AP: Saturday "could get raucus"

by: XavierLA

Wed Apr 16, 2008 at 19:05:09 PM EDT

I thought this was a pretty entertaining part of this afternoon's Associated Press story on this Saturday's congressional district meetings:

The 15 congressional district meetings could get raucous. Obama, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and two other candidates pulled their names from the ballot, forcing their supporters to vote for Uncommitted.

About 450 people have registered to run for the 36 delegate and 2 alternate spots set aside for those who backed Uncommitted. Brewer says the vast majority are Obama supporters, but he expects the competition to win a spot will be intense.

"People feel very passionately about their candidates, and I expect we're going to see a lot of passionate campaigns on Saturday," he said.

About 450 people also applied to run for 47 delegate and 13 alternate spots that will go to Clinton supporters, but the Clinton campaign has reduced the list to around 150 people, Brewer said.

About 21,000 party members are eligible to vote at Saturday's district conventions.

Its especially encouraging for me, a Hillary Clinton supporter, to see that, despite not having any formal organization in the state (like Michiganders for Obama), there was a fairly equal number of applicants for spots for "Uncommitted" and Hillary Clinton.

I can't help but to assume that the Obama campaign will benefit from its geographical closeness this Saturday.  From what I hear from my Obama-supporting friends in Grand Rapids, the competition could be described as "intense."

I know in California, the Obama campaign slashed over half of his delegates to the congressional district conventions, until public pressure (and a fierce reaction from the netroots) caused Axelrod & Plouffe to reverse their decision at the last minute.  There was a lot of speculation about whether the Obama campaign made a coordinated effort to eliminate anti-war activists and members of the netroots as a way of controlling the tone of the meetings.  But others have contended that it was less of an effort to cut bloggers and hardcore activists, and more of a way for the Obama campaign to ensure that its big donors were rewarded with a spot at the convention.

We'll see how this Saturday turns out, any predictions?

I know that I plan to be watching this all unfold at Creston High School in Grand Rapids. 

List of District Convention locations

by: memiller

Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 16:41:17 PM EDT

UPDATE: Done! Thanks to all who contributed.