So You Want To Be A Delegate

You could be a delegate to the national convention in Denver. Here's how to do it.

LD, CD Caucus Route

The first path is to go through the caucus process.

First of all, you don't even have to be a delegate from the precinct-level caucus. Here is a sample letter that you can submit to the 45th Legislative District Democratic Party (contact info here) if you were not elected as a delegate in your precinct.

If you are a delegate or alternate, you'll have the chance to sign up to run for the next level after you register at the 45th LD caucus on Saturday. There will be a separate table that you can go to after signing in where you need to sign up as a candidate.

You'll need to be elected at the LD caucus on April 5th; out of the likely 1000+ people attending the LD caucus, only 45 will be elected to go to the Congressional District caucuses. There will probably be a lot of competition for these slots, so here are some suggestions for being elected.

Help out with the campaign, the Democratic Party, and at the LD caucus itself. People will recognize you and remember how helpful you were.

Bring a leaflet or handout describing why you would make a good delegate. If you're in the 1st CD you'll need enough for 400 people; if you're in the 8th CD you'll need enough for 170 people. After people have heard the umpteenth speech - Hi, my name is Jane Doe, Barack Obama is my new bicycle, please vote for me - they may not remember you. Giving the delegates a handout will help your chances when they cast their ballots.

Prepare a good but short speech. Make it distinctive and personal.

Network! Find some other candidates and work together, go out of your way to get involved in various events and activities, attend the King County convention, etc.

Here are some tips from the state party.

Send me a short statement of why you think you'd be a good delegate, and/or a link to your webpage or blog, and I'll add you to the delegate candidate page here on this site!

If you belong to one of the affirmative action groups listed in the next section, it could help you, since the party has goals for the diversity of the delegates to match the diversity of Washington's population.

Next, you'll attend the Congressional District (either the 8th or the 1st, check your voter registration to see which you belong to) caucus in May. The competition here will be much more difficult.

There will be around a couple hundred delegates attending the CD caucus, and there will only be 6 delegates and one alternate elected to go on to the national convention (the numbers are the same for both the 1st and the 8th).

In fact, the competition is actually tighter than it sounds, because the delegates have to be split evenly by gender. If you are a woman, you'll be competing against the other women for only three possible delegate slots. Similarly, the men will be competing for three possible delegate positions. The alternates (one for each CD) have to be women. How those delegates are assigned to each candidate will depend on what happens at the LD caucuses, but it will probably be 4 Obama, 2 Clinton for each CD. If those 4 Obama slots are split equally by gender, it means that only 2 men and 2 women for Obama will be chosen to go to the national convention from your CD caucus.

At-Large Delegate Route

The second path is to become elected a delegate through the confusing and arcane "at-large" delegate system. There are 17 at-large delegates, which will be chosen from applicants state-wide. These delegates are pledged to the presidential candidates based on the statewide vote; I believe they will go 11 Obama, 6 Clinton.

If you tried to run at the CD caucus but lost, you can still try the at-large route.

If you go this way, you'll be trying to appeal to the delegates already selected through the other mechanisms (there will be 51 delegates chosen from the CD caucuses state-wide, and also 10 delegates chosen from party leadership and elected officials; I'm not sure if the WA superdelegates also participate in choosing the at-large delegates). The delegates already selected are the ones who will be voting on the at-large delegates.

Also, there are some confusing affirmative action rules that apply at this stage. The state Democratic Party has goals to have 6 African-American delegates, 10 Hispanic delegates, 3 Native American delegates, 9 Asian Pacific delegates, 7 LGBT delegates, 3 delegates with disabilities, and 3 youth delegates. Depending on whether those targets have been reached through the other stages, applicants who fall into one or more of those groups may be given preference in the voting.

Everything I said about getting elected at the previous level applies, and then some - you're now competing with applicants from across the state. Some of those applicants may be party officials, state representatives, city council or small city mayors etc, who didn't get elected through some of the other pathways. On the other hand, while you had to fight for the attention of a couple of hundred delegates at a CD caucus, here you only need to make your case to less than one hundred people who have already made it and are delegates to the national convention.

Now What?

If you're successful one way or another, you'll be headed off to the national convention. About all I can really tell you about this part is that the convention is Aug 25 - 28 in Denver, CO, and that you'll be paying your own way. I don't know if the party provides any support for people who can't afford to go. But, if you've made a worthy case to become a delegate and need help paying for the trip, I'm sure that some of your supporters will help you out. I fully expect that part of this site in the future will be dedicated to helping raise some money for one or more people from the 45th LD who have made it to the big time, but need financial help to follow through.

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