Not Quite Ready to Party

Photo by Mark T. Osler

Ohio Democratic delegate Terry Carson is agog watching the swirl of his first presidential nominating convention Monday in Denver: the sea of humanity dancing in the seats; the television news personalities conducting interviews a few feet away; the stage screen soaring and arching several stories overhead.

“These people aren’t thinking about their need for water, oxygen, food,” Carson says as fellow Ohio delegates boogie to blaring Motown oldies. “They’re in the moment.”

Buttons supporting Barack Obama decorate Carson’s beige sport coat even though he is pledged to Hillary Clinton. Some Clinton supporters still hope she can make a last-minute charge for the nomination, but Carson doesn’t expect that to happen. And, he notes, few Clinton buttons and banners are on display.

Carson, a 57-year-old insurance agency owner from the Cleveland exurbs, and other Clinton backers had hoped she would be the vice presidential choice. “If you get 18 million votes and 600,000 contributors to your campaign, that’s someone I’d want on my team,” he says.

Carson says he isn’t “overly enthusiastic” about Obama’s choice, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware: “He gets himself in trouble with what he says. Other people are going to use it if he makes a gaffe.”

At the convention’s opening day, delegates approved the Democratic campaign platform. Carson says he hadn’t paid much attention to the platform even though he’s usually a “policy wonk.” Candidates tend not to hew too closely to it after they’re elected, he says.

However, pulling troops safely out of Iraq is important to Carson. His son-in-law is an Army major who served in Afghanistan, and Carson knows that the logistics of withdrawal are daunting and difficult. The platform cites Obama’s pledge to pull out within 16 months but leaves some wiggle room.

Whatever the Democratic positions, he says, GOP candidate John McCain’s approach is worse on Iraq and other issues: “If McCain became president, it’d be the same exact policies we’ve had. In fact, they’d be worse.”

Tamara Lytle was the chief Washington correspondent for the Orlando Sentinel from 1997 to 2008.