegates attend conventions over and over, but Earls sees Denver as her one shot. She wants to figure out how to get more first-timers at the next convention to, as she says, “pass the torch around.”
“You can bring more people into politics if we try to open it up more,” she said.
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