Your Alaska Delegates

The Alaska Delegation met this morning at 7am sharp for breakfast, updates, guest speakers and credentials. A lot of confusion with the constantly changing convention schedule, abrupt transportation cut-offs and with only a few spare credentials and passes.

Celtic Diva will solely be covering the breakfast meetings after this - at $25 for guests, I have to bagel it.






This national rep from the AFL-CIO got the Alaska crowd fired up! Especially with:

"Thank God for Mayor Mark Begich! He could be our 60th senator!"









Delegate Brockhurst - one of the "young" delegates - watch for him on CSPAN!

















Guess where the Alaska delegation rates in the delegate "green" challenge? 100%! The Alaskan delegation has been great with carbon offsets and making sure they are all green!










Julie Anderson, a rep from the Obama campaign, came to speak to the Alaska delegation. She focused on the environmental message of Obama - that he's introduced a bill to raise fuel efficiency standards, wants to increase tax credits for hybrid and electric car owners, and, for Alaska, would like to look and incentivizing renewable energy.

And then she said the "A" word....

That's right, ANWR. Specifically, "I don't think Sen. Obama believes that is an appropriate place to be drilling at the moment."

Now, she did get a cheer from one of the delegates, but for the most part... well, do you know the whole "elephant in the room" analogy? I was wondering if anyone would say anything. I needn't have feared.


Well Alaska, if you're wondering if your Alaska delegates are working hard down here - wonder no more! They were all over the ANWR issue. I mean ALL over it.

Some of it was in regards to off shore drilling versus on land.

Delegate Rex Okakok, "ANWR is my neighbor. We strongly believe we can safely develop on-land drilling. But on off-shore drilling - we should not even talk about it... Think of those of us that breathe and live and eat because of that ocean before you even think about off-shore drilling."

Delegate Blake Johnson first asked Anderson if she'd been to ANWR, if anyone had. When she said she hadn't, but would like to, he made sure to say, "You need to come up and see it. Reserve judgement until you do."

Several other delegates commented on drilling (ANWR, off shore,) as well as Pebble Mine. Anderson said that Bristol Bay had come up quite a bit from the Obama campaign in Alaska, and they were looking to address it further.

The delegates received their bags and credentials at the end of the meeting. The fun part about the hotel the delegation is in - the delegations from Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and Minnesota are also housed there.

Delegates Chuck Degnan and Rex Okakok. This is Rex's first time as a delegate:

"The weather took some getting used to. But today - today I feel good."

Journey to The Big Tent

As we tried to figure out the transportation situation (a source of confusion for pretty much everybody) I talked to American Samoa delegate Jacinta Titialii-Abbott and Congressman Eni F.H. Faleomavaega.

Jacinta and I first talked about some strong relations between Alaska and American Samoa, especially between Samoan people and Alaska Native people, and just who is looking for statehood, and who is not. Congressman Eni asked if I was Athabascan - which I am! - and talked about the strong ties with Athabascan people. He also mentioned his work with Congressman Don Young and said he was sorry to hear about Stevens.

What a remarkably small world.




A delegate from Dallas County, who was excited to show us that Dallas County is turning blue! We talked with several Texas delegates on the light rail on the way into downtown, and they were all so enthusiastic about Mark Begich and Alaska turning blue! They encouraged us, and congratulated Alaska on its "blue" efforts several times.













This man had an incredible amount of knowledge about Alaska politics and issues - and he was from Chico, California! He recently went to an environmental law convference, and was full of questions and comments about ANWR, offshore drilling, Pebble Mine, etc.














What are we all waiting for? What are they looking at? The group of mounted police officers stopped traffic for a bit, and had everyone wondering why. The big mystery?










This guy's horse had... uh... "made a mess" and he had to go clean it up. Nothing like having hundreds of people watch you clean up after your horse.

I will say that I've seen some incredible acts of environmental concern from some of these officers. At the concert we attended last night, there was one officer who kept picking up beer bottles and cups that were lying around and taking them to the recycling bin.

Wow. Everyone really did come to Denver.

Betcha Abe never had to do this when he was president.

Where do Londoners and Alaskans go to meet?

Apparently at The Big Tent in Denver.

You may recognize the "Bond" guy from an earlier post. This time he was working - informing people about The Israel Project, check them out!

Welcome to The Big Tent

Not the most exciting video ever made (a bunch of people sitting at computers?) but a little taste of the chaos that is The Big Tent. For those that don't know, The Big Tent is where 400 or so bloggers are calling home during the convention. Pictured is just the lower level in the main tent - there is a second story for event, and the building next door houses the food and electricity.

One of the first surprises for "the most technologically advanced convention in history" - porta potties. Yeah... a bit of the rustic, just so nobody forgets their roots...

All in all, a energetic place where a lot of people who have conversed forever are finally meeting. There's probably a thousand other posts from all the people on the computers here, but just a snippet of the environment I will be in some of the time.