Democratic Convention Day 2 – I Met Julian Castro, The Keynote Speaker

Day 2 of the convention was extremely eventful. It started on a lighter moment when I went outside to wait for the bus to take me downtown. There I met Heather Ross from Austin Texas who was sporting a very intriguing hat. While standing outside with her I met another young lady who heard my accent and asked where I was from. When I told her Panamá she immediately called up her girlfriend whose parents were both Panamanians. I decided to interview both of them for my CNN iReport channel.

But I digress, before going to the bus I was entertained by a man named Charles E. Lyons who is associated with the history of the Buffalo Soldier. He came dressed for the occasion and provided me with a very long story about the Buffalo Soldiers. He had a particular take on the “Buffalo Soldier’s” relation to Abraham Lincoln. He called them Abraham Lincoln’s Weapon of Mass Destruction. All in all he seemed very knowledgeable but he was quite a character.

While waiting for the bus I was honored to meet and speak to District 141 Honorable State Representative Senfronia Calpernia Thompson. She was as gracious as always. When I got to the convention center things were kind of hectic but walking down the aisle was our new Democratic star, the Mayor of San Antonio, and Democratic Convention Keynote Speaker Julian Castro. The Mayor was gracious throughout the commotion and took a picture with me. When he becomes Governor of Texas and then President of The United States, I can tell my grandchildren I was at the genesis of Julian Castro’s political ascent. What was so funny is after taking the picture he said, I hope you are coming to my speech. Of course I was going to go to the speech. I went to the speech and it was all that I expected it to be and more.

After meeting Mr. Castro I went to the Progressive Caucus PAC. It was hosted by some of our wonderful Progressive Congress People Keith Ellison and Maxine Waters along with the daughter of Congressman Raul Grivalva. They stressed that the Progressive Caucus must play a bigger role in the the Democratic Party to ensure that it continues to push Middle Class centric policies.

Maxine Waters made it quite clear that the Progressive Action PAC must be funded in order to support Progressive candidates. It is necessary to invest in this cause. After-all, the Right is decimating much of progressive policies with an influx of money from a few moneyed interests.

After that event I took off to The PPL to do some blogging and answer some business emails. After a few minutes of being there Senator Chuck Schumer walked in. Of course all the blogger rushed to really ask him a bunch of questions. I asked him one specific question. “Is it a fact that ACA (ObamaCare) could be overturned by the reconciliation budgetary process which requires just 51 votes in the Senate. Listen to the video here for the questions and answer session he had with us. He answered every question without hesitation though he initially seemed taken aback with my question on reconciliation.

After I was at a stopping point with my blogging I went to a party at the Politico.com offices which were housed in the same building. I spoke to a few folks and then took off to the Convention to listen to the last two hours live. Suffice it to say, it was much better than I expected.

The night ended with a walk to the MSNBC show where Chris Matthews, Michael Steele, and Democratic Chair Woman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz were giving a wrap up of the convention.

I met up with Navid Zanjani at the end of the night and we took a cab back to the hotel tired as can be to do it all over again.

---

LIKE My Facebook Page
Follow @EgbertoWillies