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 Boone
resident Susan Reed didn’t exactly have a front-row seat at
the Democratic National Convention, but she did have a convention
floor pass as a voting delegate.
Reed
represented the Fifth Congressional District and was one of four
delegates and one alternate from North Carolina who were sent by
voters to cast their ballots for presidential candidate Rep. Dennis
Kucinich.
Kucinich
received more than 50 percent of the vote in Watauga’s Democratic
presidential caucus, and Reed said he would have received more then
the 15 percent threshold to have earned a delegate vote.
Reed
arrived in Boston, Mass., for the convention on Aug. 23 and spent
the next two days attending a social forum. The forum featured art
exhibits, panels, speakers and a variety of events that filled her
time before her convention duties began.
Reed
said one of the most striking exhibits was “Eyes Wide Open,”
sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.
In
the display, 905 pairs of combat boots were spread around to represent
the number of American soldiers who had been killed in Iraq up to
that date.
Piles
of civilian shoes likewise represented the civilian deaths in the
war. “That was very powerful,” Reed said. “That had
quite an impact on me.”
Reed
also heard discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
ideas for non-violent resolutions. She attended her first Jewish
shabbat service as a participant, and was affected by the songs,
prayers, and rituals of the ceremony.
“It
showed uniform spiritual principles that are part of that ceremony,”
Reed said.
Reed
kept a copy of the event program that listed the numerous events,
“more than I could attend,” she said. She began meeting
with other Kucinich delegates to discuss Kucinich’s endorsement
of Kerry and what it would mean for their delegate vote. She said
the delegates had daily meetings and were under pressure to vote
for nominee John Kerry to give the appearance of party unity. Kucinich
had 68 total delegates from across the country, and Reed said the
majority weren’t comfortable changing their votes because they
felt they were supposed to represent the will of the voters who
had sent them.
“Dennis
(Kucinich) met with us for four hours, listened and took down notes
about our feelings,” Reed said. She described how one young
delegate explained it would be her first-ever delegate vote and
wanted to make sure the vote represented her constituents.
“The
big issue was the stand on the war in Iraq,” Reed said. “At
the end, he (Kucinich) said to vote your conscience. His mission
has been to reform the party from within and hope he can keep some
of the issues alive.”
For Reed, the peace movement is an important part of her political
involvement. She said she senses a growing social movement that
hopes to influence the Kerry-Edwards administration. Reed said it
was “disturbing that so much of the convention came across
with a militaristic theme.”
Reed’s
official convention duties kicked off that Sunday evening at a reception
for North Carolina’s 107 delegates and state party officials.
She said eight states had Kucinich delegates, and the state parties
pressured them to “get in line and vote for Kerry.”
She
said most of the Democratic delegates were for peace and an orderly
withdrawal from Iraq, but “That message wasn’t given from
the convention floor. There was no room for voices of peace in the
convention.”
Reed felt momentum building up through the week, with vice-presidential
candidate John Edwards giving his speech Wednesday night. Reed said
health care and jobs were the main issues being discussed. “People
are very disturbed about the war and how it’s panned out,”
she said.
Reed
ended up being one of 37 delegates who cast their votes for Kucinich.
“We tried as a delegation to stipulate that although we were
voting for Kucinich, we did support Kerry-Edwards,” she said.
“We specifically negotiated with the state party how the vote
would be announced.”
On
the night Kerry addressed the convention, the center was so crowded
Reed watched it on television instead. She also attended a “progressive
convention” where the overriding message was “We’re
not 100-percent happy with the Kerry-Edwards ticket, but it’s
a tremendous positive change away from the (Pres. George) Bush direction.
The mantra is, we get Kerry in and then don’t go to sleep.
We stay vigilant and push peace and justice issues.”
She
said security at the convention was “extremely tight,”
and she was disturbed by the “Free Speech Zone, a wire cage
set up beneath raised railroad tracks,” that was set up outside
the center. “It was very symbolic,” Reed said. “
”It just made a statement to me about how little we tolerate
dissenting voices.”
Reed
has become curious about the history of conventions and their evolution
from a democratic process of disagreement and debate to “a
tightly scripted show.”
She
wished the convention could have touched on the breadth of the party
and its issues rather than focusing primarily on the presidential
candidate.
An
exhausted Reed left Boston on Aug. 2. Though she paid her own way,
the party collected some money that will be divided among those
who attended.
“We
worked very hard,” she said. “It wasn’t just going
out and partying. We were operating on three or four hours of sleep
a night. There was always something going on.”
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