Saturday, May 17, 2008, Washington’s most dedicated Democrats battled to convince their peers to send them up as National Delegates for Senators Obama and Clinton at the DNC in August. The following is a report from Louis Tibbs, president of the 25th LDs Democratic Chapter and a leader in the local Obama for President movement:

At yesterday’s 9th CD Caucus in Lacey, the Obama campaign picked up 3 delegates (2 men + 1 woman) and one alternate (woman). The Clinton campaign picked up 2 delegates. There were 98 people running for Obama national delegate. Of the 98 people there were 53 men and 45 women running. I was not successful as a national delegate for Obama. Today (Sunday) I was in Ellensburg to attend the Democratic State Platform Committee. This was the third meeting we’ve had. The first two were last weekend in Seattle. There is one more the last weekend in May in Ellensburg; and then we meet in Spokane on the Friday before the State Convention begins. Here’s a summary of the events for the 9th CD yesterday.

We had one national delegate from Pierce County. Sharon
Winesberry will be the woman delegate from the 9th CD Obama ranks to
the Democratic National Convention! She is from the 28th LD.
The other Obama delegates from the 9th CD are James Yee, 22nd LD, Lacey/Olympia; and Effenus Henderson, 30th LD (King Co.)

James Yee is the former West Point graduate, U.S. Army captain
and Moslem chaplain who was victimized by rabid Bush
administration/military functionaries. He was assigned to Guantanamo.
Yee was awarded two distinguished service medals for his work there.
But when he returned from duty at Guantanamo, Yee was charged with
sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a
general order. He was sent to a Navy brig in South Carolina, and was
kept in solitary confinement for 2-1/2 months. The government never
named the country or group for which he was allegedly spying. Court
martial charged against Yee were dropped with the explanation that
there were “national security concerns that would arise from the
release of the evidence.” The charges were later reduced to mishandling
classified information and some minor charged. That was dropped. Then
he was accused of adultery and storing pornography on government
computers, but those charges were dismissed, too. He left the US
military with an honorable discharge. I had the opportunity to meet and
talk to this young man. He expressed gratitude for all the support he
received from people who recognized a gross miscarriage of justice. He
noted that if one was going to be falsely accused, this was the best
possible place to be to get past such accusations.

The Obama alternate is Natalie (Naki) Stevens, 22nd LD. Naki is
a leader on conservation issues, was one of the original staff members
in People for Puget Sound, and, prior to that, Puget Sound Water
Quality Authority. The Clinton delegates from the 9th CD are Anne Price
Mills and Zach Smith. Zach is chair of the 9th CD. Rep. Adam Smith
spoke on Obama’s behalf. Actor Ted Danson spoke on Clinton’s behalf.
Later in the day, Adam was nominated as the Democratic candidate for U.
S. Congress and affirmed by acclamation. That’s about it for this
weekend! LOUIS

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 11:27 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.