By: Las Vegas Now Staff
The Clark County Democratic Party is still wiping the egg off its collective face after this weekend's chaotic convention at Bally's. Thousands more people showed up than were expected. Now the county is calling for a “do-over.”
“This is the most disorganized mess I have ever seen in my life,” said Michael Shema, delegate.
“Chaos,” said Amelia Keene, delegate.
“I think they screwed up really bad,” said Steve Oldebeken, delegate.
The view from outside and inside the Democratic County Convention was raw politics. And from Joseph Cooper's lens – ”There was an awful lot of angst and anger going on,” he said.
It was easy to see there were problems. “It's pretty difficult getting that many people to agree on anything.”
Cooper works for PolitickerNV.com. He says all that anger is aimed at John Hunt and other county democrats for letting it happen. Hunt thinks otherwise.
“And that was all caused by the campaigns,” said John Hunt, Clark County Democratic Chair.
Hunt says the Clinton and Obama camps invited people who weren't supposed to be there in the first place, and real delegates got left out.
“How dare they? How dare they do that?” said Hunt.
But the ballroom may have been the biggest problem. Cooper was told the fire code limited it to 5,000 people. Bally's told Hunt it was limited for 7,500. Either way, delegates like Michael Shema got shut out.
“I'm a delegate; I can't get inside because the fire marshal said there's too many people in there,” said Shema.
So while the party regroups and figures out a better solution in a few months, Cooper takes a page from Will Rogers to sum it all up. “They're not members of any organized political party. They're Democrats.”
Monday on Face to Face with Jon Ralston, representatives from both campaigns responded to John Hunt's claims that Clinton and Obama supporters are to blame.
They say space and the convention rules led them to one decision.
“There was not adequate preparation for the convention–even going to the capacity issue alone,” said Billy Vassilliadis, an Obama supporter.
“They way the rules were, it favored the campaign that brought out the most people,” said Rory Reid, Clinton supporter.
April is likely the earliest the Clark County Convention can be rescheduled.
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