In the middle of the hustle-bustle of the 2016 DNC, ten of us in attendance (or nearby) managed to gather for a convival lunch on Wednesday afternoon at the Sang Kee Peking Duck House just a few blocks northeast of the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Some of us were credentialed participants in the DNC. Chris Reeves was a member of the Rules Committee from Kansas, and now, post-convention, he is a newly-installed member of the Democratic National Committee. Adam B will have to remind me of his role at the convention, after which I will update this post was special counsel to the PHL DNC host committee [Thanks, Adam B, for the clarification in your comment.] Eclectablog and I were pledged delegates from Michigan—he for Hillary from the 7th district, me for Bernie as an At-Large. (You can tell how hostile we are to each other from this photo.) Jmango and her son were DNC volunteers. Scan had media credentials for HillaryHQ. The other three were gracious enough to take significant time out of their day to travel from their homes and/or workplaces to meet us for a lovely lunch.
Astonishingly enough, Washtenaw County, Michigan, is the home of 4 of us who gathered for this meetup. Michigan rocks, what can I say?
Of course, we cannot have a meet-up post without including some food pr0n.
(Apologies for some of the awkward photo contexts. There are many good reasons why I am not a professional photographer.)
We squeezed ten around a round table in the corner and shared a few appetizers via the lazy Susan in the middle. There was some sentiment to share the rest of our dishes but that did not prevail.
Before, during, and after the meal, we compared notes about why we were there and what we were doing at the convention. There’s so much to do it’s impossible to get to even a fraction of the official sessions, let alone a sizable number of the auxiliary events occurring at off-site locations during the four convention days.
Everyone had interesting stories to share, and for the life of me I could not repeat a single one. I do know that we were all delighted to be at the event, to the extent that we could be, and that we were also all pleased and uplifted by the two nights of speeches we had heard to that point. It was hard to choose a favorite but I seem to recall that Michelle’s won out.
At the moment, the reportage on the DNC from Daily Kos attendees has been rather sparse; I’m hoping they all carry the #DNCinPHL tag for easy identification later. Since I started this, Scan has published a very nice reminiscence, My Unforgettable Experience at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. I’m sure there are others to note, and more will follow.
I posted a short report on one of the LGBT Caucus sessions the other day, and perhaps I’ll be able to complete a post about the Black Caucus session I attended just before this luncheon. I must admit, I was inordinately tickled by the response that my three-word (including the title) post received the other day—but of course, the enthusiasm there was for Michelle Obama and her fabulous speech.
Somehow in the lead-up to the convention I missed the news that Egberto Willies was also a delegate (from Texas, for Bernie). He and I ran into each other at Wells Fargo one evening and there is a photo floating around somewhere that I hope one of us posts here. No doubt there will be more to come from him on the convention as a whole.
Admittedly, this post has little substance, at least in terms of what I can report of our lively discussion there. But its main purpose is to demonstrate once again how strong the connections among Kossacks can be, drawing together a group of people who had enormous pressures on our time for a moment of camaraderie. We could not have cared less which candidate we supported. What matters now is Victory in 2016, up and down the ticket.