Sunday Night and Monday Morning

Met with our group of National Hillary Delegate Network. Many delegates came by the hospitality suite to pick up their “300” button and to be in the company of other Hillary delegates. Everyone was hugging each other as they met for the first time in person after working online with each other.

John met Gloria Allred, a very strong Hillary supporter. They have been in email contact on a pressing issue, and they are still working on it. Gloria said that she would do anything that the Hillary Delegate group asked her to do, and Pat and Dale are emailing her now to give her a very big task.

John met Mayor Antonio Villarigosa. John introduced himself and said that he was a good friend of Fred Keely’s , our former Assemblymember and also Speaker of the Assembly,and Antonio said “Fred is the poster child of why there should be no term limits. Fred was a true leader and he is missed”.

John ran into Tom Hayden. John reminded Tom that they shared offices in Santa Cruz in 1976 when Tom ran for US Senate and John ran for Congress. They talked about the races they were in. Tom said it was very hard to support John Tunney after Tom lost, and John said, “Yes, it was very hard to support Leon Panetta after the race”, but both Tom and John supported their victors. They both said how hard it was for Hillary to now support Obama, but she was for the good of the party. They talked about Obama’s flip-flops, but they both agreed that in the end, Obama will be better than McCain by a long shot.

Pat went to dinner with the key members of the National Hillary Delegate Network (about 12 people). They talked strategy and got to know each other after two months of emails and telephone calls. The Group has received over 360 notarized Nomination Petitions for Hillary’s name to be placed in nomination. They are presenting Hillary with
the petitions sometime within the next two days.

Monday Morning, August 25, 2008

Pat is off to hand out the “300” buttons, a special button made for each person that signed one of the Hillary Nomination Petitions, and to have her first breakfast with the California Delegation.

John met Cathy Smith downstairs. Kathy has made a documentary “The Body of War”, produced by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donnahue and was nominated for an academy award. It is the story of her son, Tomas Young, who was paralyzed in Iraq three years ago. Her other son is stationed in Iraq now, and has been held over from coming home for one year now. He has three months left to serve. Her documentary is being shown here in Denver five times a day. It will be out on DVD within the next few months. Cathy says “we need a new president, and not McCain”. Her son was shot the same day that Cindy Sheehan’s son was killed. It was the day that we shut down the Baghdad newspaper and the city rioted. She says “we’d do the same thing if some foreign country came to America and shut down the New York Times".
She is taking care of her son Tomas, and is waiting for her other son to return home safely.