WOW Wednesday at the DNCC!

Wednesday was yet another wonderful day at the DNCC! I began my day at the Texas delegation breakfast where our keynote speaker was Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (from my home state!). He discussed unity and the importance of bringing Americans together during this election minutes. I was able to introduce myself and visit with him for a few minutes. After breakfast we cast our official votes for our presidential candidates - the biggest business of the convention!
In the afternoon I attended a meeting of the Clinton National Delegates where Senator Hillary Clinton gave another inspiring address and released her delegates. Later that evening when the convention reconvened there were nominating speeches bringing the names of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama into nomination for the Democratic Nominee for President. The speeches were then followed by a roll call vote where each state reported the number of votes cast by delegates for each candidate. When the roll call votes are cast each state is called alphabetically and they then give a short speech describing their state's accomplishments and accolades. States have the choice of releasing their vote counts, passing to the next state, or yielding the floor to another state. California has the most votes and they passed so as to allow Illinois to have the votes that allow Obama to reach the threshold that he needed to achieve the nomination. However, to create a sense of unity among the convention, when New Jersey yielded the roll call vote to Illinois for threshold the vote was again yielded to New York. At that time, Hillary Clinton came to the floor of the convention (just below where Texas was seated!) and made a motion to suspend the rules of the convention and the roll call vote in order to vote Barack Obama in as the nominee by acclaimation. Many people may not understand the processes of the convention, but they follow parlimentary procedure. Much of Wednesday's events were confusing to the American public because they don't have a complete understanding of convention rules and procedures.
After the roll call, the convention proceeded with speeches that focused on foreign policy. President Bill Clinton addressed the convention to introduce the ideas that Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden would address in his acceptance speech. There were tributes to military personel and veterans, musical performances, and more moving speeches ending with Biden's acceptance speech. Yet again, nearly all of the members of the convention were moved to tears with Biden's message of change. The final presentation of the evening was a surprise appearance by Barack Obama - who was not scheduled to make an appearance until his acceptance speech on Thursday.
If you missed any of the speeches you can check them out at online resources such as www.cnn.com www.nbc.com www.cbs.com etc.