Reflections of a Democrat Abroad

BRUSSELS: As the Democrats Abroad EMEA* Caucus gathered in this city dear to my heart, I saw a face that was familiar but unseen in five years—indeed, last seen during my hospital stay there in 2003. I walked across the Crowne Plaza Hotel ballroom, and was greeted with a hug and a hearty “Welcome Home.”

“Welcome Home” is funny terminology to use at a Democrats Abroad (DA) gathering. But as the all-too-short two days of proceedings unfolded last weekend, the welcome was one not simply a recognition of my return to Europe’s capital, but to much of what resonates, motivates and inspires me.

Living overseas is not a normal state for an American. Mention of it to stateside friends and relatives usually evokes either starry-eyed wonderment, wistful comments about a solitary trip to Ireland or Israel in one’s late fifties, or accusatory tirades about one’s lack of patriotism, family loyalty or outright sanity. So two days in a roomful of fellow expatriated Gringos—mostly spent, mercifully, among fellow supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the next President of the United States—produced feelings of heimishness~ I had rarely experienced in many years.

For the most part, the home-feeling came from being among a spontaneous gathering of peers, kindred spirits and ideological fellow travelers. I did sense I was a bit to the right of the group because of my varying degrees of support of most recent and anticipated wars, and my tendency to support Europe’s Liberal parties even though they represent the most conservative option in countries where the political spectrum would otherwise spread from socialist to Stalinist. But there were few ideological notes sounded during the all-consuming Delegate Selection Process, where what seemed to be 860 people out of the 140 in attendance pleaded for the assembled throng to give them one of four coveted Obama seats at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

But the lack of ideological rancour did not forestall the emergence of strident factionalism as the speeches ended and the real fun got underway. I had been told by the chair of the Netherlands DA chapter, Bob Bragar, that the way the caucuses had worked at the previous regional caucus at Edinburgh in 2004 was that the big countries (UK, FR, GER) would make a slate in the hotel bar the night before and settle the matter early. So when I saw my old friend stand up after the speeches and yell out “SMALL COUNTRY COALITION!”, I knew it was show time.

In the back corner of the ballroom were caucus delegates and other attendees from Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, South Africa, Sweden, Luxembourg, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel, as well as the Riviera and Alsace, which had declared their autonomy from France for the duration of the weekend. Stunningly, most of the Dutch delegation followed me, perhaps because of my purposeful stride or perhaps because of my recognizable ultra-bright orange Dutch national soccer team jersey, the presence of which in the corner gave them an idea that this coalition was where we were meant to be.

Quick decisions were made, as the intent became clear to band together to elect as many small country delegates a possible, and in so doing, avenge the atrocity that Edinburgh must have been—if only because it was remembered with such intensity. The first decision was to have the assembled group narrow their own supported group of candidates to match the four available seats. The second which was implicit, was that the group would operate on a one delegate-one vote basis, even though the countries had different voting strengths. I noticed this but made no comment—it made our Netherlands delegation the biggest voting bloc in Coalition matters even though we had fewer actual votes per person than the other countries.

The putative Denver delegates raised their hands and amassed in the front. Quickly, with ruthless precision, the group was asked to vote for two candidates of each gender until a majority of folks backed two of each. The decisions were tough—a selection of any four random Obama caucus delegates for Denver would have yielded four members of America’s best and brightest—articulate, intelligent, passionate and humane individuals who could step to the dais or in front of a camera and tell their own story, that of Barack Obama and that of us Dems Abroad.

But the Small Country Coalition’s choices were fearsome. My chairman, Bob Bragar, an Amsterdam lawyer and board member of the Love Exiles Foundation who would repeatedly refer to me as his ‘campaign manager’ throughout the weekend (when the terms ‘floor general’ and ‘enforcer’ would have resonated more deeply) was selected for the men, as was an impressive young democracy activist from Lebanon. The women included a dynamite former Illinois legislator from South Africa who was my seat-neighbor for the proceedings and a woman from Sweden who graciously yielded her place as the horsetrading began in earnest.

While things did not look good for the Coalition at the end of day one, a calculation error led to the throwing out of the previous ballot’s results. I was a little upset because I actually liked the apparent a lot and thought the Coalition had overplayed its hand, but when it became apparent that the motion not to accept the previous ballot’s results had a chance, I did the political equivalent of calling a time out and obtained a crucial five minute recess. The Coalition reassembled. We evaluated our options, And we decided to go for it.

The maneuver worked, and we had a fresh ballot, and a chance to cut one last backroom deal. While the Coalition had chosen the Lebanese candidate over Bob for the final ballot if we needed to give up the second slot for leverage, an offer from Germany came through to support both of our male candidates and our surviving female candidate in return for supporting their female candidate. After the initial shock of encountering a generous deal from Germany of all places, we took the final ballots. A half hour of counting ensued. And then the results were announced.

The combined slate roared through. The\ little countries’ choo-choo was pulled to victory by the German InterCity Express.

To be fair, I found the whole factionalism a bit gratuitous and mindless, but having been raised on near-fist-fights with pro-lifers at California Republican Party conventions in the early 1990s during my brief and ugly career as a pro-choice GOP political consultant, it was action and I hadn’t been the thick of that kind of action in many years. But I also know that no one was really going to take the loss of a delegate seat in Denver that hard. The real action for Democrats Abroad isn’t in Denver—it’s in getting Barack Obama the votes of overseas Americans when he gets the nomination. But the Democrats Abroad caucus was nonetheless a homecoming—even when I live many miles away from what others would call my “home”.

(* common 'across-the-pond' shorthand for Europe, Middle East and Africa, or what G.W. Bush more simply calls ‘Abroad’)

(` Yiddish term meaning ‘home-like’, but more evocative of ‘being among one’s own peeps’)